Salsa verde.
(whooshing)
I like to make mine fresh
'cause it takes so little effort,
I put tomatillos, seven or eight of them,
an entire bulb of garlic, one large onion, quartered,
and a few poblano peppers on a sheet pan,
and I let it broil all over 'til the peppers are blistered,
then cool the peppers, remove the seeds and the tops, okay?
Then you just throw everything into the food processor.
And that little bit of char is so delicious in this salsa.
Now we're gonna add a little hint of cumin,
which is smokey but not spicy.
Salt and pepper of course.
And a little drizzle, tiny drizzle for sweetness of,
this is agave, light agave, or a little bit of honey
or even a little spoon of sugar,
just to give it some balance.
If you wanna make this extra spicy,
throw some jalapenos on that tray too.
The poblanos are going to be a mild to moderate heat level.
Now we're just going to juice a couple of limes
into our salsa, use a fork
to get some more juice outta this,
and then a little bit of cilantro,
small handful, there we go.
(click of lid)
(food processor whizzing)
Okay, then our salsa is done.
(whooshing) The king ranch casserole.
(whooshing)
So I'm starting with corn tortillas
and I'm blistering a whole pile of them
rather than just putting a tortilla in the pan
without cooking it at all, you wanna soften it up
and blister it to develop the corn flavor a little bit more.
If you have a gas-top stove
you can do exactly what I'm doing,
just throw it literally right on a lit burner
and let it blister.
If you have an electric-top stove,
what you want to do is take a cast iron
or stainless skillet,
get it screaming hot with nothing in it, just dry.
Blister your tortillas or throw 'em right on the burner
if, like me, you're lucky enough
to have a gas stove at work, ha ha.
(laughing)
So for the chicken all I did was buy a good-size
rotisserie chicken, it was about three and a half pounds,
and you remove of course, the skin and the bones,
and pull the chicken.
To the chicken I'm gonna add two cans of green chilies,
these are very mild.
Now we're gonna take Mexican crema or sour cream
and put about a cup and a half into your food processor.
(lid clicking)
And then I'm gonna take some grated cotija cheese
from the grocery store, it looks like parm
but it isn't, it's Mexican crumbly cheese.
Throw some of that in there.
Couple of jalapenos or serrano peppers,
couple of cloves of garlic.
And my ranchero sauce is kind of a play on ranch dressing,
so I'm gonna put in a fat amount of chives
and a nice big handful of cilantro or parsley.
I'm gonna add lime juice, salt and pepper to this,
and then we'll have our two sauces.
When we come back we'll build the casserole.
(applause) (whooshing)
Here is our fresh salsa verde,
or you can buy store-bought salsa verde,
I would buy two jars 'cause mine made
quite a bit there, about three cups.
And we're gonna add all of our ranchero sauce,
so kind of like a spicy, Mexican crema,
cortija cheese ranch dressing.
And then we just kinda carefully mix this all together.
Okay now we're gonna take about a third of this
and put this at the bottom of our casserole.
You take your tortillas and see you just kind of tear them
into big pieces and layer tortilla on top of that
it's kind of like a Mexican lasagna vibe.
And then we take a Mexican cheese blend
and do a layer of cheese.
Mm.
I know, mm hm.
Again if you wanna make this spicier buy pepper jack cheese
and add a little more oomph to it.
And then you just keep doing it over and over.
You're gonna get three layers out of it
ending with the cheesy layer.
(whooshing)
And I am topping it with mild, or you can use spicy,
pickled jalapenos and some green onion,
and now, like with a lasagna I just let it set up a bit
so it's easier to get in there and get it out.
(audience sighs)
I know, right?
(applause and cheering)
(tinkling)