♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Today on Milk Street, we travel to Oaxaca, Mexico, to learn how to make authentic pork carnitas at home.

We then demonstrate a quick and flavorful green chili and tomatillo hot sauce.

And finally, we learn about a Oaxacan specialty, the tlayuda.

It's a go-to, everyday mash-up of black beans, cheese, and fillings in a toasted tortilla.

So stay right here with Milk Street as we learn how to cook the Oaxacan way.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- Ferguson's proud to support Milk Street and culinary crusaders everywhere.

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We offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our U.S.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you.

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♪ ♪ - Welcome to Oaxaca.

It's a region in southern Mexico that's... well, it's a state of mind.

It's about local, it's about old and new and hole-in-the-wall bars serving mezcal.

It's about cooking with fire and cooking with chilis and also cooking with corn.

In fact, Zapotec cooks still grind roasted corn on a stone metate, and then they make homemade tortillas by hand finished on a clay comal.

Most of all, Oaxaca is about its people.

They're genuine, they're welcoming, and they're deeply part of their local culture.

They cook on the sidewalk, in markets, and they also love to char foods right on the coals.

And the food, of course, is fresh, lively, natural, and a universe away from Taco Bell.

So, as I said, welcome to Oaxaca.

- One of the secrets of, you know, getting the perfect, tender meat, which is just you let the oil be hot, but not hot enough so the meat doesn't fried.

You want it more like a perfect confit in a low temperature, so, to make sure that the meat is tender, but also that it-it absorbs all the different flavors from the herbs.

- So carnitas, I always thought sort of is crispy on the outside, right?

Doesn't it, it has crispy bits to it?

- (speaking Spanish) - So just some little bits.

- (speaking Spanish) - It's soft on the inside, and a little crispy on the... - Exactly.

♪ ♪ Some of his basic ingredients, which are garlic, onion, and some thyme and oregano.

Also cumin.

- Cumin, yeah.

- And pepper.

That's the meat.

- Okay.

- And he's got some lard over there that he's going to do a confit with these ingredients and the meat.

- Mmm.

Lard and pork.

- Lard and pork.

- A marriage made in heaven.

♪ ♪ - This is like the perfect... color.

It's just sort of brown, but it's not fried.

- Okay.

- Because if it's very fried, they're very tough, you know, they're very gamey as well, and so you don't want that.

You want little bit of crispiness on the outside, but you want it to be tender.

- You know, I notice while we've been here in Oaxaca, you're always telling me what I don't want.

'Cause you're... you-you know what I should want.

The Oaxacan way, right?

♪ ♪ I have to say, though, the chicharrón make it.

- Mmm.

- 'Cause you get that great crunch.

- It helps with the texture.

It's still pork, but it's another interpretation of pork.

You know, now it's fried, whereas the rest of the meat is tender.

- You know, I sometimes wonder if anything in the world's authentic in the world of food.

But eating this, yeah, okay.

This-this is quite different than what we would call a taco back in the States.

This is great.

Jesús, thank you so much.

This is perfeto.

- Gracias.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - So as we just saw in the clip, they think about carnitas differently than we do.

In a lot of places, homes, in Oaxaca, they just have a pressure cooker, so they'll put the pork shoulder, whatever, in there and cook it until it's tender, and then they add the flavor.

In his case, he had the pork already cooked, it was nice and soft, and then he essentially did a quick confit with onion and garlic, et cetera, and then the flavor's added later.

Now, we're going to do sort of a hybrid version of that, right?

- That's right.

So I think what we learned in Oaxaca was, "Forget what you know about carnitas."

It's not meant to be shredded and super crispy, it should be really, really almost meltingly tender, kind of bigger chunks of meat.

We're going to slowly cook the pork, so it's really, really tender, and we're going to introduce some of those confit elements to it as well.

- Okay.

- So this is a five-to-six-pound pork butt, really, really tender.

As you can see, a lot of fat.

We're going to use this fat to our benefit, so you want to leave it all on.

The only thing I'm going to do is cut it down into about two-inch pieces, which are pretty large.

You can see all of that marbling in here, that's all going to add tons of flavor to our carnitas.

And as you can see, we don't even have a stovetop here.

