Plumluvfoods on WICC ep 66 Tacos with Forest Pastornack of Taco Dia

Its taco day on the show and we talk tacos plus Chef Owner of Taco Dia Forest Pastornack joins us!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Come in and staming a word.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Sound Jeff pull on the mic, making hearts pound Jeff
Jeff shotguns, Jeff dead in the background, making not be found.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
So girls, they us down any night.

Speaker 4 (00:22):
God Ry conversation.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
So from bull Ma Dishes Street postal side these Jeff
bring mad Moniti guys, so sound a podcast sess can't
be snipping off fucking merry conversation.

Speaker 4 (00:48):
So the fast to say so on the knee and
the least and the rest. Happy Saturday. Hey, ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to Plumb Love Foods right here on WYC see
the Voice of Connecticut. My name is Chef Plumber. We
are here to talk all about culinary delights, recipes, food news,

(01:10):
and more importantly, today's episode that I'm very very excited about.
We're talking about tacos. Yes, it's a taco Day, That's
what it is. Today. I'm joined by, of course, my
uh venerable co host and Plutonic Life partner. Ladies and gentlemen,
the award winning, the beautiful, be Wonderful, the fantastic chef

(01:32):
Jeffy's here. Hey buddy, woo, I'm here to taco about it. Oh,
I see what you did there. Did you tacoed right
into your microphone? I taco about it? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Is it?

Speaker 4 (01:42):
Do you think tacos are kind of the same thing
as like hot dog sandwiches? Like, is it a taco sandwich?
I'm gonna literally hang up this microphone. But do you
know what I'm talking about? Like, God, just just just
don't get anchor a second? Hot dogs? Yeah, good talk?
Sandwich like it's it's it's technically like if you get

(02:03):
a flower tortilla, it's kind of the same agreeance that's
in bread. Would that still be a taco? What it
can be a sandwich? Like, I'm not saying it is.
I'm not trying to start something. I'm just curious about
your thoughts as a chef. What do you think? I
think that a taco is a taco, and a sandwich
is a sandwich, and a hot dog is a hot
dog because they all have names. And if you want
to generalize something and be like, oh, technically your bread

(02:24):
and you put a thing and no, it's a sandwich too,
because you want to make Jeff mad. No, I'm just
I was just having a thought. I didn't gonna set
you off so much in gaslight you but listen, it's
three o'clock on a Saturday. I'm ready to go. All right,
all right, and then you're coming out here with some
sandwich talk when we're trying to clearly talk taco time.

(02:45):
You're right, this whole show is going to be about tacos. Now,
let me ask you this. If you have to pick
tacos or pizza, which one do you like better? Ah,
we only have one desert island, desert island, just a
deserted island. You have one food. Tacos are ah for
thirty three days, thirty three days. Yeah, I'm gonna have

(03:09):
to go. I'm gonna have to go taco because if
it's sheer versatility, ah, the versatility of a taco, I
can have a you can you know, tacos for breakfast,
tacos for lunch, talk us for dinner, and also a dessert.
That song, I thought we were going in a good
direction with that song, and it just kind of end. Well,
that's just a little jingle I'm working on. It's called
Tacos all day. Well, I like it, and I think

(03:31):
it's a great song, and I think tacos is such
a fun thing to talk about that we decided to
do a whole show on tacos, because tacos are delicious.
Who doesn't like a taco? Like, honestly, dude, you can
make tacos as fancy as you want or not fancy
at all. Tacos are Tacos are like that food that
everyone it's a communal food. It's a food that like
you can kind of build your own or someone can

(03:52):
build it for you, and either way it's awesome. Yeah,
I can't agree more. Tacos are so versatile. The versatility
of a taco. Go. Let's talk a second. Let's just
set the table for those Maybe we should start the
conversation with people who maybe just we assume they know
nothing about a taco. Oh right, we just just to
set the tones we can. We can talk about the
parts and get down there front, like is what is

(04:14):
a taco chef? Exactly? Taco one oh one? That's what
I think we should do. And now listen, all right.
For me, I think a taco is very very important.
It's going to be some sort of tortilla shell maybe,
or some sort of shell. I should even say, whether
it's like a you know, corn or flour or I mean,
we could really call it taco. If you if you
just use like lettuce cups, it's not taco then right,

(04:36):
you know this is this is something that really bothers
me when someone calls it a taco and then it
comes out on Boston lettuce. I get, I get, I
get upset. Like I'm all about if you make a
shell at a Boston lettuce, you would like to flatten
it somehow and dehydrate it and make it crispy or
make it look like like like manipulate it into looking

(04:58):
like a tortilla. I'm all about it. But if you
are gonna just fill up a lettuce cup, let's call
it a lettuce cup. Okay, lettuce cup not not a
vegetarian taco with lettuce shell. That's ridiculous. Okay, so we
established that. I agree. So flower tortillas, right, you know

(05:19):
you think about they're kind of soft, they're white, they
get charred on the outside. Flour water, very very simple
to make corn tortillas made out of corn flour, right
or massa massa right? Okay, I'm getting there. I'm getting
there right again, same thing, very very simple. Little massa,
A little warm water, a pinch of salt, doesn't be
much more than that. Keep it simple, right, and you

(05:41):
can you charge them up, you press them, you char them.
They get the beautiful charcolate on the outside where it
gets like little blisters on there. That is what a
taco is served in. Now. The difference between a corn
tortilla and a flower tortilla are night and day, particularly
the ones that you buy in the grocery store. If
you buy corn tortia from the grocery store, the second
they get any kind of moisture on them, they fall apart.
If you make them, which is very very easy to do,

(06:01):
they tend to last longer. Jeffrey, I agree, And well,
it's also important I think that you use the right masa.
You know, there's uh, there's so many different types of masa,
like when you look at them, and some is for
tacos and some is for other things. They're all nix
the related corn. But I just think it's important to
kind of keep an eye out when you're making your own. Yeah,

(06:21):
I mean yeah, I think you should definitely just very
simple maso, like check out the ingredients, make sure that's
all it's in there. A little bit later on and
we're talking to our friend Forrest Pasterna from Taco Dia.
Excuse me, forrest. Spend some time studying tacos and like
travel and there'll be a fun guy to talk to
you about this. But so we've established that that's the
important part. That is the vessel, that's what it's served in.

(06:41):
That's the most you know, I would say the most
important part, but one of the most important parts, right well,
I mean it's the it's the it's what makes the
taco a taco, right. It doesn't have to be crunchy.
It doesn't have to be sought if it could be
one or the other, like you know, we're so accustomed
to you want soft tacos are hard tacos, you know,
it doesn't It doesn't mean there's one right or wrong,
and you can literally double down, you know, Like I

(07:05):
don't know if you I know, taco bell for everybody
out there, everyone's had taco bell. They used to make
a taco that had like it was like a regular
crunchy taco, and then they would just slap some refive
beans on a soft taco shell and throw it on
the outside. You're talking about the double decker taco, all right,
that right there might have been the greatest creation of
all time. It's up there. I agree. I mean it's high,

(07:27):
high on the list. I just think the chef talk
about double decker tacos might be a little bit embarrassing
for us. I don't think that's embarrassing at all. I
think every chef out there has had a double decker taco,
and if they have it, they should go treat themselves.
You know what, Yeah, I would probably agree with your
working late night got taco bell being open at two
am those days. It's move all done late, drive through
is open late. We've all done it about it. Let's

(07:47):
talk about the filling, the heart of it, you know,
like do we talk about the meat, Do we talk
about the vegetables? Do we talk about saucas and sausas well?
I think it's both, right, I think, well, I think
the standard taco to have some sort of protein in there,
some sort of shredded lettuce, shredded something or sreded cabbage,
some sort of cheese, and then some sort of salsa

(08:09):
on top of it. And I think that's the basic
taco for me, like the basics, you know what about
for you? At the basic taco? So the most basic
of a taco to me is a tortilla. A protein
could be beans, could be whatever, it has to be
some sort of filling protein. Then a sauce one or two,

(08:29):
but you know, it could just be one. It could
be crema, It could be salsa either you know, or
could be both. And then one topic. It could be
a cilantro leaf. It could be shredded cabbage. It could
be a little coheata cheese, you know, or it's a
little shredded cheddar. That if like someone gave me that
and was like, oh, this is my taco, I would
be thrilled to try that because it has all the

(08:50):
things to me that make a good taco, a little freshness,
the meat, the sauce to compliment your meat, and then
you're you're obviously the vessel, you know, a good tortilla.
There's nothing like a good tortilla, like a homemade tortilla too.
I mean, I can't agree with you more when you
said that earlier, I should have really chimed in because
it's like it's really night and day. It definitely is
night and day. It makes a big, big difference. I'll

(09:11):
tell you what one of the things I think is
almost and we can talk about this later on, but
I think it's very very important too that cilantro onion,
lime juice kind of mixturechy spoon on top of there.
You know, I think that's really important to be in
there too, if that's a whole on the part. So okay,
so we've steple we establishing what we think the basics are,
right yep. And then you know we talked about sauces, right, so,

(09:32):
like you know, I think of like a pika degaio
versus a sauce. Can we talk about that? These are
two different things? Jeffy, Yeah, no, they are absolutely different things.
I love that. Go ahead, let's talk about it. Yeah.
So I think for me, a pico de gayle, very simple,
is going to be a tomato onions, cilantro lemon juice,
you know, just chopped up or not in a processor,
you know, kind of chopped up nicely, usually by hand,

(09:53):
a little salt. Like that's a pico de gayle, you
know what I'm saying. Where a sauce that could be
you know, done in a process or pure. They can
use like a canned tomato something like that. I mean,
you can make a Pikota guy out of a can
tomato as well, but I just don't think it doesn't
work as well. But you know, time of year always
dictating when you get good tomatoes kind of sometimes you
have to works what you got. I think some of

(10:13):
the best sauces in the world actually come from a can,
like a canned tomato sausa as opposed to a fresh
tomato sausa. But again we're talking two different things. Salsa pikota,
guy are two very different things. You know. It's it's funny,
Uh when you say can tomatoes immediately I'm like, ah,
but uh, it's it's super true. Like think about every
saucer you get, all the sauces you get from your

(10:35):
best you know, Mexican restaurant. We go and sit down,
you and I they they bring us that trough of chips,
a bowl of sausa, We go through like three bowls
of it. Have a market even ordery food that's canned tomatoes. Absolutely,
And Uh, it's funny that I think when I think salsa,
I almost always think pico, uh first, and then I remember, oh,

(10:57):
this like salsa, like like the jar. It's also that
I grew up eating and you know, all that kind
of sausa, which is or cooking tomatoes. Yeah, exactly, it's
like it's cooked tomatoes, which is delicious. I think the
cook I think when you make a good sausa, like
it's kind of the same ingredients. Actually, you know, when
I do it, I will make a good can tomato,
right uh, and then we'll do it something. You can

(11:18):
get them diced all right if you want. You don't
have to. You can do it in your processor, but
you can, and I've actually done it. Where you take
the dice tomatoes. I'll drink a little liquid off, not
all of it, put in a bowl, a hardy pinch
of salt. Tomatoes love salt. Can tomatoes love salce even more,
so you have to do a nice, hearty pinch of salt,
chopped cilantro, onion, lemon juice, Mix it up, let it sit.

