Claudette Makes Oaxacan Chicken and Salsa Macha

My father, he looks like not a day over 60,

and we joke that he's preserved himself,

he's a Mexican vampire,

by the amount of tequila and salt he consumes.

[upbeat Latin music]

Hi guys.

My name is Claudette Zepeda.

I'm coming to you from San Diego, California.

And today, I'm going to show you my favorite salsa,

which is salsa macha,

and how to pair it with my Oaxacan chicken,

which is one of my favorite late night meals.

So, salsa macha gets its name

because it is the sauce of brave people.

Anyone that can handle the spice

that a salsa macha gives you,

you're kind of, it's like your badge of honor.

Salsa macha is one of the oldest sauces in Mexico.

It's actually predated back to the emperors,

Aztec emperors, when they would pair chilies

with spices, and nuts, and chocolate.

Over 200 varieties,

all including different chilies,

sometimes just arbol, sometimes just pasilla.

So, just a little bit of a chili 101,

chile de arbol is incredibly spicy.

This is where we're going to get our heat.

Chile pasilla is spicier than an ancho.

It has those same notes of like raisin and sweet,

almost tamarind flavor,

but I want it a little bit spicier

'cause I like spice.

Paired with classic macha is always peanuts.

I prefer the Spanish peanuts,

and these are lightly toasted already.

Garlic, onions, and toasted sesame seeds.

In Oaxaca, a whole different set of variations

depending on which region you're in.

If you're La Mixteca there's a sauce called,

or a paste called chintextle,

which is about the same structure as a macha,

but they make it more into a paste

and they add dried shrimp,

similar to what some people might know

as an XO sauce from China.

That's just the beauty of food.

It really has no borders.

While we're talking about Mexico,

Mexico is a byproduct of all of these cultures

that make our country so beautiful,

and it's kind of why our food is just

one of the best in the world.

So first things first, before we touch the chicken

we're going to go start with the salsa.

And you want to make everything in similar size,

so when you fry it, you want to make sure

they all get cooked evenly.

And the onion will be the first thing we cut.

So with the garlic,

you have your whole cloves.

We're not going to mince it, 'cause it'll burn too fast.

So what I do is I just with the side of my knife

just smack it down and peel obviously.

But this now has four times the surface area

that it did as a whole clove.

Just keep going.

[Claudette sniffles]

Sorry, I'm like ...

My nose is running now because of the onions.

I got to blow my nose guys.

Sorry.

They made me cry guys.

Now for the chilies.

The chile de arbol was already destemmed.

I'm leaving the seeds in.

The seeds are really what gives that kick to the sauce.

I am going to just destem the chile pasillas.

The stem of the pasilla wouldn't be palatable.

It'll be like a piece of wood,

especially once you fry it.

So you just kind of peel in.

I don't want to break all the seeds off

and have it go all over the place.

I'm just going to peel it out.

2017 and '18 ...

'16, '17, and '18 I spent traveling across

the seven regions of Mexico from the North to the South.

The Southern part of Mexico really just took my heart.

I became a an honorary Oaxacan.

Through the Top Chef Mexico, one of my soul sisters,

one of the contestants on the show,

is a cocinera tradicional.

So cocineras tradicionales are tasked with

protecting the patrimony of our food,

our cuisine, for the entire world.

These are hojas de aguacatillo,

so these are avocado leaves.

They look very different than the Haas that we know.

They impart an anise type of quality.

This sweet note that is in barbacoa,

is a secret in mole,

is a secret in a lot of Oaxacan cuisine.

So we're just going ahead and fry everything in batches

and start the salsa.

So, you want your pan on medium heat,

about low medium.

Call it schmedium.

And this is going to toast the sesame seeds first.

You don't want to walk away.

It's like pine nuts,

they will burn incredibly fast.

I can tell when the sesames are toasted enough

because the color is definitely a little bit darker

than when I started, and the feel.

So the heat is now to where I can't hold it too much.

This is going to be my finished fry pot

that we'll use to blend.

Then we're going to start our fry pot.

So, with salsa macha you can definitely use

a variety of oils.

I would always suggest using a neutrally flavored oil.

And it's okay if the seeds come out,

all of this oil will be used for your final sauce.

Drain the excess out.

Put it in our blend bowl.

I am a hoarder by nature.

My kids hate it.

I have, I would say, about 30 different kinds of chilies

in my house at all times.

I keep them in vacuum sealed bags.

