MING: Today on Simply Ming I have great friend and seven-time James Beard Award winning chef Rick Bayless is in the house.

He's also host of Mexico: One Plate at a Time, and we're going to be cooking Mexican food.

He's going to be making one of my favorites called chilaquiles-- Rick Bayless style.

This is my soul food, I have to say.

Whenever I feel blue, all I want is a plate of chilaquiles.

MING: And I'm gonna be taking some rice cakes and doing my version of a chicken nachos.

Like your dish you have to eat this immediately.

It's coming up, right now, right here, on Simply Ming.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ MING: Rick, mi amigo, good to have you back.

Oh, it's great to be back.

MING: Mi casa es su casa as always.

Muchas gracias.

MING: So, as custom has it, we're going to start with a cocktail.

I'm gonna make you the Paper Plane, it's a bourbon cocktail.

If you could just dump that for me I'll get it going.

It's a bourbon cocktail that has amaro and a little orange liqueur, created... have you ever heard the cocktail called the Penicillin?

There's a guy named Sam Ross that created this, so he also created this Paper Plane.

I'm really liking the ingredients that you've got there because everybody always thinks that it's just gonna be tequila or mezcal for me, but I'm actually a big bourbon fan and that I love the orange bitter... orange liqueur that you've got there.

And then you've got an amaro here, so I think it's gonna be to my taste a little bit.

On the sweet side from the bourbon, a little bit on the bitter side from the amaro, and the bitter orange.

MING: You have that exact, my friend.

And it's the easiest recipe, it's one to one to one to one.

Just equal portions.

MING: So an ounce and a half of the bourbon, the amaro, and the orange liqueur, and the only fresh juice we're gonna add is freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Lemon juice, okay.

MING: Right?

It's usually lime in my kitchen, but I will make an exception just for this because I think bourbon and lemon go really well together.

MING: They go amazingly well.

And can you make me a couple lemon flags, please?

I certainly... we'll see if I can do it.

MING: Oh, look at that!

So you've been good?

Yeah, I'm real good, real good.

MING: You're all over the place like all of us?

It's been a little bit like that, yeah.

MING: This looks pretty good to me.

Strain this out.

Oh man, you're the pro, aren't you?

MING: Well you want to show the color, right?

Look how beautiful that is, right?

It's so pretty.

MING: So here we go.

And double strained, and... MING: Oh yeah, and a little drip, but that's okay.

So you should always have the second glass over there to catch the drips from the first one.

MING: Don't like that, I hate spillage, wipe that up.

I'm gonna give you a little twist.

Nice.

MING: Like that.

My friend, cheers.

You can tell I'm ready.

(Rick chuckles) MING: Cheers.

That's delicious.

MING: Love it?

I love it.

MING: Will you make some chilaquiles for me?

I certainly will.

MING: He's gonna kill his chilaquiles.

Killer chilaquiles.

How can you say that?

MING: It is a good drink!

(both laugh) Come on, let's go cook.

Okay.

MING: Killer chilaquile quile chilaquiles...

Okay, Señor Rick, what's your dish?

Okay, it's chilaquiles, which is basically tortilla chips that are cooked briefly in a sauce just to slightly soften them.

We're gonna make the really, really classic one, which is the green version made with tomatillo sauce.

You can often find it with tomatoes or with a red chili sauce, but this is by far everyone's favorite.

MING: Tomatillos the classic of all.

It's the classic of all of them.

So the first thing I'm gonna ask you to do is to slice that small onion up into about half-inch slices.

The tomatillos of course come with a little papery husk, so you want to get rid of that husk, and then we're gonna put everything onto a baking dish here in order to roast them.

I'm gonna do the roasting in the easiest way possible, which is under the broiler.

So we've got some unpeeled garlic.

And a couple of serrano chilies.

MING: Unpeeled cause you don't want them to get dark?

I don't want it to get too burnt in this because we're gonna roast these until what I call a sort of a rustic char.