(11:38):
They can sit for an hour even better. But that,
my friends, is a basic, basic sausa which works great.
Now you can change things up. You don't put hoila
pinos in there. You want to put, you know, things
to spice it up. Of course, there's no I don't
think it's all right or wrong here. I think there's
a basic like here's a basic recipe. You can build
from it.

Speaker 5 (11:54):
I I.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
Agree. I think the other thing about salsa that's cool
is that it's it doesn't have to be tomatoes at all. True,
very very true. You could do a piico and substitute
tomatoes for your favorite fruit. You could substitute all sorts
of different things. I mean, I've actually made pumpkin sauces
where I've roasted pumpkin and then diced it up and

(12:18):
you know, and added a little bit of a pickle
pumpkin to it, you know, to kind of like and
that's all we're going to We're going to hold up
in direction here. But yeah, I think that's the basics though,
you know, to cover it up. And what about so
cook sauces too. I mean, you don't have to cook
saucea but you can. And you can also ferment things
to make sausa well, right, yeah, so for the winter,
I love fermented sauces, like a salsa masha, which is

(12:43):
it's basically a salsa. It's dried chili, so you want
to it's like a gohio chilies. I think they're called
more rita chili's arable chilies. I get. I think they're
called milano milana chilies. I'll take all those, I'll deceed them.
I'll chop them up really fine. I'll take pumpkin seeds,
I'll take peanuts, I'll take sesame seeds, and then a

(13:07):
bunch of garlic and I kind of like will fry
this a little bit in oil and then it's almost
like a chili crisp, but there's no chili. It's like it's, well,
it's all chili's but there's no like onions in it,
you know. And it's just kind of like this like
like a oily, nutty crunchy, really delicious topping that's like

(13:28):
it's it's different than all the other salt. It's like
it's very oily and like it's like it's you know,
it's like a it's really it's it's like a chili
oil crunch, like Mexican style. Okay, and I haven't never
you've never made this for me, so I have to
try it. Yeah, at some point, see fantastic. I have
some in my fridge. Actually, I'll break it up for you.
How important in your brain is cilantro the flavor of cilantro,

(13:50):
just that being a part of the deal here. So
I work for a family that to the people in
the house are allergic to cilantro, where like you know,
allergic core. I'm saying they it tastes like to them,
and it's like, even, like what it is actually a thing,
And I mean I thought, now this person's crazy for
a long time and on so many like she's picked

(14:13):
out a single cilantro microgreen that got mixed into a
Chervil microgreen from the store that got on her plate,
and she she she identified it, she tasted one, took
it out of her mouth like a bunch of food,
identified the cilantro, and showed it to me. I was like, wow,
that's I mean, even if you're not, just the fact

(14:34):
that your palette is allowing you to do that, you're different.
That's interesting. That's interesting. I mean, it's the thing people taste,
you know, we taste. It makes the things taste like
soap or it's taste soapy or something like that. I
do know that that's a real life thing, but yeah,
some people have that that reaction. So for me it
used to be super important. It's less important to me.
I tend to use a little bit more lime or

(14:56):
I'll zest a little bit more lime into a dish
to kind of like kind of like a replace that
sort of citrus freshness that comes from cilantro.

Speaker 6 (15:04):
Mm.

Speaker 4 (15:04):
Yeah, I guess that works too. Uh, And we taught
you you brought up a minute ago cremas. I think
crema is kind of important. You know. It can be
simple as a sour cream or the sour cream is
mixed with something else to go in it. I mean,
what do you think the definition of a crema would be? Well,
I think like like a like a Mexican style crema
is a looser sour cream. So I think like a

(15:26):
like a loose crem fresh. You know, it's like it's
a it's like it's almost like clotted cream. Yeah, it's
it's it's wetter, and it's like you can actually like
pour it a little bit, you know. Yeah, I think so,
And you can see but you can make in there too. Yeah.
So I tend to like what I'll use is all
to take like regular sour cream and then I'll take

(15:47):
a touch of half and half or heavy cream and
put it in there and like mix it up really
well and then add it a flavor to it to
kind of make it like if you I you know,
if I can't find Mexican sour cream, I kind of
like Mike Mock, you know that, Like that's how I.

Speaker 7 (16:00):
Like to do it.

Speaker 4 (16:02):
I think I like to make them with all kinds
of different ingredients. I've made the quila cremas, I've made
chili cremas, I've made you know, I've made a corn crema.
I don't think it's a right or wrong when it
comes to it. That's the fun part about tacos. There's
no real right or wrong. I mean, I guess if
you want me and Jeff as chefs to give you,
you know, here's what we think of taco is and
say it's like you know, well, you know the Bible

(16:23):
of how to make a taco. We could, But I
think the fun part of our taco is that it
doesn't have to be. You know, there's no right or wrong.
I think you can make it however you want to
make it. Yeah, I except for putting in it. Let
us cup doesn't count. No, I let us cup doesn't count.
But I totally agree. In fact, I was when when
we were doing getting this idea the show together, I
had this an idea for an or dirv came to

(16:44):
me for this next summer where we did that corn
dish where it was like, you know, corn on corn
on corn, where corn polenta with roasted corn and like
corn pudding and all that kind of stuff. And I
was like, how dope would it be to eximulate our
own corn, make our own little tortillas, fry them, put
a little corn putting in there, a little roasted corn
with the fried corn silk on top, with like a

(17:05):
little bit of like a corn hot sauce or something
in it, like as like corn. I know, it's an
all corn bite, but make it like a small bite,
like an oord derv size, you know, so it traps
all the flavors of summer corn boom in one little
tiny bite, a little bite. Yeah, well we have to
address one thing too, very important. You said the word
mix malate twice so far in this break, and I've

(17:25):
never in my life ever heard you say this word.
Where'd you learn it? And why you're saying it now?
Well you've heard me say it off air. It's nix
molate is the process of adding. I think it's calcium chloride.
How the traditional way was to use hard wood ash,
and they would mix that with water and then they
would soak vegetables in it. And vegetables, I believe it's fiber,

(17:48):
sugar and something else bond with the calcium chloride and
the hardwood ash, and it keeps the structure even after
it's cooked. Like it it bonds and it makes the
structure walls much much much stronger. I didn't get here,
I didn't. I had no like, I was just trying
to do a little like that's how you make tortillas.
That's how you make tortillas. You have to miximalize the corn.

(18:10):
You have to miximize. You have to minximalize the corn
so that way the the corn will then soak the
water back up to become what we wanted to become
to become a tortilla. So, uh, that's the process. So
just I've heard you say the word twice in that
first break here, and I've never heard that or just
say that some conversationally in the past. Oh yeah, Well

(18:33):
it's a word that I'm trying to use more in
my pinacular because I'm trying to use it in other
types of cooking. So it's like, it's an interesting process.
It's very funny. Jeffy it's very very funny. Yeah, okay,
I'm a weirdo like that. Before we go to break here,
is there something that you have that you know your
taco has to have this? It has to no matter what,

(18:55):
we have to have this ingredient on my taco. Like,
is there something you have to For me? It's that
cilantro and onion mix, Like I think that's very very important.
When I make tacos, I will make that mixture up
and put it on the side for people people who
want it, you can spoon it into your taco or
something like that. And literally it's very simple for me.
It's you know, a little lounge juice salt onions, that's lantro,
and just mix it all again and like really like
not minced onion, but really small dice, almost a fine

(19:17):
dice on the onion. But mix it together in a
bowl and you can spoon it onto your taco. When
I serve tacos, I feel like it's always some kind
of sauce, like a special sauce of some kind, you know.
But for my own personal taco, it's almost always a
hot sauce. Like I always have to have some sort
of hot sauce. Some sort of spicy element. Okay, so

(19:43):
you like to spice it, whether it's like roasted chili
or a hot sauce or something like that, you have
to something spicy. Yeah, it could be. It could be
just a little dicedjlapeno on the side and then I
can spoon over my taco myself. It's not there, But
I just love I like spicy food with Mexican flavors.
I just love that together. Yeah, And I just I
find it to just work really well with all the
flavors and I love it. So the original reason why

(20:05):
we started eating spicy food to begin with was because
it was hot outside, and when you eat spicy food,
it caused your body that actually sweat, which cools yourself down.
So really, I think it's where the word chili actually
came from. How about yep, yep, yep. You teach me
stuff every day, Chef Plumb. Maybe if you taught me
to missimilate, you said twice, I think it's Niximalize mix them,

(20:28):
Mali mix them a late mix Simalize. The new album
is out for Maximalization. Yeah, and I feel like it's
written like d a side, you know, like all like
you know, yeah, gotcha, I gotcha, I got you. And
how about as far as tortillas, is it soft? Is
it a hard? Is it a hard taco? Soft taco?

Speaker 2 (20:49):
For you?

Speaker 4 (20:49):
What is it? I can't just pick one, man, I
just told you. The double decker taco for me is
the truth because it gives me what I want. It
gives me what I need. Donder taco. Yeah, man, that's like,
that's the that's I can't even if I ever have
a restaurant again, there's gonna be a double decker taco
and it's gonna be famous. All right, Well, I appreciate it.

(21:11):
And what else I appreciate is tacos. Tacos are absolutely delicious.
We're talking about them all episode here. We got some
recipes for you, we got some tips here, We've got
some things that just make tacos taste delicious. And we're
gonna find out, friends, is a taco sandwich. And I'm
so how many times I can bring it up before
Jeff tries to kill me through our zoom call here.
I don't want to talk about it. Oh any so,

(21:32):
dad taco jokes out there, stand by, folks are gonna
come hot, heavy, fast, and spicy, you're checking out plumba
foods right here on the voice of like a W
I C C. With Chef Plumb and Chef Jesse, Chef Jesse, No,
Chef Jeffy. Hey, hey Jesse, Jesse, Jesse, stay right there
for be right back me and Chef Jesse. He was

(22:22):
gone in western Connecticut at the tender age two. He
became the world of calling night coming home with you.
They calling him Shell.

Speaker 7 (22:45):
Master of Cuisine Agastro Noledy owner Tacody Shell, Master of
Cuisine Agastra non.

