Crowd: ¡Tigres!

Pati, voice-over: If you want to see true Mexican passion on full display, go to a soccer game, and now that Monterrey is a host city for the 2026 World Cup, fans are more passionate than ever.

Pati: Ohh!

Woman: It doesn't count.

It does not count.

Oh, that is so crazy.

Pati, voice-over: Mexico has had some heartbreakers on the world stage, but we're loyal.

Crowd: ¡Tigres!

Pati, voice-over: Maybe it's a 90-minute escape from the issues that dominate the headlines, or maybe it's the tacos.

Today I'm visiting two rival teams just miles apart, Los Tigres and Los Rayados, to taste the tacos that fuel 93,000 screaming fans...

It's so huge.

Mm.

Pati, voice-over: and take the rivalry off the field and into the kitchen... You guys, this is perfect.

This is the moment.

You see how it's huffing and puffing and smoking?

Pati, voice-over: and, no matter who you're rooting for, I want to make sure you're eating well during the big game.

In my kitchen, I'm showing you how you can make the most epic torta right from your own home without fighting the crowds, and that famous asado de puerco, you can make it, too.

See?

Like, even the birds are singing.

♪ Doesn't stop.

Mm!

Mm mm mm!

Ha ha ha!

♪ Mm!

Man: I am going to give you a secret.

Yes.

I love secrets.

Pati: Mm.

Mm.

Mm.

♪ It's like nothing I've tasted before.

♪ Announcer: "Pati's Mexican Table" is brought to you by... ♪ Announcer: La Costeña-- ¡por sabor!

Announcer: Traditional recipes, authentic flavors and ingredients, a taste of México in 90 seconds.

Somos--food from the heart of México.

♪ Men: ♪ Avocados from Mexico ♪ Announcer: FUD brand cheese with traditional Mexican flavor.

Announcer: Stand Together, helping every person rise.

More information at StandTogether.org.

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Mahatma rice.

Announcer: King Arthur Baking Company.

Find out more about our Masa Harina at KingArthurBaking.com.

[Nationwide theme playing on guitar] Announcer: Cozilumbre-- cookware, bakeware, and kitchenware for cooking up tradiciones in your cocinas.

♪ Announcer: Gobierno de Monterrey.

Pati, voice-over: Every 4 years, our family cheers for Mexico in the World Cup, but I still need a refresher on the rules... Pati: How much can you push another player?

Woman: You can't extend your arms.

Pati, voice-over: and I can't think of a better teacher than Mia Fishel, a superstar striker for the Tigres women's team, which has skyrocketed in popularity over the last decade.

The timing happened to work out that the men are playing during my visit, but she's kind enough to be my host.

This is fun.

Yeah.

I like catching.

Yes.

Pati, voice-over: Barely in her 20s, she's a Golden Ball winner and a two-time finalist for U.S. Soccer's Young Player of the Year Award.

I'm awful.

That was good.

Pati, voice-over: She's also a rare case of an American crossing the border to Mexico to follow her professional dreams.

Mia: It was like a dream come true.

This is all I wanted, to enter my pro career.

Pati: This is incredible that you're here now.

You know, I think Mexicans are really loving the fact that women-- Like, the dads that have daughters are like, "Finally our daughters can get into the sport."

Mia: Exactly.

I'm playing because I love the sport-- it's my passion; it's my love-- but also to inspire everyone.

What do you think about the food, and how's the diet here in Mexico?

One reason why I was so happy to see you is because I'm a foodie.

I love food.

Pati, voice-over: Mia brings me to one of her favorite stadium stops for massive tacos with homemade asado de puerco-- a pork stew bathed in a rich, smoky chile sauce-- and chicharrónes norteños-- fried pork belly drowning in a tangy salsa verde.

Both are stuffed in warm, handmade flour tortillas.

If the team nutritionist is watching, you may want to avert your eyes.

I like how in Mexican food, there's a lot of flavor.

You can see it right in front of you.

They make it from handmade flour at the stadium.

I know.

That's insane.

I'm gonna teach you something foodwise.

Just like you have the two main-- like, Tigres and Rayados...

Yes.

like, there's two main camps in Mexican cooking, in salsas.

Whenever you get a stew that's tomato-based, Uh-huh?

add tomatillo sauce... Add the green.

and whenever you have a stew that's tomatillo-based, Yes.

add red sauce The opposite.

because they complement each other because the tomato is sweeter, the tomatillo's more tart.

Yeah.

Cheers.

Cheers.

This is a gigantic taco.

