Rick Bayless “Mexico: One Plate at a Time” Episode 801: Mediterranean Baja

The Baja California peninsula boasts a climate reminiscent of those on the Mediterranean Sea. Thousands of olive trees and vineyards in Northern Baja capture the distinctiveness of this region of Mexico. We explore the amazing grilled octopus at Tres Virgenes in La Paz and enjoy mesquite-grilled lamb with 9-chile mole sauce. Rick makes tacos of kale and spinach with a green garlic mojo from the gardens of the renowned spa Rancho La Puerta. In Tijuana, Chef Miguel Angel Guerrero Yagües shows off his terrific wood-fired grill to Rick before he cooks lamb three ways. Chef Jair Tellez makes a geoduck ceviche at his dreamy Laja restaurant in the Valle de Guadalupe. At home, Rick grills lamb with fennel and a red chile salsa. Astonishing Baja, indeed.

*Episode Recipes*

Tacos of Garden Greens in Green Garlic Mojo with Arbol Salsa: https://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/tacos-of-garden-greens-in-green-garlic-mojo/

Grilled Lamb Chops with Salsa Macha and Slow-Cooked Fennel: https://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/grilled-lamb-chops-with-salsa-macha/

Thank you [Applause] Mexico’s Baja Peninsula has a climate and a Cuisine that’s different from the rest of the country that’s what they call a Mediterranean climate wet in the winter and dry in the summer unlike the more tropical climate that you’ll find in the rest of Mexico and at a

Restaurant like Tres bikinis in La Paz that climate and the great local seafood inspires the menu of the chef there Jesus Chavez these look a little different than what I’m used to working with these must be from local Waters yes these are cut about 20 kilometers from here on one of

Our beaches and we have a guy that just catches the octopus for the restaurant and goes out every morning it comes back and brings the octopuses okay so then you’re just dipping the octopus and oil after it’s been simmered so it’s just the right stage and then cooking over

The Mesquite yeah it’s a very simple marinade it’s Bonzo sauce I keep seeing all this sort of Asian influence in a lot of the chefs in Baja you know I I come from up north northern Baja so we have a lot of very big Chinese Community up there so it’s

Natural for us to be familiar with all those ingredients from Asia so you’ve got a marinade that starts with ponds of sauce pasta sauce olive oil Baja olive oil past ancho powder and it has a little bit of Worcestershire sauce now that’s to me a kind of quintessence

With the influences of the Mediterranean influences of Asia and then very clearly set in Mexico with that anchovy yes definitely the ancha powder gives it that Smoky very mexican-like flavor all you have to do is take one Taste of the food here and you think Mediterranean you get it so clearly when

You smell the Sea Air when you look at the landscape that’s filled with those beautiful olive trees and Vineyards that produce great oil and wine when you teach the artisanal cheeses and wander through those inspiring Gardens one of my favorite Gardens anywhere in the world is not just because it’s so beautiful

But because of the gardener Salvador who is one of the most passionate guys I know the cool thing is he said that I could choose anything I wanted from the garden and then go into their teaching kitchen and cook it and you’re growing all the different colors of chard right

Let’s get some of them all of it here okay you want to help me foreign Tender the flavor in the blossom oh my God it’s like pea pods they’re really good I love the little spiciness that they add at the end of this yeah flavor is this the garlic it’s the green garlic along with that green garlic we went on to pick a remarkable variety of greens

Some red and green auric some New Zealand spinach and some Tuscan kale Now my idea here is to turn this green garlic into a green garlic Mojo de Ajo you probably know that bath of garlic that’s typically made with slow cooked regular garlic well I’m going to use the green garlic out of the garden now you treat these sort of like leeks you split

Them from end to end after washing them really well and then you slice them across Into Thin slices now this is the time that you know these aren’t Lakes this is garlic all that garlic Aroma just comes up to greet you put them into a saucepan and cover them with olive oil foreign There and I’m going to put it onto a low fire here and let it cook slowly slowly slowly until that green garlic is completely tender now in the meantime I’m going to make a roasted tomato and Chile de arbo salsa so I’m going to take the chilo de arbo the Salvador grew and

Put it into a skillet over here heat it over a medium temperature you’ll know they’re ready when the aroma of the chilies just comes up to greet you just like that garlic did I’m going to put the toasted arbled chilies into the blender jar here And then add roasted tomatoes and roasted garlic now roasted tomatoes you can do them under a broiler it’s super easy to do that but in Mexico it’s typical to put them on a Comal or on a griddle I just did these in a skillet I

Lined it with a piece of foil and turned them until they’re completely black and blistered and soft all the way through I’m not even going to peel them for this particular robust rustic salsa put them in there beside it here I’ve got some garlic cloves that I’ve dry roasted in a

