♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - This week on Milk Street we travel to Mexico City, where we make the very best pot of beans in the world with chef Eduardo Garcia.

We master a 15-minute recipe for tortilla soup.

And, finally, we present a Mexican corn cake.

It's so easy that the batter is made in a blender.

Stay tuned for the everyday cooking of Mexico City.

Funding for this series was provided by the following: - For 25 years, Consumer Cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect.

We offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our U.S.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you.

To learn more, visit ConsumerCellular.tv.

♪ ♪ - Maria, we're back.

We enjoyed Oaxaca so much, and you as tour guide, we came back.

- I'm so happy, we're just discovering a new location now.

♪ ♪ (speaking indistinctly) ♪ ♪ Breaded, chicken breast, cream... - You had me with the chilaquiles and now there's a breaded chicken breast and more on top of that?

- Yeah.

♪ ♪ Are you ready, Chris?

- Well, you, you sold this pretty hard.

I just got to say.

That's why we get up at 4:00 in the morning and waited in line.

(loud crunch) Mm!

Bring this to New York.

Actually, I don't care about New York, bring it to Boston.

- Yeah, exactly.

♪ ♪ So Mexico City's like a kaleidoscope of things.

It's, in a way, a representation of what the country is in itself.

♪ ♪ Ah!

Carnitas.

♪ ♪ And here you see Mexico City the tacos always have two tortillas, So we call it the tortilla and the photocopy.

You got one for the food and one is back up.

- Yeah.

- So just in case, which is perfect for me.

♪ ♪ - So we're going to get on a boat, kind of a barge, go up an old Aztec canal.

- Well, we're going to Xochimilco.

They're known as Aztecs, but actually the most accurate name for them is the Mexicas.

They were the ones who built the sort of artificial fields for their crops because, you know, Mexico City originally was just a tiny island surrounded by water, so they didn't have fields to farm.

So, of course, they had to... find a solution.

- So they dig up from the bottom of lake and they formed floating islands.

- With layers of this mud from the lake, and also, you know, bamboo and other sort of organic materials.

And now they're like almost firm soil.

This project now is trying to rescue the original purpose of these soils because a lot of people abandoned them.

And now we're going to see chef Eduardo García, from Máximo Bistrot, who's going to cook with us some beans.

- Sounds good to me.

I can't wait.

I love beans.

- These ones are gonna be really good.

You're gonna love it.

It's a beautiful place.

- The water is so dark.

♪ ♪ (people conversing indistinctly) ♪ ♪ - So those are the chinampas.

They're manmade islands.

Made over a thousand... some over a thousand years ago.

♪ ♪ Doesn't feel like it, but we are still in Mexico City.

This is still considered one of the largest metropolis in the entire world.

And... but we're in nature.

♪ ♪ - You said because the volcanoes are nearby this used to be a lake, and all that volcanic soil was used to build up these islands, which means that they're incredibly fertile, right?

- As you can see the soil is very dark from volcanic ashes.

- I came down here specifically to cook with you and cook beans.

What's the basic formula here?

It's water, beans, salt.

- That's it.

Basically, that is it.

And then after the Conquest, when we got onions, garlic, we started to flavor the beans with those type of ingredients, but before that it was just beans, water, salt.

- And then you make a sofrito.

You cook it in a skillet for ten minutes and add it to the beans just before serving, essentially, right?

- Yes.

- Because it brings out the flavors.

- It brings out the flavor, and then, plus, you still want that texture of the onion.

But imagine if you started in the beginning.

The onion would literally like just... - After three hours.

- Yeah, it would just like dissolve.

So you don't want that you want to keep those flavors.

- What is it about beans that tells us something about maybe the origins of Mexican cooking or just about cooking in general?

- It's very, very important to Mexican culture.

Especially to the indigenous of Mexico, because it's a very cheap staple to their everyday meals.

We're going to be using one of my favorite ingredients, which is the onion.

I love onions because they flavor everything, and also because when I was a little kid, I was a migrant worker.

I planted and picked Vidalia onions in Georgia.

It's extremely hard work.

I loved it.

It was a playground for me.

- How old were you when you first did that?

- I started when I was eight.

Up until 14.

I should hate this ingredient.

