- 16 hours ago
Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchen (2008) Season 18 Episode 21
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00:05It looks like you were well fed. It was amazing. I mean, Tacos Racerados, it really changed my
00:11entire perspective on tacos. I've never had ribbed meat tacos before. But I see a lot of vegetables,
00:16so it looks like we're going to start at that salsa bar you were hitting up. Absolutely, we are. So
00:20we're going to start with the aguamole, which was explained to me as like a way to stretch
00:24guacamole. Rather than make a stiff batch of guacamole, this is like a water thinned down
00:29version of an avocado sauce. So we're going to add half of an avocado to our blender here,
00:35and then one minced garlic clove. Thank you. A tablespoon of lime juice, three quarters of a
00:42teaspoon of salt, and then to help the blender do its job here, we're going to add a third of
00:47a cup
00:48of water to start. Throw a lid on this thing, and we'll just blend it for about 10 seconds.
00:57All right, let's take a look. So it's still looking a little bit thick. So add a little bit
01:04more water and blend it up a little bit more. Okay, we'll take a look at it now. This is
01:13perfect.
01:14It's pourable, but it also thickens up a smidge as it sits. So we can just go ahead and drop
01:20this
01:21into our bowl here. Okay. So now we can talk about some of our salsa tatamata ingredients. So we have
01:29here roma tomatoes, jalapenos, and an onion. That's going to be part of our salsa tatamata. Tatamata
01:35means it's charred salsa. So all these things will go onto the grill. So we're only going to use half
01:39of
01:39this onion here. So we'll just take and cut it in half. I want to keep the root end intact,
01:46because we don't want it to fall apart on the
01:49grill. All right, and so that is good now. And then our garnish for the tacos are going to be
01:57these beautiful spring onions, also called
02:00cebolitas. So when you have these, you would just want to trim off any of the dead end there and
02:05pull
02:05off any leaves or other stem that doesn't look great. So just give them a thin shave.
02:13So our salsa and our garnish are prepped. And now we can talk about the beef. So these are an
02:21entire rack
02:22of beef ribs here, seven bone beef rack. These are back ribs. So racerado means shaved in Spanish. This is
02:29about four pounds. It's a big boy. That is a gorgeous cut. Yeah, it's wonderful. And like the flavor that
02:35comes off this meat, especially when you shave that meat in between the bones is just phenomenal. Awesome.
02:40So if you want to carry that, I'll carry the beef ribs and we'll head out to the grill. Sounds
02:44great.
02:46All right, Bridget, today we're using mesquite hardwood charcoal for this recipe, okay? And mesquite
02:50charcoal is like the aroma, the perfume of Tucson, Arizona. It's in the air, it's on the food. It's just
02:56really a
02:56unique flavor. So for comparison, I have our traditional charcoal briquettes, which are just
03:01compacted, pressed, small pieces of wood that have been carbonized versus these whole pieces of mesquite
03:07wood that have been carbonized and pressed. You can really see the difference. You'll notice the
03:11difference in the way it burns, but also, and especially in the way it tastes. Okay, great. And I
03:15have six quarts of that mesquite charcoal burning right here. I'm going to pour that evenly over half the
03:19grill. So we have a hot side and a cool side. Okay, so we're just going to put the grate
03:24on this and cover the
03:26grill and let that heat up for five minutes. And I've got both the top and the bottom vents fully
03:30open. All right, the grill's been heating up for five minutes. We can go ahead and clean it
03:38and oil it. All right, the grill's nice and hot. Now we could go ahead and start grilling our
03:45vegetables for our salsa. So we're going to put the spring onions here, put the bulbs resting right
03:51over the coals. They take the brunt of the heat, get those nice and charred. So we'll just kind of
03:58work all these vegetables on and off the grill as they get done cooking. It takes about 10 to 15
04:02minutes to cook all these vegetables entirely. You can smell it immediately. Grilled onions,
04:07nothing better. These tomatoes actually take the longest to cook because there's so much water in
04:11them. And as they get done charring on each side and they're nicely browned and cooked, we'll start
04:16removing them from the grill and we'll rotate new vegetables in. Great. We're just working over this hot side here.
