Live Fire: Techniques from Mexico and the American South
Cooking over coals may seem like the most primitive form of cooking, but doing it well takes years of experience. In this workshop, you'll learn from some of the masters: barbecue pitmasters from America's Deep South, an expert in Yucatecan pit cooking, and a Oaxacan cook who depends on live fire to give her moles a deep, roasted flavor.
A Yucatecan Chef Plays with Fire
The former personal cook to the governor of the state of Yucatán, Silvio Campos is a recognized master of Yucatecan pit cooking. This method is a specialty of the Yucatán, in southeast Mexico, where holidays are often celebrated with a feast of cochinita pibil, or pit-steamed baby pig.
To prepare the pit for cooking, Campos lines it with stones and then builds a huge bonfire. When the logs have burned down to smoldering coals, the heat in the pit will have reached nearly 1000°F, transforming it into a giant cooking vessel. Campos will gather aromatic leaves from wild fig and avocado to lay on the coals, and he'll wrap banana leaves around his achiote-seasoned pork. Then he'll bury the pork in the pit covered with wet burlap bags, seal it well with earth and let time and heat do the rest.
In Mexico, live fire seasons not only meats and tortillas, but also the vegetables intended for salsa. In salsa de chiltomate, a classic salsa from the Yucatán, the tomatoes and habanero chilies are first blackened and blistered on a grill. "If you've never had a salsa made with roasted habaneros, you're really missing out on something fabulous," says Rick Bayless, the Mexican cooking authority and restaurateur. Through the alchemy of roasting, these very simple ingredients are transformed into a sauce with deep and complex flavor.
Campos makes his salsa de chiltomate in a lava-rock mortar by pounding the roasted tomatoes and chilies with a pinch of salt to a nearly smooth puree. You'll find the same technique used all over Mexico, but the Yucatecan seasonings are different. To learn what Campos uses as the finishing ingredient in his salsa, you'll need to watch him make his salsa de chiltomate. Notice how soft his roasted tomatoes are; they aren't just blackened, they are cooked through.
"What you have here is only four ingredients," says Bayless, "but in my opinion, there's nothing you could do to improve it. It has all the history, tradition and satisfaction built right in."
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