Speaker 4 (23:00):
Own, Plumb of the foods. Here on a Saturday, I
wis to see the voice of Connecticut. It's your voice,
Chef Plumb, Chef Jeff joining you here on a happy
Taco Saturday, Jeffy. That song, Wow, I mean I think
we should. Man, it's hot. You hear that guitar? I

(23:22):
guess so it's and they're getting down sing. Is that
George singer who's singing that? I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
They changed it up twenty five members of this band,
which is crazy. That's their new song, very very simple,
simply entitled Forest Pasternak and he they wrote it for him,
which is amazing and joining us right now. He is
a restaurant tour here in Fairford County and beyond, a

(23:44):
really really great chef in his own right, the owner
of Taco Dia. He has studied and trained and knows
everything there is to know, possibly in the entire world,
about tacos. And we know that because he has a
microphone that makes him an expert. And not only that,
he's also just a really really great human being, a
super nice guy. He's gentlemen, joining us on the program
right now. Chef Forrest past All right, what's up, buddy?

(24:05):
How are you?

Speaker 1 (24:05):
I haven't had a song like that played for me probably.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
So ever, well, guess what, You've now had that song
and Jeff will send it to you, and you have
your own bird, so whenever you walk in, it'll play.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
It for you.

Speaker 4 (24:16):
Exactly listen to this new jam. I guess they're gonna
be way into it, for they're gonna they're gonna love
the fact that you have this and even better, good, good, well, buddy,
listen man, thanks for taking you time, a little time
here to hang out with us on a Saturday. Taco
Dia is a restaurant here in New Town's kind of
just taking over. Everyone's talking about. It's been about a year.

(24:36):
It's been around a super delicious, literally taco restaurant. Very comfortable. Jeff,
you've been over there. We we treated beautifully over there,
had a great time. But before we get into the
restaurant itself, I want to talk about your preparation for
opening this restaurant, because you did a lot of studying
and dove deep into tacos. I mean you're a guy
who does his homework. I appreciate that.

Speaker 6 (24:56):
Yeah, man, Yeah, we went down to San Louis, Potosiu
Arner cell Banglivia and I we took a trip down there.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
It was amazing.

Speaker 6 (25:04):
I've been down to Mexico City many times before that,
but that haven't been this far outside of Mexico City before.
We made the entire restaurant free because down in Mexico
there's a lot of just corn based stuff. Yeah, there's
close you get to the border, the more you find
flour and on the other stuff that's a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Southwestern, I guess you would say.

Speaker 6 (25:26):
So, you know, in that area, there's it's a lot
of you know, straight straight corn, so masa and you
know what's masa? You've got something that's going to be
easier to be palatable to your stomach. It's healthier for you.
You break down to get more nutrition out of it.
And we use straight masa inside of a machine that
we got at this place called Lenen Manufacturists who brought

(25:46):
us down there, and they make these amazing machines. They're
like handmade, beautiful machines that if you want, like the
best taco cutter in the world, I would say you
would go to see these guys there. Pretty much this
is all they do. And they make them huge as
big as your house for corporate manufacturing, to small to

(26:08):
fit on your table, and they're pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (26:10):
Man. So the machine you got came from there, that's
what you're saying.

Speaker 6 (26:13):
Yeah, yeah, we went down there, we picked it out,
we designed it with them, and then they shipped it
up to us.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
And it took some time.

Speaker 6 (26:20):
Now with trying to get stuff through tariffs and you know,
borders to probably take you longer, but back then it
was a little easier.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
But it was amazing. It was great.

Speaker 6 (26:29):
We went down there and ate around, went to all
sorts of amazing museums and just you know, had to
do something between meals because we ate so much food,
and we went on this amazing like kind of culinary
journey down there for you know, a few weeks and
then and then came back up here and developed them
any and it was amazing.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
It was a great time. We got so much great,
great food and experiences and people that we met along
the way.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
Yeah. And I love that, you know, just doing the
learning the history and doing the homework for it. I mean,
so when it comes to making you know, a tortilla
for instance, you know in my brain, I just we
were talked about in the first break Jeff and I
did you know masa, water salt. That's really all I do,
same thing for.

Speaker 6 (27:09):
You, Yeah, I mean it's really straightforward. It's I we
try to use just the straight massa meal and it's
it's not the dried massa. We get fresh masa. And
then we take the fresh masa and it's we process
a little further, make it a little bit smoother, and
then we turn it into are we just water, straight

(27:31):
water and no no salt inside of it. We season
the meat and we do our braises. We use all
sorts of uh imported ingredients, avocado leaves and things like
that that aren't kind of typical and to be found,
which are not exactly easy to find either, your typical purveyors,
like you know, your your dairy lands. Jeff's Warehouse shows

(27:53):
my age to call them dairy land.

Speaker 4 (27:55):
Still wow, how about that.

Speaker 6 (27:56):
Yeah, it's tough squarehouse now. Yeah, I think I get
a lot of my stuff from them East Baldoor as well.
They're pretty good at sourcing, but some of this stuff
specialty order. It's hard to get certain types of chili's.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
And things like that. Is BMF still around, Yeah, best
Mexican foods. Yeah, they're around. They delivered like once a
week though, so.

Speaker 4 (28:17):
Yeah, I know they're like they're like a ghost ship
that has come through. It's hard.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
It's hard to nail them down.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
You know.

Speaker 6 (28:24):
Sometimes we'll get some stuff, but it's been Uh I'll
go out of the city for for for some stuff.

Speaker 4 (28:31):
You know.

Speaker 6 (28:31):
I just live in Harlem, so I've got a couple
of spots down that way that I used to go to.
I still shoot down to once in a while. But
it's a lot of fun. I mean, Nighty Development is
something that's I mean their food down there is it's
world cuisine too. It's not just Mexican anymore. You know,
there's a specific rim, there's a whole measure of things
that you go down there and they they want to
learn about what we do. And as many chefs as

(28:53):
I met down there, they want to hear about what
we're doing up here too.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
Right, right, right, That's very cool though. I like like
when we do. I think with Jeff and I were
in we were in Mexico, we all the stuff. Yeah. Yeah,
people were very cool to us and talking to us
about things that we were doing in techniques. So it's
pretty fun. So it's cool to see stuff like that.
So I think what is interesting about Taco Dia is
you know, and I mean this is a compliment. We're
not reinventing the wheel here, Like you're making something that

(29:18):
is pretty simple, but just doing it really delicious and
doing it with some care and some love and using
great ingredients like you know. I guess I don't mean
that from a negative standpoint. I mean it's a positive standpoint.
I guess that's all it is, right, Yeah, I mean
it's you kind of I mean, we talk about brazing.
It's one of our favorite cooking techniques. There is maybe
you could talk about a little bit, especially in fall, right, absolutely,

(29:38):
so yeah, I mean taking it slow and low is
so important, you know, using proper ingredients and making sure
that you start with the right stuff.

Speaker 6 (29:46):
You know, being completely gluten freeze. We use gluten free flowers,
chemol flowers, things like that, so you know, when you're
gonna do something like short rip, if you're going to
do a pork belly or something like that, you know,
we're using ingredients that don't have gluten for anything. So

(30:06):
we can't take flour and put it in there and
then sear it like you would if you're gonna do
something typically, So I'm have to find other techniques in
order to do that. So you know, slurries and stuff
like that in order to thicken, you know, things of
that nature.

Speaker 4 (30:17):
We do.

Speaker 6 (30:18):
But we try to make sure that we have the
best possible ingredient to start with, and if we can
get the local stuff this time of year especially, we'll
do that. And you know it's it's certain things, you know,
obviously avocados, we're not going those in the trees outside here,
but we try to do our best we can in
order to get stuff in like local syrups and stuff.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Like that for you know, sweetening.

Speaker 4 (30:40):
Honey.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
There's an amazing guy around here that makes great honey.

Speaker 4 (30:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (30:44):
And you know, there's usually we can find stuff that
we can play with. I mean pumpkin, I mean a
pumpkin taco.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
But that's pretty interesting. Oh yeah, sure it does work.

Speaker 6 (30:54):
It's just you have to use the babies, you know,
because you know, if you buy pumpkin filling, it's actually
it's not pumpkin. It's it's butternut squash. Oh yeah, because
the texture is really funny. He's really streaming larger they get,
so they actually make they call it pumpkin, but it's
not pumpkin.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
Yeah, it's a pumpkin flavored squash. Well, getting really pumpkin
is a squash. I guess we can get crazy with it,
I guess.

Speaker 6 (31:20):
I mean theoretically, I think that's just what it is.
It's a ubiquitous word for for for squash.

Speaker 4 (31:25):
Yeah, no doubt. We have a great there's a great
local wag. You guy here that's literally growing wagon Connecticut Wagon.
Yeah yeah, yeah, see two wagon. And he's a crazy person,
but it's practice phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
He's amazing. He's a chocolate he's a chocolate the finish
chocolate finish. Yes, and yeah, he's he's a Greek guy. Actually,
I think Tim Spirit span span Os. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
he's he's really good.

Speaker 6 (31:55):
I'm working with him on the new menu development for
Bailey's Backyard, a restaurant in Richfield, so we're talking him
about doing some stuff. And yeah, he's a really cool guy.

Speaker 4 (32:05):
He's a good guy. Jeff Holy subsidizes this farm every
time he goes to just slaughter animals. Jeff buys all
of it. I do. I do love to support as
many as many farms like that as I can. But
he's he's I agree, he's an amazing guy. He has
a lot of passion. He really really cares about the animals.
And uh, for me, for my buck knowing you know,
I get a fresh cow, like I get the choice

(32:26):
of whatever I want out of those cows because you
know that's kind of your chef flex. It makes me
feel good, you know, right, So, but using so even
like finding out some local meat when possible is always
a great thing too. A lot of the items on
the menu at Taco Dia, you know that. I think
what's interesting about it is you have things like uh,
you know, you kind of used to talk about the
Pacific Rim. It's not just you know that Mexico City

(32:48):
type thing. It's like you have a tune of tostada
on there, which is delicious. Talk about some of those
items and where they come from.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah. Sure.

Speaker 6 (32:54):
So we use like a macha salsa, which salsa macha
which typically uses peanuts. We use sesame seeds just so
we can do something a little different. And we do
a lot of people with algaes that come in and
they appreciate that. But we do a toasted sesame macha

(33:15):
and we put that on the tuna. So we kind
of has a really interesting flavor and texture that goes
on the tuna and we use you know, ahi tuna,
ye call it. It's really nice stuff. If you haven't
had salsa macha, it's really an interesting, uh texture and flavor.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Toasted chili's.

Speaker 6 (33:35):
We use all sorts of anchos and other stuff in there,
which kids in a bit of a bite, but it
tastes pretty good.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
So if you think about.

Speaker 6 (33:43):
Uh kind of like s Pacific Rim cuisine being a
kind of a marriage of Latin and Asian cultures, and
you look at all the amazing stuff that that folks
are doing down in Brazil and other places right now,
and you kind of say, okay, well today I'm gonna
have Mexican food, and do you think about what what

(34:05):
does that taste like?

Speaker 1 (34:06):
People think about savice, which is, you know, the first
thing you go to. But there's a lot of other
stuff out.

Speaker 6 (34:11):
There, you know, there's a lot of other things happening
that you can you can take a look at and
kind of learn different techniques from from other cultures and
bring them into your plate so you don't have to, like,
you know, stay within the borders of the original concept
of savich.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
You can do other stuff. You know, you can play
games with it and you put a caviar on it
because they will down there too.