We're not going to do any cooking ahead of time.

We're going to put everything in this pot and it put it right into the oven, so there's no pre-searing of the meat or anything here.

We're going to get all of our browning from the oven.

We're going to do just a simple braise.

So to start we're going to add one cup of water.

And this is how you would typically do a braise, you'd add a little bit of liquid, cover the pot, put it in the oven.

But we're going to do it a little bit differently.

We're going to take a cup of oil and add that.

It's going to take a while for all of this fat to render out.

We're adding this oil in here so that kind of bridges the gap between... - You're jump-starting them.

- The time it takes... yeah.

- You're jump-starting.

- You know, it's giving us a little bit of an insurance policy.

We're going to add some aromatics here to really flavor this.

So to start we've got one large onion that we've sliced; ten cloves of garlic; two tablespoons of cumin; two tablespoons of ground coriander; two teaspoons oregano; two teaspoons of salt; one teaspoon of red pepper flakes; and a half a teaspoon of dried thyme.

- How did you remember all that?

- I know.

- That was, that-that's impressive.

That was good.

- I should get a raise.

- (chuckling): You should... - I'm just going to kind of toss this as best I can here in this pot.

So if you would hand me the cover.

We're going to put this in a 325-degree oven on the lower-middle rack.

It's going to cook for three hours.

Then I'm going to take the cover off, give it a stir, and then we'll put it back in the oven.

But this time we'll put it in without the cover.

So this will get some nice browning on it, and we'll come back in about three-and-a-half hours.

- Okay.

- So while that's in the oven, we're going to put together a really quick pickle.

So all we're going to do is take a cup of white vinegar, two teaspoons of sugar, two teaspoons of salt.

I'm just going to whisk that together.

And then to that, I have two sliced red onions and then one jalapeño.

And you can see, we have seeded it, so it's not super spicy, but it's going to add a little bit of mild heat to these pickled onions.

- Okay.

- So I'm just going to cover this and put it in the fridge for about an hour.

If you want to make this ahead, you can do it up to a day in advance.

And then we'll come back when the pork is finished cooking.

That takes about three-and-a-half hours.

- Okay.

♪ ♪ - So, Chris, our pork is finished.

It's really nice and tender, you can see it's got some really nice browning on it.

So we're actually going to take the pork out.

- And as you said earlier, if you're making any kind of stew, as long as the meat's not submerged... - Right.

- If it's a braise, you don't sauté the meat, you cook it most of the way through, then take the top off for the last half hour, hour, and the heat of the oven will brown the top of the meat, so you don't have to.

- That's right.

Easier is better.

So look at all that delicious and tender meat.

I'm going to pass this off to you.

- Okay, that's fair.

- And you're going to put it over there.

Let it cool for a little bit.

- Okay.

- And then when it's cool enough to handle, we're going to actually break it into one-inch pieces.

So no shredding, don't shred it.

- Don't sweat it, don't shred it.

- And as you do that, if you find any big chunks of fat, you're going to take those off and discard them.

We don't want that part in our carnitas.

- This is how Lynn works.

You just said because I'm doing it.

You didn't ask me, you just said this is what I'm going to do now.

- Well, that's how you get things done.

- I guess so.

- I learned from the master.

- Okay.

- So we have all of this fat that we cooked in.

We do want to keep the cooking liquid here, because we're going to toss the meat with that, to keep it nice and flavorful.

So we're going to skim all of that fat out.

Usually, you would use just sort of a flat spoon.

I like a ladle in this case.

- Me too.

- Because it's-it's a little bit easier, and... - You have a lot of fats... - We have a lot of fat to skim out of here.

♪ ♪ So I see that you've done your job.

You've broken our pork down into one-inch pieces.

So we're going to take this cooking liquid and reduce this down a little bit.

I'm going to put it over medium-high heat for about five minutes.

We want to reduce that to about a third of a cup.

This has been reduced to about a third of a cup.

You can smell it.

- Smells good.

- Smells delicious.

I'm going to turn it off, and then we're going to add all of that pork.

If you wouldn't mind?

We're working as quite a team today.

- Isn't that amazing?

- Now, here comes the controversial part.

We are going to get a little bit of crispiness on here.