Okay, so the big thing here is that we need to use a broiler and put the shelf as close up to the broiler as you possibly can get it.

Put that in there and we'll close that, and after about five minutes or so we'll flip them over, and they really will get all blackened and blistered in places.

MING: Awesome.

Then we'll flip 'em and cook 'em for another five minutes or so.

Now with chilaquiles, the thing is that it cooks quickly and you have to have everything ready.

So all of our garnishes for the top of this have to be ready.

And we've got some Mexican crema or it's made like crème fraîche.

I brought a whole host of cheeses here.

So it's a category that goes on this is typically called queso añejo, which just means "aged cheese."

MING: Okay.

So if you can't find a Mexican aged cheese, you could use something like parmesan, and we actually have some parmesan there.

MING: You do, okay.

But then I also have this sort of classic queso añejo from Mexico.

This is one from the state of Guerrero called cincho cheese, and it's even more pungent.

MING: Wow!

It's like a really, really... MING: It's got the blue, as pungent as bleu cheese.

It almost seems like bleu cheese.

This is a goat milk, a dried goat milk cheese that we actually have one of our farmers make for us.

MING: Oh... that's my favorite.

I really love that, it's really good, huh?

MING: That's so good, it's awesome.

Okay, so we're gonna make this into dinner, so I'm gonna ask you to pull some chicken off of that.

Usually what I will do is just like use leftover chicken or go get a rotisserie chicken.

MING: Right, literally just hand-shred.

Yeah, just hand-shred it.

MING: Skin and all?

Skin and all, I'm gonna swipe the knife from below you because I always like to garnish the chilaquiles with thinly sliced white onion.

Now this is white onion and not yellow onion.

MING: Why is that?

Because this is the onion of Mexico is always white, it's a crisper, cleaner, brighter flavor.

So now I've sliced this onion very thinly and I am going to separate the rings.

MING: When I trained in Japan, they rinsed their scallions, that's what I meant.

I'm not claiming the Japanese invented rinsing.

Okay, but they do the same thing in Mexico, and they call it de-flaming the onions because you rinse all the strong part of it off.

So I'm just gonna leave these guys set there.

MING: I like that technique.

My wife hates raw onions, but if they're rinsed she's fine.

But rinsed they're fine, right?

MING: There we go, all right.

So we have because I knew you wanted them room temp, your beautiful roasted, chilled, right?

You can't puree them hot.

Well, you can't puree them when they're hot because you have to get in here and pull the skins off of this roasted garlic like that.

Okay, and then I've got the little stems that are on the serrano chilies as well.

You notice that these are completely soft, that's what we're looking for there.

The one thing about tomatillos is everybody loves the color of them when they're raw, but once they're cooked they turn to this kind of olive drab color.

But that's okay, that's what the color of tomatillo sauce is really all about.

Okay, now we're gonna put everything into this blender jar here.

MING: The seeds are okay?

Seeds are okay.

At this point once they're cooked it doesn't matter whether you take the seeds out of them or not.

But all that juice has to go in there, that's really sweet and really, really delicious stuff.

Put the top back on it now and I'm gonna make what I would call a coarse puree out of it.

(blender whirring) So just blending it until we get pretty smooth, but a little texture.

And I think that'll about do it.

(blender stops) MING: That's simple.

Very simple, straightforward.

MING: Is it a twister?

There we go, thank you very much for that.

MING: Made in China.

(both laugh) We've got a skillet over here.

MING: It's a little warm.

And it's got a little bit of heat in it.

I like to do these in a 12-inch skillet.

And we need... MING: Which is your favorite size.

I remember seeing a video you had this whole thing about you like 12-inch skillets.

I love cooking in 12-inch skillets.

This is chicken broth, or if you want to make it vegetarian, vegetable broth.

'Cause this is really, really a great vegetarian dish.

I'm gonna turn the heat all the way up.

We'll give it some salt.

MING: You want any pepper?

