[Blue Grass Music]
We're at Valentino's Tex Mex Barbecue in Austin, Texas.
[Modesty Vidal] I'm Modesty Vidal. [Miguel Vidal] And I'm Miguel Vidal. This is my wonderful wife and business partner.
[Modesty Vidal] And this is my personal chef [laughing].
This is Miguel's food that he grew up eating, but better! [laughs].
[Miguel] I've worked in restaurants since I was 15 years old.
I met Modesty back in 2005.
We named the business after our daughter. I wanted to be able to represent...
She was a baby at the time...
I wanted to represent what I felt was true Tejano cooking and true
Mexican American flavors here in Texas.
And what better way than to be able to have barbecue and fresh flour tortillas, right?
Then everything else that comes in between there. So.....
The business is really based off family. And everything that we do is to be able to share
with people and with family.
Every customer that comes in...
we want to treat them like they're....
my aunts, uncle, brother, or sister. Our home-cooked food, but presented
with such quality, it can stand up to any five-star restaurant.
That's what we want to do. But we want to have a relaxed atmosphere
where anyone can feel comfortable. You know, put their
boots up on one of the picnic tables and just kind of relax and enjoy something.
What we're trying to do with the food is put some of the love and attention and detail into it,
so that when you are eating the food it can take you back to a time that reminds you of something special.
My brother has become our lead Pit Master, now. He's been with me since the beginning, so six years.
[Miguel Vidal] My sister is a..... [Modesty Vidal] Head prep cook. Runs the Prep Kitchen. [Miguel Vidal] She works every day....
[Miguel Vidal] Almost, maybe six and a half days a week. [Modesty Vidal] And then she babysits her kids too! [laughs]
[Miguel Vidal] I do have another sister that will help out from time to time.
[Modesty Vidal] She lives, like, two minutes away from us.
[Miguel Vidal] She's mostly involved with helping out with family stuff, watching our kids, or doing caterings and events.
And I have two cousins that have worked here for five years, plus.
And they are all involved with the barbecue, because....
Even though they had very little to zero restaurant experience coming in,
they know the flavor and profiles I'm trying to push out based off my family's cooking.
We source our meat from Hartley Ranch, which is right outside Waco in Stephenville.
And you know, we've worked with these guys to be able to have
a "never-ever," which means an all-natural brisket that's grass-fed.
We're using Prime Briskets.
Most of their Angus Cows actually are actually graded closer to Prime.
It's important to me to know how a cow is living and what it's fed.
So, we use 100% mesquite wood, right?
In Central Texas, here, it's typical to use post oak or oak.
I think it gives us a distinct flavor. I think, when you're thinking about Mexican food
or south Texas food,
and you're thinking about asadas or grilled meats or whatever....
that al carbon kind of style.....
You're thinking of like hot, the grill, the smoke, the fire, right? ...And those flavors....
When we add it to our barbecue, it kind of blends those two together and it brings that flavor out.
Um. So those flavors you're getting from the asadas or carbons,
when you do a long cook with the brisket, you're going to have those elements there too.
And that's the flavor I'm going for.
So we use offset pits.
We don't do reverse flow. There's like pistol or offset, but they're also reverse flow.
Now, we have this continuous flow going through here.
We use three quarter-inch steel.
This pit right here is a 36-inch barrel.
The mesquite wood - we want to burn a lot, and be able to have coals.
So it can not be over-smoked and continue to burn.
So I like the space and the room in there, and it does burn hot, so I don't really need to keep
having an insulated firebox.
So right now, these don't have anything on them. We're going to get ready to load them up with our brisket.
We fit about one, two, three briskets here. We'll do about 21 or 22 briskets on here.
These are our whole chickens.
They cook for about four hours... Three and a half to four hours.
When we're cooking these whole chickens, we're going to look for a crust to start developing again.
And you're going to see some of the juices are naturally coming out.
These should be pushed over actually, just a little bit more....
And they're a little bit too tight, too close to each other.
We're going to know that the chicken is ready, in about an hour and a half or so,
just by checking the tail.
Okay, we're going to put slight pressure, and if it starts to pop off, we're going to pull it.
So this is the dry rub for the brisket. The beef ribs will take this on too.
Beef ribs and brisket will kind of basically have this combination, right here.
When we do pork....
Pork is super heavy on just a dry rub.
And then we add more salt to it....
And then once the pork gets wrapped, it's going to get hit with brown sugar, so it gets a little sweetness to it.
Here you're looking at a packer of brisket. These are from Harley Ranch. They're 100% grass-fed....
Black Angus Beef.
Here, what we do is, we're gonna look at this brisket.
So what we were talking about earlier, when I was using my hand....
showing you what the brisket looks like.... So this is what I'm talking about, right?
Flat.... Point.... The Deckle, right in here.
You know, this fat is never going to really render out, as much,
But I also might trim out a little bit more than most people,
because I'm going for some aesthetics and stuff too.
Right here....Now, this fat will just kinda sit inside the brisket and never render out.
So, I'm going to clean some of this out....
And as I'm creating my cuts here,
I'm going to start creating the line, to be able to have a quarter inch thickness. We're going to look for about.....
A quarter inch right here....
And go about half inch on the fat side.
This is from the Deckle without.... the bottom part.
This is, in my opinion, the two best pieces of brisket that you can get!
[Chef Einav Gefen] Mmmm.
Fresh bread.
[Miguel Vidal] So, this is our answer to white bread.
[Chef Einav Gefen] It's a good answer. [Miguel Vidal] In the barbecue, you know?
[Miguel Vidal] In the barbecue. [Chef Einav Gefen] [....]
[Miguel Vidal] This can be eaten just like this, and stand on its own. That's my goal.
White bread. Meat. Tortilla.
[Chef Einav Gefen] But it's a *good* tortilla and *really* good meat! You know, right?
[Miguel Vidal] So then, these elements here... right?
When we pair together.....
Are to, just kinda enhance the flavors, and work well together and balance each other out....
Not to mask.
This is what we normally serve sausage with.
We take our mesquite, and we make a habanero mustard here.
So we take our mesquite smoked barbecue sauce.... And we smoke our barbecue sauce for like six hours.
So it's very easy: it's ketchup, vinegar, worchestershire....
[Chef Einav Gefen] You make the sauce first, and then you smoke it? [Miguel Vidal] And we smoke it. [Chef Einav Gefen] So you cold smoke it?
[Miguel Vidal] Yeah, I go about six hours.
So what we're looking at right here... Look at the nice little quarter-inch of the fat.
So, all the love goes in before trimming, right?
To kind of create this nice consistency here, for each slice.
So, this is my opinion, right?
The deckle are some of the best slices that you'll get!
Even if you want to call it "burnt ends" or whatever, but....
This stuff, usually we mix and chop in our tacos, so it has some bark in the tacos.
[Chef Einav Gefen] And this is just what's left on the meat, that you kinda dug from in-between the two pieces. Right? [Miguel] Right.
[Music playing]