- (chuckling): I was gonna just ask you.

- A basic sofrito, using onion and garlic, and your favorite dry chili.

There are a few ways of making sure that your dry chili doesn't bitter your food.

The first one is frying it.

And the second one is soaking it overnight.

- Let's start with the beans.

What kind of beans are these?

- These are called flor de mayo.

They're one of my favorite beans.

because they are small and meaty.

♪ ♪ So, Chris, when in Mexico, this is your spoon.

This is blue corn tortillas.

You make a spoon like this.

♪ ♪ What do you think?

- Mm!

They're earthy, and meaty, and rich and deep.

- Yes.

- They're substantial.

- Yes, that, like mental palate filling.

- Exactly.

It's not just beans, it's beans.

Phenomenal.

Eduardo.

- Thank you so much.

- Yeah, thank you so much.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Not too long ago, I was chatting with Joe Yonan, who's the food editor of The Washington Post.

I mentioned I was going to Mexico City.

He said, "Well, you have to meet up with this guy, Eduardo García, who cooks the best beans in the world," and this is one of the most amazing recipes.

There are lots of techniques here, too.

And also you'll end up being a better cook after making this recipe.

- The beans you had in Mexico are very similar to pinto beans in appearance, but they are meatier and creamier there.

Ours are a little more on the dry side, so we opted to use cranberry beans, sometimes called borlotti beans, sometimes called Roman beans.

They have a denser, creamier texture.

They're also a little bit plumper.

So what we did with the cranberry beans, and what we do with most beans that we're gonna cook a pot of, is we pre-soak them.

When you add a little bit of salt to the soaking water, it helps to pre-season them, so they already come seasoned all the way through by the time they're done cooking.

So we have onions going already here, and we have decided to use lard because that's what they use in Mexico.

- It makes me smile.

- I know me, too, I'm excited.

See how the onions are very lightly browned?

This is the point where we're ready to start adding other ingredients.

So here comes the garlic and the cilantro stems because we will use the cilantro leaves a little bit later.

So we're just gonna cook this for about 30 seconds until the garlic becomes aromatic.

Okay, we're ready for the beans these are soaked and drained.

(food sizzling) Ah, love that.

And then the broth, please.

We're using chicken broth for this recipe but you could certainly use water.

Water would be the more traditional liquid added, so these need to come to a full boil.

Then we will turn them down to low and put the lid on.

And in 45 minutes, they'll be ready.

While we're waiting on the beans to cook, we will make the sofrito.

Now this was another unusual thing about the recipe that you had in Mexico, is that the sofrito was added at the end of the beans cooking rather than at the beginning.

- You add it at the end-- and you could do this for a lot of recipes, not just the beans-- you get the fresh flavors at the end.

- Right.

So we're going to start with more lard because we can.

The pan is the heating on a medium.

We'll add the onions.

Now these are white onions, which is the traditional everyday onion in Mexico, but yellow onions is what you would use if you don't have white onions in your grocery store.

Now these we want to let get a little bit darker than we did for the beans.

So while the onions cook we'll add a little bit of salt.

These will take about five to seven minutes to get that deep brown.

We'll turn this down to low and put the lid on.

And I'll probably start checking these at 40- to 45-minute mark just to make sure, because you never know.

- Well, could be an hour or more, depending on the beans.

- It could, yes.

Let us proceed with the garlic.

This time we have chopped it, so it's in smaller pieces, obviously, and jalapeno.

So we took out the seeds and the ribs to temper the heat just a little bit.

The minute you smell the garlic, add the tomatoes.

(sizzling) Let the tomatoes cook until they have completely broken down, all the liquids have evaporated.

And these will take about ten to 15 minutes to fully break down.

♪ ♪ The beans are done-- creamy, rich.

It's got a beautiful cloudiness to it, which is what you want.

The bean starch has come out in there.

And they have been sitting now for about 30 minutes after we took them off the burner.

Let's take a quick look at the sofrito, which finished cooking a little while ago.

Look at that.

You put it through.

- That does look great.

And also smells great.

- We have one more quick thing to make, and that is the salsa fresca.

So we're starting with fresh tomatoes, chopped.

Going to add a little bit of salt to those.

