- [Yia] A single ingredient tells a story.

- [Man] This is beautiful.

- [Yia] About a person.

- My dad used to make this.

- [Yia] A place.

- Smells like home.

(man laughing) - [Yia] A culture.

- So if we lose this, then we lose everything.

- I'm Chef Yia Vang.

- [Woman] That's awesome.

- I just want to impress my Puerto Rican auntie.

(woman laughing) - [Yia] Step into the kitchen with local chefs.

(man laughing) Oh my gosh.

As we relish the cuisines and culture of our neighbors.

(upbeat cheerful music) This episode is full of fat and flavor.

We're deep frying Indian street food with Jyotiee Kistner.

Gerard Klass' soul food sandwich starts with fried chicken on a cornbread bun.

But first, Gustavo Romero takes us from corn kernel to tamale.

This is like a little present.

- You get to wrap it, you get to see what's in there.

- This is one of the most tender, fluffy tamales I've ever had.

(upbeat cheery music) Gustavo Romeo, chef.

This is such a beautiful array of corn.

I'm really excited because it's something that I'm not really familiar with.

- Today, we're gonna make tamales and we're gonna go through the whole process.

Starting from the nixtamalization, the grinding, making the dough and then eating some tamales.

- Awesome, I think here in the States, a lot of people, when they think corn, they just think yellow corn, right?

- The U.S. is one of the biggest producers of corn in the world by far, but Mexico happens to be where corn started.

We have about 60 different kinds of heirloom corn.

And one of the reasons there is a big movement with Mexican chefs trying to promote the usage of heirloom corn is because it's getting lost.

And this is part of our culture.

This is the base of Mexican cooking.

If you go to every household in Mexico at mealtime, you will find something made out of corn, in every house.

So if we lose this then we lose everything.

- Growing up, did you use all these varieties of corn?

- Not all of them.

I grew up in Central Mexico.

So all the ones that you see kind of long, those are from Central Mexico.

Those are gonna be easy to cook, super soft, perfect for tortillas.

The small ones, they're a little tougher, harder to grind so they're perfect for tamales.

Your masa for tamale, you want it to be a little grainy so it has the bite.

- So talk me through the process.

Is it just you soak the corn and then you just grind it up and use it?

- We start with the nixtamalization.

- What's that, for people who don't know?

- Nixtamalization comes from an Aztec word, Nix, which means ash.

When they started cooking corn, they figured it out.

They add the ashes from wood.

It will alkalinize and it will become edible.

And then eventually, with the industrialization, they started using limestone.

(rock thumping) We cut a piece of the rock, we put it on water that essentially boils it.

It activates it and then after that, we use to pour corn.

- I'm thinking about the first people who've done this.

Who would have thought to take ashes, and put it in there?

I mean, the science behind it, but not realizing what they were doing.

- What they were doing.

- And that's incredible that today, you're still using the same techniques.

- So we rinse it, so we'll remove all the little skin.

So now it's clean, now it's totally edible.

So we're gonna put everything on the grinder.

Just pour it on top.

It might jump a little.

(machine grinding) - Why is it important for you to share about corn and what it means to you?

- You know, for me, it start a very long time ago when I first moved to the States and I remember very clearly the first time they say, "We're gonna go to a Mexican restaurant."

I was really happy.

I was super excited.

We got to the Mexican restaurant, live music.

It was beautiful.

And then we got our food and it was not the food that we knew.

And the one thing that I remember, it was grabbing a tortilla and just be like, "This is not what it's supposed to be."

And when I moved to Minnesota and I realized that all the tortillas, they have machines to do tortillas with flour, but nobody actually does the nixtamalization.

So I saw a necessity to show people what we actually eat there.

I think as a Mexican chef, I need to show people what our culture really is.

- [Yia] Perfect.

- For what we're gonna do today, this is exactly what we need.

We need it to be a little loose.