I buy kilos at a time, which is a lot.

This is seconds.

Just toss them around.

You can see how fast that is

because there's no surface area in a chile de arbol.

It's really skinny.

It's like a rattlesnake, like a baby rattle.

[seeds rattling]

[chili crunching]

Hear that crunch?

That's exactly what you want.

Next is the peanuts.

This is also very fast, small surface area.

This does take a little bit of time to fish them all out

because they're so little.

This is a perfect example

that there's no fast food in Mexico.

Even the sauces take time.

So now I'm going to go onions.

So you want to go as close to the edge as possible.

I'm almost done here,

so I'm going to turn my oven on to 400,

and then we're going to move on to our chicken.

So while I'm here, I might as well.

They go from this translucent color to almost a white.

[Woman] I bet it smells amazing in there.

[Man] It does, it smells so good.

[Crew] It smells very good.

So now we're going to go with our garlic cloves.

So we're perfuming the oil,

and at the end we're going to marry it all together.

Sorry guys, I'm missing a ladle.

There's too many drawers in this house.

So we're going to use all of this beautiful aromatic oil

to give us the moisture to create the sauce

and the blend in the blender.

Onions.

This is really hot oil.

[blender whirring]

This blender's weird.

It's like moving it around, but there's no blades.

I'm going to try one more time.

[blender rumbling]

Nothing appears to be happening.

Disclaimer, this isn't my kitchen.

I wish.

Okay, let's start over.

This is what I meant to do.

All right, so since we have a blender that's a lot bigger,

just gonna add a little bit more.

Forget that just happened.

[blender whirring]

We're going to do a second batch and just repeat,

rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.

Pasillas in.

[blender whirring]

All right, last batch.

So now last batch goes right on top.

I always like to add salt at the very end of things,

so I'm going to season it now.

My container was too small,

so I'm just going to use the same,

I don't want to dirty more dishes and have to wash more.

So I'm gonna use the same pot that I fried in,

and here's where I will season

and be able to comfortably move everything

so that everything flavors evenly.

And I'm going to just do a healthy pinch,

about a tablespoon of the sea salt.

My favorite part actually of this salsa

is it has that effect where it clears your nasal passage,

it clears your ears.

All of a sudden it sounds like

you're underwater for a second.

From here, you can send it to the world.

De Iztapalapa para todo el mundo.

Shutout to anyone that knows that reference.

Los Angeles Azules. I know it!

[Claudette laughs]

Mi chilangos.

This chicken has air dried in the refrigerator.

I like to make sure that there's no excess moisture

on your birds.

I'm still going to give it a good salt bath

to just draw out any more moisture on the skin.

So, the easiest way I find to spatchcock a chicken

is to go spine down.

The same thing as like the chilies will tell you

when they're ready,

the bones will tell you where you're going.

Let's see, the knife, just going to slide it down.

Just work it, wiggle it if you need to.

It goes right down the spine.

They make amazing kitchen sheers now

that will cut through bone no problem.

And then I open it up,

you can literally run your finger down that breastplate,

and you hold down right here.

Your finger goes perfectly locked there.

Hold the chicken down, pull up.

If you're lucky, one fell swoop.

So with your filet knife,

kind of score underneath the bones you can see.

♪ The breast bone's connected to the leg bone ♪

Going to cut off my wings.

The trick to a really good sear, really dry skin.

So, what would Julia Child do?

So Julia Child taught me a few things,

very grateful for her teaching us how to speak English

when we lived in Tijuana.

How to embrace mistakes, especially when you're cooking.

It's not the end of the world.

I always say, We're not curing cancer.

We're not rocket scientists.

We're not going to the moon.

It's just food.

So to pat it dry, I'm just going to use paper towels.

There are more chicken,

rotisserie chicken businesses for capita in Mexico

then taco stands, because chicken is cheap.

And you can grow it and you can butcher it real fast.

My favorite experience was in Oaxaca,

and maybe I'll give you guys a picture of it,

was a woman waiting for her rotisserie chicken

to be boxed up while holding a hen in her hand.

That's why this is Oaxacan chicken,

'cause it was the epitome of like female Oaxacan power

and chicken, which is part of our culture.

I'm going to put it on high heat.

And you're not gonna use any other fat at this moment

other than very top of my salsa macha.

It's okay if you get a little bit of the pulp.

I'm going to add the avocado leaves

and start flavoring the oils, the salsa.

