we're in the state of Oaxaca and we're here to eat
this Oaxaca series is all about sharing with you
some of this amazing state's delicious food
every week the town of
Ocotlan hosts one of the biggest traditional markets in Oaxaca state this
place is a feast for the senses this is our second video from Oaxaca and we're
taking you into the heart of the market to discover some traditional and
delicious Oaxacan foods in this massive Mexico series we'll show you some of the
country's best food from Mexican street food to heritage recipes you don't want
to miss this series get ready for some mouth-watering food
I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate we hope you're hungry
let's eat
we are so excited to be filming a massive series here in the state of
Oaxaca, Oaxaca is regarded as one of the gastronomic hearts of Mexico and this
video is going to be set at Ocotlan market now every Friday in the town
of Ocotlan there is a huge traditional market
people come from all around the surrounding villages and towns they come
in to trade they come in to shop they come in to eat to catch up with their
neighbors and this place is a riot of colour and produce and food and live
animals it's a really really exciting place we're here to eat of course and
have a wander around and show you how spectacular this traditional market is
this is such a full-on market we were here two and a half years ago and it's
so good to be back so we can film it and show you guys so it's outside of Oaxaca
city we caught a bus here it took about an
hour just over an hour so a very easy bus ride this place is amazing so it's
only on Fridays it takes over all the streets in the centre of Ocotlan so
it's over a number of blocks it's a bit of a maze to get around there's
different sections it's a super exciting place and there's some really good food we
want to show you
I've spotted one of our things on our hit list of things to eat and that is an
empanada so let's go and grab one, hola buenos dias
is this mole de amarillo? Si, una empanada por favor so these are the
empanada cooking here on the comal this shallow pan really so the empanada
in Oaxaca is basically a big tortilla that's filled with filling and then
folded in half not like the empanada that we're used to the deep-fried pastry
pockets we've eaten this before and it is very good it is stuffed full of mole a
yellow mole called amarillo mole
I really love watching the empanadas getting made
so the tortilla is being pressed to order it's a beautiful yellow color very
vivid and it's about this big so quite big it gets put on the comal which is
the pan and then a ladle of the yellow mole gets put on top some pieces
of shredded chicken and then it just gets folded in half and then slowly
cooked on that griddle pan now mole is one of those iconic dishes of Oaxaca
it's essentially a sauce which is made up of a number of ingredients up to
sometimes 40 ingredients this yellow mole gets its colour from a
yellow chilli and it's got all sorts of things in it like garlic and tomatoes
and tomatillos and you can see the chunks of chicken in there and then I
think this might be coriander senora senora is this cilantro? Si and hoja santa? No
cilantro ah si gracias so this is just cilantro so the coriander
in there this is going to taste real good I reckon what I might do is just
chuck some lime on there and then some of the fresh onion
hmm the yellow mole is quite subtle in flavor so it's not spicy at all
it's just got a beautiful rich flavor you can really taste that chicken it's
very strong and then the burst of cilantro really really good
I love the tortilla it's got a really strong corn flavour it's very earthy and it's a
little bit crispy as well from being on that comal
it really is an amazing market to walk around there is so much going on so
we're in the sort of the fruit and vege section at the moment and it is
chaos in here brilliant chaos there's so much good fruit
and vege to see there's all this amazing ohhh sorry disculpe
all this meat over here hanging and meat being cooked
so you've got the beautiful smell
of that in the air it's an unreal place to explore
up ahead are a number of our stalls which are selling barbacoa so it's sort of like
barbacoa alley barbacoa is usually sheep or lamb or goat
barbacoa de chivo ahhh
si ok so it's goat at this stall and she's chopping it up it looks so moist
and tender I think we've got to order some oh gracias so this lady's given me a
little sample to try look at that silky fat the meat oh my goodness
muy rico it is incredible melts in your mouth it's got a great savoury
taste and it's really well seasoned we've definitely got to order some
muchas gracias so this lady has popped by with a bunch of tortillas so we've got a
stack of tortillas I got five or four I think so that's five pesos muchas
gracias
we put in our order of barbacoa and when it arrived we realized that
we needed to double it so we've got two plates of barbacoa
and then
we've got some consomme here so which is a broth which is filled with bits of
goat meat and then there's also a ton of vegetables in there I can see some
carrots some beans some chayote and then we've got agua de jamaica
which is an agua fresca so a fruit water this is the hibiscus water
and then we've got our stack of tortillas
this meat looks incredible it was so neat watching it getting cut up so it's
very very soft she had a neat little axe sort of device which she was using to crack
through the bones and the meat just falls apart so the barbacoa is quite a
special meal quite hard to prepare it's cooked in a big pit covered in maguey
leaves and takes a long time to cook so very very slowly roasted and that
explains why it's just so soft and tender I mean look at this piece of meat
I'll just put two forks on there and I'm not doing anything really there that is
just breaking apart with absolute ease so we've ordered the portions of the
meat so that's goat meat and then we've ordered this which we think is a blood
cake we're not actually a hundred percent sure what it is but it looks
very much like a blood cake with things cooked down in it so I can see some
onion there I think there's some chilli in there and how this meal works is you
get an array of things on the table to go with it all so we have a salsa verde
