New Mexico Chile BBQ Sauce and Better Beef Cooking with Chef Mica Chavez

The difference between “fine” beef and unforgettable beef usually isn’t a fancy cut. It’s heat, timing, and knowing what you’re looking at on the board. We’re in the kitchen at the Santa Fe School of Cooking with Chef Mica Chavez, cooking shoulder to shoulder and building a smoky New Mexico chile barbecue sauce that’s made to pair with beef, not hide it.

We start with the flavor base: dried Cascabel chiles and New Mexico red chile pods, toasted until aromatic, then simmered into a thick sauce with onion, garlic, ketchup, Worcestershire, soy, mustard, brown sugar, and a local light beer from Bow and Arrow Brewing. Along the way, Chef Mica shares why chile seeds can turn bitter, what “spoon coat” means for BBQ sauce texture, and how small ingredient choices create big depth.

Then we move to the meat. We compare tri-tip and beef tenderloin side by side, talking marbling, USDA lean options, and how chefs think about cost, yield, and waste. Chef Mica demonstrates trimming, explains silver skin, points out a normal lymph node, and lays out a simple plan for using every part: render fat into beef tallow, grind the chain for tacos or meatballs, and treat the center cut as the premium portion. You’ll also pick up practical home-cook upgrades like starting with a hot cast iron pan, when to add pepper, and why cutting against the grain matters.

If you care about New Mexico beef, local food, and making weeknight cooking taste like a restaurant without restaurant prices, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a beef-loving friend, and leave a review with your favorite cut to cook at home.

Thanks for tuning in to Behind the Burger!
Stay connected with us — follow @NMBEEF on TikTok and Instagram, New Mexico Beef Council on Facebook and visit nmbeef.com for recipes, nutrition info, a local beef directory and more.

Transcript

Welcome And Kitchen Setup

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Behind the Burger. I'm Carolyn Romo, the executive director for the New Mexico Beef Council. I am here with Chef Mika Chavez, who has done a lot of stuff for us, a lot of work with uh schools and events and fun things. And so we thought we'd have her on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Thanks for asking. Absolutely, absolutely. And so I guess to start off, like what's your background, or maybe we should start off with what you were gonna do today, and then and then we'll go into your background. We'll talk about food and then you know. So, what are we gonna do today?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

So, today we are going to be making um a staple recipe that we do with the Santa Fe School of Cooking, which is one of my other hats that I wear. Um, I'm I'm a chef on staff there, I have been for about 20 years, and we specialize in all things southwestern. Um, so I chose this sauce because it pairs really, really well with beef, and it uses one of the ingredients that we just absolutely can't get enough of here in New Mexico, and that's that's chili.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, and we should say a special shout out to Santa Fe School of Cooking. We're really excited to be in the kitchen here, and uh it's a beautiful kitchen, beautiful space. Uh come check it out if you haven't

Building A New Mexico Chile Sauce

SPEAKER_03 1:10

already. So we're gonna start with sauce. Sauce. Okay, well, if you get started, I'll just kind of make you talk about yourself if that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Oh, that's fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Uh our favorite thing to do, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah, so I'm actually gonna start by cleaning the sauce and the Costco Bell chilies. So there are three classifications of chili. There's sweet, okay, there's hot, there's bell, and then I jokingly say, Oh my god, what was I thinking? Yeah. So the Costco Bell is an example of a sweet chili, and that's not sweet as in sugar sweet, it's sweet as in not hot.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

So this would be like an example of a paprika.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

So but Costco Bell in Spanish means rattle. Okay. Oh, and they rattle. And you living you being a rancher, this sound makes you jump. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Absolutely. I see you right there.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Right, right. Uh yes, 100%. Always wondering if I'm gonna hear that. There's um there's a plant out there too that makes that another plant that makes that sound.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yeah, it's the double's claw. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they make it so much. And those things, those things look like martians when they dry up. Yeah, okay. So, what I'm doing is I'm just popping out the stem, shaking out as many of the seeds as I can get. Because the seeds can make this kind of bitter. Um, we're also gonna use some dried New Mexico pods. Um, these are left over from these are these are hatch from last year that were dried. And we at the Santa Fe School of Cooking, and me personally, and I know with New Mexico, we try to do as much as we can to support local. Um, New Mexico is a poor ranching state and farming state, and um we're big in the agricultural world, and if we don't support us, nobody else is gonna.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Yeah, we we love to love to talk about that, and and even we've been at a lot of schools lately and telling telling students and reminding students that that New Mexico is beef country, and you might not realize it, but there's there's cows around every corner.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah, there absolutely are cows around every corner, and I um I hike a lot, and you'll find cows in in every nook and cranny of this state. Like you'll you know come around a corner and there's a cow. It's like, oh hi.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