Speaker 4 (34:36):
Interesting. Yeah, that's crazy, man. And I think one of
the things that's also fun about Tacoda two is the
pairing all the different tekilas that you guys have. You know,
that's kind of a fun obviously. I think it feels
like it's necessary, you know.

Speaker 6 (34:49):
Yeah, and mescals and stuff too. Mescal's are really great.
There's this company called Bosol that we're really into that
we have the whole line of and they're fantastic bo
z A l and the flavors and veil well inside
of these different bottles are absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Their mind blowingly delicious and.

Speaker 6 (35:07):
They're not stupid, you know, price wise, and really as
far as some people they have Noskal they think like
the smell of like a car tire almost like when
you're opening up that it's like almost like diesel, you
know this stuff. It smells like sweet and like really
like fragrant, like almost you know, almost. The finishes are

(35:29):
grassy and really interesting. It's it's really deep and wonderful flavors.
We've got some cool tequilas out there, like kind of
like what cosam egos used to be, which I don't
think they are quite the same anymore. They're like lost
lore As. Another one that I'm really really into. A
friend of mine's company called Corimea. It's another one that's
really great that you know, these are all kind of

(35:51):
you know, mid tier price wise, but I would say
like super high tier flavor profiles, which I really think
are great ones to find and discover and kind of
show people, you know, what's out there, and people that
are normally into those.

Speaker 4 (36:07):
Things they talk about real quick. The difference because I
think of Bailey's in you know, in Ridgefield, and then
the new spots you have opened up, the Italian spot,
and then and then taco. These are very different cuisines, like,
very very different, each and every one of them. Like,
and I can't imagine there's a lot of carryover on
the menu, especially from you know, like like a food
standpoint ordering standpoint, Like it's all very very different stuff.

(36:29):
I mean, you ever tried to do tacos at Bailey's
and when you do, what happens?

Speaker 6 (36:33):
Yeah, I mean we've done everything in Bailies that's American cuisines.
So what is American cuisine?

Speaker 4 (36:38):
It's every melting pottage yeas.

Speaker 6 (36:39):
A melted pot of flavor, you know, if you go
to I was a chef in New York City for
a lot of years and you know, working in different places.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
I opened up Mama Fuku with David Chang.

Speaker 6 (36:49):
It was down in the basement making pork belly and
and you know, and there was all sorts of French
techniques on the menu, you know, So it's like hybrid
even there. So when we're doing when we're doing Bailey's
Backyard's menu, I mean you go from anywhere to anywhere.
You could have, you know, something that's Chinese inspired, like

(37:10):
Forbidden Rice, you know, over Payea. So you know, it's
kind of interesting to marry those ideas as far as
many development goes for for Bailey's versus Taco Dia versus Cosetta,
you know, inspiration can come from anywhere. You know, we
try to talk to our staff and you know, see

(37:31):
what they're excited about. I'd love to have them bring
in ideas and concepts and photos of food or recipes they.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Want to try, and we're always kind of talking about that.

Speaker 4 (37:41):
R and D.

Speaker 6 (37:42):
My chef Hailey Lin asked, Bailey's backyard is fantastic when
it comes to you know, being able to try new
things and do new things, So we'll talk about that stuff.
A chef Alex at h at Taco Dia is always
trying to research and learn new things, and we're always
kind of working together on all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
So it's it's like, you know, I think it's all
kind of world cuisine in these days.

Speaker 6 (38:07):
You know, yeah, a fine dining you know, three star
Michelin restaurant, or if you go to like the average
kind of place in New York City. You're going to
see all sorts of techniques happening on the plate, you know.

Speaker 4 (38:21):
Yeah, I think you're seeing more and more people like
just just regular people who aren't food people caring more
about food. I think it comes from the education that
kind of just is in the vernacular now for people,
like it's just food's kind of a normal thing that
we talk about. We're twenty years ago where even more
than that, where you know, the three of us are
coming up, It wasn't like it's kind of more of
a regular into regular conversations now.

Speaker 6 (38:40):
Yeah, Yeah, it's definitely something that we I think techniques
and there's a lot of you know, crossing over of
technique and crossing over of ingredients and people doing hybridized
versions of stuff, which is really cool. I think that
that's great. I don't think that staying within you know,

(39:00):
four walls forever is always the best thing. So we
do definitely don't reinvent the wheel, but we do try
to play with the colors a little bit, you know
what I mean, you know, and what happens with that.

Speaker 4 (39:12):
Yeah, it's like when we started the show started the
whole show off here, Jeffy the last break, just saying
how like there's really not a right or wrong when
it comes to making a taco, Like it's just it's
there's no set and stone way to do it. We're
joined by Forest Passion Act from Taco Deal right now
hanging out with us here on Plumblow Foods a chef Plumber,
chef jeffy uh Forrest. If someone is, I'd say, they're
making tacos at home, right and they want to kind
of switch to more locally. Obviously this time of year

(39:33):
a little bit tougher. But what do you think something
that could switch out that kind of give them just
a more of a local ingredient type, feel like something
easy that could that could change out. I mean, for
me here at the house, I still have a bunch
of green tomatoes you know, from the gardens we had
to pick because we had a frost recently, So we
have tomato sitting on the countertop. So there's that. But
you know, maybe somebody, what's something could switch out?

Speaker 6 (39:50):
You think, Well, I mean right now, I mean because
look at spaghetti squash, you know, I mean that's a
really interesting taco. Get some like mayataki, mushrooms or some
good mushrooms, roast those spaghetti, squash some pumpkin seeds. You know,
that's kind of a really fun thing you could do. Well,
do that as a special That's a lot of fun

(40:13):
you can also have. You know, there's there's a lot
of local seafood man, I mean there's a lot of
great stuff around here.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
Yeah. We don't get enough credit for that thinking our state.
We have a lot of great seafood here.

Speaker 6 (40:22):
Yeah, so that's another part of it. You know, there's
there We've got some great Stonington scalps. I mean, you
can make a toastota. I take that instead of doing
a taco fry the taco shell and make it crispy,
and make a toastata with some seared scalps, you know,
little glocks and people to gayo.

Speaker 4 (40:40):
You know, yeah, it sounds great.

Speaker 6 (40:41):
Yeah, that's a lot of fun. You know, you can
make your own hot sauce if you have some of
those peppers from the garden.

Speaker 4 (40:47):
You know, that's right, right, jeffiey What do you got
for forests? Man? No, I mean, I you just speak
in my language. I love everything you're saying. I love
the thing that sticks out to me from before that.
I wanted to bring back up. Is it you use
fresh masa not dried masa for your Yeah, and uh,
what is there like a major difference you think between

(41:08):
the massas like when you rehydrate it yourself from uh,
from getting it fresh like that, like the flavor is
better or is it? Like what's the what's the thought
behind that.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Definitely, it's a richer, deeper flavor.

Speaker 6 (41:20):
It's it's a little bit it's more of a kind
of almost a fermented kind of a kind of a
taste as opposed to using the dried masa. It's it's
got a little bit of a more I would say, mommy,
almost in a sour dough maybe, I would say, yeah,
it's it's a similar it's a similar It's the pH
level is different and it it reacts differently. It's it's

(41:42):
easier to process for your body. It's us plus work
to break it down the live breaks down the corn
and the and the meal. It actually makes a little
easier for it to process in and then the flavor
is a little bit richer and deeper. People wonder why
it's like such a big corn hit flavor. I find
that the dry massa has got a little bit less
of a of a depth to it. I'm not saying

(42:05):
it's bad, it just doesn't have quite doesn't go on
for days in the in the in the flavor profile.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
It's like pizza dough.

Speaker 6 (42:12):
It's like you live and die on your dought and
with tacos, you live and die on the quality of
your of your dorotella. So that's like the vehicle that
carries out all the rest of the flavors. And so
when you're when you're taking that, so it's it's the
that's the thing that carries everything through. So when you're
having a really great pizza and that crust is fantastic
and it's crispy and it's like on.

Speaker 5 (42:34):
Top, you know, kind of what we call but it's
one of those things.

Speaker 4 (42:45):
But it's like wow, and I have to I mean,
I couldn't agree more. Man, it's amazing. And I think
it's important to listen before we get you out of here.
In twenty seconds for us, tell us what is your
non negotiable topping you have to have it on your taco?

Speaker 1 (43:01):
What is it hot sauce?

Speaker 6 (43:03):
I mean, it's gonna be like really like being hot
sauce if even the taco is not good.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
I'll just like murder it with hot sauce and I'll yeah,
i'd like you know, hotter pretty much the heart of
the better.

Speaker 4 (43:16):
That's all it takes. Forest. We appreciate you man, Thanks
for it. Take a few minutes of hanging out with
us here on a Saturday. You guys got to check
out Taco de if you haven't done it yet. It's
thirty two Church Hill Road in New Talk, connecticutting of
course Taco deal on Instagram. Forest is a bunch of
other great restaurants, I'm telling you. And and he is
terrible at social media, so you don't look for his story.

Speaker 6 (43:35):
I don't really do social media. I have I have Instagram,
seging on Facebook, Marketplace.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
That's it. That's it. That's it. We appreciate you man.
Thanks for your time. Brother, have a great afternoon. Thanks man.
We'll be right back us there. Right there, we got
more Plumb love foods and we come back. We're talking tacos.
That's right, Happy Tacos Saturday. Friends. You're checking out Plumb

(44:19):
the foods right here on the Voice of Conect at
w I c C. Big shout outs of Forrest Pasternak
from Taco Diau coming on the show. Jeffy Forrest a
good guy, great guy, great guy. First time I actually
met him in person, and I feel like I made
a new brother. Yeah, he's a good guy. We will
like him a lot. And Taco do you have? Evin's
a fantastic restaurant. I think I'm gonna go tonight. Actually
I'm gonna go and have a couple of tacos and
know what else they have? They have a skinny margarita,

(44:40):
which I know. I don't want to be the guy
who says the words skinny when it comes to things,
but it's it's it's not very caloric. That's what I
like about it. Yeah, yeah, I get that. I get
that as we get older, we got to refine the
fuel that goes in the tank. Yeah. I mean, it's
just one of those things where I don't I think
they just have like not a lot of simple serpent
or something and they'll put like a little dab for me,
so I has litle bit of sweetness, but uh, just

(45:02):
do you That's it. That's it. But the skinny skinny
marks are great. But yeah, tacos, skinny margaret come onsco
counting in. I'm very very excited about you know, we
didn't do ye. We haven't really talked about the history
of the taco. If you want to see the interview
that we did with Forrest Passernak, you can obviously go
to anywhere you get your fine digital audio downloads. That's right,
Type in plumb Love Foods and guess what you'll find