It's so huge.

And it's hot, too.

Ha ha!

Mm!

Mm mm.

♪ Pati: So I've never tasted asado de puerco like the one I tasted in Nuevo León.

I wanted to recreate it in my home kitchen, but most of all, I want you to make it at home.

It's not complicated at all.

To get started, you need 3 pounds of pork loin, and then I already cut it into about 3/4-inch pieces, but I left all of the fat on, as you can see, because by the end of cooking, the pork is gonna cook in its own fat, and the fat of pork is delicious lard, and that's what you want, so I'm gonna add the pork right in here, and it's nice and tender.

Let me rinse my hands... and now we want to cover the pork with water, just enough to get to the top of the pork, and now I'm gonna get it going over high heat just to get these to a rolling boil, and I'm going to cook it with these aromatics that I'm going to put in a little, like, spice packet, so I have a piece of cheesecloth, and I'm gonna add two bay leaves and two peeled garlic cloves, then allspice berries.

They taste a little bit like cloves, black pepper, like cinnamon, and they add a lot of flavor to a dish.

We're gonna cook the pork with the water and the spices until there is no more liquid.

If you put your spices in a packet like this, when the cooking is done, you just remove it, and then you don't have to fish for your spices.

As it comes to a boil, so much foam comes to the surface you can see along the edges.

Remove as much foam as you can.

As that continues cooking over medium high heat-- it's gonna be anywhere from 35 to 45 minutes-- I'm gonna make the adobo sauce, and what's gonna go in my sauce is a combination of chiles.

I'm gonna use guajillos and anchos, and this is a traditional pairing of chiles, so when you use a chile in Mexican cooking, you don't have to just use one chile.

chiles love the company of other chiles.

The guajillo, this is my favorite color in the universe, so much so that my kitchen has that color in the walls.

To clean the chiles, the guajillo and the ancho, all you need to do is to remove the stem, and then you're going to open it up.

You can use your fingers.

The guajillo chiles are zero spicy-- they have no heat--and then we have the ancho chile, and the chile very different flavor from the guajillo.

That is why they go so good together.

The flavors that you find in the ancho are like raisins, prunes, cranberries, tart cherries, plums, plus the ancho tastes a little bit like bittersweet chocolate.

It's phenomenal.

Now in order to unlock those flavors, we're going to toast them gently.

You don't want them to burn.

You want them to toast just like this.

You can see the fumes.

That's what you want, so you're, like, bringing these chiles back to life, and then I'm adding them right in the saucepan.

Oh, this must look so pretty.

We're really taking advantage of this knowledge that has been passed down for generations and generations and generations, so I'm very happy to be passing this on to you, so as these chiles are rehydrating, guajillo with ancho and now the fresh, grassy jalapeño, but we're gonna char it.

We're gonna toast it here in the comal, and I love how when you put chiles on a comal, fresh chiles, they start jumping around, as we say in Mexico, empiezan a bailar.

Like, they start dancing.

I'm adding tomatoes-- see, now the tomatoes are starting to dance, too-- and then I'm gonna add a couple of garlic cloves with their peel on so that they can char and roast inside of their natural packets, a piece of an onion.

I don't know if you can hear these, but the tomatoes are kind of whistling.

[Whistling] First, I'm adding the chiles-- and look at how the chiles plumped and rehydrated-- adding a cup of the cooking liquid and a cup of water.

I'm adding all the ingredients that are now so beautifully charred, and you want to stop the charring or roasting process until the ingredients are completely transformed, so I have the jalapeño.

I'm just removing the stem.

I'm adding the chile with everything in it, and I'm removing the garlic cloves with the skin on.

They have to cool because I do want to remove the garlic skin.

I'm removing the skin, adding these to the blender.

I'm adding a teaspoon of salt, OK, teaspoon of oregano, and a half a teaspoon of cumin, and I have to tell you, the oregano from Nuevo León let's you know, "I'm here, and I'm gonna make myself known, and you're gonna love it."

Half of a teaspoon of cumin seeds, and this already smells like Nuevo León to me.

And look at the color, it's so beautiful.

Mm.

Mm!

It's really taking me back to all the different adobos de puerco that I tried because in Nuevo León, there's so many adobo de puerco everywhere you go, so let me get my pork.

All of the liquid has cooked off.

We're adding the sauce, and this is gonna sizzle and smoke and bubble, which is what we want... and one of the things that give this asado de puerco its incredibly unique taste, it's adding an orange rind.