04:21So this kind of nice char. Oh yeah. That's exactly what we're looking for. And it happens quick because
04:26this hardwood charcoal is so intense. So this is all very active grilling. You got to stay involved
04:31with this and turning the vegetables as they get more and more charred. And so this will take about
04:3510 to 15 minutes until we're finished with the entire batch. Okay. Okay, these spring onions are nicely
04:40charred. So we'll start pulling those off. Those are gorgeous. So you want to charm and also at the same
04:46time cook them all the way through. So you don't want to just quickly blast them. You want to give
04:50them a little
04:50bit of time on the grill. These tomatoes are going really quickly because they're over the really
04:56intense part of the fire here. Pull those off. All right. So this is our last few jalapenos getting
05:03charred here. I'll just drop those under the tray. Everything's nice and charred and tender. It's looking
05:09good. Bountiful. So now we're ready for our ribs. All right. So we're going to throw our ribs on there.
05:14We're serving bone side down and we're sprinkle the tops with some salt. Okay. We're looking to put
05:18about a little bit more than two teaspoons, about two and a quarter teaspoons on top of these ribs.
05:23It's a generous sprinkle of salt. This is coarse sea salt. Now at this stage, it doesn't always look like
05:29it, but there's a lot of fat on these ribs. So as they begin to cook and they'll go about
05:34six minutes
05:34on this first side, we want to be ready to kind of extinguish any flare-ups. So we're going to
05:39use
05:40like what Francisco does, a water bottle. Okay. So when those flare-ups start to happen, you just kind
05:44of like pop it. I'm actually going to remove this lid here. So I have a little bit more access
05:50all the
05:50way around. Nice. It seems counterintuitive to grilling. It seems like it's going to extinguish all this,
05:55but this is a good reason why we're using a two level fire here or a half grill fire.
05:59So we could just remove these ribs if it gets to be too aggressive and just extinguish these flames.
06:05Then we'll go back on top and let it go. Nice. We want to go so they get nice and
06:10brown on the first
06:11side, extinguishing the flames as they pop up. And if it gets to be too much, you can just kind
06:15of
06:15maneuver them around the grill, have the fatty half hanging off away from the coals for a second
06:20and kind of rotate it to give the charcoal a little bit of a break. Okay. So it's been about
06:25six
06:25minutes. Let's take a look. Nicely brown on that side. Extinguish a few flames here.
06:34We're going to hit it carefree with some of that coarse sea salt and let it go for six minutes
06:39on
06:39this second side. Same thing. Just manning our water bottle, extinguishing any flare-ups.
06:44Mm. Okay. It's been six minutes on the second side here. We can transfer these ribs to our cutting
06:50board. Oh wow. So they're already looking gorgeous, right? Yes. Okay. So now we were to cut into them
06:55as we're about to do. You're going to see they're almost still raw on the inside in between the bones.
06:59So we're going to cut them in between the bones at this stage. The chef's knife.
07:06Oh yeah. That's pretty pink.
07:09All right. Let's cut through this last rib here. Now we're going to put these back on the grill,
07:13but first we're going to nestle them inside one another like this. And we'll just drop these
07:18back onto the grill. Cooking the ribs like this is going to allow us to cook all that rare meat
07:24that's still stuck to the bones there that was in between the ribs. And this will get nice and
07:28charred and crispy. Gorgeous. We're absolutely going to hit it with some more of our salt.
07:33Okay. And we'll let that go for five minutes on that side. Okay. It's been five minutes on that cut
07:38side. You can flip these ribs over. Take a look at how gorgeous those are. See all that meat in
07:46between the bones is now nice and crispy. So this will be our final cook on this side to cook
07:51the rest
07:51of that rare meat up against the bone. We'll hit it one more time with some salt, about another generous
07:57two teaspoons, about two and a quarter teaspoons. And that'll go for five minutes. Okay. These ribs are
08:03finally ready to come off. Let me help you out there. Drop them onto the tray.
