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San Antonio has a lot of great attractions.
It's got a beautiful river winding through downtown,
old, elegant homes, cool art deco, and old Spanish missions,
the most famous of which give this Texas metropolis
its nickname, "The Alamo City".
It's got a little bit of everything, including some fantastic food,
and a lot of great food, you can eat on St. Mary's Street.
Well let's forget about the Alamo for just one minute...
and let's eat the street.
♪♪
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC
San Antonio grew up around five Spanish missions from back in the 1700s.
The city's full of history, and St. Mary's Street has seen a lot of it.
Here, on the hip south end of St. Mary's, in a former gas station turned into
a modernist foodie hangout, Chad Carey and his crew
are irreverent about art but righteous when it comes to well made food.
At The Monterey, named for the car and not the city in Mexico,
one of Chad's dishes is a po' boy sandwich topped with chili sauce and corn chips.
It's his personal tribute to the main religion of Texas-- high school football,
and I can't wait to taste what it's all about.
So what are we makin' today?
What?
Growing up in Texas, football is king-- it's very much in our culture.
No matter if you're playin' or not, on Friday nights, you're at the football game,
and if you're at the football game, you are going to eat Frito pie,
so we thought, why not put it on a sandwich?
Because that would be interesting.
Okay, the first thing we're gonna do is we are going to make our chili base.
We're gonna take diced onion and garlic, and we're gonna
saute it and just get some color on it.
Peel it off, man.
I came all the way here to peel garlic-- thanks a lot big guy.
Fifteen for the order that we're talkin' about.
All right, so chef-- are we good with the garlic?
All right, beautiful.
So I got a little bit of heat on here...some oil...
First things first--onion...
Garlic...
Cumin and coriander, whole, dehydrated anchos and arbols, tomato paste...
and then a couple of these tomatoes.
And then the last thing we do once that cooks down just a little bit is we add...
this is a master stock that we use from a bunch of different animals.
Aw, man--this is the stuff right here, I love this.
Beautiful, look at that.
It smells good-- it's come up to a boil.
The chili base is ready to go-- it doesn't need to be super fine or whatever,
just kind of--'til everything comes together.
Man, I think that's perfect.
Chili's ready--we heard there was a hungry Canadian coming down,
so we went ahead and smoked a pork shoulder, five or so hours with mesquite.
Well, thank you sir.
This is a standard American metal bowl.
Wow! In Canada, our bowls are completely different.
Okay, so now we're gonna take our pork shoulder--
[inhales loudly]
using our hands, because we are tough,
American men, we're just gonna shred this up.
You want it to be chunky and nice and fat and all that good stuff.
Chunky and smoked?
Heyo!
So now we're gonna take our chili...that's pretty good right there.
Our French bread...
So this is the traditional, kind of po' boy, Louisiana-style French bread
that's, you know, obviously perfect for this?
Beautiful--pop this in the oven?
[squeaks]
We've got our garnishes set up-- we have jalapeno mayonnaise,
which, of course, we make in house.
We do put a pretty hard roast on the jalapenos,
because we want it to have a little bit of that sort of charred character to it.
Okay--basically jalapenos, eggs,
lime juice, salt, and oil?
Yeah, and I think in Texas, everybody's obsessed with
this idea of how big of a man are you, how hot can you go?
But it's not necessarily about heat--it is about
flavor and those different flavor dynamics that play,
and so that's what we try to do with the mayonnaise.
And then we have our corn chips straight out of the bag--
we don't make those here, we're not that cool.
Well, I mean, there's some things you gotta leave to the experts, you know what I mean?
That's exactly right--and these were invented in San Antonio,
just on the other side of St. Mary's, actually.
1930s, Elmer Doolin--he sucked at making ice cream, but he was great at making Fritos.
Man, snack of champions right there--that's awesome.
This jalapeno mayo
is serious stuff.
Beautiful--crispy crunchy still.
So jalapeno mayonnaise, and don't be bashful with it.
Pork mixture... yellow cheese goes on,
Fritos to your liking,
and the last thing we're gonna do-- green onions--
I think they call them scallions up North.
And there you go.
I think it's great.