You want to have some pressure in the orange, so use your thumb and use a very sharp knife but be careful and then just put pressure as you cut it, and then you can gently go around.

♪ Aw, the color is so pretty.

The smell is so good.

Now, this needs to cook for about 20 minutes, and as this finishes cooking, we're gonna make the poison beans.

They're so incredibly delicious.

Of course, there's no poison in them, so the poison in the beans is the adobo sauce from the asado de puerco and the lard, too.

While my asado de puerco finishes coming together, we're gonna make the beans.

I have a pound of pinto beans that I cooked with 14 cups of water.

I have measured it to the bone-- 14 cups of water, like, half of a white onion, and then you cook that for, like, an hour and a half until the beans are so tender, and then you add a tablespoon of salt, and you have this.

These are frijoles de olla.

Remove the onion that cooked with the beans and then add the pinto beans right into the blender.

I'm just gonna pour it all.

Here we go.

You can puree your refried beans.

See?

I want them with a little texture.

I like them a little bit chunky, and this is the poison for the poison beans.

We're gonna fry these refrieds with the fat from the asado de puerco, so now you can see why they're called poison beans.

If you don't have enough fat in your asado de puerco-- your pork didn't have enough fat-- you can, of course, go to direct lard, or you can also use any kind of oil that you like.

Once our fat is really nice and hot, want to add the pureed beans... and now they're starting to get seasoned with the fat.

Oh, this is perfect.

See?

Mila knows.

This is, like, the happiest moment in the kitchen when everything is starting.

Mila.

She knows.

See?

And now we're gonna season the beans with the adobo, so I'm adding about a half a cup of the asado de puerco sauce right into the beans.

Oh, mm, like, I'm getting so hungry right now.

The adobo is ready.

You know because the sauce is nice and thickened.

This is so saucy, so I have this friend that says that refried beans are ready when they can practically walk themselves out of the pan because they're so thick.

This is so perfect.

You guys, this is perfect.

This is the moment.

This is the moment, and you see how it's huffing and puffing and smoking, OK, so it's ready.

Yum.

Want to heat my tortillas.

I'm gonna grab a little bit of the fat.

I'm gonna add it to the bottom of the pan... [Sizzling] and then we're gonna build ourselves a plate.

I'm adding my tortillas.

Then you add a layer of the beans just like that, spread a little.

I'm adding some of the asado.

It's an asado cascade.

You add the tortillas on top.

It's really a fun way of eating tacos because you get a platter, and then you can taco the heck out of it.

Of course, we have to do what my dad does, which is a sprinkle of salt, and then this is my first empalme bite.

♪ Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mm mm.

♪ I don't even know what to say, this is so good.

It's so, like, unpretentiously delicious.

It's homey.

It's packed with flavor.

It's-- I'm on the first bite, and I can't wait till the last bite.

It is so yummy, and you have to try it at home.

♪ Pati, voice-over: They may be only 8 miles apart, but to the people of Nuevo León, Los Tigres and their archrival Los Rayados may as well be two sovereign nations.

The clubs have been battling for decades, and I've been invited to walk the hallowed pitch with the Rayados women's team captain Rebeca Bernal.

Pati, voice-over: Rebeca is one of the highest scoring players on the team, despite being a defender, and her dominance has earned her a position on Mexico's national team with hopes of playing in the 2023 Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Pati, voice-over: After lessons from some of the best female athletes in the world, maybe I should change careers... Ha ha ha!

Pati, voice-over: or maybe I should stick to food.

Speaking of, I'm getting hungry for those famous tortas I keep hearing about.

Yay!

Ha ha ha!

Hola.

Pati, voice-over: El Chino Arrieta has been serving savory arrachera tortas at Rayados games since 1986, but when Argentinian players taught Chino the special spice formula for the chorizo and he mixed that with the arrachera in one torta, the sandwich exploded with popularity.

Pati, voice-over: The spiced chorizo is amazing, but what takes it over the top are the vast array of toppings that don't ever end.

Entonces.

This looks insane.

♪ ♪ Man: ¿Cómo vas?

Aww.

Let's do it.

They get the grill grates ready by scraping it with onion, and the onion not only cleans it, but, oh, it seasons it.

Gonna brush la arrachera.

Arrachera is skirt steak.

OK. Yeah.

So when I went with a Rayados player... Uh-huh?

she took me to this very famous torta stand... and it's a mix of arrachera and Argentinian chorizo, not Mexican chorizo.

Yeah.

Why do they use Argentinian?

I know.

I was wondering the same thing.

