♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - If you want to learn about a culture and its cooking, one of the things you can do is find out how they cook their seafood.

It tells you a lot; so I went down to Mexico a couple years ago to the Pacific coast.

And so one morning, we got on a boat and went up to Nayarit to go fishing.

I was with Sebastian Renner, who's a very well-known European chef who came back home to start his own restaurant.

And he went spear fishing, actually, with a friend of his.

Now, these guys, great swimmers, they would stay underwater for nine or ten minutes.

And one of the things that's interesting is I saw that GoPro, one of them had later, you could hear whales in the background, and you could see there's just a ton of fish there.

And they came up with lots of fish.

Now, I don't like boats, so I was really happy to get off that boat after three hours.

I was feeling kind of seasick.

So to make it up to me, we went to lunch at Sebastian's place called Makai.

That night we went into San Vicente.

It's ten or 15 miles inland, and there's a great restaurant, Restaurant Fernando.

You walk in, there's the guy with the boombox singing Bee Gees, you know, whatever, but it was great food.

And in the back, they had these grills set up and grill baskets with fish, 45 degree angle over low heat.

And they cooked this fish, these filets, for like half an hour, which was really interesting, especially since the sauce they put on, that basting sauce, at the beginning had achiote, which is annatto seeds.

You could use paprika if you wanted, but it included soy sauce, which was really interesting, and the fish was great, so we adapted that recipe for a home kitchen here, and we do it in the oven.

Now back down in the state of Jalisco, I was at the beach at a little bar restaurant, and I had a shrimp dish with this black sauce, and the sauce contained Worcestershire.

It's absolutely amazing.

So I will remember many things from that trip, the three hours on the boat going, like, up and down.

But most of all, the cooking is just incredible.

So let's get going in the kitchen, two seafood recipes from Mexico that tell you a lot about how to cook seafood at home.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - MOWI salmon comes ready to cook, ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

An assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

MOWI Salmon.

- We pass down traditions here.

We create and connect.

We enjoy special moments.

Some simple, some grand.

The heart of your home is the kitchen.

The heart of your kitchen is The Galley.

♪ ♪ - Just before dawn in Nayarit, I headed down to the boatyard to meet chef Sebastian Renner.

Sebastian had plenty of three star experience in Europe but he decided to move back to his roots in Mexico.

- (speaking Spanish) ♪ ♪ - You're making me work for my lunch.

Sebastian and his friend put their fishing rods aside and got ready to snorkel with harpoon guns.

Though I used to be a scuba diver, they were way out of my league.

They told me about a 500-pound marlin they once caught spearfishing and they somehow dragged it up onto the back of their small fishing boat.

(chattering in Spanish) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - With today's catch in hand, Sebastian brought us back to Makai, his small beachfront restaurant located right next to a gas station.

♪ ♪ But the food was unexpectedly brilliant, more four star than one star.

♪ ♪ When you enter into our restaurant next to a gas station, you don't expect this kind of food.

And it's nice that when they come here and they realize, "Okay, maybe it's something more than a beef burger."

And then they start trying different stuff.

I really like the connection with the other people from the source all the way to the finish.

I think sometimes you don't see the big picture.

Instead of understanding the background, the guy that fishes or grow the vegetable.

I will always have my mindset as a cook even though even though I'm not in the kitchen.

When I go fishing, when I go gardening, buying products.

So that's something that will always pop in my mind, you know?

- Sebastian also took us to his local fish market.

- (speaking Spanish) - An early dinner followed at Restaurante Bar Fernando.

The specialty of the house, and also the entire region, is pescado zarandeado-- grilled snapper brushed with chile, tomato paste, soy sauce, and lime.

♪ ♪ - (speaking Spanish) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - You know, cooking fish at home is problematic for three reasons.

One is if you cook it an extra minute or two, very often on a hot grill, it's gonna be overcooked.

So getting it perfectly cooked is a problem.

Number two, Americans love meaty fish, right?

Like swordfish or halibut or tuna.

So meatiness is something that most people want, even if it's not a steak of some kind.

And the last is, you know, we all like big flavors.

So how do you do all of those things?

Well, Restaurant Fernando, they had these big grills set up and they had these flat hinge baskets where they cooked fish over a very low fire.

And that's what we're gonna do here, but we're gonna translate it to the home.

So the first thing is the paste.

We start with two very mild chilies, an ancho chile and a guajillo chile.

Both are kind of fruity, but they don't have a lot of zing to them.

And the other ingredient we're using here is achiote paste, which is made from annatto seeds.

It's used, I think, mostly for color.

It's fairly mild.

So we took the chilies, soaked them in hot water for about 20 minutes, just so they're gonna blend up nicely.