Yeah, yeah, and that's an interesting opportunity too for for ranchers in New Mexico. We have a lot of federal lands, the Bureau of Land Management leases, and then yeah, state forestry leases.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Well, that helps to keep the grass down so we don't end up with wildfires, and you know, it's it's just it's it's a win-win-win all the way around.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Yeah, we sure think so. We cows are the ultimate upcyclers, right? The carbon sequestration they can do and all that.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Um, so I've always heard, but I've always thought the seeds were the part that you should you should take out, but it's not where the heat is, it's it makes it more bitter.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

It can make it bitter, and it's also where the heat is. It is okay. So this this is a barbecue sauce. Right. So we don't need you don't need a lot of heat. And you're gonna, you know, any heat you're gonna get, you're gonna get from the New Mexicos anyway. Yeah, um, all right, so I've got all my I've got the all of the chili pods in the pot. Okay, so what I'm gonna do now is add a little bit of oil to this. And um I'm gonna start toasting these pods to make them aromatic. And now while those are toasting, I'm gonna start um I'm gonna start chopping this onion.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Oh, good, we've got you on camera why you have to cut an onion.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Oh boy. That's great. It's a good thing my knife is sharp, I won't cry. Yeah, right. Well, um, you don't have to do a great job chopping this because we're gonna blend all of this anyway. So anytime, okay, and this is the part that nobody gets. Okay. All right, when you read a recipe, don't just read the top. That could be nuts, bolts, and screws. You just need to make sure you have it. Yeah. Okay, the devil is in the details, and the details are in the bottom. In the in the procedures. Yeah, okay. So read all the way through at once, and if at the bottom it says blend until smooth, you just can whack at it. You don't have to chop it. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:00

So not just spending all this time. Yeah, just saying. Yeah, okay.

Chef Mika’s Food Roots And Southwest

SPEAKER_03 5:05

So so while you're while you're shopping, um tell me about your background. What got you into um what got you into cooking too? So background and the start of it all.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

So the start of it all, um I um I'm originally from El Paso. My dad was in the army there. And um I I spent a lot of time with my mom's mom that lived in El Paso, and um it was really in her kitchen that all things unconditionally love-related kind of all came to all pointed to food. And it was always chili, like her kitchen always smelled like red chili, green chili, tortillas, coffee, beans. Like sometimes I walk in in the morning and the smell of beans in the room just makes me tear up because that was a smell of home for me, and it still is. Um right after my dad got out of the army, we moved from El Paso to Gallup. And when we lived in Gallup, I was one of a very non, very few non-Navajo, non-hopie, non-Zoomy kids. Okay, and so we and my dad worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and we were able to go into places like Canyon Duche and Mesaver Bay before you needed a native guy. So we went into some places that I don't think a lot of non-native people have seen. Beautiful places like spiritual places. Oh the whole the whole Southwest is just alive. You just have to sit on a rock and listen. And you hear you hear it talking to you. I mean, people have been here a long, long time. So, you know, growing up with that reverence for what is you know, what is this culture, um, and then moving to first South Texas and then to Northern California, I knew this was gonna be home for me someday. I I knew I was gonna come back. Yeah, and I was back in El Paso with my grandmother at the end of her life, and when she passed, and and my my aunt passed shortly thereafter, there just wasn't a lot of reason for me to stay. Um, I had friends here, and you know, Santa Fe attracts people that need a change in their life or in transition, whether you know it at the time or not. And here I am. So I started Yeah, and I had a lot of time in kitchens, and I was really successful in El Paso, and I started working with um a pecan grower down there who also had probably 50 or 60 head of cows that he was running right down along the river. Okay, and he was he was finishing his cattle on pecan. Oh man, I bet that tasted delicious. You know, we were one of the first people all along the border to start doing that kind of like you know, literally pasture to table kind of thing. And I really kind of started to realize how important the diet of the cattle were. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, much, much more than you know, corn finish, grass finish, you know, whatever. This gave it a whole other level of fat, first off. And you know, we all know that fat is flavor, and that's expensive.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

