Original subtitles

♪

Mexico is such a big country with so many different regions.

So much history in each of the regions.

I want to showcase you that history with three dishes:

pork, chicken and shrimp.

And for the shrimp, I'm going to make aguachile.

♪

Avocado.

It is as iconic in Mexico, as chillies and cactuses are.

And I want you to take a close look at this, eh?

How you pick a good avocado is by touch.

It has to be a little soft to the touch.

Not too soft, otherwise it's too ripe.

But if it doesn't feel soft,

then that means that it needs time to ripen.

Now, how amazing is that that with a fruit,

you can identify a country?

It's like saying, "maple syrup," you think of Canada.

You think of avocado,

and who will you be thinking of, if it's not Mexico?

First things first. I'm going to make my marinade.

And for that, serrano peppers. Super-spicy.

I want all the spiciness in it.

So, remember that all the seeds contain

where most of the spices of the chillies are,

and I want to get every single bite of it.

Because this is what's going to make our marinade fiery.

Cucumber is going to help my marinade

to just become a little more fresh.

That's perfect.

Cilantro not only is going to add aromas to it,

but it's going to make our firewater green.

Lime.

Now, how Mexican this is.

Just think about it: avocados,

serrano, cilantro, lime.

I mean, this dish speaks Spanish already.

And just to finish, tequila.

Just a little bit. Just a little splash.

And then I'm ready to blend this.

(Whirring)

Don't be afraid to shake it like a margarita.

Okay, let's take a look at our marinade.

It's a little creamy.

We want the lime to come through.

Now, it is the acidity of the limes

that basically cooks the fish, or the shrimp in this case.

We're basically making a marinade

with these chillies and the avocado,

the tequila and the cilantro.

Oh, man.

It is great.

Super-spicy, but it's fresh

and the avocado just brings enough creaminess to it.

And now, for my ceviche,

my personal favourite: shrimp.

I'm going to cut them in half

because when you make ceviche,

if you were to add these right into the marinade

they'll take forever to cook.

So, by just cutting it in half, we're reducing the time.

♪

Now I'm ready to build my aguachile.

I'm going to make a layer of the shrimp.

We're going to cover them with salt.

This is very important,

because I want the shrimp to start curing.

And this is almost ready.

This is what makes this dish so crazy,

because it's just--

It takes literally 15 minutes to make

from start to finish.

We're going to cover it, very gentle,

with our beautiful marinade. Look at this.

Basically, it's going to start tenderizing

the outside layer of the shrimp,

but I want the rest of the flavours

to infuse the shrimp with it.

So, I want the serrano to come through.

I want the cilantro

just to become very aromatic with it.

Just to finish this dish,

cucumber and red onions.

I like mine to be cut as thin as I can.

Look at this.

It's going to add a bit of colour difference,

but also, it's going to add a bit of crunchiness to it.

It's going to be so delicious.

But I already have some that I marinated earlier,

and they're ready to be eaten.

Take a look at this, eh?

This is how you know that the shrimp is cooked.

You see that?

The colour has changed in it.

The inside of the flesh of the shrimp is a little whiter.

And now, in Mexico--

So, ceviches are extremely, extremely popular.

And where I'm from,

I'm sure you guys have heard of Puerto Vallarta.

So, if you guys like the resorts there,

make sure to ask for this: ceviche con aguachile.

I'm going to add a bit of cilantro,

and to make this a little pretty, avocado,

cucumber and nachos.

I'm ready to start this fiesta.

Okay.

This dish is absolutely superb.

It is a home run, for sure.

You can cook it with limes, lemons,

even oranges if you want to.

It just is delicious. It's just-- Wow.

Aguachile, such an incredible dish

with so many layers of flavour.

The tequila comes through super-nice.

But I just feel like having another snack.

The next dish?

I want to make tostadas for you.

♪

Tostadas are like tacos,

but with a crispy shell.

It is like eating calle nachos.

I'm just cooking some tomatillos and chorizos for these.

The smell of the chorizo takes me back to my childhood.

I used to help my mother on Sundays.

We used to go to a market,

almost like a farmers' market.

So, you have to imagine this place is full of people

and everyone is talking and bustling.

And I'm trying to follow my mother,

and we would always end up at the end of the market

where the food stands were.

And my favourite food stand was the tostada one.

I'm blistering my tomatillos

'cause I want to add that extra flavour

into my tostadas. I'm making my sauce with it.

It's going to be the basis of it.