We needed to have consistency, 'cause that's gonna give the bite of the tamales.

For the tamales, we're gonna add our lard, our fat.

- [Yia] lard.

I have a friend that tells me that if the Aztecs would have butter, they would have used butter instead.

but we didn't have butter.

- I don't know.

- I'm a lard fan.

- I'm a lard fan, too.

- So we're gonna add about 20% of the weight of the flour.

We're gonna add it on fat.

I know it seems like a lot, but you're gonna thank me later.

- I'm thanking you now.

(Gustavo laughs) - And then all we wanna do is whip it until it is soft.

And the reason that we do this, is we're trying incorporate air into the fat so our tamales are fluffier and soft.

(mixer whirring) All right.

So you can see, it's almost like a- - It's like a whipped cream.

- It's like a whip cream, yes.

- More delicious whip cream.

- Definitely more delicious.

We're gonna add our meal flour and then you add salt at this point, but since our lard is already seasoned, we're not going to add any salt.

And then we're just gonna let it incorporate it and at this point we're gonna add our liquid.

This time, we have some chicken stock and then the texture that we want, the runnier your tamale mixture is, the softer your tamale is gonna be.

To me, it almost resemble like a soft hummus.

- Oh, okay.

- You know, like- - That makes sense.

- You're gonna see, when we put it on the leaf, you want that schmear kind of... - Schmear, yeah.

I think a lot of people think that sometimes tamales is almost like dough.

- Right.

Right.

- But it's more... it's runny.

- Yeah.

When you think about it, the steam dries it.

- Yup.

- All right, so we are good to go with our dough.

- Does this come with just consistently working with this and knowing what you're looking for?

- You know this, with ethnic cuisines, it's not a true recipe to anything.

So it's really about the feel and the texture and you learn after time what are you looking for.

- And I think that that makes food so personal.

Cause you're really... you have to be involved.

- Exactly.

So if you see the batter, then you can play with it.

And it's just kinda like a schmear texture to it.

- Yeah.

You're right.

A soft hummus.

That's what I'm thinking of right when I see this.

(upbeat music) - We're gonna make some pork and chicken tamales.

- You do it first.

I just- - So- - I get real nervous with the schmear.

- [Gustavo] With the schmear?

- Yeah.

- It's very easy.

So we gonna start grabbing it.

We're gonna to grab a leaf and then we're just gonna grab a little bit of the dough and then you just smear all over there, and then you wanna keep it on the middle, and then I'll show you why.

- These are corn husks, right?

- These are corn husks, yes.

- And then you just put them in water, rehydrate them?

- I usually use hot water because it just makes it softer and more pliable, but that's all you need.

So after you have your spread, then we add our stuffing.

It could be- - So this one's the chicken?

- That's the chicken.

And then you want it to look good.

You want it to have some... - You want to give it a little... - Yeah, you want it...

I mean... - This is a chicken tamale, after all.

- It's a chicken tamale.

And then add some extra sauce, and then- - For that sauce, that's the sauce you cook it... the chicken in.

- Right.

And then you just wanna wrap and then you close it.

- [Yia] Okay.

Then you fold the bottom.

- And then you fold the bottom and then that's why you wanna keep it in the center, 'cause if you put it too lower, you won't be able to fold it and then you put it too high, it will come out.

- Okay.

- And then we just lay them down on our... - Steamer.

- Our steamer.

So, give it a shot.

- I'm gonna try.

Oh, man.

I'm nervous, man.

(upbeat guitar music) And then just right in the middle here?

- Right in the middle.

- And then you almost create like a little bowl in the middle, right?

- Yeah, you wanna give them a little bit of space where you... the stuff that you're gonna put in there is gonna be.

That's perfect.

- Put pork in there.

You got the sauce.

Tell me a little bit more about tamales and what does it resonate inside of you?

- It's mostly for a special occasion.

