♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - This week on<i> Milk Street,</i> we head to Colombia
for a cooking lesson, starting with fried empanadas. They're filled with beef,
potatoes, and spices and served with a green salsa. Then, it's a braised chicken with coconut and plantain. And we finish up with
Colombian potato soup with chicken, corn, and capers. Please stay tuned for the cooking of Colombia. ♪ ♪ - I'm Mariana Velásquez. I'm a food stylist, and I've been based in New York
for over 23 years. I grew up here in Bogotá,
where we are, and my passion for food
really comes from home. And so, every time I return
to Colombia, I feel I find something new. ♪ ♪ We are in this neighborhood
called La Perserverancia, "The Perseverance,"
right next to the neighborhood of San Diego, where the first beer company
was found, and it was called Bavaria, which is still very much
a cultural symbol. So, when you read about
empanadas, sometimes you find that they're
the perfect combination of that Spanish heritage, the Indigenous Colombian
culture, with the corn
at the center of the recipe, and then,
the Afro-Colombian influence with the addition
of spices and different flavors. They're usually deep-fried, and most of the times,
made of two types of corn, and then ground into a dough. And sometimes there's
an addition of dried masa, so that it comes
together as a binder. And, even
though Colombian cuisine is so regional and so varied, because we are one of
the most biodiverse countries in the world, you'll find empanada
everywhere you go. And what really changes
is the filling. You know,
if you're here in Bogotá, in the mountains, most likely empanadas
will have meat and potatoes. Where if you're in the oceans,
empanadas can have crab and fish,
or smoked rabbit. There's, of course,
cheese empanadas, which are to die for. In Colombia,
people tend to really sit for food and drink. It's very unusual to see someone drinking coffee
walking down the street, as you would in New York,
for instance. But empanadas, they're one of the only foods
in Colombia that you actually eat
standing up. ♪ ♪ So here we have
arepas de huevo, also known as
empanadas de huevo. One of the
most important things about empanadas is ají. It's a combination
of cilantro, green onion, red chili, lime, and vinegar. But, you know,
it changes from place to place, and people really take pride
on the way they prepare it. ♪ ♪ - (laughs) (speaking Spanish): (sniffs, gasps) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - So, you have to clarify
empanadas for me. Like, in Argentina, it's just, like,
flour, water, salt, very simple filling. This looks more elaborate. - Every Latin American
community, South American community, has their own version of
empanadas. These empanadas are from
Colombia, and we got the original recipe
from Mariana Velásquez, and she told us that there are two types of
main empanada dough. One type of dough
uses all corn flour. And this type of dough
that we're going to make uses a combination of
corn flour and all-purpose flour, and it makes
it easier to handle. - Okay.
- But, before we make the dough, we'll make the filling,
and we're making a beef filling. But of course, you can have a cheese filling,
you can have a vegetable filling or an egg filling. And the first thing we do
is mash a few potatoes, because in Colombia,
potatoes are king. So, while I mash the potatoes,
if you would get started on sautéing the onions for
the meat filling. (stovetop beeps)
I'll give you a tablespoon, and I will take
a tablespoon for the potatoes. And you'll get those sautéing
in the melted butter, and then,
we will put a lid on them for about eight minutes to
let them brown. Now, they'll brown
without the lid, of course, but the lid helps the onions
soften, as you know, and they get a little sweeter. - As opposing to putting
the lid on me, which is also one of Bianca's...
- (laughs) - Do you get sweeter?
- (chuckling): No. I just get kind of damp and...
- (chuckles) So, these potatoes were
previously boiled in salted water. We drained the water, we put
the potatoes back in the pot, I just added
that little bit of butter, and now I'll just mash them. And those onions sound good.
(pan sizzling) The butter is melted, so I think they're ready for
the lid. Takes about eight minutes,
you'll stir occasionally, and then they'll be
a nice, light, golden brown. (laughing):
Huh, the onions are ready. You can take the lid off now--
we're done with that. Okay, if you'll stir in
the tomato paste, we'll let that brown for about,
you know, a minute at the most. Ready to put in fresh tomatoes, the requisite garlic, and some chopped jalapeño. So now,
we're ready for the beef. A little bit of cumin and
some coriander, and some salt. - I'd just like to say,
you're not fooling around. - That was a good amount of
cumin and coriander, actually. So just break it up, because you don't want any
big clumps of beef, because this is going into
a tiny empanada. We want it to be nice
and evenly distributed. So all that's left is to
let this cook down for about 15 minutes,
until the meat is fully done. (pan sizzling)
Looks good, sounds good. (stovetop beeps)
And we will turn off the heat,
fold in the mashed potatoes and some chopped cilantro
for a fresh herbal note. See how thick that got now,
suddenly? - Yeah, it did, yeah. - So, that's going to have
some nice holding power. So once this cools down
a little bit, we'll transfer it to a bowl,
and put it in the fridge. Now we're ready
to make the dough. We have all-purpose flour
in here. We'll add the corn flour
to this, and a little bit of salt,
of course. All right, mix that on low. Now here comes the fat,
which is the good part, right? The melted butter,
still warm. And then we have a good bit
of whole-milk Greek-style yogurt.