(45:22):
A plethora, a veritable cornicopia. Jeffy a twelve pack of
mixed tacos from Taco Belt. No, that's probably not the
best way. That they're all the same. None of these
shows are ever the same. But I was gonna say, yeah,
I'll try to like a lot of something in one
package that that related the tacos, but I failed. A
pack of Life savers that's not a taco thing, that's

(45:45):
not that. But I was thinking of different colors and
an one pack. Okay, that's fair. They're all different than
in one package. But if they're the same, kind of
taste the same though, No, they don't, except for like
the Line one tastes like Line. The rest of them
tastes like like cherry strawberry raspberry. You just haven't had
lifestat was in a while, my friends. It's been a while.
It has been a while. Anyway, you can download episodes
of the show. Check out the one that he doesn't
do right now if you like too. We can do

(46:06):
all of these things, which is fantastic, so great, it's great.
The futures, the futures here, the future is here, and
his bright Jeffy is bright now it's now anyway, so
down load check it out and you can see what's up.
What we didn't do is talk about the you know,
I think the history that where's the taco come from?
Why do we have tacos, what's the story behind it?
And I have a person in my life who is

(46:26):
an expert on all these things, and his name is
Chef Jeffy, and he can tell us all kinds of
things about the history of certain foods. Jeffey. Yeah, yeah,
I know a little bit about tacos. Well, for instance,
tacos are from Mexico. It's a it's a rooted Oh
they were being in Connecticut. Uh well, tacos the way
we know them today, and how they were sold, you know,

(46:50):
on the back of Joseppe. Uh No, that's not it's wrong. Yeah,
I don't even know what you're talking about there. I
mixing the pizza lore and the taco lore. It gets
so confusing. Maybe it's a ice cream continue that. I apologize, Yeah,
forgive me, forgive me. Anyway, So back to what I
was saying, it's Mexican food. They believe its indigenous roots
are in Mexico, so it actually came from Mexico. They've

(47:13):
been eating tacos forever, I guess, you know, it's kind
of like using masa to make tortillas. The term taco
they believe, came in like the eighteenth century nineteenth century
silver mines in Mexico. And it says that the term
taco there was actually tacos. What they used to call

(47:36):
these pieces of kind of like dynamite. They were like
they were like gunpowder wrapped in this like kind of
like wax paper that they used for escavating excavation, and
so they would call those tacos. And then you know,
the migrant workers that the Mexican migrants that were working
would eat these things that had tortillas, you know, wrapped
around meat or beans or whatever, and they just started

(47:57):
calling them tacos. And interesting, it looked like because it
looked like the thing that they used kind of like
the dynamite thing. Yeah, and so it just kind of
became taco and they actually didn't get really popular in America.
They got really popular in Los Angeles first, and it
was a group of women called the Chili Queens. I
feel like West Coast tacos are definitely like a thing,

(48:20):
you know, it's been around a long time, like maybe
here how we get cheeseburgers, like'sscribe back of cheeseburger or
something like that, like in the West coast as tacos well, yeah,
and I also think that it would make sense that
it would go out there first, especially because they come
from Mexico and most of the you know, uh Mexican
immigrants would travel up into America, so they would be

(48:41):
coming into Texas, Arizona, California, California probably being one of
the more populated states. That's probably where everyone went for work.
And therefore tacos kind of followed them with it. And again,
like if you look at how it's it's made and
how it originally originated by being a basically an excavation tool,
you know, it kind of shows you more and more

(49:01):
now like we start the whole show off, like there's
really no right or wrong. You can put anything in
the stuff. No tacos that I mean forgot. It's like
they're using it to blow up rocks. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And well I think it was just they say, uh,
you know the tacos back then. They they think we're very,
very simple, And it was just probably a tortilla wrapped
around some potatoes or beans or something like that, and
it kind of just it looked just like the dynamite

(49:23):
sticks the lunch sandwich without the bread. Yeah, it's a
I E, I E. A taco, a taco sandwich. Here
we go. I love how you brought this all back around, Jeffrey.
This all makes a lot of sense now. I don't
think anyone's ever called it a taco sandwich. Well guess
what we're starting. No, you don't want to start that

(49:45):
with me. I'm I'm going down this journey alone. Yeah,
for sure, because I just don't think I mean, for one,
I'm kidding, I'm being phastical. For one, a taco is
one piece of if you were going to call it bread, sure,
it's one piece of bread, right, But you mean when
your mom would make you that cheese sandwich when you
were at home. On that end, piece of bread from
the from the wonderbread and folded in half. That wasn't

(50:05):
a sandwich for you. We just threw we were we
had money, we threw those away. Stop it knowing that,
just teasy. I know you didn't. You would eat the
heal of the bread. I always eat to hear that's
where all the good stuff is. My mom told me
that's where the vitamins were in the crust. So I would.
I would fight. She lied to you. She lied right
to me, and I believe that till I was about twenty.
I'm just saying like, okay, so anyway continue. So I mean,

(50:26):
if I have a half I want piece of bread
and I make a blooney sandwich out of it, a
little lettuce, mayo, salt, pepper, slice of baloney I folded
in half. Is that now a blooney taco? Not half
a blowny sandwich. It's not a tortilla. So no, it's
not a taco. But if you were to take that baloney,
the lettuce to mayonnaise and put it on a tortilla,
sure I would let you get away with calling it
a bloony taco. It just me it's a blowny tacos

(50:49):
consound delicious. I messed with blooney tacos. I would do that.
I'd be okay with that. I wouldsh sorry. You know,
we're going on. The tortilla roll up is classic snack.
I mean, come on, of course. So that's interesting. So
it came from and then like kind of started to
change and and you know, as a poet, we get
the you know, the the fast food tacos and stuff

(51:11):
like that, but now we've got like Korean tacos and
just I mean all kinds different type. Yeah. Well, I mean,
I think the thing about tacos that's so great is
they lend themselves to almost any other type of cuisine.
So it's it's a very easy food to fuse with
other types of food. So it's like you could, like
there's a great place in New York City that we

(51:32):
go to all the time called Taco Ma Hall, and
it's an Indian like Mexican fusion situation. And so they
do like these burritos, but they do like a kind
of a non bread instead of a tortilla, but they
roll like a burrito and it has Indian ingredients but
some Mexican ingredients I don't know, but it's it's very cool.
But it just it just makes sense to me that

(51:54):
you could fuse almost anything with Mexican fud in the taco. Yeah,
I mean it makes a lot of sense. You think
about like people and even you know, great duck tacos
or even you know, there's a great restaurant when we
work out out east that I really like called Rita Cantina,
and you've been there. I have a fantastic food. But
they do it duck a duck taco plate with but
it's not tacos on a plate. They roast a whole

(52:15):
half a duck, you know, slow roasted duck, and they
give it to you with like some fixens, you know,
little little glockamoilal sausus and let us dixens and tortillas
and you kind of make your own taco. That's kind
of how they serve it like it came and that's
the situation, said Carneita's plate. Yeah. Yeah, then so carnitas.
Usually it's like slow cooked and then recooked again, so

(52:35):
it's like a little crispy parts all over it. That's
the best part that that duck comes outside. We actually
had that last time we were there together. It's delicious,
so good. It's a great meal, and it's a great shore.
But my point is is, like, again, there's no right
or wrong way to do this, Like they're serving there
is not even built. You built the customer, the guy,
the guests built the tacos, which I think is a
pretty cool way to do it too. I think it's
an amazing way to do it. It's an amazing way
to do it, and I think you could do it

(52:56):
with almost anything. Right. There's no right or wrong with Again,
that's the whole point of this. Common say, Holy College,
if you're building construction work over there, Yeah, sorry, just
dipped over. Yeah that was crazy, excuse us. There's no
right or wrong way, which I think is kind of
the biggest takeaway for me when it comes to a taco.
Like you can hear the history of taco, you can
watch how they're traditionally made and all that, and people

(53:16):
can say, oh, those aren't traditional tacos. Well, guess what.
There is no traditional taco unless you're building it making
a stick of dynamite to blow up rocks. That's the
traditional taco.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:25):
Well, I do think there are like traditional style tacos
in Mexico that like from a certain area that they
make this type of sure, like in Baja Mexico. I
think they're pretty famous for like a fish taco for instance,
because there's a lot of big fishing community there, so
it's like right right type of taco. But like you
can't get it wrong. I agree with you on that, Like, yeah,
I think it may be kind of like what Forrest
was saying before. It's kind of like it's in the

(53:47):
kind of the ingredient's like the tortilla, Like there may
be a traditional way to make the tortilla, and this
is how we do it here, this is how we
do it in this region. You know, it's a certain
way that that's done, but the actually ingredients themselves may
not be as important as the method in which some
of the ingredients are made or or or pervade. That's true.
And I feel like tacos are kind of like pizza
in the in the sense that like there's really no

(54:09):
bad taco that's you know, like there's no like real
I mean, like there's bad pizza, but I'll still eat it. Well,
I think I was don't agree with you there, like that,
I was I wasn't agreeing that there's no bad taco.
I think most tacos are probably pretty good in some capacity.
That's what I mean. It's like, but all sad pizzas.
There is bad pizza. I won't eat really absolutely. I
mean I guess like I'm not going to go to

(54:30):
like a saborrows or like something like in a you know,
at a resta exactly like there's a there's I mean,
I was at a my daughter's volleyball game and they were,
you know, obviously the concession stands there, and they had
some like like whole grocery store pizza slices. Oh those
are rough. It's like it's not even a boboli. It's
like some sort of like it's made in a factory.
You can just tell the no. All in the boxes
like three feet wide. Like I was like, I'm not

(54:50):
having any of that. One of those perforated crusts that
has those pre made holes bottom of it.

Speaker 7 (54:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (54:54):
I saw my wife. I was hungry. I was talking
about dinner, and she goes, oh, they got pizza outside.
I looked at her. She goes, yeah, you're probably gonna
eat that, are you. I was like, no, I'm not
gonna eat that like you were like what, yeah, I was.
I kind of was like I didn't want you to
say that. I didn't want you to say that. Yeah no,
I yeah that would above but delicious tacos. Man, Like
I said, you know, I think one of my favorites,

(55:16):
and it's a simple, simple taco, is I believe it
or not, is the jackfruit taco. I think jackfruit is
really really underrated. And I also enjoy a sweep tata taco.
Oh so some of your favorite tacos are no meat,
That's true. I do enjoy jack I think jackfruit can
be flavored really really easily, and it kind of has

(55:36):
a texture of meat, and I love a superhea taco.
You can braise up some sweep ptato wedges and use
them on our taco. You can finish them a little cuman,
some good chili powder. I mean, a good sleeper tato
taco can be delicious. Yeah, I agree. I agree. And
jackfruit it almost has the texture of pork, right, yeah,
like you and you could definitely make a carnitas out
of it, like kind of shreds and like when you

(55:58):
when you put it under the broiler for a little bit,
like the little crispy parts that come up off of it.
It's it's it's so much like pork it it blows
my mind. Yeah, I don't think my favorite taco is
plant based though, No, No, definitely not. I was just
thinking kind of out of the you know, out of
the ordinary style of taco is, like, what's some things
we like? And I'm gonna say something a little polarizing here.