So we eat in my Christmas, we eat it on birthdays, celebrations, that's pretty much when the tamales come in.

The family gets together.

Everybody brings something.

And then everybody sit down and make tamales.

Tamales has a big, big history in Mexican cuisine.

We always say that it's our Mexican energy bar.

- [Yia] Yeah.

(laughs) - [Gustavo] It has everything that you need.

It has a lot of protein because of the meat and it has a lot of carbs.

They just get you going for the whole day.

(metal clanging) - [Yia] How do you know when it's done?

- [Gustavo] So they steam for about 45 minutes and then you you wanna touch them.

When they start to feel...

It has a point where they get firm and that they get soft again because of the fat content.

And then they're just ready to eat.

(Mexican music) - Dude.

This is one of the most tender, fluffy tamales I've ever had.

Because I've had some where it's just very dense.

But man, that whipping of that lard.

And you can taste that.

Who taught you how to make tamales?

- Well, the funny thing is I wasn't allowed to be in the kitchen growing up.

I grow up in a family where the men will go to work and they will do chores in the field.

And the women will stay in the house and cook.

The meals were always spectacular.

But I never learned how to cook from them.

I think a lot of the cooking that I do is trying to recreate those memories that I have of the food that I ate.

When I start cooking Mexican food, it just comes natural.

And then you know what did you want so you just keep trying and trying until you get it right.

- There's almost this soul care to your own heart when you're doing it.

- For me, cooking Mexican food, that's what's all about.

If I'm making a mole, if I'm making tamales, while I'm making this, the memories that come to my head, like the smells, the sensation.

That's why I like to cook.

- Do you know we have recipes for all the dishes featured on Relish?

Check them out on tptoriginals.org/relish.

(upbeat soul music) - This was like the delicacy when I was a kid.

Eating this one ball was my dream on Monday, you know?

(bell dings) - Jyotiee, what are we making today?

- We are making Batata Kachori.

It's like a pastry stuffed with coconut filling in it.

- What is the first step into making this?

- So we need to first grate these potatoes.

We are making the dough out of batata.

It's a potato.

That's a Portuguese word.

They bring potato in India.

So it's not really Indian word, but we use that very commonly.

So I prefer to do this quick way instead of mashing with hands.

- Sometimes when you're making dough out of potato, you're mashing with hand, you overwork it.

- Correct.

- And then it gets real tough.

- Then flour.

Tapioca flour is very common in India.

We normally use that for binding agent.

- In Hmong food, we use a lot of tapioca flour, too.

- Oh, really?

- And tapioca starch.

- Oh, nice.

Batata kachori comes from my city.

- I would love to hear more about Pune.

- I grew up in Pune, which is very close to Mumbai.

It's a cultural hub for my state, Maharashtra.

It's the biggest software industry in India right now In Pune, there is a balance.

It's modern and tradition.

So this dough is good.

Next, we are doing the filling.

We need to chop some dates and cashews.

The date is my version of it.

In the original recipe, we normally get raisins.

- And when you first learned how to do this, was there a recipe or was it just by doing it by feel?

- My dad used to make this and he used to make all these delicious recipes and I used to watch him.

If you name it like, "Okay, I want to eat this," he will make sure and try for you.

As I grew up, I started thinking, maybe that was his way of expressing love, because like many other Indian parents, my parents are not expressive.

They will not say I love you.

- Oh, I know of that.

- No, you never heard that in an Indian household.

It's taken for granted, like you love each other, but he used to show that from his food.

Then we had a lot of street vendors around my house.

I used to roam around and just watch them and go there for free food.

(chuckles) Because if cute kid is watching you, they give you food.

- They give you a little something.

- So that's how I learned.

I watched and learned.

(upbeat music) So our... mixture is ready.

- I'm a little nervous 'cause I'm not really good with pastry.

- First thing is just take some oil- - Get a little oil.

- your own hand.

It's going to be sticky and it will be okay.

