$317 vs $13 Quesadilla: Pro Chef & Home Cook Swap Ingredients

I'm sorry, chef.

I'm so... Oh!

I'm so sorry.

[whimsical music]

Hi, I'm Saul.

I'm a professional chef,

and these are my $317 quesadilla ingredients.

Hi, I'm Jon.

I'm a home cook,

and these are my $13 quesadilla ingredients.

[whimsical music]

So long.

Okay.

It's fine.

I can do this.

Oh my god.

This is

heirloom?

[whimsical music]

I was planning to make huitlacoche,

epazote, and purslane quesadillas

with salsa borracha and chapulines.

The only word that I really picked up there

is and and with.

Very traditional Mexican ingredients

for a very fancy quesadilla.

I was going to make tortillas from scratch,

infused with chile guajillos.

These are dried chilies.

So kind of like maybe anchos?

[Saul] I also want to use huitlacoche.

It's a delicacy in Mexico.

I don't think I've ever even seen this before.

I don't know what this is.

It's a type of corn fungus.

It's a very hard thing to grow.

It's kind of like truffles.

It's a mushroom.

Okay. It's a mushroom.

Great.

[Saul] I was gonna make my own crema from scratch.

Some nice and spicy salsa borracha.

Tequila. [Jon laughs]

Yep.

[Saul] And top it off with some crunchy chapulines.

Garlic grasshoppers.

Grasshoppers.

[Jon laughs]

We're gonna be making grasshopper quesadillas today.

They're salty, they're crispy,

spicy,

and they're full of protein.

With Jon's recipe,

I have ingredients that you might find

in your pantry or local grocery store.

They might be on the simpler side,

but I'm a professional

and I will make these simple ingredients better.

If I have to guess,

this would all cost $13.65.

[cash register sound]

Ah. [Saul clapping]

I'm going to play the lotto today.

So if I had to guess,

all of these ingredients would cost about $210.

[cash register sound]

Wow!

$317?

I mean, he didn't skimp out on me.

[whimsical music]

So Chef Saul left me his recipe book,

which has a very pared-down recipe

of what I'm gonna be doing today.

Oh, little cheese.

That's the support right there.

That's what I needed.

Enjoy the time.

Don't worry.

You got this. I know you can do this.

So we're working on the part of the recipe

with the guajillo tortillas.

I'm assuming these are the guajillo chilies.

I called these ancho earlier.

My bad.

You only need the skin of the guajillos.

We remove the stems.

We remove the seeds.

Jon, whatever you do,

do not touch your eyes.

I know why I'm wearing gloves.

I didn't have the urge to touch my eyes before,

but now...

[Jon laughs] Now...

And you boil them until they're nice and soft,

like my heart.

Okay, so these are gonna soak until they're all soft

and then I'm gonna transfer them into this bowl.

Jon gave me these flour tortillas.

But I'm gonna make something new.

I'm gonna put some of these tortillas on the tray.

I'm gonna bake it in the oven at 275

'til they're nice and crispy.

And then I'm going to blend it to make it into a flour.

[Jon] These are done boiling.

And then you puree them.

So you make a guajillo puree.

My tortillas, they look nice and crispy.

[fingers tapping tortilla]

Can you hear that?

Huh?

That's the sound of flavor.

I'm gonna let this cool.

I'm gonna put all the liquid from here.

There's a lot of flavor in here.

I'm gonna make this nice and smooth

and fluffy.

And I'm gonna add some beans.

And I'm gonna add a little bit of texture and more flavor.

[tortillas crunching]

[processor whirring]

And now we're making flour.

So we're adding the liquid.

So we're not gonna stop until we see a dough.

And this is where the magic happens.

One,

two, three.

Voila!

Magic.

Never used one of these before.

I'm gonna have to put the white corn masa harina in here.

That looks serviceable.

Okay. Let's throw that in there.

[spoon tapping bowl]

Let's rig this up.

Lock this into place.

Should probably add some salt.

[Saul] And then add water as you go.

Oh, it's looking good.

It's looking like a dough,

a proper dough.

[Saul] As soon as you don't see any dough

into your hands, that means it's ready.

And no residue.

There we go.

Now let's wrap it in some plastic.

This black bean tortilla dough

has been sitting for over an hour.

Now I wanna make this into tortillas,

black bean tortilla.

It's time for me to make my tortillas.

[Saul] To prevent the dough

to stick into the tortilla press,

you're gonna need two pieces of plastic.

One on the bottom, one on top.

You're gonna put the dough in between and press it.

Ooh!

That's a mighty fine looking tortilla.

When you have the plastic where the tortilla is,

kinda wanna put it in one hand,

and then on your other hand,

you're gonna lay the tortilla

and you're gonna remove the plastic.

