(bright music) - Today on "Cook's Country," Bryan makes a New Mexico
favorite, gorditas. Adam reviews tortilla presses, and Christie makes biscochitos. That's all right here on "Cook's Country." (upbeat music) - Gorditas are simply small corn cakes that are fried on the
outside then split open and stuffed with either meat
or cheese or a combination. And they come in lots of different styles. But today, Bryan's gonna show
us how to make his favorite. - Yes, my favorite is absolutely from Las Cruces, New
Mexico at Saenz Gorditas. - [Julia] Ooh. - I was fortunate enough to go
there and meet with the owner Virginia Guerra and her son, Albert, and they walked me through their process. And today our recipe is strongly inspired by what they showed me. - Okay. - We are gonna begin by making
our ground beef picadillo. And a picadillo is a ground beef mixture, usually with tomatoes and potatoes in it. We're gonna start by
getting our potato ready, so just gonna trim the ends off here. I like to trim off the ends a little bit so I have something for
my peeler to grab onto. - Ah.
- A quick tip. (Julia chuckles) Now we wanna cut this potato
into quarter inch pieces, so we can put this right into our skillet. So then one pound, 85% lean ground beef, one teaspoon of salt, and
one teaspoon of black pepper. Turn this medium high heat. So we're gonna let this cook until the meat is no longer pink, and that takes about eight minutes. Okay, Julia, it's been
about eight minutes. You can see the meat is no longer pink. So now to complete our picadillo, we're going to add one chopped tomato and then one chopped onion. And we're gonna continue to cook this for another five minutes until the tomatoes and
the onion are softened. And you know you want to take care to break up the meat as
you're cooking this along, so you don't get these big, hunking meatballs in your gordita. (Julia laughs) So we'll let just cook for
another five minutes or so. Okay, so the tomatoes are broken down, the onions are softened. Now we can add some of our flavoring. We're gonna add three
minced garlic cloves here, along with one and a half
teaspoons of ground cumin. We're just gonna let this
cook for about 30 seconds so it becomes fragrant. Okay, so that's nice and fragrant. We're gonna add two teaspoons
of all-purpose flour, so we're just gonna cook
this for about a minute to cook the raw flavor off that flour. So now we could add three
quarters of a cup of water, and we're gonna bring
that right up to a boil. All right, so this is
appropriately saucy enough, and so we can kill the heat. And I just wanna give it a
quick taste for salt and pepper, so we can add a little
bit of pepper to this. We could just throw a lid on this and let it sit off to the side while we make our gordita dough. - [Julia] Sounds good. - All right, Julia, so it's
time to make our gordita dough. So I have five cups or
20 ounces of masa harina. And to that I'm gonna add
two teaspoons of table salt. I'm just gonna whisk that to combine. - So masa harina is not just
cornmeal that's finely ground. It actually has gone through
an additional process. So it has a slightly
different flavor and color. - Right, it's corn
that's been nixtamalized, created into a dough, then dried out, and now this essentially
becomes an instant flour. - [Julia] All right. - To that, we're going to add 3/4 of a cup of Colby Jack cheese. Now we're gonna add
three and two thirds cup of room temperature water, okay? Now, to watch Albert do
this at the restaurant, he takes this ginormous bowl, props it on the edge of the sink, sticks it beneath the spigot, fills it and eyeballs the
whole thing, you know? - (laughs) And makes mounds
of dough, I'm guessing. - Makes mounds and mounds of dough. And I asked him, "So, do
you have a recipe for this?" He's like, "No, no, I
don't have a recipe." I just do it all by eyeball.
- He eyes it every time. - Yep.
- (laughs) I love it. So you're just mixing
those with your hands. You're just in there with your digits. - Yeah, you gotta get in
there with your digits. Get my knead going. So we're gonna portion this out into 12 approximate half cup portions. If you're weighing this with a scale, it's a little less than
four and a half ounces each. So we're just gonna portion it up. - So I'm guessing Virginia
didn't use a measuring cup. She just had the perfect scoop every time. - It was actually really,
really amazing to watch because, yes, every single
gordita that she shaped was exactly the same size. It was all done by by feel, by the way it felt in her
hands, and it just blew my mind. We're gonna keep on scooping our dough until we have all 12 of our portions. Okay, Julia, so we're
all portioned out here. So we could take each one of these balls. You might wanna wet
your hands a little bit. - [Julia] All right. - [Bryan] We're gonna roll
it into a smooth ball. - If there's cracks in
that, does that matter? - Use a little bit of
water and make it smooth. So it should be like this. - [Julia] Oh, if mine
doesn't look like that, I should keep going? - [Bryan] Yeah, you keep going. (Julia laughs) I've done this a lot, so. I was just- - [Julia] It seems like
it would be the easy part. - I stood next to a person
who was an expert, so. (Julia laughs) We'll continue rolling these
balls until they're smooth. All right, Julia, so now it's
time to press our gorditas. So we have our dough balls underneath this damp towel
so they don't dry out. - Yes.