No.

MING: No?

No.

MING: Never?

There are very specific dishes in Mexico that take black pepper.

The truth of the matter is that when you add black pepper to a dish, it adds the flavor of black pepper.

And in Mexico they think that is a strong flavor, so they only use the black pepper where they just want that to be.

I've fallen into that way of thinking about black pepper.

MING: Which is ironic because you have such bold, incredible flavors in Mexico spicier than black pepper.

Yes, spicier and strong flavors, but that's a strong flavor, too.

MING: It is.

So are you reducing this by how long?

I'm not gonna reduce it at all, I'm just gonna bring it up to the boil.

Check for the salt level in that, and then we've got our chips.

Now what I always recommend to everybody, this was two cups of that roasted tomatillo base, two cups of the broth, and eight ounces of-- well, it used to be eight ounces until you started eating them.

MING: Sorry.

(laughing): Of the... of the chips.

MING: 7.98 ounces, sir.

So it's really close to eight ounces of that.

And so when you buy a bag of chips I look for ones that are thick or homemade seeming.

And then look if it's a 12-ounce bag then use two-thirds of that.

MING: Got it.

But it's really all about the proportion when you're making really good chilaquiles.

So this base plus all of that.

When this comes to a boil we'll add the tortilla chips to it, and then I'm gonna add a handful of cilantro because I like the flavor.

So I just put a...

I just tear up the cilantro and put that in.

MING: Got it.

All right, well we can't watch it 'cause then it'll never boil.

It's almost there.

MING: It's so close, it's boiling on the side, there it goes.

And that's it.

So I think we're about there now, so if you want to go ahead and dump those in.

MING: You want me to get one more chip from somewhere?

No, you're good?

(laughing): I don't know about that.

Okay, so take a look at what this looks like here.

MING: Awesome.

You shouldn't have enough sauce to completely cover it because these will soften really quickly and start nestling themselves down.

But I also don't want any chips that are dry here.

MING: Right.

So keep spooning the sauce over it as the whole thing now comes to a simmer.

MING: So traditionally Mexico what meal period is this eaten?

It's a very interesting thing, it is eaten for almuerzo, which we would sort of roughly translate as a brunch.

Okay, so it's the mid-morning breakfast and it's all savory food.

But it's also a really wonderful supper dish.

It's bubbling beautifully here, I'm gonna put this on the top of it.

MING: So the pollo goes later?

And it... well, we can put it over now just so that it-- I would say about half of that if you don't mind.

And then that will be enough to kind of-- and this is all up to your own taste.

MING: This is-- this is-- this is your fried rice.

It's totally that.

MING: Take what's in your fridge and then make it.

Chilaquiles are totally the fried rice.

So it's just whatever happens to be around that you can put in there.

MING: And how long does this go for?

A minute or two.

MING: Okay, what else can we do?

Nothing.

MING: Nothing else we can do?

I'm just gonna give it a little bit more cilantro here.

MING: Okay.

Well, I'm just gonna just watch you 'cause I love that just Bayless knows everything to do.

(Rick laughs) I can just sit here.

These are our garnishes.

MING: So this is garnishes, cilantro and onions on top.

Okay, so which one of the cheeses do you want to use for the garnish?

MING: I love the goat.

The goat, okay, we'll put that one on the top.

MING: Only, oh, so you're not using all your cheeses.

Well, I might...

Try that one, okay, let's go back down here because it'll be about ready for us to plate now.

MING: This is so fantastic.

Are you gonna use a spoon, chef?

Yes.

Okay, we should be just about there.

Okay, you can notice now as I do this that the chips are really softening nicely.

MING: Awesome.

That looks so good, chef.

But you need to eat it right now, okay?

MING: I'm in, I'm in with you, chef.

Okay, okay.

MING: I'm ready.

So this is the way that I like them to be served like in a pasta bowl I think is a perfect thing for that.

So there's one, now I'm gonna ask you... MING: I'm gonna let you garnish everything, this is your dish.