And then slowly and carefully,

you're gonna lay it on the grill.

There it is.

Okay.

I'm gonna do a little bit of oil here.

Oh my gosh.

It's looking good.

I'm gonna flip this guy.

I hear bubbling.

Oh.

We're gonna try this again.

The impossible is always possible.

Don't forget that.

And these are my black bean tortillas.

Usually, I feel like tortillas are a little thinner.

Oh god.

Oh, it's breaking.

I gotta save this.

Okay.

[Jon laughs]

I'm gonna try a thinner tortilla.

No!

Chef...

Ha ha.

Yes.

Oh my god.

Let's take it into the basket.

[Saul] Now I'm gonna be chopping these.

Onions, jalapeno,

I'm going to char.

So we'll have a jalapeno onion crema.

The reason why I leave the insides

of the jalapeno

'cause I want the sauce to be more spicy.

Now I'm going to put this into a bowl.

Put it to chill.

Alright.

It's crema time, everybody.

First thing I'm gonna do

is heat up the milk.

There we go.

Empty milk carton.

So if I mess this up, I can't try again.

Fantastic.

We want to heat up the milk at 170

and we wanna make sure

that the milk doesn't boil.

Now that these are cool,

I'm gonna put it in the blender

and fold it into the crema.

I'm gonna add a little bit of sour cream

to help puree the vegetables.

I wish I could have made my sour cream,

but no.

Chef Saul said I should be very careful

with the temperature.

And we're right now above 170,

so I'm gonna turn this guy off.

This is the white distilled vinegar.

Oh, that's...

Ooh.

Now our apple cider vinegar.

It looks like it's getting a bit clumpy?

Alright, I'm gonna stir this

for a couple of minutes

and then I'm gonna leave it for about an hour

and see how it looks after that.

Our crema looks pretty good.

Now let's find out if it's good.

Really good.

And this is my charred jalapeno and onion crema.

So this has been sitting for an hour.

I'm noticing a few changes in here.

It's looking a little separated.

We have our clumpy milk stuff

and then we have our runny vinegar stuff.

So after that, we're gonna use a colander

to remove all the liquid and keep the curds.

[Jon] It looks more like cheese now.

We're gonna add it to the blender.

Heavy cream, lime.

[Jon laughs]

Alright, we're getting somewhere.

Some friction.

I don't know how much salt we gotta add,

but I like me things salty.

[blender whirring]

I'm fairly confident with how that turned out.

Now that is a sturdy amount of crema.

So my oven is set at 250.

Now I'm going to dry these vegetables.

I'm going to cut these tomatoes

and then remove the insides of the tomato.

This will help the tomatoes get drier faster.

I can't call them sun-dried tomatoes

because I'm not using the sun.

I'm gonna call these tomatoes

Saul-dried tomatoes.

So I'm gonna be saving some of these liquids

that are inside of the tomatoes

to add to my salsa.

'Cause where I'm from, we don't waste anything.

Cutting vegetables is not my strong suit,

but I'm gonna do my best

to get them as nicely cut

and waste as little as possible.

Jon, you're gonna make your salsa from scratch.

One of my favorite salsas -

salsa borracha,

which means drunken sauce.

I got these chilies here.

I gotta de-stem them and then I gotta de-seed them.

I'm gonna quarter the tomatoes.

I'm gonna halve the onion

and I'm gonna de-stem, de-seed,

and halve these jalapenos.

A half-a-peno?

Is that a good joke?

I'm just gonna get right in there and just...

Oh, yeah.

Ooh, that looks terrible.

Ooh, nothing pretty about that.

Every time you cut a jalapeno,

make sure you look at it -

enjoy the beauty of nature.

So we have our beautiful fresh tomatoes,

our lovely jalapenos.

Probably needed to do the cilantro, too.

Maybe I'll just cut off the stems.

I'll remove any leafage from the bottom.

So I'm gonna bake these at 250

for two to eight hours.

So I'll see you tomorrow.

All my veggies are chopped now.

Let's give 'em a char

so that my salsa is nice and smoky.

Starting to smell a bit toasty. I think that should do it.

My chilies are soaking.

Meanwhile, let's char the tomatoes.

The next step for my salsa,

I'm gonna cut this onion, put it in the blender.

I'm gonna add some lime juice, salt,

and the insides of the tomatoes

because we are not wasting.

And now we're gonna make these

into smoothie.

And we're gonna do shots out of this.

[spoon tapping bowl]

[spoon tapping objects rhythmically]

[Saul laughs]

The moment of truth.

It's really good.

[spoon clatters on floor]

Ooh, that's a nice char.

This might be a good time to start taking things off.

Let's move 'em over here.

Get 'em all outta there.