Yeah, absolutely. That is you know, access to that is also difficult, right? Especially in New Mexico.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Well, and when it's when it gets cold outside, cows can it keep weight on, which means you're trying to keep weight on your cattle, and if it's if there's snow, now you're bringing hay. Right, and that's another input you know into your cattle. So just think of the fuel prices.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

Yeah, yeah, to get the hay there.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Well, everything everything associated with it is only going to get more expensive, right? It's not going to get less expensive, right? So, one of the things that we have to do as chefs is try to find a way to utilize less expensive cuts and and make it and still make it taste good. And so you brought some tri-tip today, and that we're gonna we're gonna mess with that a little bit, and also we're gonna mess with a high-end cut, a tenderloin. So, I mean, this is kind of opposite ends of the spectrum. Um, but they're and they're used for very, very different applications.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm excited. I know uh we cook a tri-tip at at home often because it's a great 30-minute 30-minute meal. I can sear it and then stick it in the oven and and it's done pretty pretty uh quickly. And you have one of those green eggs. You could you could get one of those things and smoke. Yeah, we have made one on the green egg. That is actually delicious. Uh yeah, we might have to do that with one of the extras and get a video of the side tip on the green egg.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

All right, so what I've done here is I have um I've really whoopsie at a jumper, at an escape. Um I have sauteed the onions. Um, I've sauteed the chilies and got them aromatic. So the onions are actually kind of starting to take on some of the flavor and some of the color of the chilies. Now I'm gonna add a little bit of garlic because you add your aromatics. And then as soon as I can start smelling the garlic, I mean, look at that. That color is just incredible. Oh, it's beautiful. I had to get the closet. Oh man, why wouldn't you? And in this clay pot. So this is uh this type of clay is called micaceous, and people in this area have been using this for millennia. We don't know how far back. Um, but I like it because of the way that it distributes heat. Alright, so we've got onions, we've got garlic, we've got the Cascavel chilies, we've got um the New Mexico red chilies, and now I'm gonna start building the sauce. And I'm gonna start this with a little bit of homemade tomato. Um, I've got some ketchup. Every good barbecue sauce has at least a little bit of ketchup. Absolutely, and that makes sense. A little bit of water. A lot of good things have ketchup. 100%. Oh my god. I um I every once when I make ceviche, I add a little bit of ketchup to it.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Acid and salt and sweet and sticky.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

So you get a whole bunch of flavor with just a little bit of ketchup.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Okay, I love it. I love it. I I know one of my favorite family recipes would be meatloaf with a whole bunch of ketchup. You have to. I mean ketchup, Worcester, and uh brown sugar, those are all good things.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yep. So I just added soy, Worcester, ketchup, mustard, there's some brown sugar. Now the recipe in in the that um you're gonna that you'll see calls for water. Well, I feel like water tastes like water, beer tastes like beer, so we're gonna use the beer. Um, and we're using a light beer. This is Bow and Arrow, and this is a woman-owned indigenous brewery out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. And they um they actually got nominated for a James Beard Award this year.

SPEAKER_04 12:02

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

So, yeah, yeah, those ladies are really doing a good job. And their their beers, they have a blue corn. This might even be the blue corn one. I think I think I saw blue corn on the label. Yeah, with blue corn, yeah, yeah, really good. So they're doing a really they're doing a really good job. I mean, the the restaurant scene in in Albuquerque is is popping.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

I'm I'm a big fan. I love to tell people that that I think Albuquerque and Santa Fe, just New Mexico in general, we have a lot of restaurants and we have a lot of family-owned restaurants. Yeah, and that's important. That's super important. And for such a small population to have successful family-owned or privately owned businesses, yes, to me that's that says something about our our culture in our state. You know, we'll support local businesses, we'll 100%.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

And you know, what one of the things that I think became really apparent during COVID is how much we all kind of need to support each other. Oh, absolutely. And you know, if it weren't for you know the farmers market giving you know the produce that would have gone to restaurants to food banks, people would have gone hungry. And we were able to take that and stream it into people's kitchens. Oh, you know, they were it was able to be diverted right away. So that's great. They did a great job with that. Yeah. So we've got the sauce going. Okay, sauce is going. So when these um chili pods get soft, and I mean really soft, at that point, then um we're gonna take it, we're gonna blend it until it's smooth.