which should be nice and fiery you can see it's nice and runny got a whole lot of vegetables
and chillies here some cabbage and some limes of course in
Mexico there's always going to be limes on the table so really it's about
grabbing your tortilla and making up what you want to eat so I want a bit of
everything so that's what I plan to do so let's get a nice big chunk of meat
we'll get some of this the sort of blood cake on there I'll get a nice big whack of
that because I think that will be nice and creamy that cake and then it's all
about the extras so we'll get a bit of the salsa verde pile that on top and this
plate of vegetables so we've got a whole lot to choose from definitely some
coriander sprinkle some coriander on blimmin' missed with most of that but that's
alright we'll get some cabbage on there some little bits of the cut chilli so just
little cubes of chilli who knows how spicy they're going to be you never
quite know here in Mexico with the salsas and the chillies sometimes they're
just nice and sweet and tangy other times they absolutely kick you in the
back of the head so we'll see what happens
wrap that up into a lovely little morsel
that meat so soft and so full of flavour nice and rich beautiful the the
chillies although I think it was actually the salsa verde is spicy it's
really got me in the throat, a little bit hiccupy
nothing wrong with that really
good and I like the crunch of the of the cabbage on there just gives a little bit
of crunch when you've got the super soft meat and the tortilla in this instance
isn't too flavoursome which is good because you want that flavor of the meat
to come through I couldn't really taste this this blood cake amongst everything
it's got a bit of fat in there as well I feel like it might be some sort of blood
cake that's wrapped in something or mixed with something
yum, really creamy a little bit spicy it's got a real herb flavour mmm that is
beautiful and I'm loving the surrounds that we're sitting in so you can see that we're
sort of in amongst the market so all the fruit and vege is just down over there
but in little pockets within the market there's little food sections and this is
one of those food sections but there's still things being sold all around here I
can see how a lot of grasshoppers for sale over here there's a whole lot of cakes beside us a
fruit and vege stall right there so we're still absolutely surrounded by the
goings-on of the market so there's a lot to look at a lot to take in and the food
is very good
we're just cutting through this main market hall there's an area where there
are permanent fondas or small family-run restaurants where you can
grab a bite to eat but we're going to find some more street food this
next stop is one that I am so excited to share with you guys ever since we knew we
were coming back to Oaxaca this is the place that I wanted to film at it's
a nieves spot and nieves is hand churned water-based ice cream and
Oaxaca has a really famous flavour combination which we have to show you and
it's so delicious
we're in the nieves area there's a whole bunch of different
stands doing this hand churned water-based ice cream we're gonna grab a nieves
from this spot here
hola buenos tardes, una leche quemada
con tuna por favor so the nieves is hand churned in these devices called garaffas and
you've got ice and salt in there and they mix it and scrape it mix it and
scrape it and it has a really really interesting consistency so we've ordered
the Oaxacan specialty this is tuna which is prickly pear and it goes
with leche quemada which is burnt milk this creamy one muchas gracias
I'm so excited to get into this look how beautiful that
tuna is it's a bright red and then that burnt milk on the bottom let's go and eat
I've been dreaming about this flavor combination for two years I'm beyond
excited to be back here eating this so this is a famous Oaxacan nieves
combination this here on the top the red one is the tuna which is prickly pear
cactus and then the white one is leche quemada which is burnt milk so I'm
just going to get a spoonful with both of those nieves
flavours on there
holy moly this is exactly like how I remembered it the tuna is very sweet
it's got quite a floral flavor and then the leche quemada is like nothing else
it is smoky it's intense it's got a real depth of flavour it's savoury it's
honestly
it's so smoky it tastes like charcoal but it works
perfectly with the tuna because it balances it out as it's such an amazing
combination and this is such a neat atmosphere we're sitting right smack
bang in the middle of the market we're surrounded by everyone tucking into their
nieves it's a really neat atmosphere I think what also adds to the
specialness of Octolan is that and it's got a really high indigenous
culture like the presence of the indigenous people is really strongly
felt here there are lots of women in indigenous dress all their hair is
done beautifully with ribbons tied through their hair it's a really really
special place
something that I really like about this market is it truly feels like a
community coming together so this is a small town it's a small country town so
you've got all these people coming from that live out in the country coming together
just on a Friday to sell their wares, restock for the week so there is a
lot going on which is really neat it's got a real sort of community feel to it
it's really nice place we've actually just walked into the live bird section
which is a pretty intriguing place to be
we thought we'd do some fruit and vegetable shopping while we're here I
spotted some really lovely looking papayas so we're gonna grab one of those
this is one spectacular market now definitely there's not as much food
prepared to eat here as some other markets around the world but it's not all about
that it is just the most incredible place to explore so the food we did have
really high-quality it was really really good especially
the nieves Octolan famous for its nieves and those flavours tasted just ten
thousand times better than the ones in Oaxaca City to be honest right and
it was much cheaper than the stuff you get in the city and the fruit and vege we
bought was much cheaper than in the city so an incredible market a place we love
love the food and that nieves heaven what a day