Okay, then you serve another bowl of it there while I garnish this.

MING: My mouth literally is watering.

I'm really glad to hear that.

This is my-- this is my soul food, I have to say.

Whenever I feel blue, all I want is a plate of chilaquiles.

MING: Oh god, that looks so good.

Okay, so then you have to always use your cheese in fairly big amounts on it because it's one of the things that sparks all the flavors, and it adds that touch of umami to it.

MING: Especially that, that's the aged one, that's the super aged one, right?

That's the super aged one, and then this is the goat one.

MING: God, this looks so good.

And then I'll take a few of our rinsed onions to go on top of it.

And then what I like to do is just tear up some cilantro and just throw those leaves on the top of it as well.

MING: I'm so ready for this.

Okay, I'm ready, too.

MING: May I?

You may.

MING: Fantastic, Rick.

Going in.

So you'll have to tell me if you like this texture on the tortillas.

This is the sort of my favorite texture.

MING: Mm!

Did we get it all right?

MING: Oh, my god.

Dude, that's perfect.

And the two cheeses and the crema.

And... it's sort of like pasta, right?

MING: Yeah.

So it's like this really delicious, soul-satisfying pasta dish.

MING: So do you serve this in a lot of your restaurants or not?

We serve it in brunch service.

MING: You do.

Yeah.

And we have one version of it that we do in a wood-burning oven where we put melted cheese over it.

MING: I mean this is like the most comfort Mexican food I've ever had.

Totally comforting, absolutely.

So if you like, like enchiladas and things like that you'll really love chilaquiles.

MING: Dude, cheers to you, thank you.

That is so good.

My pleasure.

MING: Make some chilaquiles.

And I love the fact that it's like the Chinese fried rice.

Just open your fridge, every good Mexican household must have leftover tortilla chips, and must have tomatillos or tomatoes of some sort.

Absolutely, it's really one of those things that you can have everything on hand to make it.

And you can make that tomatillo sauce in a flash.

MING: Yeah, we saw.

Awesome, all right, so can you stick around and be my sous?

Absolutely.

MING: I'm doing my version of "nachos."

I can't wait.

MING: Yes, he can.

(Ming laughs) MING: Chef, that was awesome!

I'm so glad you liked it.

MING: Chilaquiles, what does chilaquiles mean?

It actually comes from an Aztec word that means chilies with greens.

Don't ask me why because there was chilies in it but no greens.

MING: Well, cilantro's green.

Well, I guess you could call it.

MING: Okay, so I'm doing a kind of a spicy soy chicken that we're going to shred.

That sounds good.

MING: We're doing it in a pressure cooker and we're actually gonna use these great Chinese rice cakes.

So that's... that's going to be my tortillas.

Oh, okay.

MING: So my version of nachos and chilaquiles, right.

Just like that?

They look hard as a rock.

MING: Yeah, these are hard, this is cooked rice, dehydrated, formed into cakes, then we deep-fry them.

Oh, okay, so they all puff up.

MING: They will puff up.

And then they'll become crispy like nachos.

MING: So we have spice two ways: we have sambal spice and fresh jalapenos.

So seeds and all, thinly sliced, please.

Okay, I can do that, that's an area that I feel comfortable with.

MING: Gonna just smash some garlic, cause again, this is pressure cooker.

Which I love, do you guys use pressure cookers?

I love it.

You know, we don't use them much at work, but I have one for home and I use it all the time.

I really, really like using it because it speeds things along and it actually makes flavors all meld together super fast.

MING: It's amazing, right?

Yeah.

MING: So here's some really good red wine.

Really good red wine?

MING: Really good red wine.

You want really good red wine for this?

MING: No, I mean not like an expensive, I mean drinkable.

Okay.

MING: Naturally brewed soy sauce; if you wanna keep it gluten-free, you can go tamari.

Okay, shall I put these in?

MING: Yeah, please, dump it in.

