(mellow music) - We're here at the Linney studios at Lynhall, and I'm super excited to be here, with my good friend, chef Jorge Guzman.

(upbeat music) - Now, I'm seeing all the different kinds of spices, different kinds of veggies, fruit.

What are we making today?

- So we're going to make, a dish that's called Poc chuc.

- What does that translate to?

- So it's Mayan, and so I grew up in a city called Mérida.

In the Yucatan a lot of words are, they're Mayan words, and the population still speaks the language, which is really cool.

Poc means toasted and chuc means charcoal.

So basically cooked over charcoal.

- Yup.

- And it's, traditionally, you can do it with anything, but a lot of times it's done with pork, and then you marinade it in like a sour orange marinade, and mojo de ajo, and then recado.

If you're familiar with what a jerk is in Jamaica or a marinade here in the States, a recado's similar to that.

Recados can be dry, they can be a paste, they can be a spice blend, and there's like an individual one for almost every dish.

You know?

So today we're gonna make recado de escabeche .

And that's basically like a dry spice blend, with bay leaf, clove, pepper, all spice and cumin.

These are all really common ingredients in the Yucatan, and we just toast them and grind 'em up.

- The food from that region of Mexico, like, how's it different from other regions?

You know, cause when we talk about Mexican food, everyone just, automatically in their mind have that view of nachos.

- Yeah.

- You know, and all that stuff.

- People have the misconception that Mexican food is just burritos or enchiladas.

Mexico has, you know, a number of different states, each of those states, has its own regionality, and its own type of cuisine and specialty.

So the food in the Yucatan is super interesting, and really different from what you would consider as an American, what Mexican food is, unless you're really you know, studied up on what that cuisine is.

- Sometimes I feel like Hmong food, we're this like culinary mud, you know?

- Yeah.

It's kind of how the Yucatan is too.

It's a set cuisine, but it there's so many influences.

The jungles were so dense in the Yucatan that you think about where their influence is coming from, it's not coming from the rest of Mexico because of how difficult it was to get there by land.

So it would actually come from outside of that, which is obviously a Spanish influence there's Danish influence there's Lebanese influence, there's Caribbean influence, and then obviously there's the Mayan influence from the indigenous population.

So if you think about how long the Mayans have been on that peninsula, it goes back like ten thousand years.

Let's see it.

You could go a little bit more - Yeah, I know, I'm letting you down.

- You never let me down.

- letting this ten thousand year old culture down.

- That's a different story.

- I love the smell, dude.

- Yeah.

- Oh man, - Right?

- That's incredible.

- In the Yucatan, sour orange is another like, really like prevalent ingredient.

We're going to use that for two applications, we're gonna use it for the salsa habanero, and we're also going to use it to help marinate the pork.

- Tell me a little bit more or describe a little bit more, what a sour orange is.

- It's a, fruit that grows in that specific area of the Yucatan and it's usually like a green skin and then you cut it open and it's like this really like kind of almost like vibrant translucent orange.

It's like a cross between a lime, orange and grapefruit.

- Yeah.

My is mouth watering.

- Yeah, I mean like - I love sour oranges - It's used for like everything, you know, for marinating, for juicing, for all kinds of stuff.

- So, you know, if you know, if we don't have access to sour oranges, How do we make that flavor?

- So this is what you're gonna do, I like the ratio of two, one, one, So, you know, 2 parts lime, 1 part orange, 1 part grapefruit Great.

Okay.

So that's a good way to remember it.

And then you just, you know, or whatever your preference is, but it does need to be a little bit like sweet and sour.

- Yeah.

- How did you get started in food?

- You know, I like to say that I can always remember food as a memory and they're usually good memories, so I always, I think I just kind of like gravitated towards cooking.

I can remember my first like meal I made for the family, it was nachos.

(laughs) (laughs) - Very traditional.

- Yeah very traditional Mexican food.

- Sheet pan nachos, And so, yeah, that's kinda how I think I got started.

My parents divorced early, my dad moved back to Mexico.

And so as kids, my brother and I would always go visit him for the summers, And I have like, extremely vivid memories of my grandmother and grandfather's house.

Big dining room table where, you know it's tradition to come home for lunch, And you know, my uncles would come home, You know, you'd have, lunch was like eight to ten people.

- Yeah.

- So, I have just a lot of memories of the food that we would eat around that table.

- So what are the next steps?

- So next we're going to take the pork, season it with a bit of the recado that we made.