(laughs) The acid helps
tenderize the dough and it makes it very pliable. We'll mix it
for about five minutes to help develop the gluten,
which helps make the dough even more pliable. (chuckles):
Okay, look at that. Look how together it came--
now... - Cooking with you is fun, because you just get all
excited. - But you enjoy it, too.
- I love it, too. - And now you get to do
the fun part. - Okay.
- Can knead that. When you feel it's ready,
you can divide it in half, and then
shape each half into a disc and they get wrapped separately. Just makes it easier
to roll out later-- beautiful. So we'll wrap
these in plastic wrap, we will chill them for an hour, or up to a day ahead, and then when
we will roll out the dough and make our little empanadas. ♪ ♪ We took the dough out
of the fridge for about 15 minutes, just to let the chill
come off of it. Not to get warm,
but just so it's not ice-cold. This is going to be fun. This is a completely
different type of dough. We're going to roll it out until
it's a 16th-of-an-inch thick. - (laughs):
Okay. - Okay, a 16th-of-an-inch,
like you said, that is kind of hard to tell, but you can tell. - Bianca... - If you need a ruler, you should get a ruler.
- (chuckles) I have to say,
this dough is just marvelous. It's soft, but it doesn't break and tear. Didn't I just make fun of you
for being excited about dough? - (chuckles)
- Now look at me. - Four-inch cutter. If you don't have
a cookie cutter four inches, use an upside-down bowl or, you know,
a large, wide glass. You want to get about
12 per half. So, cut as close to the edge
as you can and as close together. Then, with the scraps,
you can mush those together and reroll them if you need to. So, for Colombian empanadas, we are going to use our
cold meat filling to fill these. So, we'll put about
four teaspoons of filling, which is just around
a tablespoon, spread it out a little bit,
leaving the edges clear. And then this is important: you don't want to
over-moisten the edges, or they'll slide apart
instead of sticking together. So, just a little bit on
your finger, and just around
half of the dough, not the whole ring, and then, bring the two sides
up together, and then you press. And you want to get all
the way down to the corners. And then, turn it over, smash just a little bit
to even out the filling. And instead of braiding
or roping or twisting, the very simple decoration
of the Colombian way is just the simple fork
pressing. So you press with a fork,
it seals it in, and it gives a
little decorative edge, as well. You can even do a
little crosshatch if you like. Once these are filled, we'll let them chill
in the fridge for 30 minutes while we heat the oil. We have about an inch and a half
of a neutral oil in here. We want to bring it to 350. Let's talk about frying versus
baking for a minute. - Now, in Argentina,
they bake them, yeah. - In Colombia, they fry them.
- Oh. - Now, the difference between
baking and frying has everything to do with the texture of the dough--
you can bake these, you can put them
in a 400-degree oven, with a little egg wash on them, and they will
bake up beautifully. But when you fry them, that dough becomes bubbly
and crisp, and the contrast of that against the filling
is fantastic. We will fry them six at a time
so we don't overcrowd the pot. You don't want them to stick
together, and you don't want to cool
the fat down too much. These have been in
the fridge for half an hour, so they're nice and firm. Now, this only takes
three to four minutes. That's not much time at all. You want to let them
get nice and golden brown on one side,
flip them over, and then you'll scoop them out
when they're ready. Now, you wouldn't think
that cold filling would heat up in this amount
of time, but it does--
it is piping-hot in there. So these need to cool down a
little bit before you eat them. Come back up to 350,
next batch goes in. ♪ ♪ Now, one thing that Mariana
insisted on was that we serve it with the ají.