When you had it in Oaxaca, you had it with chicharrónes on top, which are fried pork skin.

We're not going to do that here, it's a lot of work.

- But I should just add, though, the reason they didn't crisp the pork was because of the chicharrónes.

- Exactly.

- Which are incredibly crispy.

So you don't need to.

- They are, exactly.

We're going to actually use some of this fat that we discarded, about a teaspoon or so over medium high, just until it starts to shimmer.

And then we're going to put the pork in the pan and start to crisp it, ever so slightly.

(sizzling) So this is going to go for just about three-to-five minutes, just on this one side.

And I'm just going to press it down with a spatula, you can hear when I press it, sizzles.

That's the browning happening there.

We are ready.

I'm going to turn this off.

And we're going to build some tacos.

- Okay.

- If you would pass me some of those tortillas.

- Mm-hmm.

- Crispy meat there.

For our tacos, we're got these really great pickled onions we made earlier.

Put some on yours.

- Mmm.

- Got some cabbage, we have some cilantro.

Here we go.

Oh, man.

- So good.

- Well, the pork actually infused the flavor of the aromatics, right?

It's not just the toppings, it's really great.

- Right, that is so tender.

- And the, I would say the onions are essential.

With this really rich pork, it's the perfect balance.

- So we went to Oaxaca, and we had carnitas.

They actually cooked the pork probably in a pressure cooker to start, then they confit it.

We had a-a similar technique, which we actually cooked the pork in a Dutch oven with fat, of course.

And then we also put a lot of aromatics in it.

So over three-and-a-half hours or so, it absorbed a lot of flavors.

And we finished it off in the skillet, just to give it a little bit of crispness, because we don't have chicharrónes.

The finely pickled onions, of course.

So there you have it, carnitas in the Oaxacan style.

- Yeah.

- Thank you.

♪ ♪ You know, one of the things I learned in Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, was that when they do these salsas, they just put a bunch of stuff on live coals, right, char them on the outside, just throw them in a blender, and they're done; I mean, it's just really easy, and the charring gave great flavor.

So we're going to adapt that concept right now.

- As much as I would love to build a fire right here in the kitchen, we're not going to burn anything like that today.

But we will be replicating that same charred flavor in our hot sauce here by broiling it in the oven, including our serrano chilis.

It's nothing too aggressive, I promise you, it's going to be a perfectly... - That's what you... Josh, you always say that.

You always try to reassure me.

- I'm trying to promise you that it's not going to hurt you.

So here we have about three tomatillos that have been peeled, cored, and halved.

And we're going to place them on our tray here, cut side down.

So that way the skin is what is exposed.

And next to that, we'll be throwing on one poblano pepper that has been halved, seeded.

And finally, we're throwing in that serrano chili that I promised you, seeds in and all.

Now, the last ingredient, our garlic clove that's been smashed.

And that's going to go under the boiler along with everything else, five to eight minutes, until we get a good amount of char on the outside.

Just be sure you don't scorch your garlic.

That's not what we're looking for.

- Okay.

- Chris, our veggies have been broiling for about six minutes.

And at this point you see that there is quite a bit of char on them.

So now that everything is cooled, we can throw it directly into the food processor.

And just because there's a little bit more char on others doesn't mean you have to take any of that skin off.

It really does lend a nice flavor.

Finally the garlic clove.

We're going to throw in a couple other things to brighten the entire sauce up.

And that starts with two teaspoons of white vinegar as well as one teaspoon of ground cumin and finally one teaspoon of kosher salt.

And to make sure that everything does move around in the food processor, we're throwing in a quarter cup of water.

- It's my favorite ingredient, water.

- Water?

- Now, yeah.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- It has so much flavor.

- It's cheap, it's available.

- You're absolutely right.

- And it doesn't muddy flavor.

- That's a good point.

We just got to blitz it up until it's smooth.

♪ ♪ All right.

- You're so excited, you can't wait for me to eat this.

- I am very excited.

- That's what you want.

- You know, I love hot sauce, and it goes... - I can smell it from here.

- Yeah, no, it's super aromatic.

And now, we get to taste it.

- I'll be right behind you.

I'll be half a step behind you.

