- It feels right in my body.
- Thank God.
- I'm Gina.
- Hey, I'm Liza and this...
- [Both] Is "Taste Buds".
(Gina laughing) - You get it?
'Cause we're buds and we're about to do some tasting.
- Right. - You'll get it.
- Here we go. (upbeat music)
- This... - (gasps) Oh, damn!
- Yeah, that's right.
- That looks delicious. - It is.
You know butter chicken, right?
- I do. - Like Indian food?
- Mm-hmm. - Well this is butter chicken.
A big chicken tittie that was buttered Indian style,
curry style, and then deep fried.
And then you put it between two slices of bread
that we do not have today.
But we do have the butter chicken innards.
Enjoy.
- Could not listen to anything else past
the chicken titties because lemme tell you something,
I feel like one big chicken tittie-
(Liza laughing) for my son.
- All the time.
- Okay, here go. - He suckles the tittie.
You put the sauce on it if you want to.
But it essentially is big ass fried chicken, Indian-style.
And this is like the fusion that I grew up with,
to have that fusion of culture of like western foods
meets an eastern flavor was always on my plate growing up.
Is it spicy? - I love spice.
- How are you with spice? - Very good.
I like it very spicy.
Sean, take her on "Hot Ones" real fast.
Would you do it? - I like the heat, yeah.
- Would you do it, yeah? - I'd probably kill it too.
- This is honestly me.
Like, we used to get like chicken tenders from Chick-fil-A
or from McDonald's and we would dip it into like
butter chicken or chicken tikka or chicken masala,
whatever we had. - That's so dope.
- And like Hot Cheetos and saag paneer, the shit.
- Hot Cheetos?
I feel like you just fused both of our cultures.
- Is that us?
- Are we Hot Cheetos and... (angelic music)
- Are you the Hot Cheetos to my saag?
- I am. (Liza chuckles)
- No, you put this on a sandwich.
You put this between like two like Texas toast bread.
- Ooh.
- And you put a little honey on top too,
with a little Sriracha.
It's like a fusion of multicultural situation on your plate.
- Wow.
- That's the way we like ate growing up.
It was so fun.
It was just creative as hell.
You get high as shit in college
and you fuse as many of your friends' cultures
into your food. - That's super dope.
- It's fun, it's fun.
Is that me squeaking?
(chairs squeaking)
(upbeat music continues)
- Ooh. - Okay.
So this is coconut chickpea curry.
- [Gina] Oh yes.
- And coconut is so prevalent in Keralan food,
which is like where my family is from.
So Kerala, if you're looking at India as a pizza slice.
- Okay. - At the very bottom,
the little penis tip, that's where my family's from.
Kerala, by the Malabar Coast,
which is where the spice trade happened.
- Oh, wow. - You can tell my dad
drops history nuggets on me all the time.
- Yeah, this is beautiful.
- But it's heavily spiced food.
We have like butter chicken curry, chicken tikka, yes.
Those are like classic American takes
on Northern Indian food.
- Okay. - But Southern Indian food
is even more heavily spiced.
- Oh, that's delicious. - Yeah?
But wait- - You were gonna have me dip.
- There's more. - Yes, please.
- Mm-hmm. - Mm-hmm.
- I need some chips.
- You got tortillas? - Thank you.
I got tortilla chips.
- Oh, you are 100% fusing- - Yes!
- all the cultures. - Oh yes, absolutely.
- Ooh girl, yes.
Salty.
- So you dip a chip into the chickpea curry.
Oh yes, that's fair, that's fair.
How is it? - Oh, it is so delicious.
- Is it good?
Start out like dicing the onions, the tomatoes.
You throw in all the spices, you let that cook down,
you throw in the chickpeas, the coconut milk,
then you let that cook down even further and reduce.
But it's a lot of turmeric and a lot of cumin-
- I was gonna say, that's what I taste.
I taste the turmeric, I taste the cumin.
- Yeah.
- It feels right in my body.
