- Hey!
- Jefe! (Cosme speaking in Spanish)
- How you doing pa? - Waiting for you, man. - Good to see you. We got live scallops,
fluke, Branzino, lobster. So you should be good to go. - It's like very fresh. Very fresh. - Only the best for the best. - So in Casa Enrique we
only have one ceviche, which is fluke that we use, very local. And then we cook it with lime
and some spices and salt. Very simple. I used to work in French restaurants and we used to filet fish
like every single day. So it's been 25 years
that I'm in the kitchen. So I learned, I started. I like to do like a
Japanese-style, like slice it up. I don't want like chunks. Some people cut the fish like this, like they're like cutting wood. You do only one. You start it from the end of the knife and you finish on the front like this. Only one cut. From good to very good
is a minute difference. Take your time. You know, food is about experience. The whole fluke is amazing. I think one of my favorite fish is fluke. Order fire ceviche. Put it back in the
fridge, two minutes, done. What I want is to be the
best in the neighborhood and we went beyond that. I am very happy, you know, a lot of people from all over the world come
just to see Casa Enrique. (violin music) So first thing in the morning, we come here at six o'clock
in the morning, all the guys. We start doing the chips for the day. We start prepping things
for tomorrow, like carnitas. We marinate the carnitas
overnight with beer. You know, that's the way
we do it in Michoacán. So for that particular
carnitas, I use Monopolio. It's one of my favorite beers, actually it's from San Luis
Potosí, the place I grew up. It gives a lot of flavor and it breaks down a
little bit of the meat. We close down with the film and we put it overnight and
it's ready for tomorrow. Carnitas has to be cooked in their own fat and it has to be faster than the confit. But it has to be in their own fat. Not in the oven. I wouldn't call that carnitas. We're just gonna cook the
pork in very hot pork fat. Very like close to confit, but confit is like slow and this is like very hot. Because if you don't put
it when it's very hot, it's not gonna give it color. So it's been marinating
for like 24 hours, 26 hours and we're just gonna
drop it to the hot oil. You don't wanna burn yourself. So what I do, I use this. This is gonna cook for
like two and a half hours, but in in the meantime
we're gonna add things. I just put fresh thyme, bay
leaves and a black peppercorn. So this is the skin for the pork. So what we're gonna do now is
pour some Mexican Coca-Cola, the one with sugar, not with corn syrup, which allows me to have this
skin dark and beautiful. So we leave it like this. We're gonna put it in
the last hour in the pot. So it's gonna get a lot of color. So this is a salty water and I find the way to
salt the meat better, just pour in the water,
showering the meat, every meat. So you have to remember
which one you already did. So when the salt hits
the meat, it stays there. Because if you put the salt in the oil, it's gonna stay in the oil. So it's gonna marry
the salt with the pork. Now the fat is like relaxing, it's not that hot. We're doing two things, salting the meat and
helping the fat not to burn. I felt like living in
New York for a long time and working in the French restaurants, I thought there was not a
traditional Mexican restaurant in New York that I really, really liked, and I thought that I could make
it better than anybody else. I never worked with Mexican food before. I knew French, but I didn't know Mexican. So I started to look
for my mother's recipes and my family recipes. When the sweet meets the
meat, it gets better. This is condensed milk. Mexican food, I wouldn't
compare it to French, you know, French has also a lot of prep, but Mexican food is a lot of prep. People understand that, people think that Mexican
food should be cheap. It's labor, it's a lot
of labor, a lot of labor. So it's not cheap. Mexican food shouldn't be cheap. I think the carnitas,
they wanna go to sleep. So first, we're gonna lower
the temperature a little bit so we don't wanna overcook them. So this is the skin, you're
gonna put as a cover on the fat. So it will cook slowly and they're gonna cook for
another hour like this. We're gonna open-fire burn these chiles to make rajas con crema. The chiles poblanos, one of my favorite chiles in the world. This has the best flavor
you can get from the chile. When my mom used to make this at home, we used to put it in the bag and wait for like 10
minutes and peel it together and make the rajas. It's a lot of work. It seems like very easy,
but it's a lot of work. You see, it has to look
like all the same as this. So, because if you don't, it's gonna be very hard to peel them. Like the chile is not
flat, so it is very hard. So we go with the torch. (chili crackling) And after you put it in a container, close it down with the plastic. So they sweat for up to 15 minutes you can peel them and it's easy for you. People say Mexican doesn't use butter. Yeah, I do. I work in the French restaurant
and I love to use butter. This is the next step of the rajas. So, we are gonna confit the onions. We're gonna put the garlic on the onions. So we cook the garlic a little bit and then we're gonna add the turmeric. I use turmeric to give the
color and it tastes good. So this rajas con crema
you can eat it as a taco, you can eat it with gorditas or stuffing. You can use it in anything. Or you can just eat it
with beans and a plate. And we're gonna add the corn. So we added the cream. So this is the poblanos that we charred. So, now we doing the cutting in strips. This is my mom's best
recipe that I got from her. And my mom was not those
typical Mexican women cooking. She was a step up of so many people. I wouldn't say she was one
of the best of my town, but I think she was
better than in the states. I think if she would be here she would be very, very proud of me. She's watching us from upstairs. The rajas con crema is finally done. So after you finish, we put it in the chiller