I think you need a bottle of sriracha and 14 beers and you're ready to go.
Ready to rock--let's see.
Mm.
I mean, I don't even know what to say.
Just tell me you love me.
You know it's true.
So I mean, in the original recipe, this would all be happening in a bag, right?
I mean, really, sometimes in the bag, sometimes just
in a really non-recyclable styrofoam bowl at a football game.
To me, Frito pie makes more sense in a bread
than in a bowl-- and then I ate the bowl.
Can I just tell you, you've never looked
Aw, thank you so much.
A little bit of mayo here? It's the yooj for me.
Man, it's just so good.
Mm.
Do I have a little bit on my face?
That's a good sign.
This has gotta be the best way to visit San Antonio--
right here on the San Antonio River, along the riverwalk,
it's a beautiful day...
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm about to take it to three miles an hour.
This is gonna be crazy.
[duck quacking]
Coming up, there's no breakfast like a Tex Mex breakfast.
[laughs]
If you walk past the corner of St. Mary's and Woodlawn in the morning,
you might think it's a crime scene-- police cars everywhere--
but it's not a crime, it's breakfast.
College students, cops, firefighters, businessmen--
people come from all over for what may be
the best Tex Mex breakfast in all of San Antonio,
and that's saying something.
Owner Amador Montoya's dad started it back in 1969.
He called it El Milagrito, "the little miracle",
because that's what it takes to find a parking spot around here.
Let's go see what this little miracle's all about.
Now, everybody's told me that I have to come here
and try the Chalupa Robert.
No, the Robert.
He was a customer,
and he was the one that made up the Chalupa Robert.
He's a Tex or a Mex?
A Tex...Tex all the way.
He put cheese on the chalupa at the end, so...
So what's the first step? What do we gotta do first here?
Flour tortilla, ew... I don't know, man.
[laughs]
I see flour tortilla, and I'm like "Ehhh."
On the Mexican food, you actually expect
always a chalupa to be on a corn tortilla,
but here is a twist.
So Tex Mex-- obviously it's a cross
between Texas and Mexico, I get that,
but is there one defining thing that makes it Tex Mex?
Big? Oh, yeah.
I know chalupa's somewhere going...
[laughs]
All right, so now we've got our fried flour tortilla-- what's next?
We've gotta put some beans on it.
[rapping] Put some beans on it, put some beans on it.
We have the picadillo, the ground beef.
[normally] Before we chalupa this, let's see what it tastes like.
Oh, man--what's in the picadillo?
Ground beef, onions, bell pepper, cumin,
black pepper, and potatoes.
Tasty, right?
I mean, I just need a bowl of this.
Now we've gotta fry the egg for this.
The red sauce.
Fifty.
Yes.
This is it--Chalupa Robert.
Robert, this one's for you.
Ohh, I like that first-- that little crunch.
[makes crunching noise] Here it goes.
No, I don't like it.
It's Robert, man.
Ah, Robert...man.
Tomorrow, you might sell 75, because I'm gonna come in and...
Oh, my God.
All the layering, the crispy flour tortilla at the bottom...
you changed my mind.
At first when you told me fried flour tortilla,
you know, I'm a corn tortilla kind of guy.
[laughs] He's not sharing at all.
And I'm not even gonna hide it-- if you reach for that fork, you're in trouble.
[laughs]
(Chuck) At Restaurant Gwendolyn, chef Michael Sohocki
only uses ingredients and techniques that were around before 1850,
back when Texas was its own independent country.
Now, I suspect that it's not as crazy as it sounds, but I'm about to find out.
Good morning, I'm well.
So what are you thinkin' for today?
I would like to use a kind of oyster mushroom
Okay.
Let's go to Gonzales, Texas, man.
Love it--sweet ride!
Are you okay to drive? Because I can drive it if you want.
You're good? Okay.
(Chuck) We're on our way to a mushroom farm right outside San Antonio
where Chef Michael gets all of his 'shrooms.
Today, we're meeting up with the president, Greg McLain.
So how long have you been in the mushroom business?
(Greg) We've been here at this location since 1988.
Yeah, we grow about 230
to 250 thousand pounds of mushrooms per week.