Skillet takes about 15 minutes over medium heat then peel off the papery skin and then this gets Blended until it’s completely smoothed foreign looks like it needs just a touch of water so I put that in blend it for a few more seconds pour some out into a serving dish here

That looks just the right consistency for this deep robust rustic exactly what I was looking for now it’s on to slicing up all those greens from the garden After the Mojo Diego had simmered for 15 minutes or so I seasoned it with some lime juice some fresh episote and some lemon thyme then that went back onto the heat for another 10 minutes for all those flavors to come together this Riot of textures and flavors that I

Have on The Cutting Board here all get mixed together in the skillet take that back to the stove a little of the oil from the green garlic Mojo infused with episote and lemon thyme give it a little bit of water that’ll just help the cooking to go evenly turn on the fire to

About a medium high just stir it all together and let it cook until those greens are as tender as you like I think with this mix it’ll probably take eight to ten minutes to make that perfect mixture into a perfect Taco you’ve got to have the perfect tortilla and Maricela here is

Making fresh corn tortillas from fresh ground Masa A hot fresh made tortilla a little bit of our greens mixture got some fresh made queso fresco Mexican fresh cheese to sprinkle on the top of it a little of our spicy herbal salsa remember those daikon blossoms sprinkle those spicy little things over the top That’s cooking local organic fresh and delicious I wanted to delve deeper into that Mediterranean side of Baja so I trekked out to Rancho Olivares de calafia in the Bay De Guadalupe now as its name implies it’s a huge Olive Grove but it surrounds this beautiful lamb Farm all of it under

The direction of Manuel Acero my chef friend Miguel Angel Guerrero had turned me on to this place because he loves their lamb and olive oil it’s amazing Valley here the Valle de Guadalupe that stretches from way up there to clear down there and you’ve got a hundred thousand olive trees exactly

Right below us that is so stunning I’ve never seen anything like that in my life and they’re right in the middle of it you have a land farm exactly how did that all well we are in one of the five Mediterranean areas of the world in fact this is explain that this is

What makes a Mediterranean the Mediterranean climate in the Mediterranean areas have have to do with the ocean has to do with the breeze have to do with the mountains the hills it creates some micro climates and vegetation that it permits also to to have Olive Groves to grow grapes for

Wine because this Valley is very well known for great wine as well as a great olive oil well the Baja Med concept comes from that so so yes it just it just it just eases through and if you come visit Valle de Guadalupe you kind of start understanding where where the

Concept comes from you certainly do just standing up here on this Bluff looking at this Valley and thinking about grapes and thinking about olives and thinking about lamb I could be in someplace else but they’re not we’re in Mexico here you guys have a word for it in Spanish here

We call it the Runo some call it querencia and as I was putting an example the other day if a horse gets lost here and and then you know goes a couple wrenches down it always comes back to its Terror it always comes back home because this is where it was born this

Is where you were born right yeah and what you feel who you are or you feel who you are and you must love that word querencia because you named a restaurant that’s it that’s this is your place like you say the querencia that place that

You go back to you always live and but you always come back where you feel safe talk to me more about the Lambs if you just go to the restaurants where where we deliver this lamb is it’s just you can just tell the difference and it’s

Not so much genetics it’s not so much other things it’s just the Mediterranean way of life at Chef Miguel Angel’s restaurant in Tijuana it’s called La querencia he’s made quite a name for himself mostly for having incredible local ingredients a lot of talent and an enviable grill

That is a beautiful leg of lamb it’s from a lamb Farm where did you marinate it in lemon time yes you have a rock salt yeah shallots garlic and some olive oil from the the rice from the ranch where we were really what we got yes

Where we had the lamb it’s a small leg of lambs so you’re gonna spit roast it we’re going to roast it and then let’s get real here show me show me please put it here we are the motor okay So we’ve got the leg of lamb that’s cooking on the spit and I noticed that you have two more lamb Cuts you got a double cut lamb chop and then this is lamb loin landline okay explain this what the idea to is because we have three cuts of lamb I want to try

To explain in one dish yes perfect so what do we need to do next already [Laughter] foreign On a plate lamb leg with fruity mole a blue cheese dressed salad grilled lamb chops with soy dressed shiitakes lamb loin and salsa matcha with couscous and pine nut oil this is spectacular oh my cousin how I see it I can’t wait to dig into it grilled lamb with salsa matcha and

Roasted fennel sounds pretty good but doesn’t sound very Mexican really yet that’s a combination that has become a kind of classic in the northern part of the Baja Peninsula well and the salsa matcha doesn’t really seem very Mexican either but it’s this delicious infusion of olive oil and dried chilies with the

Little nuts and garlic the truth is you can find that salsa matcha everywhere from the taquerias to the fancy restaurant so when you start to make that salsa the first thing you have to do is choose dried chilies you can use practically any kind of dried chilies to

