Tamales & Tostadas Done The Broken Spanish Way

What's up guys? Young Hollywood is inside the kitchen of Broken Spanish with chef and owner Mr. Ray Garcia. Thank you for having us here. You're the man that they say who has redefined Mexican cuisine in Los Angeles.

Yeah, we're working on here Broken Spanish. So I think it just entails incorporating ingredients that maybe people aren't familiar with or don't associate necessarily with Mexican cuisine. And we're going to make a couple of those dishes with you today.

What type of stuff would people not imagine in Mexican cuisine?

So we're doing a tostada which may not sound too shocking here right off the bat, uh but I think a lot of times people think, oh it's rice and it's beans and it's meat and it's cheese and it's all on on top and here we're doing an heirloom tomato tostada. So we're kind of celebrating the best of the season right now.

Well, you and your team are doing such good work. Esquire named you Chef of the Year. That means you're doing amazing stuff if someone's given you that kind of title. Now, I want to see what you're doing to get a title like that because goodness knows I can't do it.

Well, we're going to do it one bite at a time here. So we have some uh these are the tortillas. Now, we grind this all in house. Um this is a a red corn from uh the state of Oaxaca. So we cook it, grind it, we press it and fry it. So this is a little bit of uh yuzu kosho mayo, mayonnaise, um which again you don't think of maybe Mexican food with yuzu kosho. But it it's the similar flavors of it. It's bright, it's acidic. There's a little bit of pepperiness to it. So it's all going to come together and kind of give these flavors that I think you're familiar with a little bit of spice, a little bit of sweetness. These are not supermarket tomatoes. You go to the market and they're all kind of piled up in a pyramid of red and and those are the ones you really don't want. I think you want these ones that are kind of funky shapes, different colors, different shades. So just a little bit of salt. Uh and then I have some uh some lemon juice if you can hand that to me.

You got it.

And then next to it is a little small bottle of olive oil. So we want it to be fresh and light because we already have you know, the crunch from the uh the tortilla and that you know, creaminess from a little bit of that. Okay, that's beautiful. So we have some some tomatoes. Now, these are pickled red onions. So they're just pickled lightly with some habaneros. So there is some tartness and some spice. Yeah. Nothing should just have like one note. Tweezers not necessary but

No, it it makes you look really um as great as you are. Using tweezers with onions.

Okay. And I have a little bit of avocado crema, which is basically just puréed avocado.

Yum.

Now these, I don't know if you've seen them before, but these are radish sprouts. It's kind of fresh and peppery, kind of like a radish. So we have some uh some lemons, sorry, a lime. It's just a little bit of fresh lime. You can see the smell is really it's right there. That's what you want in a lime. It's it's in the zest it's those oils that get released. So so there's not a lot of fresh chilies in here like you would normally find in in a tostada. Um this is horseradish. We're just going to kind of have that pepperiness.

Okay. Presentation is everything. Is this ready for me to try?

It's ready for you to try. There's a fork there if you need.

I'm kind of like a pick it up hands-on type of guy, but it's Okay, this is your house. I'm going to do it like you say. So go in. Just go in for it. What do you think? You got the flavors of the tomato, the horseradish, the avocado. Everything. Cilantro's not too overpowering for you?

No.

It all mixes so beautifully together.

See, so now when you think to tostada, you're going to think yuzu kosho, horseradish, heirloom tomato, right?

No, I'm going to think Ray Garcia and Broken Spanish. There you go. Okay, you know I didn't come down here for just one dish.

We we're in luck. We're we're making a special dish, or at least a dish that's very special to me. We're making some uh tamales. They're they're definitely is a spin. You know, it starts with a classic, this is something that my family and I used to to make, you know, together with my my grandparents' house. And so, uh we have a meat one and a vegetable one. So we're going to do our vegetarian tamale, which is a spinach and feta tamale. These are the tamales. So if you've never had a tamale before, it's sort of it's wrapped in corn masa. The oh, or the the the leaf, which is the corn leaf. Uh and then the masa is just made with some of the uh heirloom landrace corn like you tried before. But instead of red, this is white. So you can see right here, your your filling's coming all the way out to the to the end. So we're not chintzy with that. So this is the this is the sauce. Um and it's actually celery root. It has a little bit of of of creaminess so that we don't have to go crazy with cheese inside the tamale. Because feta isn't really like a melty creamy cheese. It's just is that acid and salt. So this is uh we call it a salsa cruda, a raw salsa. So nothing is cooked in it. There's apple, a couple different types of of chili, so uh poblano and serrano. Just going to spread that over the top. So that's a little bit of texture. And then this is just a mixture of it has pistachio seed, it has a little bit of chile de arbol, which is a spice, some sunflower seed, and uh pepita, which are pumpkin seeds. Then we have just a little bit of pistachio oil. It'll just kind of accentuate the the nuts that are in there and balance with that feta. Putting on some micro mint.

It smells so good. Okay, I'm digging in. Will you eat with me?

Absolutely. That's why there's two forks.

I get to eat with the chef. I get one side, you get the other?

Yep.

Oh, you're taking a big piece. I'm not good at sharing. Sorry.

It's probably get a little bit of the sauce too if you if you haven't already.

I Oh, I got the sauce again. Don't worry. Ready? So the masa's a lot more delicate. It's not dense, it's not heavy, it's not you know, it just really is light and you the corn kind of comes through. It's all about the the balance, you know, with the with the sauce, with the salsa, with the nuts, with the spinach. And then a little bit of heat. You bring the heat, friend. You were born and raised right over here next to Dodger Stadium. You live and breathe Los Angeles.

Born born and raised in Cypress Park. My restaurants are here in in LA and I think it really influences, you know, the lens that we view the the Mexican food.

Now, you said restaurants plural. I know this is not your only baby. We have Broken Spanish where you're at now and then BS taqueria right up the road. Now, what's the difference and how did you decide which restaurant gets what?

You know, I think it's just sort of different sides of my my personality. I think that there's a shared culinary DNA between the two of them. You know, but the taqueria is sort of that younger, brighter, louder sibling. So it's it's tacos, it's spice, it's margaritas, it's shots of tequila. You know, it's a little a little more casual and then Broken Spanish, we have a craft cocktail list, full wine list, you know, longer dining experience.

And you just opened a little place in Staple Center. So you're catering to a crowd that's hungry.

Yeah, that that's like a childhood dream. It's kind of crazy, you know, just seeing my my name and my restaurant in the Staple Center, you know, just growing up with as a Laker fan, as a King's fan, as a Dodger fan, just being surrounded by LA sports and now it's awesome.