Now, if you cannot get tomatillos,

you can use red tomatoes or even dried tomatoes.

♪

Now, I want heat in my sauce,

and for the tomatillos, serrano peppers.

Just remember, serranos are very, very, very spicy.

But I love, love the heat in my sauce,

and I would say, so does everyone in Mexico.

We love our heat, that's for sure.

So, you want to sauté these just a little bit.

So, I'm basically making a salsa with this.

It's going to help us rehydrate the chorizo,

'cause once the chorizo gets cooked it gets a little dry,

and now with the salsa, it's going to make it a little moist.

Obviously, it's going to add some flavour to it as well.

Now, take a look at the tomatoes.

Look at the seeds.

They're all out. The tomatoes are plummy.

And this, I'm just going to blend it up.

♪

This is my favourite part of cooking:

when I get to try things.

It's good. It's coming together.

I'm going to add cilantro to this.

And salt.

♪

This is just perfect.

The cilantro comes through so nicely.

I just feel like I want to dance with this salsa.

Look at this: tomatillos,

cilantro, serrano, garlic.

Now it's time to turn tortillas into tostadas.

♪

Now, for my magic trick,

I just need a bit of oil, heat, and a tortilla.

Now, I want you to look at this

and see how the tortilla is puffing up.

So basically, the heat is creating steam

inside the tortilla, and it's puffing up the two sides.

Wow. So, this, my friends,

it's turning into a tostada.

And what I'm looking here, I want you to see this.

I want it to be crispy, a little golden brown,

and when I touch them I want them to crack.

Just like that. You see?

Perfect. Look at this.

♪

Now I'm ready to build my tostada.

Take a look at this, eh?

A super-size nacho.

Now, for this, my beautiful chorizo and tomatillo salsa.

Take a look at this.

It's creamy. And don't be messy--

Don't be scared with this to get messy, eh?

Now, this cheese is called Cotija cheese.

It's kind of like a feta cheese. It's salted.

I'm going to put enough on top of it.

Man, I'm doing exactly

what they would do in Mexico City.

Now, just for freshness, I'm going to add a bit of cabbage.

And a bit of avocado.

I am ready to eat this beauty.

To tell you the truth,

every time I would have one of these back home,

I would always make a mess of myself.

All the sauce would be spilling on down my shirt,

and then my mother would get upset,

but it was so much fun to eat.

Mmm.

No wonder Mexicans love avocado so much.

It cools the sauce a little bit.

Mmm.

I'll tell you something, as a kid, it was a lot easier to eat,

because I didn't have a moustache back then.

And now, I'm turning my tostada into a taco.

A messy taco.

Now, this is something I would get in the market.

Now I want to make something that I would get in the street:

carnitas.

♪

Mexico is very famous for its carnitas dish.

It's a spectacular dish with pork shoulder.

Just beautiful.

Full of fat, a lot of muscle, and it's very tough,

and that's why I'm going to be using a lot of lard

to cook this beauty.

Now, to flavour the pork

I'm going to be using onions, garlic, oranges,

bay leaves and cinnamon.

Now, take a look at the lard,

our fat of choice in Mexico.

Now, if you cannot get lard,

you can always use canola oil.

It's a great supplement for this.

Now, take a look at this, eh? This is super-cool.

I'm sure you have never seen this.

We're putting oranges into the lard.

And listen to that bubbling sound, eh?

Now, I'm going to get a bit of bay leaves.

It is very important, it brings a lot of aromatic

in most of the stews that we cook.

Onions.

Look at that.

And the garlic goes inside as well.

And now, cinnamon.

Almost immediately, as soon as you put the canela,

you can sense the aroma here. Now, the pork.

Look at this beauty.

It's just going to cook so nicely.

And this is what I mean by we're going to braze it.

Very, very gentle simmer

for about four hours,

but I have a special ingredient

that I add at the end of my carnitas.

Cola. This is going to help with the sweetness,

and it's going to make the pork caramelize a lot more,

as well as it's going to help tenderising.

♪

It's just a waiting game.

♪ All right ♪

I'm so excited about this.

(Sniffing)

Can you smell that?

The cinnamon with the orange.

Oh, man! Look at this beauty.

I could just eat this on its own,

but I'm not going to do that.

I want to remove all of our aromatics from here,

'cause I'm going to be using the fat

so we can crisp up this beauty.

Underneath this fat

I have a lot of goodness that I'm going to be using

for my tacos.