We have a little bit of white vinegar, some jalapenos, and some freshly chopped cilantro, and a little bit of red onion.

Now would you mind drizzling in some oil?

That looks great.

Okay, so this needs about 15 minutes for the flavors to develop, and then we will serve them up.

We let the beans sit for 30 minutes to thicken the broth, and now we brought them back up to a simmer.

The sofrito is ready to go in.

All right.

Would you like to stir?

- Sure.

- Thank you.

I know you've been dying to get your... - Mitts on this?

- Yes.

And remember the cilantro stems that were in the beans?

Here are the tops.

And we will get that bright, bold herby flavor added at the end.

And this beautiful color, actually, too.

So you have been very patient.

There you go.

This is an extra added attraction that you can add on top; it's completely optional.

And that's why everyone has their bowl of beans to do as they like.

- The glistening, the pico de gallo is nice and fresh.

The sofrito... - Think we can eat them now?

- Mm... - Okay.

- Oh, this is so good.

- The texture of these cranberry beans is really creamy.

I make a huge pot almost every week, and freeze them, and use them all week long.

- So I traveled 7,000 miles to come back with a recipe for beans, Mexican bean stew.

It was the highlight of my trip.

Meaty beans.

The pico de gallo at the end is fresh.

The sofrito gives depth.

Has just about everything going on, and then the fresh cilantro at the end also perks it up.

A great dish.

And it's a great recipe for a Sunday afternoon because you can enjoy them all week.

♪ ♪ - You know, in Mexico City there are lots of indoor markets.

They all have little restaurants in them, and this one was a great restaurant-- La Cocina de Mi Mamá-- and this cake, it was really a corn cake.

I've never had anything like it.

It wasn't cornbread, it was lighter.

Had this great delicate texture.

Wasn't too sweet.

Little powdered sugar on top.

I mean, I can't say enough about it, so I'll stop.

It was amazing.

That's all I can say.

- The fact that it was made in a blender makes this super, super easy to make at home.

Do not use frozen corn kernels for this recipe simply because it makes the cake gummy.

To get the corn off of our fresh corn cobs here, stabilize the corn with the point facing up, and then use a nice sharp chef knife, and cut right down the side.

Now that all of our corn kernels are off the cobs, we'll go ahead and measure out about 250 grams worth of corn kernels.

And that's gonna be about a cup and a half here.

To that we could go ahead and add in an entire 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk, which, needless to say, is my favorite part.

- This ingredient's used all over Mexico and Central America, right?

It's just used in cakes, like tres leches cake would use this as well, right?

- Aside from that, we're also going to throw in our quarter cup of yogurt.

And, finally, a quarter cup of cornmeal.

Now that everything's in there, all we got to do is blend this entire mixture until it's smooth.

(blender whirring) (blender stops) We could let this mixture sit for about ten minutes, and in those ten minutes the cornmeal is going to start to hydrate.

And that way it's not as coarse when it bakes up.

- Okay.

♪ ♪ - Now to bring this batter together, we do need to incorporate some dry flour in here.

So here I have a cup and a quarter plus two tablespoons of all-purpose flour.

Two tablespoons of cornstarch to ensure that we don't develop as much gluten in this cake.

We'll also throw in two teaspoons of baking powder, and, finally, half a teaspoon of salt.

So with that dry mixture combined, we can now take a look back at our wet mixture.

So this batter has been sitting for about ten minutes.

All that cornmeal is starting to hydrate, but we're going to add in a couple more elements here in the form of two large eggs, as well as two large egg yolks.

And, finally, half a cup of neutral oil.

And now we'll blend this until it's smooth, and that should only take five seconds on low.

(blender whirring intermittently) And that should be nice and smooth.

We'll pour this wet mixture into a large bowl here.

- You know, any, any cake you could make in a blender... (laughs) That's pretty cool.

- Absolutely delicious, too.

And now we can throw in our dry mix.

Beautiful.

And we want to whisk this just until the flours are incorporated, barely moistened, with no lumps of dry flour remaining.

Okay, here I have a nine-inch cake pan that has been greased with a little bit of cooking spray.

- By the way, you can have small streaks of flour, because magically, during baking they just disappear.