We're gonna add two tablespoons of the liquid as well.

And now we have tomato paste.

This is the achiote-- again, you could use paprika.

I would use smoked, because this is ostensibly a grilled dish.

Oregano, tablespoon of oil, and then two other things that are used all the time in this part of Mexico.

You know, lime juice and soy sauce are a common combination.

So we're gonna do about two tablespoons.

A little salt.

Maybe a quarter teaspoon or so.

That's nicely blended.

So we only need about a quarter cup of this for the fish.

Now, when I was down in Nayarit, I actually went fishing, and they have something called pargo, which is like a large red snapper.

So today we're gonna use two pounds of red snapper.

You could use other fish as well, but you want a fillet that's probably not more than an inch, inch-and-a-half thick.

So we're going to take some of this and spread it on.

So when they serve this dish, it has that deep red color.

Now, one of the problems we had is solving the problem of the grill.

Grill basket was at 45 degrees, the heat has to be just right.

So setting that up just right is kind of hard at home.

And most people don't have the right grill basket.

So we're going to use a low oven for about half an hour, 275 degree oven, which means that if you're a couple minutes one way or the other, it really doesn't matter.

We're trying to get the fish to about 125 in the center, so you're not gonna overcook this.

The problem with so much fish is it's not always perfectly fresh, you know, and if you have a sauce like this on top and you broil it, there's a tremendous amount of flavor.

And it also, it reduces the moisture content in the fish.

So it's actually really meaty.

So this solves all the problems, really, with cooking fish at home.

So we're gonna finish this in a broiler just to glaze up the top.

But first, let's figure out if this fish is done.

An instant read thermometer is one way to do that.

Should be 120 to 125.

Or what most people would do would just take a look inside and just see if it's flaking.

So I'm going to turn on the broiler, and we'll put it in as soon as it's up to temperature.

So that's just a few minutes to get the top really nicely charred and glazed.

So I think it should be done.

So how does that look?

You know, so many people are scared of cooking fish at home.

I remember years ago, a friend of mine used to run East Coast Grill here in Boston, and he used to give grilling lessons.

And the first thing he would do was take a piece of fish and just completely char it and burn it and destroy it to get people's fear of grilling out of the way.

And then he'd go cook it the right way.

So this is a recipe that's so easy to do.

With a low oven, of course, you don't have to worry about the grill.

It's often served with a little cucumber, some onion, a little lime juice.

Sometimes, by the way, when they take it off the grill, they might add a little soy sauce and butter and lime juice to it.

And just brush it just before serving sometimes.

And then we have some tortillas.

You can make a taco out of this if you wanted.

Mm.

It is meaty, it really has great texture.

It's not fishy; that's one of the things people worry about at home, you know, cooking fish.

It's not fishy at all, has that great flavor.

Mm.

If you're a little afraid of cooking fish at home, you want your fish meaty, big flavor, and you don't want to worry about overcooking it, pescado zarandeado really is the right recipe for you.

Absolutely delicious.

♪ ♪ - Chilies-- they are used all over the world, and therefore Milk Street uses chilies all over our cooking.

We use them primarily for their flavor and secondarily for their heat, and I'll talk about both.

However, because we use them so much, and some people are unfamiliar with them, we get a lot of questions about chilies.

So we're going to do a little chile 101 here, and we're going to start with dried chilies.

You want to think about your chilies as adjectives, not nouns, and what I mean by that is you want to group your chilies by similar flavor characteristics.

So the first category is the smoky category.

Most commonly, we call for chipotles.

We also love anchos.

Anchos have a similar smoky flavor, but also a real chocolatey-ness.

You'll find that same chocolatey smoky in urfa pepper.

We also love moritas and pasillas.

Our second category is what I call the sun dried tomato category, because that's the flavor that they have.

When you want to think about chilies as more than spice, but also flavor.

Chile de árbol, that's one that's called for a lot, quite spicy.

We also call for pequin and often paprika.

And so many people are familiar with sweet or smoked paprika.

Paprikas have that same sun-dried tomato, even sun-dried pepper flavor.

That's what these all share.

And then the third category is sort of dried red raspberry.

So it's a little tart.

It's got berry flavors, it's fruity.

And the most common one we call for is the guajillo.

We also call for New Mexicos.

They look very similar, they taste very similar.

And then third is the cascabel, which I love just because of onomatopoeia.

It sounds like its name.

(cascabel rattling) I guess I shouldn't do this-- oh, we'll do this.

All right, dried chilies.

That's a little bit of info about them and how to do some substitutions and explore them for their flavor, not just their heat.

Let's talk about fresh chilies.

So, for fresh chilies, the category is color.

Color has a flavor.