(56:18):
Oh oh, here we go, all right, my favorite taco
and and and I know, and I've had a lot
of great tacos, and I'm not saying like I mean,
I've had tacos all over the place, amazing tacos, five
star tacos, and there was those those were great, but
the tacos and Mexico together exactly. But there is something
about the American taco bar plate that I love. Where

(56:42):
it's a hard shell yellow taco. Okay, ground beef that's
been seasoned. Yeah, little cheddar cheese, little chopped lettuce, little
chopped tomato, not even prettily chopped, you know, and it
was like cut with a butter knife, you know, like
your mom, you know, and it and it just kind
of gets tossed up on there and you get a
little that El Paso hot sauce up on it and
for something, there's something about that, just like the Taco

(57:05):
Bell taco. Yes, that classic classic ground beef taco. I
kind of agree with you, man, I kind of agree
with you. I mean, it's delicious, especially because it's all
about how that beef is season and the fat content
and the beef and like you could put three or
four on a plate and just bang them out pretty quick.
I would. I would be lying if I didn't say
I crushed a twelve pack of tacos many many nights

(57:27):
at Wow Jeff, twelve of them. Huh, dude, I'm a
big guy and I was bigger, and I like twelve
little tacos after a long day at work and all
you've seen is pizza. And you know, I was like,
this is the truth with that hot s especially when
they came out with the fire sauce. Oh yeah, all right,
all right, well, Litsten, I kind of agree with you, man.

(57:47):
I think that's a delicious taco, absolutely, And you know,
I think you know you can get and I like
I'm soft, by the way, that's my favorite. I don't
like crunchy tacos. I like them soft I like both.
I really love both. I love I mean for different things.
You know, I wonder what came first. The soft taco
is a hard taco. I would imagine it was a
soft taco. I would think so too, But I'm really

(58:09):
curious to know. Now. I'm gonna try to look it
up all we're talking, but like, ill me because think
about it, you'd have to have an apparatus to fry
the taco into the taco shape. So even if it
was just a nice stick that you put you push
down into the oil to hold it into that right, right,
you'd have to have that apparatus before you could make
the taco unless you're like just doing it in the
sun or something what like a hot like the sun

(58:34):
just kind of bakes, it bakes the shells.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
You know.

Speaker 4 (58:36):
This is why I want to be on a deserted
island with plumb because if we don't got anything, we're
making tacos in the sun. We're gonna make some corn.
We're gonna find it. We'll ground it between some stones
and it would just air dry our tortillas until they're
hard and make lovely hard taco. Well here's the thing.
I have the answer. So soft tacos came first as
a soft corn to tias, a traditional form at taco

(58:57):
was done in ancient Mexican origins. However, the hardshell tacos
are actually an American invention that developed later becoming popularized
in the US twentieth century. So hard tacos are an
American thing America. Oh yeah, but I mean it says
that these soft tacos have a long history dating back
to three thousand BC in Mexico. How about that? Whoa

(59:19):
taban and tortilla is that long? Apparently? Yeah, that's amazing,
that's awesome. And listen, I love the conversation with Forrest
when he was talking about how you know the way
again a pizza reference, but like how people pizza makers,
it's all about the dough. They're all worried about their dough,
the process of the dough. And it starts there, right,

(59:40):
A taco starts with the tortilla, and and uh, you
know here in the passion that he puts in his tortillas,
like the fresh moss support and like it's like like
I really think that that's that's the way to go.
In fact, I look for the best tortillas I can
find Oh yeah, I don't know. When I'm making tacos
at home, I was like to find that. We've seen that.
There's like a can't think of the name of the brand,

(01:00:00):
mixim nixa something, it's like a Mexican brand. And they're
like you're talking about I've seen them. Yeah, they're like
the most hardy taco shell you've ever had. Like they're
like bright yellow or blue. They're oh man, they're so good.
I wish I could do the well, I have something
that's gonna I'm gonna surprise you, but you're gonna be like, oh, okay, here.

(01:00:21):
So the hard shell taco was widely popularized in the
US by Glenn Bell, who opened Taco Bell in the
nineteen sixties and introduced the pre formed shell to a
mass audience. So apparently Taco Bell brought us the hardshell taco.
How funny is that? Not, like, I mean, popularize it?
How about that? First of all, Glenn Bell, Glen, I'm

(01:00:45):
absolutely I didn't know his name was Glenn. I mean,
that's so crazy to me. I think that is a
little crazy, But I love that that's where they came from.
That like fast food tacos, right, made tacos famous, and
I think that's also and I think that I mean,
think about how accessible it made a taco. Like before that,
probably people were it was probably so exciting to go

(01:01:06):
get a taco, right because it was like a normal
thing or something. It was like, yeah, it was like
probably everyone was like, whoa guys, Glenn Bell opened up
a taco place. They were probably whoa guys, look at
this new sandwich until thankfully Glenn Glenn showed up. It
was like, listen, I know you guys love great Mexican cuisine.
Trust me, my name is Glenn. I know how to
make great tacos. Let me show you how we're doing this.

(01:01:28):
Do you think there was like a huge fight with
people in the beginning. He'd be like. They'd be like,
y'all have one of them ground beef sandwiches, and he's like, no,
they're called taco at the top. He's like, oh, oh,
all right, it's like a taco sandwich. Well, what about
the sandwiches that are all wrapped up with it in
the middle. What do you call those? Well that's a burrito, sir.
Oh oh okay, okay, people ahead and have one of them.

(01:01:50):
Stuff sandwiches. No, it's a all right. I wonder if
that was the end of the day, is like, it's
a taco said, it's a taco. Stop calling it a sandwich.
Do you think he had to like write it out
phonically for people to probably he goes home, he's like,
he goes home, ses his wife, you have to work

(01:02:11):
all day's sweating, and she's like, honey, what's wrong. He's like,
keep calling it a sandwich. I'm gonna lose my mind. Listen,
I get it, Glenn. I would be upset too. I
feel like I'm more upset than his name is Glenn.
That made Taco Bell. You know something we didn't mention yet,
well at first, so let's just shout at Glen Bell,
Glen Bell. We're not We're not hating on Glenn Bell.

(01:02:33):
I just was surprised to learn that was his name. Listen,
I worked at a Taco Bell me too. I loved it.
I loved it. I used to used to get down
on the Mexi melts and the little steam joint. Ironically,
you know, Taco Bell was the first actual kitchen line
situation that I worked in. It was a line that
you worked in. You remember like it was like the
meat guy. Then there was a veggie guy than the
rap guy. Mm hmm, right, yeah, and so it was

(01:02:54):
it was the first line that I worked. I usually
I started as the as the souvid meat bag guy.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we calls to be back. Then
it was just boiling the meat in the bag. Boiling
meat in a bag, which yeah, which is like, it's
so funny. When Suevied first came out, I was like,
Taco Bill has been doing that since I was I'm like,
what are we talking about. That's right, that's all Taco

(01:03:14):
Bill cooks their meat. I'm not cooking my meat that way.
But then I got into it. But anyway, I was
that guy and then they moved me up to the
rap guy because I was fast, you know, I was
rapping doing all the things. They come down to your
station on the paper and then you do the finishing
and the bags. And then I got on drive through. Ah,
that's I was. A drive through was like the top
of the top of the chain. I was driving. You

(01:03:36):
get to your top of the food chain. When you're driving,
you ain't get a touch talk was anymore. He just
gonna hand him out that's right, that's right. We duxed
off of that. Yeah, meeting my mile, I believe it
or not. Would like to buy a CD that we
have right now that we are promoting. We have a
CD that has a lot of songs on it. That's
what I remember from my tacobout this. Do you know
what I'm talking about? It was red He does know.

(01:03:57):
I remember. It was always something like it would be
like Christmas to be like, hey, for five ninety nine,
would you like us to give you the the Taco
Christmas CD that's coming out with Mariah Carrey's Mexican Christmas
Taco sa It goes great with tacos, Hey, Like, what
doesn't make any sense? Nothing makes me want of tacos

(01:04:17):
more than enya. Honestly, it's like, let me get a
let me get a burrito Supreme, Taco NATO's Mil Grande,
and your CD. Please thank you? That's that one, babe.
I just got this great CD down a Taco Bell.
No one's ever said that, no one's ever came home
from Taco Bell. I'm like, guys, listen to this banger.
I just picked up down at the Bell. You know

(01:04:38):
it's fantastic. I gotta get from Taco Bell. Tacos, hot
sauce and music. That's what I look forward to. Check
out this new Enya song right to the Border. Get
some CD. Hey listen. Shout out to Glen Bell for
bringing the taco out as we know it to popularity.
We love it. When we come back, Jeff and I
got to talk about making tacos at home. We're gonna
talk about some agreeents and give you some of the
best restaurants in Connecticut that serve tacos. You should go

(01:05:00):
to a check out tonight, tomorrow or maybe the rest
of the weekend or the rest of the week. Either way,
half tacos are delicious. And shout out at Glenn Bell.
We appreciate Glenn. We don't drink all right, friends, Welcome

(01:05:48):
back to Plumb Love Foods right here on a Taco
Saturday on w y see the voice of Chef Plumb,
Chef Jeff hanging out with you here for one more
break as we've been celebrating the wonderful world that is
the taco and we've learned a lot of fun things today.
And you should go back and listen to the show
and download the podcast anywhere you get podcasts, But you
should listen to it because we learned things like the
guy who had been at Taco Bell, his name was

(01:06:08):
Glenn Yep. That was news to me, news to me,
a legend. Yeah. Also did we also learned today that
tacos were originally invented as devices to excavate ground, which
is kind of funny by the word the word taco
taco right right right. We also learned that tortillas are
from three hundred BC, So I'm pretty sure that three thousand,

(01:06:33):
three thousand years ago, which I mean, they're still explosive
back then. No, no, but I think they were eating tacos.
We just we just started calling them tacos because of
what it looked like, because of what it looks like.
This is why you have to go back and listen
to pay attention, because you can learn cool things like
this on this program. We should start doing it. What
did we learned? Segment? What did we learned today?

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
Like?

Speaker 4 (01:06:50):
What have we learned today? Like the three things we learned?
I learned worked at Taco Bell. Did we both did? Yeah?
We both we both did. We both did. I would
were alumni. Hey, there we go listen. All I know
is that during to break Jeffy, I was looking up
at Taco bell CD and I found it the one
we were talking about. It's called do Something Alternative, and
it was hilarious. It was read. I love how I

(01:07:11):
said that you knew exactly what I was talking about.
Oh yeah, I remember they always had stuff like that.
It was like something they were trying to push. Yeah,
it was hilarious anyway. So yeah, talking about tacos here
with Chef Plumber. Chef jeff on Plumb love foods. Also
big shots to our guests were coming on Forest Pasternak
from Taco Dia talking all about tacos. But I think
one of the things that he brought up that was
kind of important is talking about, you know, emphasizing more

(01:07:33):
about how we were saying that there is no right
or wrong when it comes to a taco. True, it's
more about the ingredients in the tortilla. And so making
tortillas at home, Jeffy, not as hard as you might think. No, No,
super easy, And I think once you get into it,
you learn that it's really really easy to do and
it should be done all the time. Yeah, So when
I make tortillas, very very stimple, we start with massa.