to cool it down fast and we use it for later or tomorrow. But I would say tomorrow it tastes better. After you order, we start
making the guacamole. We don't do batches,
we just do it for you. I think it's one of the best
sellers that we have here. (Cosme speaking in Spanish) So this is the avocado master. He always supplies me my
avocados and limes and lemons. - Hopefully it's... - What you can ask more? Like this is the best avocado
you can get, you know, like? This is the best, you know,
like, it's like his baby. The avocado's his baby. - I think we know a
thing about that or two. - When I sit down with friends, all I do is order guacamole. I have a beer, I order guacamole. It's amazing. It's the best fruit we have in Mexico. So carnitas are done
after almost three hours. So, you know, right now it's very hot. So I want it to cool down. So the flavor it goes into the meat again. By the time it's cooled
down and put it back, it's gonna taste even better. Take the skin out, we just cut it like a stripe, put it on top. Fire the carnitas por favor. So, this is the fun part. We're gonna make mole. Mole de Piaxtla. So we're gonna start breaking
the rules from my grandma. So we're gonna burn this. The mole is one of the most
favorite dishes that we sell in Casa Enrique. And we do everything from the scratch. This is black pepper,
we're gonna toast it. This is the cloves and the all spice. So we kind of like to
burn it a little bit. So you got the smokiness
of the clove in the mole. We opened this place with mole and it's been the same mole as now. And it makes me think like I am in town you know, with my grandparents, from Piaxtla Puebla where
my father grew up in Mexico. That's the sesame seeds,
we're gonna toast it. This is raisins. When we opened Casa Enrique, we were making the paste once a month and now we do it twice a week. So you can make this and
keep it for three months. So paste is like the base of the sauce. It's not sauce yet, it's just a paste. So you finish with chicken
broth and I reduce it down. This is figs, I'm breaking the rules here. They don't put figs, I do put figs. Plums. This one I add like a 25, 26. I do mole, every time it's different. It's very close, but it's different. Depends on the fruits, you know, the fruits are sometimes
more sweet or acidity or the chiles are spicier than the other. So it's never the same. Mexican food is very, it's very labor. It's a lot of things to do. It's like French techniques. So you have to start it and it takes like 10 hours
just to do one thing. It's kind of soft. This is done. Plantain and bolillos,
which is a French bread. That's to thicken the sauce. Done. I love cooking man, as long as nobody comes
and makes a bad day. But cooking is amazing. Everything has to be blended and mixed. This guy's gonna blend everything while I'm cooking the chiles. Everything has to be ready
by the time I'm finished, so we mix. This is the blend of the chiles, guajillo, chile ancho, chile mulato. This has been roasted
in the oven and blended. We're gonna add some water. So the water helps to make a paste. I don't need to go to the gym after this. Lot of work. And you have to do this
for like 30 minutes, this. And after you start putting the fruits it's still an hour cooking. It's 3:00 PM and everybody's starting to come in for the service. So you're gonna see a lot of action here. A lot of people prepping for the service. So it's like time for us
to push to finish, quickly. I'm gonna start putting
the onions and garlic. You wouldn't tell me
it's onion and garlic. It's like a chocolate. Now we're gonna add all
the almonds, sesame seeds, plums, figs, raisins,
all blended as a base. Now the workout is getting harder. That was just the beginning. This is plantains and bread. All these things are gonna become a mole. After this, it's gonna
be another 30 minutes to get all the flavors married. Mexican chocolate. And we're gonna mix and then that's it. Now it's done the mole, the mole paste. So what we're gonna do now is cool it down in a smaller container. We put it in the fridge
and we do portions later and it's ready for
tomorrow to do the mole. We don't make the masa here. We get it from Nixtamal, because we don't have
a space for a molino. So this is the masa that
comes from Nixtamal, the corn masa. And it is very dry now, so we add a little bit of water and then we mix it with a mixer. Make it nicer, so. So, Margarita is making the tortillas coming right from the machine. Fresh, can't beat that. The best. She's gonna start making the tortillas by five o'clock to be
ready the first batch. So, one of the last things
today for the service, we're gonna make chorizo for tomorrow. So we're gonna ground the
pork belly and pork fat then marinate it. The marinade is chile guajillos,
garlic, thyme and spices. That's it and we're gonna mix it. And we're gonna leave it in the fridge for 24 hours to 48 hours. This is chorizo that we made
yesterday for today's service. So we're done with the prep. The service is gonna
start at five o'clock. Kitchen in Casa Enrique is very fast. We make it very fast because
we have to work fast. We built this restaurant for 70 seats and now because there's inside
and outside, it's making 140. So it's like two restaurants. Order fire guacamole medium, then ceviche. You don't wanna be there. People who start working and they like they just stay one day
and they go. It's hard. It's very busy. It's one of the busiest
restaurants I've ever worked. It's crazy. (piano music) We started the mole. (piano music continues) And we're gonna go back to make
the sauce a little thicker. Sesame seeds. The runner finish over there. We're gonna put the radish and pepper. I think we changed the food scene in the United
States, not just in New York. It changed a lot. All the chefs, new chefs, Mexican chefs. I think we brought Mexican
food to another level. I was thinking not to be the best. I was thinking just to be
the best of around here and become like better than
anybody else in the city. So I'm very glad that we did it.