So we have red peppers.

If you don't like spice, you're going to replace it with an equal amount of red bell pepper.

Think about the flavor of a red bell pepper, that's very similar to the flavor of a fresno that also has added heat.

Similar, if you have a serrano or a jalapeno, they're green, like a green bell pepper.

Green has a flavor-- it's vegetal.

The only thing I want to say is if for any of these, say you're subbing out something spicy for a similar flavor that's not spicy, one function of heat that's really important is it brightens dishes, very similar to acid.

So if you take out that heat, you might want to add in a little lemon juice or something else tart that's going to brighten up your dish.

So adjectives, not nouns; that's gonna help you cook all the recipes in this episode where we're focused on Mexican cuisine.

Lots of chilies in Mexican cuisine.

Understanding chilies this way for flavor, not just spice-- I should say flavor and spice-- is gonna help you cook from cuisines all around the world.

♪ ♪ - So Chris learned a lot of wonderful lessons about how to cook fish on this so-called work trip to Mexico.

You know, you can learn lessons with your feet in the sand.

And let's wrap up this episode with an amazing shrimp recipe, it's very simple.

It's called aguachile negro, which literally means chile water or black chile water.

And what it is is almost a variation on ceviche.

The shrimp are barely cooked, and then they're finished in a very bright dressing that we're gonna flavor with dried chilies and fresh chilies.

The idea with aguachile is you pretty much want a shrimp per bite.

And I think the 51/60s are the best count.

If you do find larger shrimp, and that's all you have, that's fine.

Just cut them in small pieces.

So let's transfer these shrimp to a 12-inch skillet.

And we're going to just cover them with water.

Then we're going to add a teaspoon of salt.

And the idea here is we're not really boiling them, we're not really simmering them.

We're just using fairly low heat to firm up the shrimp.

And they're just going to turn a very, very blushing pink.

Oh, perfect; these are about six minutes.

So at this point, we're gonna use a slotted spoon and we're gonna transfer them to a bowl, add three-quarter cup of lime juice, and we're gonna toss them, we're gonna put them in the fridge for about 15 minutes, no more than 30.

Otherwise, they're gonna turn out pretty tough.

So while the shrimp are taking their 15-minute bath in the lime juice, we're gonna go ahead and finish off the rest of the sauce.

Now, aguachile negro derives its name from the dark elements in the sauce.

And that would be a trio of really powerhouse ingredients-- Soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and Maggi seasoning.

So they sound a little out of place for Mexican cooking, but they're all actually very common in some regional cooking.

Soy sauce comes from Chinese immigrants, and Maggi is originally produced in Switzerland and came with German immigrants to Mexico.

And if you haven't used Maggi, it has a similar flavor profile to soy sauce, but I would say Maggi tends to be a little stronger than soy sauce.

So to lay a foundation for those three powerhouse ingredients, we're gonna add chilies, both dried and fresh.

So we're gonna use fresnos, and then chipotle chile and just a single garlic clove.

So we're just gonna toast these until they blacken a bit.

So I do turn them fairly frequently.

I have smoked out my house toasting chilies when making big batches of salsa or mole, and I can tell you it's not a way to make your family happy.

So I can see that the dried chile is puckering up a bit.

I can see that it's very glossy looking.

So I'm gonna go ahead and pull that out.

I'm gonna go ahead and pull my garlic out, and I'm just going to keep track of these chilies for another couple minutes.

So let's trim these up a little bit.

And I'm going to slice that top off and pull the chilies open and just use a knife to scrape those seeds and ribs off.

So when you take the seeds and the ribs out of a chile, you get all the chile flavor with minimal chile heat.

And if it tastes too mild, I'll then add seeds and ribs back in.

So we're going to take that and we're going to add it to our blender.

And we can add our garlic clove and dried chilies; the same deal.

Add that to the blender, and here comes that trio of powerhouse ingredients-- so the soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and Maggi.

And we're gonna add a little bit of salt.

It is a fairly small amount of sauce for some blenders.

I tried making this in a much larger blender at home, and it didn't quite work.

So a couple ideas; you could use a little electric spice grinder.

You can use a mortar and pestle, or you can strain out a little bit of lime juice from the shrimp to add some volume to the blender.

So now we're gonna add this to our resting shrimp.

So these shrimp have rested for about 20 minutes.

I beat that 30 minutes window, and you can see they look tighter, and they're less transparent, they're more opaque, and that's the lime juice.

The lime juice denatures the proteins in the fish and cooks them.

So let's go ahead and we're going to add that really aromatic, flavorful sauce, and we're going to let that sit for about ten minutes to let the flavors meld, and the shrimp absorb some more of that sauce.