Going to go in with our chicken.

We're going to season one more time liberally with salt.

While it looks like a lot,

I promise you it needs it.

And we're just gonna drop.

[pan sizzling]

See that bubbling?

You want to hear that.

You want to see it.

You want to make sure you get plenty of salt

in those nooks and crannies.

It's always good to apply a little bit of pressure,

just like you would, you know, brick chicken.

It's famous because you pretty much forced it to caramelize.

I'm just going to take a peak.

Right when we have a little bit of color,

we're going to drop it into the oven at 400

and let it finish until it temps at 160,

and then it carries over.

Right before we go in the oven,

I'm going to add one lemon just sliced for that acid.

I want enough to go around the entire diameter of the pan.

[Claudette yelps]

See?

It bite.

That water in the fat create these little pockets

that bites, so.

You see that crust and that chili already working.

I am going to give it a little bit of a tent.

We're going to trap that moisture.

We're going to go right in the middle for about 20 minutes.

Check on it, flip it, baste it.

I'm just brushing on love.

About four tablespoons, just on top,

and this will make the most killer pan sauce.

And I'm going to juice half of a lime.

Limes have a tinge of bitterness and lemons are sweet,

so when you put them together

they really are the best citrus marriage.

See, that's what you want, that caramelization on the skin.

It's beautiful.

Oh, so good.

Temp it.

Temp's good there.

It's gonna be so good.

I'm going to rest it over my drip pan.

That way I can make my sauce, my pan sauce.

And while we love lemons and we love avocado leaves,

we just don't meet them anymore.

So we've gotten everything out of them that we needed.

We're just going to strain it

right over a little pot,

small sauce pot will do.

All that goodness.

We're going to put this over a medium heat

to start our pan sauce.

Squeeze all that juice out.

Bring it to a low simmer,

and we're going to start mounting it with butter

and a little bit of acid,

so some lime juice.

Keep whisking, keep whisking.

One last taste.

So good.

Okay.

It's like a cross in between a sopa de fideo broth

and like the best chicken roast you've ever had.

I mean, I'm biased, but you got to take my word for it.

You know, just because we're here,

just because we're in between friends and family,

let me give this guy a bath.

Oh yeah.

This is where you need to slow-mo

and that like really romantic music.

Maybe some Isaac Hayes.

Doesn't that look good?

All right, so now we're going to go to final plating.

We're all done, guys.

Only took seven hours.

I'm gonna add a little bit of the pan sauce.

There you have it guys.

My salsa macha with my Oaxacan chicken.

It's packed full of flavor,

over a bed of rice.

The moment of truth.

We're going to taste.

And there's all sorts of ways,

you could literally just rip a leg off of here,

but we're going to pretend like we're civilized today.

We're gonna move this here.

I'm going to cut my portion off

and start to build my taco.

I like thigh meat,

so I'm just going to go ahead and take one leg off,

carve my way through what I will build with the taco.

Put the chicken on the bottom.

Oh, it looks so good.

So you have chicken,

the tortilla with the beautiful grill marks.

I'm going to add a little bit of the green garnish,

your herbs.

Grab some that rice,

especially the one that got all the drippings.

That's the good stuff.

So you're just going to build yourself your taco.

A little bit of the juice, just right on top.

Mas cotija.

Really the star of the show, our salsa macha.

All right, moment of truth, guys.

Always up to your chin,

bend over.

Mm.

Mm-hm.

You get emotional when you eat this.

It's so good.

If I can leave anything behind

once I'm out of this bag of bones

would be to understand that authenticity

is very unique to yourself.

Traditions aren't static.

They constantly move forward.

I'm a woman, mother, modern human in 2020.

So, of course this isn't what you would get

at my grandma's house, but this is everything,

this is a culmination of my past, my present,

and where I want my food to go in the future.

So I hope you guys have an open mind.

Make the substitutions, make the swaps,

but stick to what the soul of the recipe is,

which is that intention to get deep rooted flavors

executed properly into a tortilla,

and that's what really makes life really good.

Thank you for coming to Claudette's story time.

I'm going to finish my taco now.

[mellow music]

I'm not in the business of proving myself right,

this is just how I do it.

For everyone that wants to pick a fight over salsa macha,

and their grandma did a different,

listen, I don't get into fights with grandmas.

Grandmas know best,

and if your grandma did it with tamarindo instead of chile,

then amazing, congratulations.

I'm just showing you my way.