Take a small, lemon-sized ball.

- It's almost like Play-Doh.

- Yeah.

(laughs) And then slowly press it down to make like a small bowl.

You're doing good.

- I've made a lot of dumplings with my mom.

- Oh, yeah.

- But you're so right.

The dough is so light.

- We are going to place our filling, which is maybe one spoon or two.

Push it down so it stays in place and slowly start closing the opening.

- Okay.

- And then just pinch it a little bit.

If you have too much oil, it's not going to pinch and close.

The trick is not to get it break because the filling is dry.

If it comes out in oil, it's going to spoil the whole thing.

- [Yia] Come on!

I was getting too cocky.

(woman laughing) - [Jyotiee] You have to go slow.

Lightly roll it like that and then to roll it in tapioca flour to give a little texture to it.

- Like extra crunch on the outside.

- Correct.

And then you keep it here.

- Looks simple enough.

(woman laughs) - This kachori is fasting food in India.

- [Yia] What do you mean by that?

- It sounds really weird when you say fasting food, because you're fasting, why you need food?

Each day of week is assigned to a god.

So people worship that particular god and they will do fasting that day, that they will not eat technically food, but they can eat this.

How this is acceptable as a fasting, I do not know that.

I asked those questions to many people, nobody knows that.

But this is how we grew up eating.

When it's fasting, kids are happy, because you get all this tasty food.

We are ready to fry and then eat.

You have to make sure oil is not extreme hot.

It will just burn down the potato quickly.

So it's like medium to high.

And another secret is not to touch the ball until it gives a coating around.

Otherwise they break very easily.

- How long do you fry these?

- [Jyotiee] Until you see a light, golden shade on it.

and then they are done.

There is nothing to cook here.

It just making the color crisp a little bit and get that nice bite into it.

You're going to eat all of these.

- [Yia] Oh, I'm... - [Jyotiee] They are very light.

- [Yia] It's health food.

- [Jyotiee] You just- - [Yia] It's plant-based.

This looks delicious.

- Here we go.

Let's dig in.

- They're so delicate.

They're so light.

Before you were saying how they're so light.

As I'm eating this, I'm thinking about the flavors.

I can taste the heat from the chilis, but then the cumin comes in, the sweetness from the coconut and the date.

The little bit of the acid from that lime.

Everything's on it.

- You can eat... at least I can eat six, seven at a time.

- Oh, definitely.

- It's that easy.

Main influence was my dad.

My families, and another influence was those street vendors.

Now I'm doing this here, getting my food out there so people know where I come from, where my food is coming from.

It gives me a happiness to share that with people around me here.

(pan sizzling) (bell dings) (upbeat music) - What's up, Chef?

- What's going on, man?

- So we're here at The Linney Studios at Lynnhall.

I'm here with Chef Gerard.

What do you got for us today?

- Today we're gonna get into our fried chicken and some jalapeño cornbread for our A.A. sandwich.

It's a soul food sandwich.

Should be super exciting.

- Dude, that sounds amazing, man.

Let's go.

- Let's go.

(trumpet music) (bell dings) (soulful music) - So, what we're gonna make first is our chicken flour, which is our dredge.

It's gonna help us get that crispy, crunchy texture that we're looking for with our fried chicken.

Next, we have our seasoning salt, our granulated garlic powder, and then we're gonna do corn starch.

And the corn starts is nice because it really helps the chicken get a nice, crispy texture, some extra crunch that we're looking for, as well.

- Tell me more about it.

When did you eat it?

When was it made growing up in your household?

- Fried chicken was the elegant, special delicacy for us.

(metal clanging) Perfect.

So in our marinade, we're gonna start with a little bit of Old Bay.

It was always something that I would see, maybe a Friday night, when my parents are home and getting ready to be home for the weekend, that they would marinate the chicken and they would put it in the fridge and you'd have to move everything around and make space for this giant bowl.