- You can take one of these. - [Julia] Mm-hmm, thank you. - So we have zipper lock bags here that we split on the sides to open 'em up, so they're still hinged at the back here. And so as we start to press 'em, it'll keep 'em from
sticking to our pie plate. - [Julia] Okay. - We are gonna use a glass pie plate here. And the benefit here, and I'm sure you never thought of this, is that as we press it. (laughs) That's right. You can see through it and
we can actually measure to when we get to a four inch
diameter that we're after. - [Julia] That's very clever. All right. All right, I think that's pretty good. - [Bryan] Okay, and then if they start
to crack on the sides. - [Julia] Yeah, mine did a little. - We're just going to use our wet hands and start to shape 'em a little bit. This helps you smooth out those edges. - [Julia] Oh, kind of like I do a burger. - [Bryan] Yeah, exactly. So we could drop these onto a
parchment lined baking sheet. - [Julia] Okay. - And we have another wet towel
we're gonna put put on top, to keep 'em from drying out. Okay, so we'll keep pressing
and smoothing out our gorditas, and as we start to fill up the sheet, we'll put a second layer
of parchment paper on top so we can start stacking them. - [Julia] Gotcha, two layers. - Alright, Julia, it's
time to fry our gorditas. We have a quart and a
half of vegetable oil that we brought up to 375 degrees. So we're gonna fry four at a time so we can just gently
slide 'em into our hot oil. I know it's contrary
to what you want to do when you're adding things to hot oil. The instinct is to move your hand very far away from the oil, but actually the closer you can get to it, and the more gently you
can lay the food down into the hot oil, the less likely you
are to create a splash. So we're gonna let these fry
for five minutes per side, and then we're gonna flip 'em over and let 'em continue to fry
for another five minutes and they're gonna be golden brown. And the reason you need
to fry 'em that long is not only for the color, but to also cook the
inside of the gordita. - [Julia] Makes sense. - All right, it's been five minutes and we just want to give
our gorditas a little flip. Okay and we'll let those cook
for another five minutes. These have been frying
for another five minutes. - Oh, they're beautiful.
- So gorgeous. So we can just drain them
here on our paper towels. So we're gonna return
the oil to 375 degrees and fry our gorditas in two more batches. - Okay. - [Bryan] So our gorditas have
been cooling for 10 minutes. - [Julia] They're beautiful. - We're just going to reheat
our picadillo a little bit so it's nice and hot. So the way you cut into a
gordita and to stuff it, you want to insert the knife gently and start to cut it a little sawing motion and look to go about 180 degrees around, and then you squeeze it. - [Julia] Whoa. - [Bryan] To reveal a nice
little pocket on the inside. - [Julia] You can see
the steam coming out. - Yeah.
- And all that melty cheese. - So our picadillo is now hot. I'm gonna load you up here. So I think it's important not
to overstuff these because- - Because you know me and I'd be tempted. I overstuff tacos too. - [Bryan] I like to
put the cheese in first so it gets right up against the hot meat. All right. Little shredded iceberg
lettuce, a few tomatoes. And Julia, I have hot sauce. I know you're a big fan of the hot sauce. - I am.
- Yeah? - [Julia] Yes, thank you. That's good. Oh, I can't wait to try this. Cheers.
- All right, cheers. (gorditas crunching) That's good.
- That's delicious. The flavor of the corn
cake on the outside, I can taste a little bit of the cheese. I can taste that sort of mild corn flavor, but the dual texture is where it's at. Crisp on the outside, but has a really lovely
soft texture on the inside. - Yeah, it's super delicious. And I love how the picadillo really just kind of peeks
in there with the cumin. It's not overwhelming,
but it's just noticeable. - It's delicious. - After I came back from that trip, I wanted to gordita everything. (Julia laughs) I was like, I gotta put
more stuff in these pockets. - Bryan, these are fantastic. Thank you.
