$396 vs $20 Tacos: Pro Chef & Home Cook Swap Ingredients

I'm cooking with tequila today.

I might need a shot of this.

Hi, I am Saul. I'm a professional chef,

and these are my $396 taco ingredients.

Hi, my name is Gina. I'm a home cook,

and these are my $20 taco ingredients.

Oh.

Oh no. Oh.

This is the saddest tray I ever seen in my whole life.

This is a lot.

[curious music]

So the dish that I was gonna make

was lamb barbacoa tacos de canasta.

What kind of meat is it

With chilies and escabeche. Avocado and tomatillo salsa.

These I've never used before.

With Gina recipe, we have more simple ingredients,

but with a little love

and a lots of technique, we can make it even better.

So if I have to guess, this will cost 19.87.

$20.

$150.

$396.

Very expensive taco.

So here we have Chef Saul's recipe book,

and if we flip through,

he's written down some ingredients for me.

I know nothing about tacos de canasta

Tacos de canasta.

It's a taco that has been sitting on a basket

for a long period of time.

Basket.

Okay, so high school Spanish has led me to nowhere.

So by covering them, they stay nice and warm

and soft and delicious.

Let's start with our barbacoa marinade.

We're gonna grab our chili anchos.

We're gonna get rid of the stems, the seeds.

We're gonna cut it into little pieces.

Mescal into our mixer.

We're gonna put that into a blender with garlic, oranges,

chipotle in a can.

And then couple tablespoons of the sauce.

Chicken stock, apple cider vinegar.

Oh my God, here we go. Oh my God.

Totally forgot to add these spices. So let's do that.

[Saul] Cumin, ground coriander. Mexican oregano.

Smoked cinnamon. Cloves.

Oh, that changed the color.

Make sure you try your marinade before you use it.

Oh, that is very strong.

Definitely salty, savory. A lot of heat.

So Gina was planning on making Korean tacos.

So I was going to be making some very simple tacos

with things that I found in my fridge.

I'm not gonna do that.

I'm gonna be making crispy Korean

taquitos with kimchi salsa fresca.

So now I'm gonna make the marinade of my meat.

Now something that I do want

to chop garlic is add a little bit of salt.

This will help shred the garlic

and then will stick together.

So I have a beautiful garlic paste right here.

Now we're gonna do some onion.

I want this white part to be part

of the marinade and the green part,

I want that to be part of the garnish, and also the sauce.

You have to use everything. There's no wasting.

Otherwise, food cost will be really high.

I was planning on making pickle chilies for my tacos.

Now I have pickled cabbage.

A little bit of juice, it's full of flavors.

Look like a red chimichurri.

We're gonna add a little bit of sugar.

Now, white sugar is gonna add to my pork.

It's going to caramelize it.

So it's gonna add flavor and color.

And I don't know if I'm gonna use salt.

I'm gonna use soy sauce instead of salt.

Pepper.

A little bit of oil,

and it's gonna prevent it from sticking to the pan.

And now we're gonna add some nut flavor

from sesame seed oil.

So it looks like I have a nice marinade here.

I wish I had lime or orange.

Pineapple juice.

Now it's time to add these thin slices of pork.

Make this meat happier.

Continuing on with our lamb barbacoa,

we're gonna prep the meat.

Salt and pepper.

Your next step is searing the meat.

Gonna lift you up.

Ooh, you're a big boy.

Once you sear your meat, that means

that you bring in the flavors of the lamb even better.

Oh my God.

Okay, here you go, done.

One of the reasons why we're using orange is going

to cut a little of the gaminess from the lamb.

The reason why I put an onion underneath,

because we don't want to burn the meat

Orange slices on top and then put the meat on top.

And then bay leaves, put it around.

And then my marinade.

We're gonna cook it at 3 25 for three

and a half to four hours.

Lamb has been cooking for four hours. Whoa.

Now I'm going to look around for the bones and remove them.

You're gonna pull the meat off the bone.

We're going to save some of the oil

to heat up our tortillas.

And now I'm going to shred the meat.

Shredding is very easy 'cause it's so tender. Meat is done.

Now it's time to make kimchi salsa fresca.

First thing that I'm gonna do,

I'm gonna dice some scallions.

Normally I'll add a onion to my salsa.

So that will be my part onion. And now ajo, garlic.

So now this lovely kimchi. Gracias Korea.

I'm gonna use some of sesame oil, little bit of salt.

And I'm gonna add a little bit of water,

and just to make my salsa a little smooth.

Oof. I just create something.

It's so delicious.

All right, we're going to work

on our chilies and escabeche.

This is very simple.

Once you do this, you can do this with any vegetable.

Cauliflower.

I'm just gonna break it apart with my hands. Fresno peppers.

I'm gonna poke holes in these.

That's just to incorporate the vinegar

and everything inside the pepper.

We're going to blister these vegetables a little bit.

Mexican oregano, coriander seeds, cloves,

and three peppercorns, and a couple of Bay leaves

and some thyme and salt.

Oh, it smells really good. Pouring in some water.

Apple cider vinegar.

So it looks cooked.

And now we're going chill it in the refrigerator.