- Right, now, I have the oven preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, with the rack set right in the middle position.

And we'll bake this off for about 40 to 45 minutes, or until we stick a toothpick in it and it comes out clean right in the center.

Chris, our cake is done.

It baked for 40 minutes, and then we let it cool on a cooling rack for 30.

We turned it out and here it is on the plate.

- You're very proud of this cake.

- I am so proud of this cake.

- Well, it looks perfectly baked.

- The only other little adjustment we'll make is to dust this off with a little bit of powdered sugar.

We'll dust right around.

How's that look?

- Pretty perfect.

When you travel, you look for specific recipes, of course, before you go, you have to plan it.

And then you always find something just pops up out of nowhere, and it turns out to be the best recipe of the entire trip.

This was it.

- Awesome.

- Now the first thing you think of is this is cornbread.

Well, cornbread's much heavier.

This is lighter.

It's velvety.

It's cake.

Aw!

There's something about this I can't describe.

But I think it's the sweetened condensed milk that adds that depth, you know, that's really good.

- Almost makes this kind of tip a hat to custard in a way.

It has that super smooth flavor.

- It does.

So Mexican sweet corn cake is not a cornbread, it's lighter, it has velvety-- almost like a devil's food cake a little bit.

Great flavor with the sweetened condensed milk, the corn, a little cornmeal.

It's almost indescribable, which for me, after doing this for so many years, sounds impossible.

But it's just got a great flavor.

You just got to try it.

Mexican sweet corn cake.

Great job.

- Thank you very much.

- And I'm gonna have this piece and then another one.

♪ ♪ - Now I went to Mexico City and I learned I was wrong-- about tortilla soup anyway.

I thought it was like had chicken in it about 12 ingredients and took an hour and a half to make.

It was like more like a Saturday recipe.

Well, I went to Yasmin's house, where she cooked this recipe in about 12 minutes.

She put some stuff in a blender, put it in a saucepan, and then put it on some chips.

And it was the kind of thing she said she'd make for kids when they came home from school it was almost a snack food.

So we took sopa de tortilla, uh... changed it around just a little bit.

But it's still a simple recipe, and it is delicious.

- It is a really simple recipe, and, in fact, I do make it for my kids all the time because it does literally take about ten minutes to throw together.

We're gonna start by adding two tablespoons of lard.

Can also use leftover bacon fat if you have that, or any other neutral cooking oil.

Just gonna heat this medium high heat until it's shimmering.

We're gonna go ahead and add one white onion.

It's just been sliced.

You don't have to worry about dicing anything too small because this will be blended.

We're just gonna cook this for about five minutes till the onions are softened.

Okay, Chris, these look great.

We have six cloves of garlic that have just been smashed.

I have two jalapenos that have been seeded and sliced.

Teaspoon of cumin seed.

And last, here we have the stems from one bunch of cilantro, been roughly chopped.

And I'm just gonna stir this in.

Let it go for about 30 seconds until its fragrant.

Okay, Chris, so this looks great.

Now I'm gonna add tomatoes.

And here we have cocktail tomatoes, because they have the best flavor all year round, and they've just been cored.

This is two pounds of tomatoes.

If you can't find these you can also use cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes, and they can just be thrown in whole.

And then here we just have a teaspoon of sugar.

It's gonna help balance out the acidity of the tomatoes.

And then last, we have two cups of corn tortilla chips into the soup.

And actually not only did this add a little bit of flavor, but it helps to thicken the soup a little bit.

And if you could just hand me the chicken stock here.

We have six cups of chicken stock.

Okay, now I'm gonna increase the heat.

I want to bring this to a boil.

- So you're getting the tortillas right into the soup early on.

- We are, we're gonna add some at the end as well.

So don't worry, you're not gonna have to eat soggy chips in your soup.

- I was a little worried.

- Okay, now, as soon as this comes to a boil, I'm gonna turn down the heat a little bit to medium.

I'm gonna put a lid on it, let it simmer for about ten minutes.

What you want to look for is the tomatoes to soften, and then their skins will start to peel away a little bit.

- Okay.

- And then after that we're going to just let it sit uncovered for about five minutes before we blend it.