(01:07:54):
You can buy a massa from the grocery store. It's
like three dollars for a five pound bag. Masa is
different then refined like like think like polenta or corn
meal or something like that, right, Jeffy, Yeah, I mean
there's a big difference in the two and for me,
I mean would make it harder soft. Let's start there first,
I guess makes soft soft tacos. Mm hm, well, so

(01:08:19):
we want to start with masa, right, which we can get,
which is obviously is that what's that big word you like,
but they cook it down a little bit. It's treated
with alkaline solution maximalize. That's it miximalize, right, where while
corn meal is like the difference between the cormala and
massas that the massa is miximalized and regular cormeala is
not maximalized. So I used to tell people one of

(01:08:41):
them is kind of cooked, one of them is not,
and that does so it can absorb moisture better. We agree, Yeah,
that's good. You're you're one hundred percent correct, yes, top
ten percent, Jeff exactly. So yeah, but then you add
a little water to a little pinch of salt, you
can mix it up into a dough. You know, I
used to my chef brain always wants to let the
dough rest, even though I mean, you don't have to

(01:09:01):
make it. There's no gluten, it doesn't have to rest.
But in my brain, I'm like, let the dough rest.
It seems to work better when you do it that way.
You can get a press. Jeffie, No, I was gonna say,
I don't. Don't you want to let it rest a
little bit because the moisture has to completely like distribute.
I mix it with my hands and you don't have
to let it rest. You can roll with it right there. Really, Yeah,

(01:09:22):
I'm usually it's like a cup of corn meal to
like three quarters of a cup of water. And I
always tell people that like that, you know, do half
the time, like pour a little bit in at a time,
because you know, corners made of my mother nature, and
no matter how much we try to make it perfect
every time, corn is gonna be different every time because
each lock of corn is different when they make corn meal.
You follow me, Yeah, so add a little bit of

(01:09:42):
water at a time. You want to kind of start
to pull away from the bowl and not stick to
your hands like you'll know it's ready because they'll stop sticking.
And then you take a little I roll in a
separate little balls, and then you get what's called a
tortilla press. And you can do it in my hand
with a roller if you want to, but tortilla press
is super easy. Take a little piece of plastic usually
I prefer to use as block bag. I'll cut it
like basically, so it stretches all the way out. I

(01:10:05):
cut it one side and cut the other side, so
it stretches all the way out, and it laid across
my press. So then part of it is laying on
top of the press. Of the parts lay on the bottom.
The press has three parts it has ready for this,
the top on the hinge, the bottom on the hinge,
and then the hammer which you use to press down.
Those are the three parts of your tortilla press. So
I lay the plastic down onto the tortilla press so

(01:10:27):
it covers the top and the bottom. I put my
little ball of dough that I've made roughly the size
of a golf ball, maybe a little smaller pink between
him coughball and ping pong ball. And you want to
put it off center right put it close to the
hinge as opposed to closer to the middle, because when
you press, your pressing is not equally distributed. So bring
the top down, press it, use the hammer, pull the
hammer down, press down the tortilla, and then take your

(01:10:48):
fingertips just press the top of the press on top
of the bottom part. Sorry, I had a pee pop
there on my microphone. But it's not so much about
the pressure. We don't need the incredible hawk person is down.
More about the time under the pressure than it is
the actual pressure you're using. Take it out, then let
it rest for a minute. Doesn't need to rest. I
don't know, just in my brain, I was a dull rest.

(01:11:09):
It doesn't need to there's no gluten, there's no reason
for it to rest. You don't have to do that.
But then when I cook them, the idea here is
the magic sauce for this is going to be in
a dry kitchen towel you're gonna have draped over a plate. Right,
This is where the magic happens when it comes to
cooking of tortilla. I then take a pan and I

(01:11:29):
there is some there is some different ways to do this,
but for me, I take a stainless steel pan or
a cast iron pan. I get it nice and hot
where you see a little whist of smoke coming off
of it, right, and I don't put any fat in
the pan. I just take the tortilla dry, just like that,
right into the pan. What happens is it starts to
blister on the outside. Right. I have something called the

(01:11:50):
one minute rule when it comes to making tacos. Right,
thirty seconds on one side, twenty seconds on the other side.
Flip it for the last ten seconds. Now. I'm not
saying you're gonna actually count this out in your head,
but you know, have it in your brain, and it
usually takes about one minute to get the tortilla where
you want it, right, and it's gonna be nice and
blistering around the sides. I've taught a class of this
one hundred times. This is why. Yeah, so it starts

(01:12:11):
to blister, So get the little blisters, which is those
little brown marks we want that you see on nice,
great tortillas. One of the best things about making tortillas
at home, too, is that they're way more pliable and
durable than a corn tortillo you'll buy in the grocery store.
They have more strength to them, so once you get
those blisters on both sides and the tortilla is so hot,
you want to put it into the towel you have

(01:12:31):
draped over the plate, and then drape part of the towel,
you know, take the towel and cover the tortilla itself. Right.
What's happening is that residual heat in the tortilla is
cooking the inside of the tortilla. Now it finishes it
off and makes it more pliable, and you can do them,
you know. I always tell people when you do this,
do one at a time to start. Don't try to
get crazy and do fifteen at a time, you know,
I mean, listen, I used to work at the hotel
where I was doing fifty at a time on a

(01:12:51):
big flat top. Yeah, learn the process. First, do it
one at a time. Once you get the hang out,
you start doing more than one at a time. I
started doing this on My kids think it's so fun.
My clients think it's amazing when you make homemade tortillas.
And uh, when you make these two you'll see you
can get to where you do it pretty quickly and
it doesn't matter. I mean, I remember being at the
jection hotel and I told the story a lot with
chef Lani hu Wat. We had to make tortillas and

(01:13:13):
I'm pressing them all by hand, and I was doing
it all day long, and then Lani kept asked me
why I'm doing it that way, and I was like,
I got a chef, I know what I'm doing. What
I'm doing, and he was like, okay, okay, I had
to make like four hundred of them or something like that,
and uh, I was on, like tortilla number two eighty
five or something like that. I've been doing it for
a long time. And Lanni goes, oh, I just got
to ask you. Are you rolling those all by hand?

(01:13:35):
Is that why? I was like, well, yes, chef, we're
making tortillas from scratch, right. He goes, yeah, we don't
need to press in the back that presses twelve at
a time. You can just press them. And I was
like you, uh what, and so that at that point,
I'm trying not to be like you have to do it.
You have to know sell up. So I was like, yeah,
I just I think it's better by hand like this.

(01:13:56):
He was like, uh huh use the press man. So yeah,
it's just you get into a rhythm of doing it,
so make them at home. It's really really easy. Literally
a cup of masa to about a three quarters cup
of warm water and a pinch of salt. It is
all the dough is. It's really really simple. But when
you add the water to the masa, make sure you
do it. I do half of my three cords a
cup and then add a little bit more, a little

(01:14:17):
bit more towards so I still turn into a ball
and pull away from the sides. Sometimes it takes three
cords a cup. Sometimes it takes a pinch more. Sometimes
takes a little less. But that's why you add a
little bit at a time, because if it's too wet,
then you have to add more massa. That was my
tortilla cooking demo breakdown. Jeffy, I love it. I love it.
Thank you. So you soft taco guy. You said, right,

(01:14:38):
no flour to tatias for you. Well, no, you can
do flour tortillas very similarly. But I'm just asking you, like,
do you like flower to guy? Yeah? I think if
they're fresh tortillas, I'll take corn. If they are like
the store bought ones, I'll give me a flour soft
soft flour for me. Yeah. No, no, I agree, but

(01:14:58):
the cooking process is very similar to Yeah, unless it's
a great tortilla, like great tortillas, I'll eat soft. If
I made your tortillas and the taco with a yours
would be amazing, I'm sure. And honestly, any fresh tortilla
I'd probably eat soft, no problem. But uh, there's definitely
a difference though, in like a homemade tortilla and the
ones you breth in the store. That's all those weird
yellow ones that like, I don't know, they're exposed to
air for fifteen seconds and somehow it's like they got

(01:15:20):
frozen and they start to crumble. I just and they
drop me crazy. It's a weird It's definitely a weird thing. Yeah,
definitely a weird thing. Flower tortillas are also really easy
to make. Those same thing, same, same same process that
you just described. Very similar, Yeah, very very similar with
just great. Sometimes I'll mix in a little massa and
flour and do it together. Yeah. I think the only
thing with flour tortillas is I think you have to
add fat, some kind of oil or butter or lard

(01:15:41):
or something. You can do olive oil into the mixture. Yeah,
any fat, Yeah, I tend to use animal fats because
I have them laid around. But yeah, but so, I mean,
tortillas are not hard to make. Try it, try it.
And I think if you're getting into making tortillas for
the first time, like doing a simple corn tortilla is
very it's not a lot of there's tons of room
for air, Like you're not gonna like, it's not gonna

(01:16:01):
mess it up. You know you can. You can, you
can break them. You can make them and then just
repress them. It's really simple, and I think it's a
very rewarding things to make too. So try making them
a home. It's it's fantastic and they and you could
cut them up and just fry them and now now
you have chips. Yea delicious like homemade tortilla chips are
so good. To make sure you salt them while they're warm. Absolutely, absolutely,

(01:16:22):
that's a pro tip. Salt and salt is other warm
while this one that sticks to it then, which is great.
So Jeffy, when it comes to making tacos at home, right,
we're talking like your home taco bar and you're having
the you're having the fam over, everybody over. What's some
of the basics that you like to have. The three
things that have to be on that taco bar for
Chef Jeff. Three things they have to be on the

(01:16:42):
taco bar for Chef Jeff are hot sauce. Definitely have
to have hot sauce. I like to have uh more
than one protein. I like to do like chicken and
beef or fish and beef or something. I like to
have options. And the same thing with the tortillas. I
honestly I like that. I usually get flour and corn tortillas.