- So its like a dry rub - kinda work it in, - Yeah, it's like a little dry rub and like these need to marinate, for like thirty minutes, you know, no longer you can't marinate this overnight because then all that acidity - basically going to cook the pork.

What you're looking for is just to get like a little bit of that tanginess from the acidity, and that's what makes this dish like super interesting.

So we're gonna add a little bit of the mojo, - What's in the mojo?

- Mojo comes from Cuba, you know that's kind of like the originates, and this one it's olive oil, sour orange juice, roasted garlic, a little bit of salt and black pepper.

And that's it so super simple.

- Yeah.

- The pork chuc, it's like such a quick dish, but like if you think about everything we've done so far, like making the mojo takes time, making the recado takes time, and then the accompanying dishes, like the salsa, the beans the other salsa , while that's a really quick dish to cook, if you don't have these ingredients ready and available it takes a couple of days to do.

So next we'll take a little bit of the sour orange juice that we had, and we're just kind of pouring it over.

- All those sugars in there, it's gonna help with that caramelization once it hits that grill.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- So we'll just set it off to the side and then we'll get onto our salsas and everything else - Incredible.

- So we're gonna start the chiltomate sauce and also the habanero salsa at the same time.

So, we'll roast off our tomatoes, our habaneros, you know the chiltomate sauce is usually made with like 1 habanero, some tomato, garlic, onions and then puree it and then re fried in lard.

So, it's just like a really great condiment.

- That sounds awesome.

- Yeah it's pretty tasty.

- Yeah.

- And then the habanero salsa is just, I mean its fuego, it's fire.

- Yeah.

- It's like in the Yucatan, it's hard to go anywhere out to eat, any table any family home that doesn't have salsa habanero, on the table.

it's charred habaneros, lime or sour orange juice and salt.

Okay that's it.

So super spicy, but it definitely has a punch.

(upbeat music) Oh, man, smells like home.

(laughs) - Chef, we're getting to my favorite part here the grilling.

This is, what I live for right here.

- This is a lot better over charcoal.

- Obviously, yep.

- While we're here.

- Oh, there we go.

- Its that aroma, its the perfume.

(steak searing) - I like to get like a really good sear, and then just keep flipping.

- For those who are like, Hey do we have to do this on the grill?

Can we put it in the oven?

I'm like, man, just do the grill.

It just doesn't work in the oven.

You really want that caramelization, cause like all that sugar in those oranges, yeah, I think that that's, what's delicious about it.

- We're smoking up the joint huh?

- I know.

- This is looking really beautiful, dude.

- Yeah just trying to render that fat down a little bit.

- I like getting a good char on my food and like Mexican food, it's like, it's char like, get that flavor.

Don't be afraid of fire, but that's when you gotta like you know, keep turning it.

- Yep.

- So it doesn't get sooty on you.

- Yep.

This is the same way that my dad would grill, you know, this is the same way I learned how to grill.

- Keep moving it.

- You just keep moving everything's constantly moving.

- I just let it rest for a second or two.

(upbeat music) - Okay.

Jorge worked all day, now it's right here, this is the best part.

- So we've got what we call frijoles colados, which is just beans cooked pureed.

We've got the chiltomate sauce, and we've got the habanero, we'll call it a condiment, cause it's like what you put on everything, - It's not ketchup.

- It's not ketchup, right?

- And then we've got the poc chuc, but the way I would eat it is, you know, I'd put your refried beans down first, you're going fancy.

- Hey, I gotta keep up - Pork on top.

A little bit of chiltomate sauce and then just a dab or two of the habanero sauce and go from there.

So I'm gonna let you take the first bite, and you know, make sure you get some pickled red onions, some cilantro.

- So you just try and create that perfect bite?

- Yeah, exactly.

(upbeat music) That's so good, man.

That char from the grill.

I mean like nothing beats that, - No.

- Nothing beats that.

And I love just that squeeze of lime.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- At the end, it cuts through all that fattiness, but man this black bean, is incredible.

Like it kind of binds everything together.

- Yeah.

It's just a staple, you know, in the Yucatan we eat a ton of black beans.

I love them.

I'll eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Food from the Yucatan is savory, it's picante, it's spicy.

It kind of runs the gamut because of all the influence.

You know, this is something that's really like, dear to me.

It's a cool, cool cuisine.

- [Female voice] Jorge, you could even go a little more energy.

More what?

- More energy, I get told that a lot.

- Yeah.

I've been working with this guy for years, I bet he's at one ten.

- We're maxed out.

(laughs) (laughs)