- Mm-hmm. - Which is a green salsa made
with jalapeños, a little bell pepper,
and cilantro. It has a little vinegar
and lime juice on it, so it has a nice tangy
freshness. (pastry crunches)
Dig in. - Mm. - Mm, I just heard the crunch. And the fried texture is what,
to me, makes it. - So, these are
Colombian-style empanadas, with a really great crust and a nice spiced meat filling. I should make these for
Old Home Day in our town in Vermont. You know, where they do the
fried dough and they do the french fries. Have the empanada booth--
this will be a hit. ♪ ♪ - This recipe is an adaptation of Mariana Velásquez's
pollo guisado and coco y ají criollo. And while she explains in
her book<i> Colombiana</i> it's not exactly
a traditional recipe, it does, in fact,
keep in the spirit and keeps a lot of the nuances
of Colombian cuisine. We want to add subtle, smoky
notes into this chicken braise, and we accomplish that
by charring a couple vegetables: shallots,
as well as cubanelle peppers. So, let me go ahead and
show you how we prepare these. So, first things first, you want to lop off
that entire top stem, and that exposes all
of the seeds on the interior. But, if you can't easily pull
them out at this point, you could always cut them right in half lengthwise. And then from there,
you could use the tip of your knife
to cut out any of the membrane. I like to tap my cubanelles
cut-side down to remove any of the seeds that
are lingering on the interior. And then, with the cut side
facing up, go ahead and
slice all these peppers into half-inch pieces. And now, we could go ahead
and char these things. Right now, I have the broiler
set to high, with a rack set about six inches
below the heating element. And I'm going to transfer
all of my peppers here onto a rimmed baking sheet,
and of course, we're also throwing on
our shallots. Now, these shallots have been
peeled and halved. So now, I'm going to throw them
under the broiler, and they're going to char
for about eight to ten minutes, or until everything has
a nicely even dark brown coloration. ♪ ♪ While my
peppers and shallots char, let's go ahead and cook
our chicken. I have bone-in skin-on
chicken thighs here, and we're going to cook them in a large Dutch oven that's set
over medium-high heat. But first,
I have to add some oil. Here I have some coconut oil, but neutral oil will
totally work. And we'll heat that oil up until
it begins to shimmer. And now, we're going to transfer
our chicken right into the pan,
skin side down. Now, it's important to work
in batches, so that way, all the chicken
has enough room to release its moisture
and fully brown. Now, I only have half of
my chicken in there, but we're going to
leave it there for about eight to ten minutes, so that way,
that skin browns up. Look at that, evenly brown,
beautifully caramelized, and it's going to impart such a great smoky note
into this really rich braise. Speaking of braising,
my chicken is fully seared. It developed a really beautiful
golden brown on that skin. You'll also note that
I haven't cooked the chicken on the other side. That's because we're going to
finish cooking it in the braise. Right now, we're browning
the skin to develop a lot of flavor in the pot, and it'll also extract
a little bit of the chicken fat to bolster
the chicken richness. So now, I'm going to take
all that fat that's in the Dutch oven,
and actually remove it. All except for,
like, two tablespoons, because that's going to help us
cook the rest of the dish. I'm also going to remove all
of this chicken skin, so that way we braise
only the chicken thighs. I only have two tablespoons
of that fat left in the pan, and all of the skin on my
chicken thighs has been removed, so we're ready
to keep on cooking. The next bit that we're going
to sauté is a bunch of cilantro stems
that have been finely chopped, along with some jalapeño that's been seeded and chopped
up into half-inch pieces, and finally, some garlic. Now, there's a lot of
residual heat happening on this pan, but we have it set over medium
to keep things cooking. The other thing that we're going
to be adding into this pan is all of
our charred vegetables. Go ahead and scrape all of those
right into the pot. So now, we'll cook all of
these vegetables for about five minutes,
or until they soften. The cubanelles and the shallots are already pretty soft,
so look to the jalapeños to be your guide. All righty, so my veggies
are nice and softened, so now, it's time to hit it
with some broth. This is our braising liquid,
but it's also going to help us scrape up all of