(01:17:04):
Oh yeah, and I'll have like crispy corn and soft
flour is what I usually like to do. I mean that, yeah,
I think having that that's all pretty good. That's all
pretty good. Those are the you know, everything else can
be anything. I feel right, but if I have those
three things, I'll be happy for me. Shredded iceberg lettuce
has to be a thing. Oh okay. I like the crunch.
I like the freshness of ads, the brightness. While I

(01:17:26):
don't think shredded iceberg lettus has a lot of flavor,
it does a lot for also holding any kind of
sauce you put into the taco and keeping it from
dripping down to the bottom. Because it kind of gets
lost in the maze of shredded iceberg, so it kind
of holds it for you, creates a net. I think
sour cream is very very important, you know. I think
you have to have sour cream, and then for me
a pico de gayo, right, we need some sort of

(01:17:48):
piko dea gyo and sauce. I like we cover before,
salta and pikoda guy are two different things. Yeah, no,
there's definitely two different things. I don't know if sour
cream's a die guac though I have to have a
walk is great too. Guacas guaca is is a is
a non starter for me. But sour cream I wouldn't
like if someone's like, oh, we don't have sour cream,
I'm like, oh, okay, no problem. But if they're like, oh,

(01:18:09):
you know, we don't have guak, I'd be like, really interesting.
You know what works? Great? Oh? Nice done. That's what
you did there, Jeffy.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:18:16):
Also, if you're gonna make a great crema, one of
the things a tip that I always tell people too.
As jeff was talking back in the second segment of
our show talking about cremas and the first secon excuse
me how you have to thin it out a little
bit because it's not as heavy as like a sour cream.
Very very easy to do. But one thing you can
do as well is use a little non fat. Plain
yogurt works great to make cremas out of It doesn't
really have a different flavor, it kind of does. It

(01:18:38):
does all things you want to do on the taco.
So you can take a little non for that yogurt
mix in. If you buy a can Chipoldi chipotlic's, you know,
a little like cans the sauce that they're in. Pour
some of that sauce that's in the can, the adobo
sauce into the crema, I mean, into the sour cream.
Mix it up with a whisk, got a pinch of
salt or yogurt. You have a yeah, right into your
yogurt and then boom, you have this delicious chipoli cruma now,

(01:19:00):
which is super easy to make and super easy. So good. Yeah,
and you can kind of uplift your stuff a little
bit like, oh, well, he made a chipoti crema and
not always sounds fancy to say, even though it's really not.
I love honestly, yogurt's such a great replacement for sour creams.
But the fat free Greek yogurts. It's no fat in it,
high protein, it's thick, it's creamy. It does everything you
want sour cream to do. Yeah. Yeah, And I think

(01:19:22):
Charriso is great for tacos too. I love a good
Charisa taco. I listen. I'm a sausage guy. Any sausage,
yeah you are, bring Bring on the sausages. I'm into.
But yeah, triso, chreso and eggs. My breakfast, my breakfast
taco or burrito is the Chriso. And then I take

(01:19:45):
out the Chriso and leave all the fat, and then
I cook my potatoes in the chrezo fat. And then
I add the scrambled eggs right and then I put
it all back together and then put eggs right on
top and just cook it all together until it's all
comes to one big mix. And then that that's the
that's like the protein. It's like potato eggs treiso mix. Yeah. Yeah,
from my breakfast. Oh man, that's my favorite. That's the
move right there. Now. If you're making steak tacos, I

(01:20:06):
want to make a little announcement here, please stop using
flanks skirt flank steak. That flank steak for scottch tacos
doesn't work because nobody ever cuts it thin enough. It's
not cut properly. It's chewy. Stay away from it. Use
skirt steak now we're talking, So I agree with Chef plump.
Skirt steak is an easier steak to use for more
fat content, more delicious. But if you take a flank

(01:20:27):
steak and you cut it against the grain very thin,
like we're talking, nobody does bry thin and then you
cook that in somemadobo and then it makes such a
delicious steak topic. I just think everyone sees flank stak like, oh,
that'd be great to do, and then they get it
and they cut it into these like one inch stre
It's just it's never done properly. So we take that
out of the equation and use skirt steak, which is
going to be delicious. You want to come to one

(01:20:48):
of our demos. If you ever see us, or if
you see Chef Dan at the pantry, go ask him
if he's got a flank snake, just spit. You know,
how do I cut this right? And show you? We'll
show you. Yeah, I mean, I'm a very anti flank
steak guy, but I agree. I love a flank steak.
I just I've been so overdone for me really yeah,
and then the whatever cooks it properly, and then when
it cuts it properly, it's just that's why I love it,

(01:21:09):
because I feel like people always shocked this is flank steak,
and I'm like yeah, they're like really, and I'm like, yeah, really,
it's so good, right, and they're like I I've never
had flanks steak like this, And I'm like, I know,
all right, cut paper thin. When it's cut thin, that's
the way, no doubt. Oh good. So I've got it
as all those because it's such a long muscle like that,
so when you cut it across, it's like they're so

(01:21:30):
short that it's almost like falls apart. That's what it's
supposed to be. But even if you if you cut
it like you know, if it's like half an inch thick,
it's too thick. No way, too thick. Flank steak is
like we're talking sturf ry thin really thin. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Like it's pretty good because then it just falls apart,
which is great. But like I said to many people
don't cut it thin enough, and I think it ruins
the taco for me. That's where that's where it all.
That's where it all stamps run for me. I'm with

(01:21:51):
you on that pro tip. Skirt steak much easier. Yeah,
and I think actually tastes better because you know, more fat.
It is true, the fat content is so great and
much that it's a better stak. I mean, well, for sure,
you chimney cherry that thing up and put it on
a taco. Let's go, dog, let's go. I have another
hack for you, Jeffy, go ahead, hack me. I'm just
just just I've got a few minutes off the show.
I figure we'll give some some hacks. How about that

(01:22:13):
hack it? Let's hack it. I'll tell you what. Listen. Listen.
One of my favorite things to do when it comes
to making tacos special for Taco night. You may have
ground beef in your pan, you know what I'm talking about, yep,
And that ground beef gets in that pan. But you
got to break it up so it's nice and see
it all over the place and cooked all over, you know.
To break up that ground beef, my tip, I use
that potato masher. Jeffy and I actually will hit my
potato masher and mash the ground beef up to break

(01:22:36):
it up in the pan. How about that? That's that
sounds amazing. Yeah, I mean, no one's ever thought of that, right,
I don't think anyone's ever thought of that. That's a
great that's a great thing to do. You know, A
little cuman, a little chili powder and a little garlic
and some salt, and boom, beautiful seasoning right on top
of it. Dude. Yeah, I'm going to give you my
my chef Jeffy shortcut refried beans. I was about to

(01:22:56):
ask you for it, oh ben. So what I do
is to get a can of black beans. I drain them.
I don't rinse them. I just drain them. I throw
them in the thing. I chop up a little onion,
a little garlic, throw it in there. And then I
take the fat from my my my ground beef, because
you know you're making your seasoned ground sure, And I
pour my ground beef fat right into the beans and
then I bring them up. I cook them out a
little bit, and then I use my wand blender and

(01:23:18):
I just go in there and I mash them and
want and use the stick blender my emotion blender to
blend it that way. Your emotion blender used aid emotion blender,
emotion my emotional I use my stick emotional blender. I know.
I figure like this is something you do to like
get anger out. Oh he's using as a motion blender.
That's hilarious. But I'm really sad I have to hold

(01:23:39):
my emotion blender. Mastish language chef Jeffy is breaking things
down for us professional broadcaster. There you go exactly. They
love it. Yeah, thanks everyone. Uh, emotion blender, rough night, chef.
Could I blend something? Yeah, that's not going away. Go ahead.

(01:23:59):
I see crying. Oh he's using the emotion blends, the
motion blenders getting him. It's getting them good. Yeah he's
unhappy about that. If you're gonna cry, use the emotion blender. Listen.
That's all we use here. We have tools that make
you feel better. Thank God. Anyway, let's keep kicking it.
Go ahead. You mash them up, and it doesn't have
to all be smooth, you know, like a couple yeahs

(01:24:20):
that are broken up. I like a little chunky telling
you absolutely delicious. I think that's a great idea, and
I love the defat in there. What a great move.
I might do that. I've never done that, and I'm
going to do that. It's a good move. Good move, thanks,
solid move for sure. And I think, I mean, listen,
and I think the cheese is important, but I think
you're having a couple of different types of cheddar. Cheese
is always a winner, Monray jack is always a winner.
I like pepper Jack Katilla. I mean, you know, and

(01:24:42):
just all the people's all the people there. I'm lucky
there's a there's a store by us that has a
lot of the Mexican cheese is like the Chihuahua cheeses.
Oh yeah, and I love that. It's like a it's
like a wha hawk in it's almost like mozzarella. Yeah
yeah yeah. So it's just it's like melty and stretchy.
So I mixed that with kohitas, like my your favorites.
Oh that's the move right there. That's good. We just

(01:25:03):
for a second to touch on a tostata. You guys
a krudos who don't know what a toastata is. It's
basically a taco but flat. It's a flat, flat taco,
crispy crispy flat generally, yes, yes, So when you see
tostada on the menu, generate the taco. And you'll see
a lot of places who will who make their own tortillas,
will have tostaa and a taco because one gives them
two menu white and using the same thing, which as
chefs we always want to do. But you can do

(01:25:24):
a lot more with a tosta. You can make it
more of like an entree type situation. You know, toastas
are Delicious'm gonna be fan. All right, well how about
this taco salad? Yep, I don't have a problem with
that whatsoever. Do you miss the taco shell bowls? I
still make them? I what happened to those? That was
like the that was the greatest invention of like the eighties.

(01:25:47):
It was the taco bowl. I remember those taco bowls
and that was definitely a thing. And getting a taco
salad at at Taco Bell and it was like siam
bowl and oh and you can break it up and
like dip it. It was like it was like having
a talk, go nachos in a salad all on one plate.
I'm bringing it back to taco salad. Taco sounds you
should should do to work it is make taco saud.
I want to make a taco bowl salad. I'm gonna

(01:26:08):
go buy a taco bowl maker. You don't have to
just use a spider like for a fryar and just
put a tortilla into a deep fire and push your
spider down on top of it and it naturally makes
a bowl. Well you're about the stick. It doesn't need
to You can just push it down and holds itself.
Oh huh, that's all I used to do. I was

(01:26:28):
thinking about using the bottom of a like a like
a like a small saucepot, or a ladle, a thick
like a large ladele. Will as do the same same trick. Yeah, anyway,
but yeah, I kind of agree that taco sole was
the move. Right there? I missed those all right, friends,
it's been taco day here on PLUMBLEFF. There's a lot
of information here, and Jafni and are going to talk
about taco salads for thirty five more minutes once we
hang up with you, guys, I think, But we hope friends,

(01:26:49):
that you have learned something, enjoyed the show. Maybe you're
inspired to go have tacos night, I hope. So there's
lots of great taco restaurants all around Connecticut, maybe a
couple of new time. Check out Taco Dia for our
friend Forrest Pasternak, A great place, great place for Chef Jeff.
Your name is Chef Plum. Remember, friends, food is one
of the most important things we have in life. Everything
important life evolves around food. Let's make sure we give
the time it deserves. Happy Taco Saturday friends. We'll see
you guys next week. Right here, I'll pulling up foods

Speaker 3 (01:27:17):
Importanticious this spring