I want you to take a look at this, okay?

'Cause this is where all the goodness comes through.

Look at that.

Now, you see the difference in colour?

This is full of flavour

and this is just lard.

But, enough about the lard, let's talk about this.

Look how juicy this is, eh? Look at that.

Look at the juices coming out of the pork as I press it.

So now, I want to start cutting my pork,

so I can start building my carnitas.

Man, this is so good. Look at that.

Can you hear that sound? Like "shhhht"?

And I tell you, this is a sound that I like to hear

when I'm at a taqueria waiting for my carnitas.

(Knife banging)

♪

Now, I want to make this nice and crispy.

Now you're probably asking, how am I going to do that.

Wait and see.

♪

♪

Now, I just finished cooking my beautiful pork shoulder

with aromatics and the lard, cinnamon and the orange,

and this is what I got. Look at this.

But now I want to crisp this up.

(Sizzling) You hear that sound?

You're probably wondering,

"How are you crisping that up without fat?"

This is why I save the lard.

This is the yummy goodness that we saved

from the very bottom of the pot,

and I'm just going to cover this with that.

(Sizzling) You hear that?

And the smell, oh my God! The cinnamon is coming through.

(Sizzling)

♪

And, just to finish cooking the carnitas,

I'm going to put them right in the oven.

And while this is crisping up, I'm going to make two salsas.

♪

Now, in Mexico, when you buy carnitas,

there are these taco places-- or they're called taquerias,

they have these massive bowls of guacamole

and another very large bowl full of tomato salsa.

And, you cannot have a carnita taco without a salsa

or guacamole.

♪

I'm almost done with my tomato salsa,

just need a bit of olive oil,

and salt.

Now, I want get all these flavours get together.

The lime is going to start breaking down the onions,

and the tomatoes are going to start releasing

some of their own juice.

Man, this is as fresh as you can get it.

I'm just going to try this.

Mmm. Perfect.

Now, in Mexico, there's many places where they would claim

that guacamole came from there,

and therefore they make them very different.

The one that we used to do at home was like this.

And pay attention to this, 'cause it's a family recipe, eh.

It's almost like a heirloom.

So, what's different about my family's guacamole

is there's no serrano pepper or any chilies,

but we put tomatillo instead.

This is a fresh tomatillo,

and this is the one that I cooked already.

Just a bit of water, bring them to boil five minutes,

and then you get this plummy, yummy little pearl.

Look at that.

It's like jade almost.

Now, I wanted you to see this, eh.

Look at all those seeds. Isn't that beautiful?

It could also pass by caviar almost, eh?

Now, what I want to get out of these tomatillo is the tartness.

Given the fact that the avocado is so creamy,

that we're going to need that sort of, acidity.

That's what we need here.

Look at that.

♪

It's going to be so delicious.

Okay.

(Clapping) Mmm-hmm.

Delicious. The tomatillos come through, super nice.

Although, my mother may not be that happy

that I just shared our family secret.

Tortillas. You could not have carnitas without them.

There's many ways of cooking tortillas,

you can cook them on top of a pan,

you can deep fry them, make tostadas with them or nachos,

but I'm going to toast them.

So, this is what you want to have on the tortillas,

that little pieces of burnt

is going to add an extra layer of flavour to it.

And, you want to cook it enough

until you can actually play with it and it won't break,

as oppose to this for example.

If I were to do this, then it breaks, right?

♪

Wow, take a look at this, eh? Delicious.

I can smell the crispy corn.

Now for the pork.

Oh, man!

Yummy, yummy, yummy.

(Sniffing)

This is crispy pork.

I can smell the cinnamon.

Now, in Mexico,

carnitas are often served not in one tortilla, but two,

and the reason for it is you want to really load that up.

Look at that.

With a pork shoulder, look how much meat we made.

So, I suggest to you that when you make this,

invite your friends or have it with you family.

Mmm-hmm.

I'm ready, ready, ready.

Now, as I mentioned earlier,

you cannot have carnitas without guacamole...

and salsa.

I cannot wait to have a bite of this beauty.

This is an actual magical moment.

You're going to get to see a taco and in a couple seconds,

you won't see it anymore.

Mmm.

This crispiness of the pork with my family guacamole.

The salsa and the guac,

they work phenomenal with this, it's just paradise.

When you go to Mexico, Mexico City especially,

you have to have carnitas.

Mmm.

Tah-dah. How do you like my magic trick?

♪