that umami-rich goodness. You'll see the color of
the broth change pretty drastically
to a dark brown. That's flavor, baby. So now we'll bring this
entire mixture up to a boil. And with everything
bubbling away, I'm now going to nestle
my chicken in a nice even layer
into this braising liquid. So, with all
the chicken in the pan, we're going
to reduce the heat down to medium-low
and pop a lid on it. This chicken is going to braise
for about 35 to 40 minutes. ♪ ♪ So now we're going to add in
some plantains into our braise here. So, to prep your plantain, you're going to lop off
both ends. Now, you could slip off
that peel, you could then cut this plantain
right in half, and then slice that in half
lengthwise, and just cut them in half
lengthwise again. After cutting them in half,
you'll want to cut them into half-inch pieces. So, as you can see,
a little wedge just like that is exactly what we're
looking for. So from here, we could throw
this into our braise, along with
some full-fat coconut milk. So, give this a stir, and you'll
want to adjust the heat to maintain a low simmer. It should only take about
ten minutes. The plantains are nice
and tender, and since we cooked that
without the lid, it's thickened just
a little bit. So now what I'm going to do is, I'm going to remove it
from heat altogether, and I'm going to introduce a little bit more freshness,
some levity. So, I'm throwing in some freshly
squeezed lime juice, as well as half
of my cilantro here, because I want to save
the rest for garnish. Give that a little stir. So, let me go ahead and scoop
myself a little bit of rice, and now let's get some
of this good stuff in here. The chicken is practically
falling off the bone here. Signs of a good braise. Now we'll top that off
with a little extra cilantro. Mm! The flavor
of coconut and plantain just transports me right
to Colombia. Mariana Velásquez got it right. This is such a comforting dish,
and I have a feeling you're going to fall right
in love with it. This is our braised chicken
with coconut and plantains. ♪ ♪ - So here we are, about ten kilometers from
the closest town. We're high up in the Andes, and this is my dear friend
Ricardo Umaña, who's having us over in
his beautiful home. - Ajiaco is a soup
based on potatoes. You know,
potatoes are so important, because it's, it's one of the
species that changed the world when the Spaniards came here
and took it to Europe. In Colombia, we have, like,
750 different kind of potatoes. But for ajiaco, we only use
three, thanks to God. Uh...
(both chuckle) One that is called a pastusa, it's a potato that dissolves.
- Dissolves. - And the object for this potato is to give a thickness
to the soup. Then, you have the sabanera. This is the potato that is used
for french fries, for instance. It's harder
and it doesn't dissolve it. And this one is
called the criolla, it's a very small,
very colorful potato that tastes
very, very different. - Well, we're here,
we're shredding the chicken that has already been cooked. And that's not too, too fine, so that it doesn't get dry and continues to
have some consistency. - And then, on top of that,
you put some avocado. - And this is a native variety
of avocado. Papelillo, no? - Yes.
- Different from the Hass. It has a creamier texture, and it's lighter in color,
as well. - You can see,
and it's very easy to peel. And some herbs.
- And don't forget the corn. So, the corn has
been a whole debate. - Why? They don't like it?
- No, I'm... Well, no, I mean,
there's been debate about having the grains of corn
in the soup. But...
- No, no, no, no, no. No, you, you pinch the,
the corn by both sides, and you eat it by hand,
like this. So, the way you do it is that you serve
the soup with potatoes, you put the corn as this, and then chicken--
the chicken here. - Okay. - You put some capers. - (speaking Spanish)
- Mm-hmm. You put cream. Then, you put<i> aguacate.</i> - I'm going to do my<i> aguacate</i>
on the side. - Mm-hmm.
- You know, like, hot avocado is terrible,
so I add it to the soup... - Mm-hmm.
- ...bite by bite. - Mariana, cheers.
- Cheers. - For the honor of having
you here. - So, you can really smell
the guascas, which are delicious, and then,
the soup is quite light, but creamy at the same time. It's good, you know, the capers give it enough
saltiness, and the potatoes have all
this dimension and different tastes. It's quite comforting, no? This flavor really reminds me of home, you know?
- Yes. - I mean, of growing up,
of Bogotá. In general, it feels like,
like, I'm home. - Yeah.