So garlic's in, jalapeno's in.

Just water because soy sauce is very salty.

Sambal for another level of heat, so this is gonna be spicy, right?

I like that.

MING: Then some star anise, right, a little licorice flavor, cinnamon stick.

If you do the honors, dump that honey in.

Sure, sure.

MING: Just some local honey to balance it off.

And that'll give it a good texture, too, I imagine.

MING: Yeah, and most importantly just balance off the saltiness and the spiciness.

Nice.

MING: One big piece of ginger, all sliced thin.

Chicken.

This seems like it's gonna be really good.

And you have chicken thighs.

MING: Chicken thighs bone-in, skin and everything.

'Cause the skin adds flavor.

MING: It adds so much flavor.

And that's it.

So does this go on?

MING: Yeah, please.

Thank you.

All right, I'll come around here.

Then just cover it up.

The electronic ones are awesome.

I love 'em because you set them aside and they don't make noise and they're out of your way.

MING: So I'm doing 45 minutes, start, that's it.

Bring to temp.

We can finish our cocktail.

I think that's a good idea.

MING: Excellent.

45 minutes, chicken done.

All right, Rick, the 45 minutes.

(steam hissing) Release the pressure.

A little roasted garlic, just take it out and smush it, we'll add it to some whole-fat Greek yogurt.

I'll add some rough chopped cilantro.

This is going to be my crema.

Okay, but you could actually use that for the dish that I made as well.

MING: You know what, I wanted to use your cheese but we ate it all.

(both laugh) At my house I always have the Greek yogurt on hand, and so... MING: I love Greek yogurt.

And so I often use that as my crema.

MING: It's so good.

Good stuff.

MING: And in theory a little better for you, right, because of the probiotics, right, Greek yogurt.

Absolutely.

MING: So rough chopped cilantro.

Okay, and you got this mashed up garlic.

That is like puree.

MING: Oh, that's fantastic.

We're gonna sacrilegiously use some black peppercorn.

(laughs) 'Cause it's not Chinese nor Mexican, this is combo.

Actually, it looks really good.

Are you making Middle Eastern food?

This looks very Middle Eastern.

MING: No, oh yeah, almost-- well, Greek, right, or a raita practically.

All right, that's our crema.

Now as we're waiting we can go ahead and get-- I'm doing family style.

Okay.

MING: So we're gonna do a bed of watercress.

Now that looks nice.

Now that'll be nice and spicy and fresh tasting.

MING: Yeah, this will be like for your chilaquiles because this is the green.

Oh actually, that's really good in chilaquiles too.

Like I said, it'll take anything.

MING: It could take anything.

All right, we just have to wait for this, but as we're waiting, I'm gonna go ahead and fry up some rice cakes.

Okay.

MING: So these are rice that's been cooked, then dehydrated, and then pressed.

And what's the temperature of the oil?

MING: It's hot, like 450.

Oh, okay.

MING: So watch what happens.

Beautiful.

And they are puffing right away.

MING: They almost quadruple in size.

Yeah, yeah, and that's what you really want to see is that immediate popping, right?

MING: Yeah, which is why you need the oil at 450.

Look at that, isn't that great?

And these are awesome, my son used to have a gluten allergy, right?

So he couldn't eat anything but rice cakes 'cause these are 100% gluten-free.

Beautiful.

MING: All right, chef, you do me the honors and get that out, those are good to go.

It's going, it's coming.

(Ming chuckles) One at a time.

MING: Give you tweezers, then you could've been a Michelin restaurant.

Smaller strainer and a smaller bowl or plate would have been nice too.

MING: This is looking good now.

Oh yeah...

This is gonna be just perfect.

All right, chef, how's that looking?

Very good, I'm taking the last two out right now.

Boy, these fried up really, really greaseless.

I mean they're beautiful.

MING: Isn't that amazing?

Here's our spicy chicken that's literally falling off the bone.