- Thank God.
It's supposed to. (upbeat music continues)
(both mumbling)
- Yeah, I agree.
I agree fully.
(both mumbling)
(both continue mumbling)
You got all that, right?
- You got it?
What'd you make me? (lively music)
- So I'm really excited for you to have
one of my favorite dishes,
which is arroz con gandules, which is, right I know.
- Arroz con...
- That's actually what I say right before I have sex.
- Good God, what are these sheets?
- Egyptian cotton. - Oh.
- I must give you my arroz con gandules.
(Liza laughing)
- What's it translate to?
- Rice and beans a bit, essentially.
- Oh, all right.
- But it's a specific yellow rice made with pigeon-
- Huh? - beans.
- Oh.
- Which are the little bitty ones.
But you know, my brother can actually talk about it
better than I can because he made it.
- Yes!
- My mom is in Puerto Rico.
I love you, Mom.
And I was like, "Oh, who's the only other person
that can make this?"
It's my brother-in-law, Chris. (lively music continues)
Welcome to the set, Chris! (both cheering)
- Yay, give it up for Chris!
- Oh. - Yo!
- Look at this, like damn!
You see that shit? - The steam!
- Whoo! - Tell her how you make this.
- This is arroz con gandules.
It does take a while to make. - Yeah.
There's recao, which we use
in a lot of Puerto Rican dishes.
Arroz con gandules, con arroz con habichuelas.
And these are the pigeon beans.
You put olives in it.
Recao, recaito, more cilantro-based,
and culantro which is another herb.
Now, we normally put pork in it.
- Yeah, but... - Or we put...
- But Liza don't eat the pork.
- But Liza, I heard you don't eat pork.
So I cooked the plain version of it.
The bottom is called pegao.
- And that's what I'm going for.
I'm going deep. - Hell, yeah.
Pegao means stuck. - It's stuck,
and it's a little darker. - Oh, it's crispy?
- It's crispier. - Oh, gimme that shit.
- Yeah, you want a little bit of the crispy?
- Yeah, I want the crunch.
- [Chris] My mother's been doing it forever.
Her mother's been doing it forever.
- Well, cheers.
Thank you so much for making this.
This looks delicious. - You're welcome.
So pollo frito, which is just translates to fried chicken,
but we still call it fried chicken.
Different, we put adobo in it.
We put adobo in everything.
- [Gina] It's delicious.
- Two chicken titties from two different cultures.
- Yeah. - Two cutlets from cultures.
Two cutlets from the cultures, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm.
- It's very traditional.
We eat this a lot.
- What do you do to your chicken?
- We season everything with adobo.
- What is adobo?
- Adobo is just another spice that you mix with.
- Excuse me? - Eat that fresh pepper.
(all laughing)
- I wanna get that.
You know, I wanna hit that.
I wanna (vocalizing).
- Fresh pepper. (both vocalizing)
- That's in the movie! - Is it really?
- Yeah, we're talking about deep-throating,
and we do the crushed pepper.
- David says, "Give him that fresh pepper."
- Well, I wasn't talking about deep-throating.
- But you just did that. (Gina laughing)
I'm deep-throating the hell outta this arroz con gandules.
We should start a fusion restaurant,
Puerto Rican Indian food. - Puerto Rican Indian food.
Oh. - Who woulda thought?
Who would thought? - Oh my God.
(Gina and Liza speaking indistinctly)
(distorted ringing)
Yay! - Thank you!
(upbeat music)
That really was delicious.
Thank you so, so much.
- This was incredible.
- Yeah, it was.
You know what else is incredible?
"Players" on Netflix.
Coming...
- On Valentine's. - All over the place.
(both laughing)
- Yes. - All over your face.
(both laughing)
And on Valentine's Day. - Yeah.
Open wide on Valentine's Day.
"Players."
- (laughing) Coming now.
- Right now (giggling).
- Wait (grunting) little delayed but, (grunting) now.
(Gina laughing) Whoa.