08:09Okay. These ribs are looking gorgeous. So when we go back inside, we're going to throw these into
08:16a 200 degree oven and let them sit and just hang out while we make our salsa. All right. And
08:20then it's
08:20almost taco time. It's taco time. Okay. Our ribs are resting in a 200 degree oven. And while they're
08:27doing that, we could finish our salsa tatamata. Lovely. All right. So we have our tomatoes here that
08:32have been nicely charred on the grill and we're just going to remove the core.
08:40We drop the whole tomatoes in with the charred skin on there. Great. So we want that charred smoky
08:44flavor. And then our onions, we're going to just remove the root end from the onions
08:52and then one jalapeno. So I'm just going to remove the stem, keep the seeds in there and drop this
08:57in
08:58whole. Nice. And to that, we're going to add a quarter cup of cilantro leaves and stems. Nice.
09:04Those cilantro stems are nice and tender. So we could use those. Yes. One and a half teaspoons of lime
09:09juice and half a teaspoon of table salt. And we're just going to blend this briefly. We want it to
09:14be a
09:15little bit chunky still. So about seven seconds on low speed in the blender. Okay.
09:26It's a good looking salsa. Now we're going to throw our salsa in the bowl.
09:33All right. We'll set that aside, clean up our station and pull the ribs out of the oven,
09:36start shaving and making some tacos. Shaving time. Now we're going to shave our ribs.
09:42All right. So this is the rosserato part, the shave. So we have a chef's knife. You could use a
09:47boning
09:47knife if you'd like as well. Just kind of work down the blade.
09:54Work down the bone here with the blade of the knife. All right. And we can just hold on to
09:58the
09:59rest. This is plenty for the two of us, I think. And we'll just give this a nice chop here.
10:07We'll throw this into a bowl here. I'm going to build you a taco. Yay. It's been so good.
10:15And so patient. So we're going to take a couple of tortillas out of here. In Tucson,
10:19it's a flour tortilla city. A little bit of our beef. A little bit of this finely chopped cabbage.
10:28Just regular green cabbage. Regular green cabbage, finely chopped. A little bit of our salsa tatamata.
10:35Oh yeah. And then some of our aqua mole.
10:39Mmm. Alongside this, you take one of your spring onions, one of these jalapenos.
10:48Okay. And this is for you. Thank you, Brian. And then one for me. A little lime. There's one for
10:56you.
10:56All right. And your plate there. All right. And there's a method to this. So you want to fold your
11:01taco, take a bite with a full mouth of food, take a bite of your spring onion, take a bite
11:05of your
11:05jalapeno. All right. Oftentimes they'll even dunk the spring onion and jalapeno into salt.
11:13All right. Cheers. Cheers to you.
11:30A little fiesta in your mouth there, huh? Since we finished with the jalapeno, that's actually the
11:35first thing I'm tasting right now. Get that burst of char and of course, a little bit of heat. Spring
11:39onion is glorious. That meat. Yeah, it's so good. Is beautiful. I mean, that smoke,
11:47kind of fattiness, the richness of it all. And all the char on the vegetables that you grilled,
11:54it tastes unlike any taco I've ever, ever had before. And I love that light little
11:59kind of guacamole with the water added to it. It's just perfection. That is as good as it gets.
12:08Just like you, Brian. You're so sweet. Thank you so much for bringing this
12:12back to the country for us. You're very welcome.
12:15So if you want to make these unbelievably great tacos at home, it starts by grilling onions,
12:21jalapeno and tomatoes for the salsa tatamata. After grilling the whole beef rack, cut into individual
12:26ribs and return them to the grill until browned all over. Shave the meat from the ribs and then layer
12:32the beef,
12:32salsa and aguamole into tortillas and serve with charred jalapenos and spring onions. So from Cook's
12:38Country via Tucson and Brian, it's Mesquite Grilled Tacos Racerados. Fully expected to look down,
12:46it's going to be gone. Mine's almost gone. I don't know if I...
12:49Mine's just gone.
12:50That's what I think.
12:50I think that it was going to be fun.
12:50You're going to be up.
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