SPEAKER_04 13:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Um, and you want this to be fairly sticky and thick. It is a barbecue sauce.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

So it should be what we call spoon coat, which literally means coat to the back of a spoon. Okay.

Tri-Tip And Tenderloin Basics

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Alright, so let's talk beef. Sounds good. Alright, so let's get into the tri-tip first. So this is this has a pretty good amount of surface fat. So what we're gonna want to do is we're gonna take some of that off.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

And this is an untrimmed tri-tip.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

It's totally untrimmed.

SPEAKER_03 14:04

And like a restaurant supply book kind of place.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Right. And you know, and this is you can you can pay a broad spectrum distributor to trim all your meat for you, and you're gonna pay more per pound, or you can pay some and you can pay your cooks less money, or you pay somebody like me, and you hand me something like a tenderloin, and I'm able to not only give you you know the Chateaubriand, the center cut, the the best piece, but then you also get the chain right here. And you use this for stews, you use this for tacos, you use this for the meatloaf we were talking about. Right. Because you have to use this scrap somehow. Now, with this, I would render this out and make tallow. Oh yeah. And when I make when I make tamales during the during Christmas time, if somebody wants beef tamales, I use that tallow as my fat. Oh yeah. So, you know, you can do beef fat French fries. I mean, they they taste better, they're more savory. Um we've been using tallow a lot. I mean, tallow tallow is good food. It you know, fat got a bad rap a few years ago, and this, you know, it it kind of came down to the battle between fat and sugar. And sugar had had more influence, whatever, so fat kind of got a bad rap. But if you look at things like tallow, lard, canola oil, olive oil, we've been using this stuff for centuries. We've used been using some of this stuff for millennia. That's good.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

And we, you know, we know where it comes from, we know what it does. It's it's it's it just got it got a bad wrap.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

It just makes me it makes me mad. Yeah, yeah. Well, healthy fats are great, but then even you know, the cuts that you're um as you're you're cutting the fat off, right? You're talking about fat, one thing I learned from our dietitian is is these are also considered USDA lean. So a tender loin, because it has the word loin, or if it had the word round in it, that would mean it's USDA lean. So if you're looking for a lean protein, beef can fit that option, right? Because a lot of times we're told to go lean.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

And we love healthy fats too, and we love a delicious uh you know, 100% beef is you know, in in terms of in terms of lean, high-quality protein, absolutely. Right. Now, here's something I want to point out though. There's a little gray spot right here, and you're always gonna find these in little pockets of fat. Okay. So this is a lymph node right there. See that? Yeah. Okay, so what you want to do is just kind of pull it out, and we want to take that out.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

And what you were showing us last time, too, that that's like a healthy lymph node.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Yeah, I mean you're gonna find these, we they have them all over the place. It's not inflamed, um, it's not discolored, it does it, it looks normal. So that was a healthy animal.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

Love that. Love that.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah, that's that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Yeah. Um, when you were when the first time we saw you uh cut, you know, trim one of these, I had never seen that, and then I realized, oh, I'm buying them trimmed. So this is a really neat experience for us to even see that you know, buying it, um, like me and my husband looking at buying buying untrimmed so that we can try and learn how to do this.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah, and you know, if you know, being cattle ranchers, you you're gonna want to know every aspect of the business. Yeah. Um, because it's you know, you can do you can do like pasture to table like we were talking about a little while ago, and um opportunity. Yeah, I mean basically it it it kind of depends on how much energy do you have. The opportunities are there. Okay, so with this, there's not a lot of fat on this. Okay. So when you look at it, when you look at a tri-tip, now first off, the the direction of the muscle is going this way, right? So whenever you whenever you cut any any sort of protein, you always want to cut against the grain. If you cut with the grain, you're gonna make a big old rubber band. Right. So you want what you want to do is you want to break that, you want to break those muscle fibers. Okay. So for something like this, you would want to cook this, um you would you could you could smoke this, you could totally do this in an Instapot.