Make this I like a combination of sweet ancho chilies we’ve got the dark long pastilla negro chilies and the Smoky hot Chipotles and of course you gotta clean them first so you pull out the stem open them up and let the seeds fall out and then you got to cut up the chilies

Into smaller pieces so I like to tear them into flat pieces like that I’m going to give you a pair of scissors and take this one and then you want to cut them into pieces that are about half inch and then cut those into smaller pieces like that

Now while Laney continues on with the cleaning and The Chopping of the the chilies I’m going to start the olive oil base I’m going to put this pot over about medium heat here and pour in two cups of really good olive oil and to that olive oil we’re going to add

Some nuts and seeds and this just as with the dried chilies you can use practically anything that you have on hand I’m going to put some peanuts in there some almonds and some sesame seeds And four cloves of garlic which I’m going to peel and then have Now that’s going to go into the pot here we’re going to stir it around a little bit it’ll start to come up to a little simmer and after about five minutes you’ll notice that that garlic and that Sesame in there will start to Brown that’s when we’re going to add the

Chilies to it Foreign Seasonings will be of course some salt and vinegar mixed together and a little bit of dried herbs I’ve got some Mexican oregano and some thyme so I’m going to prepare that part of it I’m going to add a little of this Mexican oregano that I’m going to

Crush between my Palms release it’s all that beautiful Aroma a little tiny bit of dried thyme a little of this goes a long way also crushing that between my fingers to release it Aroma and Laney’s got a tablespoon of vinegar with a teaspoon of salt teaspoon of salt that

Goes in here and that vinegar and salt will just Infuse itself right into the beautiful aromatic dried it sure smells good now this incredibly aromatic mixture I’m just gonna go into the blender jar and get pulsed to chop all the larger pieces especially the nuts into smaller ones Now to roast fresh fennel you first have to chop up the fennel they cut off the stock part of it you can save that to make a soup with I always trim off some of the root end of it what is that aromatic smell bad yeah very small Licorice and then cut

Each half into four or five pieces I’m gonna lay all this fennel here in this pan and now we’re going to drizzle all this fennel in here with some of our salsa matcha trying to get mostly the oily part and because this fennel is going to

Spend quite a bit of time in the oven I’m going to drizzle in about a quarter of a cup of water and then cover it with foil and then into the oven it goes I’m gonna cook at 325 for just over an hour until tender One of my very favorite things to do in the whole wide world is to grill here in Chicago that means a whole chunk of the year I don’t get to do what I really like to do so I decided to really investigate how to grill in my fireplace but it’s a

Little different first you’re working on wood you’re not working on charcoal so you got to have a grill that can accommodate that and I don’t know any better and simpler way to do it I need to put one of these Tuscan grills in here so I’ve got my beautiful salsa

Matcha here I’ve got lovely lovely lamb chops and I think that pretty much the easiest way to get the flavor of those two things to go together is to drizzle the matcha over the lamb chops smear it all around so you get some of the beautiful robust spiciness and clearly

All that great olive oil flavor all over the lamb chops give them a sprinkling of salt and then flip them over and season the other side exactly the same way Now they’re going to go on to the grill grate and we’re going to grill them until the donuts I like which is about medium rare that should take three or four minutes per side depending on the heat of my fire Now we’re ready to serve Yes another one of Baja’s well-known chefs has been a Trailblazer in modern Baja Cuisine for more than a decade at his restaurant jair takes full advantage of what Baja has to offer especially produce from his own garden and stuff from the sea even the formidable gooey duck clam

Gooey duck clams I’ve eaten them but I’ve never worked with them before so what do you do when you get a clam that looks like that she’s got this very peculiar skin yes and we’ve poach it in boiling water are you poaching boiling water you put the dirty salmon just to

Chuck it yeah okay After poaching you have to pry the shell off and peel the skin from the exposed part and then slice it thin He arranged the slices in a deep plate topped them with a little lemon juice not lime here and some of the liquid from the gooey duck and then he put on some fresh fennel fronds aromatic cilantro a few beautiful borage flowers and finally a little grated lemon zest and thinly sliced red scallion

A little drizzle of uh olive oil because I figured out that in this Valley almost every dish has to have a little drizzle of the local olive oil on it somehow we always do that Andres the chair’s partner in the restaurant is also a wine maker and he

Brought in a beautiful minerally crisp Rose to pair with that Ceviche so when I think about Ceviche I always think about fresh fish obviously how about lime juice but in this one I’m also getting the flavor of that olive oil oh yes in there which gives it a complete it’s

Pretty olive oil some richness to it which a lot of people don’t associate with any kind of Ceviche Cheers Cheers thanks for some good food and good wine foreign