And we're going to prep the rest of the dish.

So, to me, the vegetables are almost as important as the shrimp because they provide texture, they provide contrast, they provide color.

So let's start with our cucumber.

So this is a time to really, I think, mix and match different cuts, add sort of visual texture to the dish.

So I'm gonna go ahead and cut that cucumber on a slight bias.

I always find knife work enjoyable and pretty meditative.

We're gonna create a bed for those shrimp.

So to slice an onion really thin, we're gonna notch that root end out.

And then you wanna follow the curve of the onion; when you follow the curve of the onion, you're getting nice, really even slices.

My knife is almost flat on the board.

I'm holding the rest of the onion really closely with that claw grip.

So I'm holding it with my fingernails and sort of rolling my fingers just a little bit forward.

That is plenty of onion for this.

So let's scatter that over our cucumber.

Next comes the tomato and I want to take the seeds and the sort of watery guts of the tomato out.

So I'm going to put the edge of my knife right at the base of the flesh, and I'm going to push the tomato down and just sort of rock my knife back and forth slowly, and smush it flat and take away that whole watery core.

And it leaves us with what the French call tomato fillets.

You know, if your knife is very sharp, it is easy to cut through the skin side.

If the skin is tough, cut through the flesh side first.

And now we're going to dice our avocado.

Avocados cause a lot of injuries, so let's be really careful about how we take the pit out of the avocado.

There are no ER visits today, so if I'm dicing an avocado in the flesh, I will flip a smaller knife over and use the dull side.

So there we have a fairly coarse dice.

So let's finish this off.

♪ ♪ And as you can see with the small shrimp, you can get a whole shrimp, some onion.

Mmm.

There's an explosion of flavors going on.

You have the dried chilies, you have that little bit of smokiness, and you have the sweet from the shrimp.

I just wish I could put sand underneath all our feet as we ate this on the beach.

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

- The key to a great fish taco or shrimp tostada is a fresh tortilla that actually tastes like corn.

So we asked Santiago Muñoz at Maizajo to reveal his secrets for making the perfect tortilla.

- We are in Maizajo Tortilleria Taqueria Restaurant and we've been dedicated to the distribution of products of corn like tortillas, tostadas, totopos.

Everything that we can do with heirloom corn and nixtamal.

Nixtamal is an ancient process, ancient technique, that exists since 5,000 years in Mesoamerica.

♪ ♪ Why we do nixtamal?

It's a process to get the corn digestive to the human body.

If you just cook the corn in water, your body doesn't get any type of nutrients.

It's much more easier to produce a corn flour tortilla than an nixtamal tortilla.

I started studying what heirloom corn was and I discovered that we had 64 different races of corn and more than 2,000 different types.

When you eat red corn, it's more earthy, the blue corn is more sweet.

But when you eat corn from Oaxaca, it tastes like popcorn.

It's like the terroir of the wine.

The flavor change depending where it was grown.

I really don't know how to describe the flavor of the corn, but it's like corn, you know?

You will see the difference and it's totally different.

- (speaking Spanish) - (speaking Spanish) - The most important thing here to make tortillas is to have a good masa.

And the thing you need to see is that the masa is totally together.

And what we're going to do is to take the press.

So you press it like this.

And to flatten you press, depending the thickness you want.

Take out the tortilla and you want to take it with these three fingers and put it in the comal, really hot, at least 300 Fahrenheit.

And you wanna wait five seconds and flip the tortilla.

When it puffs, it picks up the steam.

So we need to have this with all our tortilla.

So this is ready.

Una tortilla.

And we have something like this.

You just can make a taquito.

I love when little kids come here to taste the tortilla because they can't know the flavor of the real corn.

And there's a lot of people, like, 80, 85 years when they come, they smell the corn and they sometimes cry.

And it's like, wow, I am remembering like my grandmother, you know?

When I ate with my family 50 years ago, because 50 years ago, the tortilla was good in Mexico.

♪ ♪ - Recipes and episodes from this season of Milk Street are available at MilkStreetTV.com, along with shopping lists, printer-ready recipes, and step-by-step videos.

Access our content anytime to change the way you cook.

- The new Milk Street Cookbook is now available and includes every recipe from our TV show.

From cacio e pepe and skillet spanakopita, to Brazilian-style carrot cake and Thai coconut soup, the Milk Street Cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of the Milk Street Cookbook for $27, 40% less than the cover price.

Call 855-MILK-177 or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - MOWI salmon comes ready to cook, ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

MOWI Salmon.

- We pass down traditions here.

We create and connect.

We enjoy special moments.

Some simple, some grand.

The heart of your home is the kitchen.

The heart of your kitchen is The Galley.

♪ ♪