(Greg) Here's a portabella comin', isn't it? It's beautiful.
How long does it take to get this big?
Mushrooms will double in size every 24 hours.
It might've started out like this...
and this one wasn't gonna make it to that size.
So what do you typically do with a portabella?
Well, it's gonna sound crazy, but I eat it.
[laughs]
I mean if I had something this big and it looked this good, I'd try
and kind of showcase it, but this is probably
the closest a vegetarian will ever get to steak.
That's right.
You know, I mean, like, grill this up, a little steak spice on there...
What we have here are the shiitake mushrooms.
This is one of my favorite mushrooms for sure-- what's this, though?
That's basically a wood, sawdust material
that we've made a block, and you set that into a bag and let
the mycelium grow out through that.
You guys want to check out the gray oysters?
Yeah, so what's the deal with the old saying,
you know, mushrooms grow on poop and in the dark?
Like we saw with the shiitake, a wood substrate--
this is more of a wheat straw.
And as far as the lighting,
mushrooms don't necessarily require light to grow.
There's a chemical inside the mushrooms that could
suck up that and convert it, and it converts to Vitamin D.
At the end there-- an iron, metallic...
Yeah.
And we've got some yellows over here.
Wow, totally different flavor.
Yeah.
In a good way.
I'd love to do something with this.
Is it possible to get a couple?
Yeah?
Man, look at that-- so nice.
Low in fat, high in Vitamin D, I mean...
how can you go wrong?
Yeah, these are wonderful.
Yeah, thanks for havin' us.
It's a fun business-- a lot that goes into it, so...
Well, you're a fun guy.
Coming up...food like
your great-great-great-great grandma used to make.
Whenever I hit a new city, the area around the bus terminal
is not normally where I go looking for a good meal.
In the back of an old building across from the bus terminal
is where chef Michael Sohocki works his 19th century magic.
Having picked our yellow oyster mushrooms, it's time to show me what he does best.
All right, so chef, tell me a little bit about the philosophy here at Gwendolyn's.
I've kind of time-marked the whole menu in
this entire restaurant
to 150 years and older.
We cut out all of the industrial conveniences.
Hm, obviously not using things like, you know, an immersion blender.
But it also refers to the way that you get your ingredients, right?
Things that come from nearby, so that it's always local, it's always seasonal.
Just like we got the mushrooms-- exactly right.
I thought that we would do with the mushrooms a quail dish.
Sounds great.
I wanted to start with the oyster mushrooms that we brought back.
Nice.
Beautiful, all right.
So I've got the butter melted here.
Melted butter, garlic... so far this recipe
is starting off on a great foot.
Butter, garlic... about to put a pinch of salt in there...
we don't even need the mushrooms.
Awesome--so what's next?
So these are pecan branches-- I mean it's the closest
I could come to a barbeque pit in my kitchen.
Pecan is very porous, it's a very light wood, so it burns faster.
This is pecan wood from your house, right?
Wow--I really like this technique, though.
This is something that I'm definitely... I'm gonna steal.
Aw, yeah--that's lookin' really good.
All right.
So basically pig stock?
It's a pig stock-- I think we'll add the mushroom pieces.
I want a little bit of onion, also.
Ready to go-- drop that in there?
What's next?
Let me get the quail-- I have rinsed them,
and I've put them on the wire rack, and I've let them rest
at open air for maybe like an hour so that the outside
gets this dry, tacky kind of feel.
The next thing is salt and pepper.
Hey, ladies!
All right.
I have my pan of wood chips here, and I've brought it up
until there's this wispy, white, gentle kind of smoke.
I mean, this is a homemade cold smoker.
Ultimately what you have is that the heat source is separated from the quail.
The smoke coming out of here is about 160 degrees,
and it drops about 60 of those degrees as it travels in the pipe,
and then when it comes into the box here, then it's only like 100 degrees.
So you only get the smoke flavor but none of the heat.
It's just the flavor, and then we're going to pick it up in a saute pan
to cook it to exactly the doneness that we want.
Let's strain the sauce.
So all that mushroom flavor is infused into our sauce,
now we're just getting all of those bits out of there.
Just a little tap-tap-tappy.
