We're going to put inside the quesadilla sliced steak.
You want a boneless, anything will work, strip,
flank steak, skirt steak, flat iron steak,
whatever's got a nice price.
You want six ounces per person per quesadilla
for a large adult portion.
So I have meat coming to room temperature.
Our tips for cooking a steak
are bring your meat to room temperature,
nice flat hot surface,
a good old cast iron skillet brought to high heat,
a neutral cooking oil, something you can see through
that has a high temp for cooking
and after the meat comes out of the pan, let it rest.
Let the juices redistribute before you slice.
To go along with that, I have a second skillet,
a nonstick skillet with a little bit of olive oil
heating up to take the sweet peppers, onions
and pickled jalapenos.
You can use mild pickled jalapenos or hot.
I like hot.
And you just let these cook up to sweat them out
to tender crisp with a little color around the edges
and a little salt and pepper, a little S and P.
Over the shoulder for luck.
Those guys are working.
For the steaks, we're going to make a little sprinkle,
a little rub as they're coming to room temperature of cumin,
about half a palmful each for two large steaks,
some chili powder, a little Mexican oregano,
granulated garlic, salt and pepper.
Mix this together
and rub the meat with all those great flavors on both sides.
When it comes to the guacamole and the salsa,
pico de gallo and guacamole start with the same bones,
the same building blocks.
So in each of these bowls, I have finely chopped red onion
or white onion, whichever you prefer,
finely chopped jalapeno pepper or serrano, green chiles.
The trick is to add salt and acid immediately to the onions.
I like garlic in both as well.
A little bit of tasty garlic and your chiles.
The salt and the acid work together
to draw all the flavor and all the juice out.
When you're cooking for a crowd,
you take all of your halved avocados, right, pit them,
put a wire rack over your bowl and just squish.
I know.
(applause)
So same base in both places.
Add a little finely chopped cilantro and to the pico
which is that same base with our diced tomatoes,
I also add a few dashes of cayenne pepper
or Frank's hot sauce I like in mine
and a little sprinkle of cumin
and then cilantro in both of these.
I'll meet you right back here in a couple.
We get the steaks in.
I made our spiced steaks with the cumin, Mexican oregano,
chili powder of choice, salt, pepper and garlic.
You let them rest, you slice them up.
We've got a large nonstick skillet getting nice and hot
to become our little quesadilla factory.
I spray the pan or the tortilla and I cook the inside first.
I want to develop the flavor of the tortilla
giving it a little color and I crisp it up a bit.
I've got the stove over between medium and medium high heat
and I heat up that first side and when it starts to brown,
I flip it and now we're ready to fill it
and I'm gonna take a little steak
and then we put our peppers
and onions and pickled peppers, right,
and then we put our cheese, cheese blend.
That's the glue that's gonna hold everybody together.
Flop 'em over
and then just flip 'em back and forth a few times
and that's it.
You just keep doing this over and over and over.
(applause)
I just pile 'em up
and I kind of make a toppings bar when I put these out.
So we would take our crispy quesadillas, cut 'em up,
pile 'em on to the plate, right, and then they get guac,
our pico, same base with our salsa, right, going across
and then we take our Mexican crema or sour cream
and drizzle that across
and then we take a few more
of our pickled jalapeno peppers to top and there you go.
Boom.
(applause)