We had a blue bowl and I just remember that blue bowl in the fridge.

(Yia laughing) Perfect.

And then we're gonna do one egg.

The egg is also gonna help the flour stick to it and give us a really good, crunchy exterior.

And our last item is hot sauce.

It was unpleasant for me as a kid, because I was... as soon as I seen them marinate the chicken, I was ready to eat it right away.

And it was the night before.

I just... too much anticipation as a kid.

It's like, "I want fried chicken tonight."

And my parents were like, "No, this is for dinner tomorrow."

Perfect, we're gonna put this in the fridge for a little bit and let this marinate and then we're gonna get started on the cornbread mix and we'll come back to this a little later.

- Awesome.

(upbeat music) I love cornbread.

- So cornbread was the first thing I learned to make.

People always say they were cooking by the time they could reach the stove.

I say, I was pulling up a chair in the counter mixing.

It was a simple thing, but it started my love for cooking because my parents would make the other dishes and they was like, "Okay, you're on cornbread tonight."

It was fun to be able to contribute to dinner at an early age.

- [Yia] So for you, did you develop this recipe?

- My stepdad had a recipe that he would make and I could never get it that way.

and one of the times I was making corn bread, I used the one on the back of the flour bag.

It turned out so perfect and I just... forever was ingrained, five dry, three wet.

The recipe.

Always.

It's still- - Bro, when you say that, that's exactly how I learned how to make... it's a Jiffy box for me.

I always felt so guilty about that, but hearing that, I'm like, "Oh dude, I did the same thing!"

- That is the process that I learned - That's awesome, man.

- I like my cornbread a little bit sweeter.

My family is more of a savory cornbread.

My in-laws, their cornbread is like cake and I absolutely love it.

You can go either way.

- A yellow cake, basically with corn in it.

- [Gerard] Exactly.

Exactly.

- [Yia] It's more of a corn cake.

- Over the years, this recipe has just evolved and we've used different fats.

We'll switch what the liquids are.

Sometimes we'll use a stock instead of the milk.

We'll change flour, sometimes.

I've done buckwheat flour.

Also, it's fun.

We've always end up playing around and changing it with the seasons.

- [Yia] Awesome.

- [Gerard] So we're going to mix this up and then we're gonna fold in the jalapeño and the onion.

What's nice, the onions and jalapeños are actually gonna add a little bit of liquid to the batter as it cooks.

We seeded the jalapeño so it'll give us the sweet profile that we're looking for.

- But you'll have the flavor of the jalapeños, but not much of the heat.

- Not as much of the heat.

Cornbread was something that we always had.

We used it, crumbled up for dressing in the holiday times.

Sometimes, it would be a stuffing.

I don't know what happened, but as soon as you poured it in there, I got hungry - Dude, this is incredible, bro.

- Cornbread was something that I would just have with a slice of butter as a snack as a kid.

I probably ate more cornbread and butter than toast.

(Yia laughs) So that was probably more true to my upbringing and something that I still love today.

All right, we're gonna pop these into 350 degree oven.

(alarm dings) - Okay, Chef, we have the cornbread that's all done.

And we have the fryer hot and ready.

(Gerard laughing) It's angry over there, we can hear it.

We're ready for the chicken, then.

- We're ready for the chicken.

So if you wanna grab the seasoned flour for me, I have our a milkshake and our chicken that's been marinating here.

- And this is one of my favorite parts is just breading chicken.

'Cause you want to get every nook and crimp, cranny - Every little piece.

- In that bread.

- Exactly.

- So this is an interesting thing, because it's so simple, but it's the patience of the technique.

So I usually give it one more toss just to make sure it's coated in the milk.

My technique is I bury it, - Yeah.

give it a good press.

- [Yia] Like being a archeologist.

- That is it.

- [Yia] Looking for dinosaur bones.

- So we'll shake off any excess flour, and then we're gonna come in here nice and slow and lay them down.