So what do you think, chef? Quails are ready?
What is that, about 20 minutes?
Aw, yeah.
The smoke smells very sweet, it smells clean.
Beautiful-- that smells awesome.
(Chef Michael) I get some grapeseed oil.
Press it down and hold it--
like 10 seconds or 15 seconds.
Beauty.
If you just drop it and walk away, then it curls up,
and that's how you get that hollow spot in the middle of your sear.
I can feel it bubbling up in the bottom there, trying to push away.
While that is happening, let's do the sauce.
I have some fresh oregano...
looks like we need to turn those quail pretty soon here.
Let's take a look at the inside of these quail.
And I think we're ready to do this-- here is the romanesco.
Ah, romanesco-- nature's acid trip.
I can see the villagers in there.
I've just blanched it in some salted water.
The flavor's a whole lot like cauliflower.
It tastes great, but the look of it... is from another world.
So how did you make these carrots?
These are...it's like a quart of chicken stock to a cup of butter.
All right, chef-- well, this looks gorgeous.
Um, where should I go first? What do you think?
Mushroom?
Yeah, this was the mushroom day.
Get a little bit of this sauce.
Oh, man--it doesn't even make sense how good that is.
You get the smoke, you got the caramelization...
it's crispy crunchy on the outsides there on the...
I'm tryin' the quail.
Perfectly cooked.
Man, they really knew how to eat in the 1850s.
This is great--perfect balance of sweet and salty.
We got the smoky mushrooms, the quail has got just the perfect amount of smoke,
and that sauce, obviously, that's gold--
really, kind of brings it all together, man.
This is a great way to showcase Greg's mushrooms.
Coming up, a down-home Texas technique gets a global update.
[groans] Ohhh...O-M-G.
Where St. Mary Street crosses the river,
you'll find yourself at Biga on the Banks,
home of one of the most acclaimed chefs in Texas.
Bruce Auden is considered one of the fathers of new American cooking--
not bad for a guy from England.
What recipe are we gonna make today?
It's chicken-fried oysters, squid ink linguini,
and it also has a little mustard hollandaise on top.
All in one dish-- and actually, one bite.
A lot of people who don't eat oysters
will eat an oyster like this.
Well, let's be honest--
you can deep fry pretty much anything and it'll taste good.
We're gonna make some squid ink pasta first.
Eggs.
This is a squid ink, and if you get it on your fingers...
It's over.
This is gonna give it that salty, briny flavor
without really adding any salt.
[food processor whirring]
[food processor whirring]
So just give it a quick buzz, but we still need to knead it.
And the more you knead it, actually, the blacker it gets.
You make it into like a little hockey puck, you know what that looks like?
Hockey puck, I've never heard of that sport...
go Stars.
Start this linguini on the pasta roller.
Let's cook the linguini now.
Beautiful--so pasta's in there, garnish...
Just put a little bit of olive oil,
we've got some pancetta, some kale that's gonna go in there and the swiss chard.
These are the oysters-- they've been soaking in the buttermilk.
Dredge 'em in the flour-- I'm gonna put the oysters in the fryer.
While they're cooking, you pull the pasta out and put it in there.
(Chuck) Right in there?
Pasta's ready, oysters are ready.
Plate it up!
And we've got some hollandaise.
(Chuck) And hollandaise is basically eggs blended with butter and lemon,
and you've mixed in some whole grain mustard.
[groans] Ohhh...O-M-G.
I like to put a little bit of this balsamic that we have,
and then a little bit of basil oil,
okay, for flavor and for color,
and then maybe a little bit of...
mustard sprouts.
And then you've got a fork here.
Wow--chef, I'm actually gonna offer you a fork, as well,
because I'm a polite guy-- you know us Canadians.
I'm just gonna go here-- I'm gonna do it, chef.
Mm.
Good?
It's the perfect bite-- it's pretty outstanding.
You really do feel that brininess of the pasta.
The first bite's always good, but the second bite's really--
you get the feel for the dish, and then, I don't know, I might need a third.
Actually, next time, let's not even plate it on a plate,
just plate it right in here.
Mm.
It is.
Can I get a reservation for one, please?
Speechless.