SPEAKER_04 18:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

With a little bit of water, some onions, some carrots, some celery, put it in an Instapot for about an hour, you have a really nice, you have a really nice roast. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, but there's not a lot of intramuscular marbling. Right. So when you're talking about grades of beef, the more, the more marbling you have per inch, the higher the grade. Because it goes back to fat is expensive. Right, right. Fat is in and fat is flavor. Fat is flavor. And so that's why when you look at a tender line, so this is a five up, and these cows are taken, most of the cows are taken between 1100 and 1300 pounds, right? Okay, that says the cows standing all on our on all four hooves. But by the time you by the time you trim all of that out, you're losing almost 50% in height and bones.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

Yeah, I think we say like usually expect 60% cutout, right? That you're getting it from hanging, and it goes, you know, there's steps too, we've got a great graphic we can pop up, and you know, there's steps to hanging weight, dry weight, all of these things that it's that it goes down. So if you're buying a whole beef animal, it's really important to know that too. Yes, yes, and understand that yes, it's a $1,200, $1,200, not $1,200, it's a 1,200 pound animal, you're not getting $1,200 pounds of beef.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

No, no.

SPEAKER_03 19:26

You're hoping for 600 pounds of beef.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Yeah, and that's if that's you know, and that's if the if all the meat is okay. If it's bruised in one section, if you have a tumor or something in another section, you can't sell that. That's just lost. Right, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 19:39

And yeah, that's a favorite thing too that I like to tell people too is if there's anything bad found in meat in the process of of uh you know harvesting and processing an animal, that meat is thrown out. And sometimes if it's bad enough, the the whole animal is condemned, and then anything on the floor is looked at extra carefully and all that. So I always try and encourage people that there's not bad stuff in our meat because they have to be inspected over and over and over again.

Kitchen Lessons On Yield And Trimming

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yeah, and those inspectors have a tough job. Okay, so what I'm doing right now, so I first I started in kitchens when I was 14. And when you start in kitchens, you usually start at lunch because lunch is cheap and lunch is fast. And so um from lunch, you either go to breakfast or you go to or you go to dinner. And I didn't really like dinner. Okay. Dinner, you have to, you know, you get there, you prep, you prep, you prep, you prep, you prep, you prep, you prep, you prep, and then you get busy, and then you get crazy, and then you have a camper that wants to come in at 15 minutes before closing and course their dinner, and you can just I've been that person often.

SPEAKER_03 20:46

You know, we usually call and ask, is the kitchen closing? Is it okay? I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah, but you're not coming in saying we're gonna have first course, second course, fourth course. No, no, no. No, just no, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah, we're all good with that. We've all been there, but I mean, this is high-end dining, and you know, by all measures, if they should get the same service as somebody that comes in at seven o'clock. 100%. But it's hard to do still. It's yes, but yes, also. Also, yes, yeah, we're also good. So um what I so with breakfast, you just go in, you get done, and you go home. So I liked breakfast. Yeah, but one of the things I had to learn how to do was cut beef. Okay, because I would work, I would work during the day, that's when we got our deliveries. Yeah, and so you have to process all of this. You know, we always went FIFO, push the other stakes forward, put the new stakes in the back. Yeah, you know, you get 12 cuts per ribeye, you get eight cuts, nine cuts per tenderloin. I mean, you just you have to know that this is what you're gonna yield.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Yeah, FIFO, that's first in, first out. Yep. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Old stuff in the front. Okay, so there's this little tale of what you saw me do first is take everything off with my hands. When one of my very first chefs said, every time you use a knife. You lose money because you're taking off tremble portion, usable portion. Okay, and I can tell you whoever whoever butchered this piece of tenderline really did not do it any favors. So when we talk about yield, this is this is a factor. Yeah. Somebody somebody else's mistake is now affecting my my saleable portion. Okay, so I'm gonna take off this little ball of fat down here. And I would go what I would do is I would start trimming this right here, this would get rendered. Okay. This right here, this would get ground. Okay. Because we've got a good percentage. I mean, you see ground beef 80, 80 20, 90 10, 93, 7. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

Well, yeah, if you want burgers, you want fat.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah, yeah. I don't even know what that is. Yeah, 80-20 is about where I that's as much as I I'm gonna do. Yeah. Alright, so why? Because I don't eat burgers every day, but when I eat one, I want a good one.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

I want the quality. Um, I'm gonna come back and try and triage that. Alright, so this right here, this is called the chain. Okay. And this is this is what I'm gonna grind up. I mean, some of this fat I'm gonna take off of here.