Go ahead.

- Sounds good.

Mmm.

The cumin really comes through.

- Mmm, that's really good.

It's bright... - It's not, it's not, it's not too hot either.

- Not too hot.

- That is quite good.

- So you just had a whole serrano chili, I'm proud of you.

(Chris chuckles) Now, you could certainly serve this on top of your tlayudas, but you could also serve it with really any Mexican-inspired dish for that extra punch of heat and flavor.

- So we took a classic Oaxacan salsa recipe.

Instead of charring directly on hardwood, we did it under a broiler.

Two different kinds of chilies, tomatillos, little garlic.

And in, what, six or seven minutes, you have homemade, spicy chili salsa.

♪ ♪ - So we're taking this cooking lesson with Pilar.

She's the chef of a restaurant, La Olla.

She's making some tlayudas with us today, which is the Oaxacan pizza.

♪ ♪ - I'm here at La Ollo Restaurant.

And you're going to start out by giving me a recipe on how to make, excuse me for this, Oaxacan pizza.

Right?

Tlayuda, right?

- Mm-hmm.

Okay, here we have corn tortilla.

We have asiento.

- Asiento, that's pork lard, right?

- Asiento is a kind of pork lard.

Here, we have black beans, already blended.

- Now, what kind of chilies are these?

- This chili is chile de agua.

Chile de agua is very popular here for salsas or chiles rellenos.

- Is it really spicy?

- Yeah.

- Oh, good.

- Okay.

This is the flavor of the-the tortilla.

Now, put the beans, we put a little bit of lettuce.

Quesillo.

For-for me, a good tortilla is, you need to you charcoal.

♪ ♪ Chorizos.

♪ ♪ (speaking Spanish) I'm hungry.

We are ready for eat.

I open the chorizo, and I put inside.

Okay.

- Mmm.

- You need to try this chili.

Maybe we need to drink a lot of water.

- Which we don't have here, of course I noticed.

You're just seeing what I can take, right?

Oh, man.

It's got a lot of smoked flavor from the fire, it's great.

- Yeah, yeah.

I-I love tlayudas, because I think it has the whole meal.

We have the chorizo, and we have the tortilla... - Don't forget the lettuce.

- No, bueno, we have something green in the middle.

- (chuckles): Thank you.

- Okay.

♪ ♪ - So one of the great things about Oaxaca, besides the people and the mezcal, which are very important, is the street food tlayudas, which is essentially a large tortilla, little bit of crisped up, filled with asiento pork lard, black beans, cheese, et cetera, folded over and then finished up over a grill, over hardwood charcoal again.

So it's very crispy.

You can eat it like a sandwich.

- Mm-hmm.

- So we're going to follow that recipe from Pilar, La Ollo Restaurant.

- So the first thing we're going to do is make the black bean puree, which is so endemic of those.

And we're going to start with two cans black beans.

We're going to drain them.

We're not going to rinse them.

It's important that the liquid that they're in be part of this formula, because it helps make it very silky.

- So we're going to drain them but not rinse them.

- Yes.

And we're also going to use some of the drained liquid in the black bean puree.

So while these drain, we can toast our spices.

- Okay.

- Would you mind getting the skillet started?

We have a tablespoon each, coriander and cumin.

And we're toasting in a dry skillet, just so you can smell them before they start smoking.

- Before they start smoking, okay.

We should say, is they start with dried beans, they cook them slowly in a... - Yes.

- Clay pot.

So this is our quickie version of that, right?

- This is.

- Right.

Smell now?

Okay.

- Right in, great.

And that'll stop the cooking.

Then we're going to add black beans with their liquid still on there.

And then we're going to measure about a quarter cup of the reserved liquids.

And that goes in as well.

And then we're going to add even more flavor by using chipotles in adobo.

And we have two of the chilies, the chipotles, and two teaspoons of the sauce from the can; two tablespoons of lime juice; and a teaspoon salt.

So we're going to puree this until it's completely smooth.

♪ ♪ Okay, that's looking good.

So we're going to take it out of the processor to stir in the cilantro.

That just keeps the flavor of the herb really bright and fresh.

We have a half cup of chopped cilantro we'll stir in.

I love the color it adds too.