We gotta get to charring the rest of our veggies.

And then last thing, garlic.

I'm gonna add some oil to the pan.

[crew members shouting]

Ooh, that's not the oil.

Oh, in the squeezy bottle. Nice.

Thank you.

It's getting a real smoky in here.

You can see.

I feel like I'm in a 1990s music video.

These all look pretty charred up.

Now I'm gonna move these to a bowl

and I'm gonna keep working on my salsa.

They look good.

They look like a sun-dried tomato. Look at this.

But they're not sun-dried tomatoes.

They're Saul-dried tomatoes.

Now I'm gonna chop this up.

I'm gonna add my base

to these dried vegetables

to keep it a little bit moist.

Oil.

I want the vegetables to soak as much liquid as as they can

so they don't be too dry.

[Jon] Alright, I'm gonna take all my charred veggies,

put 'em in the food processor

and then put 'em back in the pan.

What makes the salsa borracha?

What makes you borracho?

What makes you drunk?

Tequila.

I do have two liquids here.

I have

the tequila

and orange juice.

[Saul] The tequila will prevent it from spoiling so soon.

Salt and then some pepper.

Here we go.

[processor whirring]

Ooh!

I'm going low-ish heat.

It's not even done yet

but it is probably the best salsa that I've ever made.

And that's all thanks to you,

Chef Saul.

This is all thickened up.

I'm super happy about it.

It looks delicious.

This is my salsa borracha, my drunk salsa.

Instead of pico de gallo,

I'm going to be doing a quick pickled red onion.

So I'm gonna do a julienne cut.

And for this step,

you have to close your eyes.

[knife hitting board]

And now I wanna juice some limes.

And I'm gonna do this

because this is gonna help

to remove the juice easier.

The lime drop right now,

it's to pickle the onions, right?

'Cause it's full of acidics.

Acidics cures things.

Okay, now jalapenos.

Salt, pepper.

Now normally you use vinegar,

you boil.

This is a very simple way to eat onions.

We're gonna let this sit

and really pickle

and we're gonna move to the next thing.

I'm gonna chop up the mushrooms for the filling.

I'm gonna loosely chop

because I don't know how to do anything else.

Mushrooms are chopped,

so I'm gonna put them in this bowl

and set 'em off to the side.

And then I'll move on to my herbs.

Epazote.

Never heard of this herb before.

There's kind of some, like, spice fragrance to it.

I call it the Mexican cousin of the basil.

These are my epazote leaves

that we took off.

Now to the purslane.

Never worked with purslane before.

Never heard of it.

Now that all this is ready,

I can start my filling.

It's time to grind our chicken.

The grinder has to be ice cold.

So this just came out of the freezer.

And the chicken, too.

So that will help have a smoother grind

and shape too.

I'm gonna take this chicken

and turn it into a patty.

And that's what I would use

for my smashed chicken quesadilla.

And that's how we grind chicken.

Alright.

It's time to put my filling together.

Now this part is where I'm comfortable -

putting a bunch of stuff in a pan

and cooking it.

When making the filling of the quesadilla,

it's the Mexican ratatouille.

So we're gonna start with a little bit of garlic,

onion.

So let's get to stirring.

I hear that sizzle.

Now you're going to add the oyster mushrooms.

Saute 'em for a little bit.

Now you're going to add the huitlacoche.

Huitlacoche tastes sour.

And that's why you want other ingredients

to balance the flavor.

And those ingredients

you'll find in any market in Mexico.

You will have the best Mexican ratatouille of your life.

This is gonna cook down.

It's gonna take a bit.

So let's start with the cheeses.

I love Oaxaca cheese so much.

It just comes in, like, this spiral of art.

All you gotta do with Oaxaca cheese,

in my knowledge,

is just rip it apart.

It's very string-cheesy.

It's like a mozzarella equivalent.

So that's our Oaxaca cheese.

And now we're gonna get to crumbling my queso fresco.

There's no nice way to do this.

This cheese is called quesadilla.

Incredible.

So I'm gonna shred this guy.

Oh god.

It's slippery.

My cheeses have been completed.

Back to my mushrooms.

You got some liquid coming off the mushrooms,

which looks really nice.

We're gonna want that to go away, though.

The flavor wants to stay,

but the liquid wants to go.

With these tortillas,

I'm gonna make a chicharron

to garnish my quesadilla.

We're just gonna fry them.

Chicharron is the skin of the pork

that has been dehydrated

and then it's fried so it's nice and crispy.

But we don't have any pork.

So basically you're gonna fry it both sides.

We're going to do this bunch of times

so that this is nice and crispy.

Look.

The tortilla's telling me, Take him out of the oil!

I'm already crispy.

No, you're not, baby.