SPEAKER_04 23:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

But most of this I'm gonna grind up. Yeah. And this is gonna be meatball Monday. This is gonna be Taco Tuesday. This is gonna be something, something Wednesday. Um, this is this has to go into something because I still paid $160 for this tenderline. Right, right. So you gotta use all of it. You gotta use all of it. Absolutely. There has to be a primary, a secondary, and a tertiary use. So the primary use is the center cut. That's what keeps the lights on. Yeah, that's what keeps the aprons on your cooks and you know, and the power on when you hit the switch. I've had that, I've had all of those things go off.

SPEAKER_03 23:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

All of this is where you're making your money back. Yeah, okay. Um, because you're you have to account for it somewhere. So you want to lift, and you want a sharp knife for this, and you want to take off as little as possible because again, fat is flavor. You you want some of that fat. Okay, so now we have silver skin. So this is connective tissue. This will never, ever, ever in a gazillion years break down.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

So this is what native tribes would use is like thread or string. Because when you dry this out and you you thread something with this, it's not, you're not breaking it. Okay. So is that probably similar to what is used for tennis rackets? Cat gut, yeah, similar. Yeah. Oh really?

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Well, I don't know that somebody can fact check me, but that's what I I did not know that.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Yeah. Alright, so you'll see I'm pulling back and I'm angling the knife up. So as soon as I get my finger in there, I'm gonna put my finger and I'm gonna pull back. And you want to keep the tension on there. So you take off as little saleable portion as possible and come back. So look. Silver. It's literally silver, shining in the light and everything. Yeah, I mean this is you're not breaking this. Yeah. So this really doesn't have a use. I mean, that can go into a tallow pile. So I just take my time. I mean, I can I can break these down quickly if I need to, but if I don't need to, why? This is one of the things where, like, working in kitchens, I would just love to stand there and just cut fish, cut steaks. It's really methodical and and and rhythmic, and you know, you want you want to know, you want to know who's bringing your beef in. You want to know, like when I worked in the San Francisco Bay Area, we had a couple different people for beef, we had a couple different people for pork. You know, there was a different, it was just a different market than there is here in New Mexico. Um, some of them were local, we got stuff out of the Napa Valley. Actually, that's gonna come off.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

And and you so you've you've already mentioned a lot of the places you've you've cooked and you've trained, but where where did you first train and um and then where have you trained since then?

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Oh boy. Um, so uh I started my career as a dishwasher at the age of 14 years old in a little town in Northern California. Okay, and this woman owned a restaurant, it was a cafe, then they did high-end high-end food. Yeah. And um, she actually wanted to hire my mom because my mom's a really good cook.

SPEAKER_04 26:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

And my mom's like, no. So they needed a dishwasher, and so I'd ride my bike from high school and I'd go in two nights, two days a week, and one day a week I would roll pasta, and the other day I would wash dishes, and I I liked the work, and I just kept getting into better and better and better restaurants until at the age of 21 I became sous-chef in my first like white tablecloth restaurant, and that was like I was I was always off and running. I I found everything I wanted to do. I mean, the only other thing I really wanted to do was ride the Pony Express.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Oh, yeah. No, it was too late.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

I was too late. I was too big to be a jockey, and I really wanted to work at the Budweiser stables. I mean, you know, that was a dream.

SPEAKER_03 27:16

One of my best friends in the world works at the Budweiser stables. That's a dream.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

I mean, you know, I just sneaks us in to see the Clyde Stales when I feel like it's like I I I ball like a baby when I see them going down the street.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

They're just in the commercial this year was beautiful with the eagle.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Oh, yeah. We love it. That's so fun. Shout out to my friend Ariel. So yeah, I I that was that was a dream, but none of those things will really I could. But this one did. But this one, yeah, this one, because it kind of it kind of, you know, it incorporated everything. You know, there's there's a whole lot of a maverick kind of mindset that you have to have in order to be successful in the kitchen. Yeah. And you have to have you have to have a healthy fear and a very healthy respect of your environment and your coworkers, and you have to have a kind of a presence. Yeah. It's very similar to what you have to have when you're on a horse, because anything can happen at any time.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