Now I'm going to sear the pork. Add some kimchi to it.

Scallions. I'm gonna add a little bit of oil.

There's gonna be some smoking here,

and we're not gonna touch it.

We're just gonna let it cook.

Now I'm just gonna dice some of the kimchi.

I'm gonna cook the onion right there.

I just want the onion to sweat.

Now on other kimchi,

oh look, that's what I was talking about.

Nice and caramelized.

Like, you know what it, this reminds me of?

Fried tacos in Mexico. Oh my gosh.

All right, now it's time to make our

avocado and tomatillo salsa.

Gonna remove the papery husks off of the tomatillos.

And it's like unwrapping a present.

I have these peppers.

Next we have avocado, cilantro, in ya go.

And then lime.

Oh, that's so much more easier than doing an

orange with your bare hands.

Cannot forget the salt.

It is spicy. Oh my God.

Well that's really good.

Yeah, A plus.

Now it's time to roll and fry our taquitos.

We just gonna heat up the tortillas.

We want to keep them nice and flexible.

And the reason why oil is

to prevent them from break, you fold them cold, they break.

So look, now you fold them, they don't break.

So I'm gonna grab a tortilla, a little bit

of stuffing, push this tortilla all the way at

the end, I'm gonna pull it.

And then we want to close it.

I want this tortilla

to be very tight because I don't want inside to be dry.

And then you have my stuffed taquitos.

Now we're gonna be making our lamb and potato filling.

The reason why I choose Russet potatoes is

because they are large, they're easy to peel,

and it's easier to cut and have almost the same size.

I'm going to salt this water

and cook these until they're tender.

Potatoes are cooked and I'm going to mash it.

Incorporate this potato into the lamb.

This looks so good. Very delicious.

Okay, Gina. So next step is cascabel oil.

And that oil is going to keep the tacos soft and hot.

Tacos de canasta they are made to be traveled.

So we make those tacos here,

and then we travel two hours and then we sell them there.

That's how they do in Mexico.

We're gonna move on to our oil.

Cut this onion in half.

Peppers.

Destem and deseed.

And then you're going to cook this on boiling water

until you see the onions cooked

and the pepper change the color.

So it'll be more red.

Going to spoon into the mixer.

Okay.

Then heat up some lard.

Okay, so now I'm going to pour this mixture in

with the lard.

So now it's time to fry our taquitos.

I'm gonna be using vegetable oil.

How do you know these are done?

When you start seeing less bubbles.

Not enough bubbles. Lot of bubbles.

It's ready to go.

Please do not eat the toothpicks.

That's crispy.

And now it's time to fill our tacos.

I'm going to use some of the fat that I saved from earlier.

What the oil is going to do is gonna add flavor

of the lamb, and also it's gonna keep

the tortillas nice and flexible.

Now I'm going to fill the tortillas

with the filling and then squish it.

Now we're going to fill our basket with tacos.

Here's our towel. Plastic wrap.

And now we have parchment paper.

And this prevents plastic from melting.

So here's our first taco.

Going to layer them around the perimeter of the basket.

Then onion, then layer of onion, then another layer

of tacos, and then another layer of onions.

Oil is ready. It looks like lava.

And now we're going to pour it into the basket of tacos.

And then I'm going to wrap it all up to keep it warm.

Now it's time to play. Now I'm gonna dice scallions.

Put them on ice. So they're nice and curly and crispy.

Let's take our salsa. It's like a nice healthy dollop.

Kind of look like a mole.

We're gonna serve a lot of taquitos.

Now the grand reveal.

Ooh. Okay.

I think three is a nice portion.

Pickled veggie, peppers.

Oh, it's Christmas. My Christmas tree.

And here you have it.

My crispy Korean style taquitos

with kimchi salsa fresca.

So here's my take on Chef Saul's tacos.

I hope he likes them.

Very curious to see what he's done with my ingredients.

Hello. How are you?

Good. How you doing? Good to see you.

Gina. Yeah.

Ooh. Wow.

[Saul] Yours look better than mine.

[Gina] This looks like a sculpture.

Well, listen, when it becomes to tacos de canasta,

I think this is what I'm picturing.

Oh. This is what

I'm thinking of.

Great job.

I'm so glad. Everything looks on point.

It took a very long time.

Cheers. Cheers.

Hmm.

Mm.

Good job.

That is yummy.

This was worth the effort. It's pretty good.

Enough meat. Enough potato.

The vegetables are point.

Yay.

I'm really excited to see what you

made with my ingredients.

This does not look like $20.

This looks like, you know, $120.

I wish I had more ingredients.

Like I always, I like to have a lot

of ingredients.

I don't know why.

Oh good.

I learned you like a lot of ingredients.

[both laughing]

Okay, let's try it.

Salute.

Hmm. Oh.

Mm.

[speaking indistinctly] Wow.

That was really nice.

And you said you didn't,

you've never had kimchi before.

You should come to my mom's house.

It's great. This is delicious.

This has been fun for me because I'm learning more about

other cultures and ingredients.

Cheers. We're done.

[speaking indistinctly] Yeah.

What?

It was a long day.