- You're very welcome. - So if you wanna make gorditas at home, begin by making a picadillo filling with ground beef, potato, and tomato. Add cheese to the gordita dough for extra richness and flavor. Deep fry the gorditas
for a full 10 minutes until they're golden brown
and cooked throughout. Then let them cool before splitting with a
paring knife and stuffing. From "Cook's Country," Bryan's favorite Las
Cruces-style gorditas. These are amazing. (bright music) - They say in show business
that any press is good press. Well, in the tortilla business,
it's a whole other matter. So Adam's here and he's gonna
tell us which tortilla press we should include in our kitchens. - Let's see if I can impress
you with the tortilla presses. - Oh, loving it. - You know, any tortilla in a store, you can get decent
tortillas in a supermarket, but you and I both know
that a homemade tortilla is light years better than
anything in the supermarket. - [Bridget] A hundred percent. - And they're really
not that hard to make. They're super easy, they're fun. But you're gonna need a tortilla press, which is what we have here. We have seven different models. The price range is $15 up to $95. They come in various sizes and materials. These two in front of me are cast iron. This silver one is aluminum. This big white one is powdered steel. That orange one's aluminum with
wood and plastic on the end. - The whole gamut. - The whole gamut. So regardless of the material, they all work pretty much the same way. They are comprised of two plates that are attached at one end with a hinge, you put an open storage bag inside, plastic to line it so that
this tortilla won't stick. You put the dough ball on top
of that, lower the top plate. And then you can see right
here there's a little notch. And these all have a ridge
or some kind of bump there that acts as a fulcrum so that when you press the handle down, it distributes the weight
across the top plate, mashes down the masa, and you end up with hopefully,
a pretty perfect tortilla. - A beautiful corn tortilla. - They all work the same way. However, testers found a couple of factors that distinguish the
winners from the losers. I want you to give this white one right in front of you a
try and see what you think. - [Bridget] It's a good looking press. - [Adam] It's a very good looking press. - [Bridget] All right, and it's lined with a
zipper lock bag there. - [Adam] It's been cut open. The masa goes right in the
center where you've put it. - [Bridget] Right in the center. Just anchor it there, close the lid, and let's give it a good press. There we go. - [Adam] Ooh, that is a
nice looking tortilla. - That's a lovely thin tortilla. - And what did you
think of using that one? - It was very easy. - And why is that? Because it's heavy. Weight was one of the
distinguishing factors. We call a heavyweight anything that's about seven
and a half pounds or more, this one was a little more
than 10 and a half pounds. And because it's heavy, it
does more of the work for you. You didn't have to press all that hard. And to prove that, I'm gonna have you try a
lighter weight model also, which is this one. - All right, this one.
- See what you think of that. - [Bridget] I'm right-handed, so I'm gonna switch it around there. So same thing here. You got a little, lined with
a little bit of plastic here. - [Adam] You bet. - All right, masa in the center. I gotta get up, there we go. Oh! (Adam laughs) - Okay, so two things about this one. It was harder to do, right? - [Bridget] That's really uneven. - [Adam] You had to put a
lot more muscle into it. - [Bridget] I did. - You know why it's uneven? Because of the size of the plates. That was the second really
important design factor. Testers preferred them when they were at least
eight inches in width, which is this one. This one was just six and
a quarter inches in width, which means when you press down the masa, it can squeeze right over
the edges like it did there. It comes out uneven and misshapen. - Right, right, and torn. - Which is harder to cook,
doesn't look as good. The handle was also important. Testers liked longer handles just because they were easier to grasp and give you more leverage. So that was anything
about 10 inches or over. So this white one is our
winning tortilla press. It is the Doña Rosa
Masienda tortilla press. It's $95, but it's made of steel. It weighs a little more
than 10 and a half pounds. It's got very generous plates. It makes beautiful tortillas. And if you make a lot of tortillas, we think it's absolutely worth the money. If it's more of an
occasional pursuit for you, you wanna spend a little
less, there's a best buy. This is the $20 Victoria
eight inch tortilla press. And it does a fine job. It's got about an eight pound weight, about an eight inch plate,
and handle's a little shorter, but it'll get the job
done for a lot less money. - Well, if you wanna turn out those homemade tortillas by the dozens, you wanna invest in a good tortilla press. And our winner is the Doña