♪ ♪ Okay, now after the soup has sat just for about five minutes because you want to let it cool down just a little bit before we put it in the blender, we're gonna have to do this in batches.

And the reason we do this is because when you're blending really hot liquids, you don't want to fill the blender more than, like, halfway full.

For obvious reasons.

- Well, why?

What do you mean?

- The steam can build up.

You know, kablooey.

So I'm gonna go ahead-- I left the top off this.

I'm going to use a towel to cover it so it doesn't blow up.

(blender whirring, increasing in speed) (whirring stops) Okay.

I'm gonna go ahead and transfer this to our bowl.

You can already see how nicely the corn chips have thickened up the soup.

It looks great.

I'm gonna go ahead and do another batch.

And we're going to keep on doing this until all the soup is pureed.

Okay, Chris, now the soup has been all blended, and I've just been heating it up again.

And you notice, we haven't added any salt to the recipe yet.

- I did notice that.

- You did notice that.

Well the reason is tortilla chips can really vary in their salt content.

So it's a good idea to wait until the end.

And this could use a little bit of salt, but not much.

It has a really nice flavor, actually.

And a little bit of pepper.

We have the leaves from our bunch of cilantro that have been chopped.

And I'm gonna go ahead and add half of these into the soup before we serve.

It's a beautiful consistency.

It smells delicious.

I can't wait to eat it.

You see, we have some nice, crispy fresh tortilla chips.

- They sound crispy.

- Yes.

Go ahead and put-- yup, right in the bottom of bowl there.

Perfect.

I'm going to spoon some soup right on top of the chips.

Okay, and now you see we have a lovely array of all these different toppings that we can put on top of our soup.

We have the rest of the cilantro.

We have sour cream, cotija, and we have chopped avocado.

- So I have a question for you.

Do you let other people top your food or do you have to have control over it?

- I like to have control over it.

But I'm happy to top your soup if you'd like me to.

- But so I'll just... we'll do it independently, how about that?

- Sounds good.

- Yeah.

- And so you can see, Chris, now that we've added all our toppings it's really added a lot of bulk to the soup.

- Well, yeah, with these toppings, you could put it on anything it would taste good.

Mm!

Boy, is that good.

- This is great.

- Thanks, Mom.

I'm back from school.

- (laughing) - But it really, I mean, it took about... literally about ten minutes to pull together, and it's absolutely delicious.

And could be a quick lunch.

It could be a simple dinner.

- Well, what's interesting is you make a soup, you know, you're always told it's long, slow simmering.

You need the depth of flavor.

But given the ingredients that went into it, even ten or 15 minutes, you actually get a lot of flavor.

- Yeah.

Absolutely.

- So tortilla soup.

Very simple.

Great afternoon snack when the kids come home-- like me-- from school, and you could make it in about 15 minutes.

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

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Please access our content, including our step-by-step recipe videos, from your smartphone, your tablet, or your computer.

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Order your copy of the Milk Street cookbook for $27, 40% less than the cover price, and receive a Milk Street tote with your order at no additional charge.

Call 855-MILK-177, or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- For 25 years, Consumer Cellular has been offering no contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like.

Our U.S.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you.

To learn more, visit ConsumerCellular.tv.

♪ ♪ - Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to be the first to welcome you to Tel Aviv... - Welcome to Oaxaca's airport.

- Welcome to Beirut.

♪ ♪ (man speaking Hebrew) (speaking world language) - We call it supa kanja.

It's the word for gumbo.

♪ ♪ - Christopher, you have to make the authentic, original cotoletta alla Bolognese for me.

♪ ♪ - So this is the Eduardo García blender.

- This is the no electricity.

♪ ♪ - Next is dessert.

- That is really good.

♪ ♪ - I notice when you cook sometimes you add a little bit of something and then you just put the whole bowl in.

- I like to be generous with my food.

Generosity is important in cooking.

♪ ♪ - Can start building bridges and food is definitely a perfect common ground.

♪ ♪ - This is a generational thing.

It's... it's something that you inherit.

♪ ♪ - Yeah, that was great.

(woman speaking Mandarin) - What was this for-- what did she say?

- You get one more chance.

- Saluté.

- How is it?

He's speechless.

- I'm speechless.

That's so good.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