- [Yia] How long are you letting it sit in the fryer?

- We're usually about seven minutes from the chicken thighs.

We also are looking for the bubbles to subside around.

I'm looking for a certain color.

I think fried chicken is one of those things that teaches patience and preciseness.

'Cause we gotta have the grease at the right temperature.

And I always watched my grandmother and my aunt make chicken, they didn't have things with temperature gauges on there.

They're just using a pan and perfect every time.

Oh, that looks good.

So we season afterwards.

So we do a little bit of dry ranch powder just to give it a little tang and it also cures it, too, similar to the buttermilk that we're doing.

- Yeah, 'cause dry dry ranch powder is like dehydrated buttermilk.

- Exactly.

- That's actually really smart.

- Goes on the same, same flavor profile.

(upbeat music) - All right, so we are gonna assemble this thing.

(upbeat music) We're gonna start with our Mac and Cheese.

We got a nice golden brown on here, which is my favorite thing that my mother makes.

Collard greens are gonna go next.

The collard greens are cool.

Really a ridge of my wife's and the greens I grew up eating.

And so my side of it is bok choy.

- Oh wow!

- So, I grew up in Seattle and We have a lot of Asian market.

- The Asian-influence.

- Dude, that's...

I've never heard of that before.

That's awesome.

- And then my wife, she grew up with a jalapeño, veggie-based, plant and so we put the jalapenos in and sautéed those down as well.

- Oh my gosh, dude.

- This is the secret sauce.

My dad's side of the family brings in the D.C. mambo sauce that ties everything together.

There we go.

Beautiful.

And then we're just gonna tilt our bun up.

This is an open face.

- Oh my God.

- This is one of the most intense cupcakes ever.

(both men laughing) That's what I'm thinking about.

That's awesome, dude.

- Whenever somebody is like, "What is soul food?"

I always go right to this.

- Bro, when I look at this dish, dude, it tells your story, too.

- It's definitely me on a plate and you get to see just the different sides of family and experiences.

Soul food always reminds me about potential.

The flour we started with or the pieces of chicken thigh can become this and you know the same with us, that we can become these great chefs just cooking the dishes that we grew up eating at home.

- Man, that's beautiful.

I've never heard soul food explained like that before.

I love that, dude.

That makes a lot of sense.

I'm excited, let's dig into this thing.

- [Gerard] Perfect.

Let's do it.

- So what's the best way to just dig in to this thing?

- I see some brave people that try to pick this thing up and bite it.

I'm not one of those people, but I try to go in with the knife and the fork and get one of those bites with little bit of everything on it.

It's what I would recommend.

- It's what I'm gonna try to do.

What really makes this for me is that mambo sauce, bro.

It brings it all together, just that little sweetness of that mambo sauce.

Man, it's so great.

The crunchy of the fried chicken, that tang and the green, that richness in the Mac and Cheese.

And then obviously, all of that gets sapped up into, you know- - To the cornbread.

- Into that cornbread.

Dude, that's just so delicious.

- It's interesting as a chef, growing up in the West Coast, having a lot of family in East Coast and then living in the Midwest, because soul food is such a big diaspora and sometimes I think people only think about down South and they don't think about, "Okay, what's the D.C. and Virginia's tie to it?

What's the Chicago influence?"

As it started to go North, those different elements.

So for me, it's about bringing all of those different things together and then you bring a little bit of the chef techniques you learned from working in nice restaurants and that allows me to refine it down, to make it even more special.

- That's so cool, bro.

(alarm dings) This dish is gonna make we wanna take a nap.

- This is the nap dish.

- Oh, man.

(bell dings) - Tamales, they're also in different shapes.

- Oh dude, you got the fancy stuff going.

- And then it looks like a little present.

- It's a little... Oh my gosh.

I'm gonna stick with this one.

(Gustavo laughing) This is the one I know.

(electronic music)