Rosa Masienda tortilla press. And that runs you about $95. Or our best buy is the Victoria
eight inch tortilla press, and that'll cost you 20 bucks. (bright music) Today we're making the state cookie of New
Mexico, biscochitos. These lovely little holiday cookies have a short crumbly texture and they're lightly flavored with cinnamon and a little bit of anise. Now, Christie's here and she's bringing all
the biscochito basics. And you've got a few
tricks up your sleeve. - I do, Bridget. (Bridget laughs) These cookies have a really rich history. Now, traditionally lard was used because it was the most available fat. Nowadays we use lard, not
so much out of necessity, but because we like to honor tradition and they give a really
superior flavor and texture that you only get with lard. - Fantastic, you don't
have to convince me. - Well, let's start with
the dry ingredients. - Okay. - I have one and three quarter
cups of all-purpose flour, which is eight and three quarter ounces. - [Bridget] Okay. - [Christie] And I'll
add a quarter teaspoon of baking powder and a
quarter teaspoon of salt. - [Bridget] Okay. - And I'll just whisk this together to make sure that all
that leavener especially is evenly distributed. Biscochitos are known for
their punch of anise flavor. I have one and a half
teaspoons of anise seeds here, and I'm going to put those
in a zipper lock bag. And we're going to crush these so that they'll release their oils and lots and lots of flavor. You can do this a couple different ways. I'm going to use a rolling pin. If you have a meat
mallet, you can do that, and you can be really dramatic
and just start pounding. But I find that you can also
roll your way to success. - [Bridget] Ah. - And maybe have fewer
migraines while you do it. Now that we have our flavors, we wanna get a good texture started. And so we're gonna start by
creaming the fat and some sugar. But in this case, we're using lard, and it's going to give the cookies a little bit of a savory flavor and that really melt in
your mouth kind of texture. So I have two-thirds of a cup of lard. This is four and two-thirds ounces. The great thing about working with lard is even out of the refrigerator, this is gonna soften up super quickly so you don't have to take
it out and let it sit. It'll mix really nice. I also have some sugar. This is half a cup or
three and a half ounces. - [Bridget] Great. - And send it right in there.
- Oh! There we go. - It's so fragrant.
- That smells lovely. - [Christie] Okay, now
we're gonna mix this on medium high speed until
we get it nice and fluffy just like creaming with butter. - [Bridget] Okay. - [Christie] That's gonna
take about three minutes. - [Bridget] Gotcha. - Well, that looks like
creamed sugar, doesn't it? - It sure does.
- So we'll add one large egg. - [Bridget] Okay. - [Christie] And a half
teaspoon of vanilla extract. - [Bridget] Great. - I'll scrape it down a little
bit before we get started. We'll go back up to medium high just to get this all mixed together. - Yes, all right. - That's come together now.
- Absolutely. - Right, that looks good. So now at this point we can start adding the dry ingredients. - Okay. - We will add it slowly, but we want to stop the mixing
as soon as it's combined because we don't wanna
overwork this dough. Make it too tough and
develop too much gluten. - [Bridget] Right. - [Christie] I don't see
any dry flour, do you? - I do not see any dry flour.
- All right. Let us stop this.
- Lovely. - And it's not sticky. You don't have to put any flour down. This is going to make two logs of cookies. This is a slice and bake cookie. - [Bridget] Right. - And the easiest way to measure these so that you get nice even cookies, is to first divide this in half. - [Bridget] Okay. - And you know, you can try to eyeball it, but that's never gonna work exactly. But if we use the scale, and I know that each half
should weigh about nine ounces, that's gonna get us there much
more quickly and efficiently. It's a little heavy. The last time I made these, it's a little bit over nine ounces each. - [Bridget] Gotcha. - We don't need to use the rolling pin. That was just to crack the anise. I'm just gonna roll these with my hands. So this is like a trip back to childhood. So I want to roll each of
these into a six inch cylinder. Try to get it pretty even. Okay, now I'll take a
piece of plastic wrap. We'll put the log in and we wanna roll it nice and tight. - Sausage style.
- Yes. And twist your ends. Now the trick is having this nice cylinder stay in a cylinder when you
put it in your refrigerator, you can't put it on a flat surface. - [Bridget] Right. - But a really cool thing is to use an eight inch baking pan or dish because if you've rolled
this to the right length, six inches, it should fit just perfectly in here after you've filled it
with either rice or sugar. - [Bridget] Hmm. - Now I have one more log to roll, and then I can put these
both in the refrigerator and let them chill for
at least three hours or up to three days.