I want you to be crispier.

[fingers tapping tortilla]

I'm gonna put it right here.

I'm gonna open this Taco Seasoning Mix Original

from El Paso.

FYI,

I never ever

use this.

So I have to try this.

There's nothing wrong with this.

If you like this,

good for you.

If you don't like this,

good for you.

You wanna sprinkle just a little bit here.

And there you have it -

my tortilla chicharron.

[Jon] Purslane.

Throw those in here.

And now you going to add some epazote.

It's a little bit of bitter,

but it's delicious.

And lastly, my jalapenos.

Some good char on the bottom of the pan.

So this filling seems pretty good to go.

I'm gonna move to my next thing.

Okay. So I have my chicken.

This has cumin, has salt,

so it's not that bad, right?

Now I'm gonna add tomatoes

and jalapenos,

black pepper,

and queso,

which is a Mexican blend.

Monterey Jack, cheddar cheese.

Why we call this Mexican?

Because a Mexican is using it?

So now I'm gonna make some four-ounces balls.

Is this four ounces?

Oh my gosh!

3.9.

Now my chicken is ready to be cooked.

Ooh, yeah, that's hot.

So I'm gonna put on cheese.

I'm gonna put it on both sides.

Fill up one side of the tortilla only.

Only one side,

because you're gonna fold the tortilla, right?

[Jon] I have a tendency to load up things way too much.

Now we're gonna add the filling.

I gotta work quick.

Grasshoppers, another gift of earth.

It's got salty. They're lemony.

Wow.

They look really crunchy.

Alright, now we fold.

Now we let the cheese do its thing.

Now it's time to put everything together

and I'm gonna have to move quickly.

Alright, so what I'm gonna do,

I'm going to put the chicken here.

I'm gonna smash it.

Once I have a nice sear,

I'm going to flip it.

Gonna put a little bit of cheese.

I'm gonna put a tortilla on top.

Beautiful. I'm gonna put more cheese now.

And then I'm gonna do a little bit of salsa.

[tortilla crunching]

And after the salsa,

I'm gonna add a little bit of my chicharron.

I want some crunchiness on my quesadilla.

Chef, that's not a chicharron.

I know it's not a chicharron.

It has the texture of a chicharron.

Oh, yeah.

I'm gonna give it a gentle flip.

Be cautious. Be cautious.

Aha.

That's looking pretty solid.

I think I'm gonna throw it on a plate.

And this is where I fold it.

It's time for you to go to bed.

Cover with your blanket

and sweet dreams.

Have a good night.

So we just make the impossible possible.

And these are my quesadillas.

And I'm ready to plate.

[percussive music]

Before I plate the quesadilla,

there is one thing that I need to do.

I gotta try a grasshopper.

Those are pretty good.

Kinda like a crunchy olive.

Alright, let's do like a diagonal.

That seems very chic.

It is actually the first time I'm using this cheese today.

It's cotija cheese.

Little crumbly on the outside.

It's imperfect.

That's a style.

And then we'll put on some purslane.

Now grasshoppers.

Oh, I almost forgot!

My old friend cilantro's here.

And lastly,

I'm gonna put my crema

and my salsa on the plate.

And that's my take on Chef Saul's quesadilla.

I'm gonna put a quesadilla in the middle.

I'm gonna do the crema

and then I'm gonna do some of the juice from here

all over the plate.

Why? Everything I do is so pretty.

If you don't believe me, look at my kids.

A nice piece of chicharron.

We're gonna garnish it

with a little bit of my pickled onions

and one jalapeno

because everything tastes good with heat.

And this is my cheesy smashed chicken quesadilla

with black bean tortilla

and Saul-dried tomato salsa.

[percussive music]

Chef Saul.

I had a great day.

You look like you had a great day.

Oh.

[Jon] You did that?!

It looked like I did this.

Good job, man. You good job!

Are you kidding me? Look at you.

How did you fare

with my very skimpy ingredients?

It was...

It was very... I think it was one of the hardest dish to do.

I was freaking out.

I was worried about the tortilla.

So the flour tortilla became flour again.

And then I add some beans

and make a black bean tortilla.

You reverse engineered the tortilla

to go back to its chemical compound of flour.

Yeah, that's...

You were a scientist. Sounds like I did that.

[Saul laughs]

The moment of truth.

Mm!

It actually came out wonderful.

Honestly, I thought it was gonna be doughy,

but it is not.

So it's good.

To me, this is a quesadilla that I grew up eating.

And what you did, the presentation,

so far is a 10.

Cheers.

Give it to me straight, chef.

I wish you didn't eat the half,

so I can eat it all for me.

[Saul laughing]

Okay, cheers.

Cheers.

Salud.

Salud. [whimsical music]