Because, obviously, Mexican is the best.

It sounds like they can't take the heat.

No.

Wait until you try.

OK. ♪ Pati: I made, like, a Mexa kind of chimichurri... so it's truly a blend.

What makes it Mexican?

I'm gonna show you, so we're adding, like, 3 quarter-cups of olive oil... OK. half a cup of red wine vinegar.

OK. Now we're gonna chop stuff.

We need about a cup of each... OK. Should I cut of this?

so we eyeball it.

Yeah, so you're gonna chop with me.

I love using the leaves and the stems.

The stems have, like, a delicious crunch.

Flip.

Oh, we need to flip.

Yeah.

We need to flip.

This is so beautiful because you see, like, the caramelly edges.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, perfect.

Oh, that's so gorgeous.

Let's flip the chorizos, a little, too.

Let's see how they're doing.

I think this needs, like, 5 more minutes.

So we have cilantro, parsley.

Now we need the oregano, so let's move the leaves.

Mm-hmm.

And for these, like, Mexa-style, I'm adding pepitas-- pumpkin seeds... Mm-hmm.

Nice.

pickled jalapeños, Classic.

fresh jalapeños, and lime zest and lime juice, so we're adding the scallions.

I'm adding the white and the green parts, too.

Let me look at the meat.

[Sizzling] Oh, yeah.

Looks perfect.

Ha ha ha!

The chorizo should be ready.

OK, so we have the lime zest.

How much should I do?

I think that's good enough.

Let's cut the lime, and then we can squeeze the juice in here.

You can add some salt and pepper al necesita... OK. and let's add the pickled jalapeños.

Right.

All of them?

All of-- Sí.

Right, right.

I mean, how much would you take?

I would totally take it all.

I would do the whole thing.

Yeah, so I'm adding the garlic, and then I think what I love the most about my chimichurri Mexa-- I baptized it a Mexa chimichurri... Uh-huh.

for the Mexican ingredients-- is the pumpkin seeds.

The pumpkin seeds give it that, like, nutty, fresh, and the crunch, and then so we have our chimichurri.

I mean, look at that.

That looks so good.

It's, like, so vibrant So green.

Yeah.

and all green, so I'm gonna toast the bolillos in the grill... OK. as you cut the meat, OK?

OK. Oh, my God.

That looks perfect.

Alan, you grilled this, like, to perfection.

OK, so let's cut that into bite-size pieces.

OK.

I'm making mine.

You're making yours, OK?

All right.

Putting meat A lot of meat.

in, like, every corner, and it's, like, so meaty, and suddenly, you get that, like, burst of green.

Yeah.

♪ Well, so how good does this look?

Mm.

This looks so good.

♪ Mm.

Mm.

That's so good.

See?

Like, even the birds are singing.

Mm.

When I was in Mexico and I was seeing all these players and their families rooting... Mm-hmm?

it reminded me of when you were little and you were doing soccer.

You remember?

You used to be a crazy fan, used to be the craziest fan because, you know, most parents, they show up, they put up their chairs.

They'll clap or yell their kid's name, but you were like... You'd scream, scream, scream at me.

I remember looking back at you, and all the parents were looking at you like, "Who is this woman?"

Ha ha!

Was it embarrassing?

No, no.

It's not a bit.

Was a little embarrassing.

No, no, no, no...

It was super embarrassing.

but that's the way it's supposed to be.

That's how it's supposed to be.

Ha ha ha!

Mm.

Pati: For recipes and information from this episode and more, visit PatiJinich.com and connect!

Find me on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest @PatiJinich.

Announcer: "Pati's Mexican Table" is brought to you by... ♪ Announcer: La Costeña-- ¡por sabor!

Announcer: Traditional recipes, authentic flavors and ingredients, a taste of México in 90 seconds.

Somos--food from the heart of México.

♪ Men: ♪ Avocados from Mexico ♪ Announcer: FUD brand meats with traditional Mexican flavor.

Announcer: Stand Together, helping every person rise.

More information at StandTogether.org.

Announcer: Here, the typical arroz con pollo... or not!

Unfollow la Receta.

Mahatma rice.

Announcer: King Arthur Baking Company.

Find out more about our Masa Harina at KingArthurBaking.com.

[Nationwide theme playing on guitar] Announcer: Cozilumbre-- cookware, bakeware, and kitchenware for cooking up tradiciones in your cocinas.

♪ Announcer: Gobierno de Monterrey.

Announcer: Proud to support "Pati's Mexican Table" on Public Television.

♪