- Yeah. ♪ ♪ - Colombia boasts
750 varieties of potatoes. 750. So, it should come as
no surprise that when we visited Bogotá, we tried a soup called ajiaco, which is
a potato and chicken soup. And in this soup, the potato is really the star
of the show. It sounds really complex, but it's actually
really simple to make. So we're going to start
by making the base of the soup, which is sort of like
a chicken broth. And we're going to use
bone-in, what once was
skin-on chicken breasts, but we took the skins off because we don't want the soup
to get greasy. So, we can put these in
the pot whole, and then
we'll add some aromatics. We have some scallions-- those go in whole-- some celery, and then, some whole cilantro,
leaves and stems. And then, for the potatoes, we're going to use three
different varieties of potatoes. But we had to find some
potatoes that were comparable to the ones that
they have in Colombia. So, the first potato they
use in Colombia is called pastusa. It's a really starchy
yellow potato. In place of that one,
we're going to use a russet, also very starchy. The next one that they use
in Colombia is called criolla. It's a tiny little potato,
really, really buttery. In place of that one,
we're going to use a Yukon Gold potato, and both of these get sliced into about quarter-inch-thick
slices. So those can go into the pot. Now, these potatoes that
are going in at the beginning are really going to kind of
break down, and that's going
to make almost, like, a creamy texture to the soup. Now, the next thing that's
kind of a critical element in the soup
is corn. So, the recipe calls for
four cobs of corn. Two of those get plopped right into the middle of
your bowl. The other two,
we're going to cut the kernels off the cob,
and then put the cobs in. The cob still has a ton
of really great corn flavor, so that's going to do a wonderful job
of seasoning our soup. So, we're going to
put in some garlic and some salt and pepper. And then, some water. All right, I'm going to keep
these kernels of corn. We're going to add them
at the very end. In the meantime, this is going
to come up to a simmer. We'll reduce the heat
to medium and let that go
for about 30 minutes, just until
those chicken breasts are reaching 160 at the thickest part
of the breast. ♪ ♪ All right,
the chicken is cooked through, so we can take that out now. We're going to
just set that aside until it's cool enough to touch, and then eventually,
we're going to shred it. In the meantime, I'm going to
take out all those aromatics we put in earlier. And you can see that
these potatoes that are in here are already starting to
break down. So I mentioned three
different types of potatoes. We've only seen two so far. So the last one would replace a Colombian potato called
a sabanera. It's a dense, waxy potato,
kind of purplish in color. Instead, we're going
to use a Red Bliss potato, or any sort of
small, waxy, dense potato. And we're putting
these in a little bit later so they're going
to hold their shape. So we've got
this really nice contrast, have the potatoes
that have broken down, and then,
we have these potatoes that are going
to keep their shape. So, we're going to have a really nice contrast
of textures. And then, we can add in
the corn that's on the cob. So, two cobs of corn,
cut into three pieces. So I'm just going to let that
come back up to a simmer, and let that go for about
five minutes, until the corn that's on the cob
is cooked through. So, it's been five minutes,
the corn is cooked. I'm going to take it out
at this point, and we'll set those aside. You'll get that on the table, and you'll be able to put one in
your bowl, if you'd like. In the meantime, this is going
to continue to cook for probably
another 20 to 25 minutes. In the meantime, I'm going
to shred up our chicken. All right, these potatoes have
broken down. Their starchiness really helps
kind of thicken the soup. So, the last couple of things
we're going to put in are those corn kernels
that we cut off a cob earlier, and then
a traditional Colombian herb, really an important one
in this recipe. It's called guascas,
it's a mountainous herb. I sort of feel like it tastes
kind of like a combination
between bay leaf and parsley. It's dried, it's really easy to
order online, but, if you can't find it,
our friend Mariana Velásquez, who's a Colombian food expert, says you can use
chopped up celery leaves. All right, that's going to
just take about five minutes for that corn to cook through. ♪ ♪ All right, now we can finally
start our soup bar. Some chicken. Plop in some corn. Do not sleep on the capers. They are so good in this. I can't stress that enough. And then a little bit of cream. I'm going to put my avocado
on the top where it's protected from
any heat. All right, this looks fantastic. It smells so good,
it's very aromatic. So you can smell that guascas
and the corn in this. So, so delicious. ♪ ♪ It's great--
those corn kernels at the end are still kind of crisp,
which is really, really nice. And you have these
creamy potatoes in here. It has so much flavor. It's so complex, but it's really
quite simple and rustic. This is ajiaco, Colombian potato soup
with chicken, corn, and capers. It's on every table in
Bogotá, Colombia, and we think it should be
on yours, too. You can get this recipe,
and all of the recipes from this season of<i> Milk Street,</i>
at MilkStreetTV.com. - Recipes and episodes
from this season of<i> Milk Street</i> are available
at MilkStreetTV.com, along with shopping lists,
printer-ready recipes, and step-by-step videos. Access our content anytime
to change the way you cook. - The new<i> Milk Street Cookbook</i>
is now available and includes every recipe
from our TV show, from Pad Thai with shrimp
and no-fry eggplant parmesan to Korean fried chicken and
salty honey browned butter bars. The<i> Milk Street Cookbook</i> offers bolder, fresher,
easier recipes. Order your copy of
the<i> Milk Street Cookbook</i> for $27,
40% less than the cover price. Call 855-MILK-177
or order online. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