- Okay. - [Christie] We have some nicely chilled dough here, Bridget. - [Bridget] It is firm
and chilled, I concur. - (laughs) And that is going
to make it much easier to slice and not just to slice, but to
keep this nice round shape. So I'm going to make quarter inch slices and I always like to use my ruler to, you know, at least to get me started. And I'm going to kind of
roll the dough as I slice. - I couldn't love you
anymore than I already do. The fact that you're measuring these. - [Christie] (laughs) Well. - [Bridget] It's a sign of a great baker. And how many slices per log? - [Christie] We should get 24. (Bridget whistles) So here are the last two.
- All right. - [Christie] I'm so excited
that these are all ready. - Me too. - Now we're going to bake
these one sheet at a time. These will go in a 350 degree oven on the middle rack for 13 to 15 minutes. And I'll go in and rotate the sheet pan halfway through baking.
- Okay. - [Christie] And while they're baking, we'll do the second batch.
- Yay. - It's been a little over 13 minutes. Those cookies smell done to me. - I'm telling you, we
should go into business. (Christie laughs)
It smells amazing in here. - [Christie] I'm gonna grab my sheet if you wanna follow behind with those and we'll switch 'em out. - Okay, sounds great. (gasps) How pretty! - Right?
- Oh, those are lovely. - [Christie] They stay pretty pale on top, but you can see around the edges. - [Bridget] That's right. - [Christie] How nice and golden they are. Lightly browned. - Lightly browned. - (laughs) Just a kiss.
- Oh, I like that. - Now these need to sit and
cool for about five minutes 'cause we're gonna handle them. - [Bridget] Right. - And they're too hot to touch now. So while they're cooling, we can work on the sugar coating that we're gonna put on them. So I have a quarter
cup of granulated sugar and I'll add a quarter
teaspoon of cinnamon, ground cinnamon. And then just a pinch,
just a pinch of salt. This is kind of a sweet, salty cookie, as well as the little savory
bit that we get from the lard. - [Bridget] Love it. - And this just sort of
reinforces those flavors. So as soon as those cookies
have cooled just a little bit, we'll give them a little
swim in the sugar mixture. - Hmm, perfect.
- Okay. I can handle these now.
- They firmed up just enough. - But we want to do this
while they're still warm, just not hot. So we'll put a few in the sugar and then just give 'em a little toss. - [Bridget] Mm. - So once they have a nice thin coating, we can put them over on a wire rack. We're just putting 'em on a baking sheet to catch any extra sugar. - All right. I'll be the taker outer. You can be the putter inner. - [Christie] I love it
when we work together. - [Bridget] I do too. - The cookies are great by themselves, but this is like the the bow on top. - Yes.
- You know? - Agree. - Oh, these are just about done. So we need to give these 30
minutes to cool completely. - Okay.
- And while we're doing that, we're also going to be
finishing off the second batch, running through this whole
process and letting them cool. And then we can eat. - I'm making space for those cookies. (Christie laughs) - [Christie] We've let these rest. We've given them their space. - [Bridget] Yes, it was the
longest 30 minutes of my life. - [Christie] I've heard
you say that before though. - But that was before today. (both laughing) - Well, I think it's time
we give you your cookies. - [Bridget] These are so beautiful
and they look so special. I almost hate to eat them. Oh, if I must.
- I know. (laughs) - Can't wait. Mm, mm! I love this texture of
cookies when it's crumbly, but it also, it's not tough. - It's not hard shortcake. You know, it almost feels almost like a laminated dough kind of, except it's in cookie form because it's crisp, kind of. - Right.
- Crunch. - Beautiful flavor. I mean, the anise or anise, mm. - You know, as it melts on your tongue, you can taste that little bit of savory that's bumped up by the salt. - You know, that little bit of salt just helps to make you really
appreciate the sweetness. And that cinnamon and anise together, it doesn't get much better. - No, subtle and delicious. - Exactly. Thanks, Christie. Well, to make these beautiful
biscochitos at home, use lard for best flavor and texture. Roll the chilled dough as you slice for perfectly round cookies
and toss them in cinnamon sugar while they're still warm. So from "Cook's Country,"
New Mexico biscochitos, and you can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season along with product reviews
and select episodes, they're all on our website. That's cookscountry.com/tv. Look at me, I'm getting sad. Now I'm happy again. Thanks for watching "Cook's Country" from America's Test Kitchen. So what'd you think? - Leave a comment and let us know which recipes
you're excited to make. Or just say hi. - Now you can find links to
today's recipes and reviews in the video description. - And don't forget to
subscribe to our channel. - See you later. - Alligator. (both laughing)