All we have to do is-- here, I'll give you a couple forks, Rick, and just shred those for me if you don't mind.

Thank you, sir.

MING: Skin and all.

Skin and all, okay.

MING: Just take the bone.

Just get the bone out, yeah, and the skin just breaks up just like the meat does.

MING: Exactly.

Beautiful stuff.

MING: Oh yeah, baby.

And it smells so good!

MING: Oh yeah, take the bone out.

Now tell me about why you chose chicken thighs.

MING: It's the best part of the chicken next to the oysters, right?

It's the most flavor.

I figured that's what you would say.

I think we all agree on that.

MING: All right, you go through that de-bone and I'm gonna plate this up.

Okay.

MING: So we have our rice cakes.

So, like you, you had tortillas.

So we're just gonna put rice cakes down.

Okay.

MING: All right.

Then we're gonna take a bunch of this... chicken.

Ah, nice.

(sizzles) MING: Hear that sizzle?

(Rick chuckles) That's why they call them sizzling rice cakes, right?

Oftentimes put them into a broth, right?

MING: Sizzling into a sizzling rice soup, exactly.

That's why like your dish you have to eat this immediately, right?

Boy, that looks good.

Now my mouth is really watering.

MING: Isn't that good?

All right, then we're gonna get just a little of this broth.

You don't have to go crazy with this broth.

(rice cakes sizzle) Oh, keep the sizzling going.

And this broth has some good spice to it, right?

You've got those two jalapenos.

Now it's interesting the wine in there.

MING: Right?

That gives it... and there's a lot of spice from the jalapeno, but the wine really takes it into an interesting place that's not just what I would expect out of an Asian... MING: More it's like a red roast.

Yeah, yeah.

MING: There we go, my friend, and then a little bit of cilantro on top of that.

I think we got two compatible dishes here.

MING: It's time to eat.

Let's go.

MING: Let's do it.

All right, Mr. Bayless, a little bit of ale for you.

Beautiful.

This looks so good.

It looks like the kind of thing you just want to dig into.

MING: Cheers to you.

Cheers.

MING: Yeah, this is... this looks pretty good, I'm not gonna lie.

Let's see if it tastes any good.

There's your chicken.

Well I know that-- I already stole a little taste of the chicken so I know that's good.

MING: All right, give it a try.

So are we supposed to pick this up or are we supposed to use a fork?

MING: No, I think a fork, knife, spoon, hand.

All of the above.

Yeah, I'll probably take a piece like this.

Yeah, you can actually pick up the little pieces of it like that and top 'em like a nacho.

MING: Mm, spicy enough for you?

Mm... MING: Not crazy spicy though, right?

Perfect, actually, for me.

It's not not spicy, but it's... but I love it.

MING: All the heat builds up.

You're right though, the watercress at the back you get that kind of good bitterness.

Oh yeah.

MING: So 12th season... Now that's good.

MING: It's not bad, right?

It's really good.

MING: You're the first person in the world next to me to eat this, so... (Ming laughs) Is that right?

MING: Yeah!

Come on.

I want to test it on the greatest chefs in the country.

(Ming chuckles) You know, there are some people that would want just one of those jalapenos in there 'cause this is pretty spicy, but I love it.

MING: I think it's fantastic.

So 12 seasons of Mexico: One Plate at a Time.

That's right.

MING: How many books you've written?

Um... like nine now, yeah.

I just love writing, I love sharing things with people, and doing it through the TV is just amazing 'cause I get to take people to Mexico.

MING: Your best show, your-- the lucha libre show, right, the Mexican wrestlers.

Dude, and that torta, the torta was like the size of Mexico.

Yes, and if you eat the whole thing they give it to you for free or something.

MING: Yeah, and then you go to the hospital.

(laughing): You do.

MING: My friend.

This has been so great.

Thank you so much, Ming, I really love being here.

MING: You're the best, Rick, as always.

And for all you out there, we love you too, and as always, peace and good eating.