This can be adjusted with a little bit of water or broth, if you want a-a thinner consistency.

But I love it this texture, it's great.

Now, as you've said, the tlayudas that you had, and throughout Mexico, are toasted over a live fire.

So we're going to use the cast-iron skillet for some of the toppings to get a little char on them and give that smoky flavor.

So we need to let this heat up a little bit.

We're going to add a tablespoon of oil.

When that gets shimmery, and actually is just starting to smoke, we'll add the chorizo.

- So this is a Mexican chorizo, right?

- Yes.

- Which is this.

- Very different.

- Yeah, very different than this, was obviously dried and cured, right?

- Yes.

- Which is a Spanish chorizo.

- Exactly.

So the heat is going to give it the color.

If you let the pan get nice and hot before you put the chorizo in it, all it needs is about five minutes to get thoroughly cooked and to take on some color.

All right, this is looking great.

I kind of like you there, always ready to hand things over.

- Yeah, when you get home, just don't keep turning to your right expecting me to be there with a plate, you know.

- Aww, that's sad.

- "Where'd he go?"

- All right, so we have the beautiful fat from the chorizo.

Toss in the jalapeños and the scallions.

We have about one bunch of scallions cut into an-inch-and-a-half pieces, and four jalapeños, sliced thinly.

So these need another minute or two, so we get some good char on all the sides.

And then we'll be ready to form the tlayudas ♪ ♪ Okay, we've made our bean puree, we've prepped our meats and vegetables, and we are ready to assemble the tlayudas.

So we have two tablespoons of oil and a baking sheet.

You know, we don't have a live fire to cook the tortillas over, and we want to cook enough for at least four people.

So we found the best way to do that was in a very, very hot oven.

We're just going to spread this out.

The oil will help the tlayudas get crisp.

We're going to work with two at a time until we get them folded.

Oil on both sides.

Okay.

Then we're going to take the black bean puree, and about a quarter cup per tlayuda.

Then we'll spread that out over half the tortilla.

All the way to the outer edge.

Now we're adding the cheese right on top of the beans, and we're using a shredded mozzarella.

This cheese most closely resembles the Oaxacan cheese.

- The quesillo.

- The quesillo, yes.

This is the base for the tlayuda.

We're going to add our extra fill-ins later.

So we're going to press these closed.

We have all four of them done.

So these go in our pre-heated 450 oven for about ten minutes till they're browned and crisped.

These have come out of the oven.

You can see they're crispy and browned.

They've been sitting about five minutes, just to cool off a little bit.

We could certainly eat them as they are, but if you want any of these optional toppings.

- Open that up... it's very hot.

- Ah, look how gorgeous that is.

- We have pickled onions, sliced lettuce, sliced tomatoes.

- Chorizo.

- All that chorizo we browned, or we have half of it, after you've nibbled on it.

And the jalapeños and scallions.

That's the thing, you put this in the middle of the table, and everyone's just reaching in, grabbing what they want, diving in.

- Meanwhile, some of us are going to eat.

- Heck yeah.

- Mmm.

- Mmm.

I love these, I just absolutely love these.

- And the textures, by having a combination of raw fillings and cooked fillings, you have the crunchy, the sharp, the salty, the-the chewy, the cheesy.

- Both Bianca and I have spent a little bit of time in Oaxaca, you a bit more than I did.

Fell in love with the-the city, the people were fabulous, and the food.

And the tlayuda, which is what we just made here, is probably our favorite thing.

You can pick it up in your hands, and you can make a thousand different variations.

And one of... the great thing is, no matter where you go in Oaxaca, they'll make it differently, right?

- Right.

- Everyone has their own recipe.

So you can get this recipe, all of our recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

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Funding for this series was provided by the following.

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To learn more, visit ConsumerCellular.tv.

- Since 1899 my family has shared our passion for everything that goes into our Mutti 100% Italian tomatoes.

Only tomatoes.

Only Mutti.

- Designed by cooks for cooks for over 100 years.

Cookware collection by Regal Ware.

Handcrafted in Wisconsin.

- The AccuSharp knife and tool sharpener, designed to safely sharpen knives in seconds.

AccuSharp-- keep your edge.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