Yeah, absolutely. A little bit of tenacity and and understanding the dangers around you. I was telling someone to roll it.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Tuck and roll.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

Yeah, yeah. I was telling someone, I have horses, right? I run horses, and we I was telling someone it's good to have a little bit of a healthy fear of the horse, right? I'm not telling someone to be scared of them, but we should understand and respect that.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Well, it's just like a cow or they're prey animals. Yeah. And it wasn't, you know, the curious prey animals probably didn't live.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

So the ones that the ones that got scared and ran, those are the ones that that live. So it makes sense that they're all gonna be a little skittish. Right, that's that's a great point,

Tenderloin Anatomy And Cooking Methods

SPEAKER_01 28:37

absolutely. Okay, so when you're looking at when you're looking at a beef tender line, this is the psoas muscle. Okay. So this is basically this part on us right here. Okay. Um, this is the major, this is the minor, and then that piece I took off is called the chain. Okay. So all of that, all of this is edible, all of this is useful. Every part is useful. The primary use though is this piece right here, and this is the part that people pay the most for. This is the Chateaubriand.

SPEAKER_04 29:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

So for something like this, you're gonna want to take that. And if you just if you look at that, we've got some, we've got some intramuscular marbling. Love to see it. Absolutely. Beautiful. And on that side, there's a little bit more. Yeah. So this is this is select. Right. So the higher the grade, the more um, the more of this marbling you're gonna see. Right. With tendrilline, a lot of it's on the outside. So you want to cook this high and dry. Okay. Um, high heat, dry heat. So we're gonna take break that into slightly smaller medallions. Okay, put the rest on here. So when you look at this, actually, this is the cut right here that I would like used for some some really good tacos.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Because it's it's shreddy.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

So what I would do with this is I'd just throw it in the Instapot with a bunch of chili pots.

SPEAKER_03 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Basically that. Okay. Throw it in an Instapot and um 45 minutes, take it out, take the meat out, shred it. If you have a kitchen aid and a paddle attachment, you can shred beef in a minute. Oh, really? Beef, chicken, pork, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Oh, great. I love that. Oh yeah. Throw it in hot and with a paddle and it just does the thing. It does the thing. I love my Kitchen Aid. Oh yeah. This is a whole new use for Kitchen Aids.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

Oh man. So, um I'm scared of my Instapot, but I love my Kitchen Aid.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

You know, I Instapot's at altitude for beans, there's nothing, there's nothing better. Oh really? Yeah. I'm sorry, my I'm sorry, I'm sniffling. My allergies, it's allergy season in Santa Fe. Alright, so we're gonna put that aside. Okay. Alright, now for the tri-tip, let's do let's do a side-by-side comparison. We're gonna cook these in a heated, a preheated cast iron pan. Okay. So with the tri-tip, we want to kind of look toward the center and let's see where, let's see where we end up with that. And I left a little bit more of that surface fat on there. Because it's got it's got less marbling.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

So that surface fat is gonna give us.

SPEAKER_04 31:24

Oh just.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

You say flavor, I say flavor, I think that's a good thing to say. Alright, so when I'm gonna sear this beef, I'm gonna put a little bit of salt on the outside. And I'm gonna wait on the pepper.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Well, here's the reason why. Pepper is one of the only spices that I know of that when you cook it, it actually diminishes in potency.

unknown 31:51

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

That's why you could eat pepper crusted this and pepper crusted that, um, and it you don't blow the top of your head off.

SPEAKER_03 31:58

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Interesting. Okay, so that's the tenderline right there. And here we're gonna do the tri-tip over here, and I want to do a side-by-side comparison of the two. Alright, okay. So I'm gonna I'm gonna salt the other side, we're gonna let those steer. Um so the tri-tip would uh would benefit too from something like sous vide. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Or you could have you could just have it break down those tissues all day long and then bring it home and sear it. Yeah. That's what that would really be good for.

SPEAKER_03 32:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Um, that would be a good way to cook that.

SPEAKER_03 32:45

So you say that's above my uh expertise level as well. I do know a lot of people uh love that, and a lot of people do it. Even in New Mexico, we've met a lot of folks that that uh love the, or specifically in New Mexico, not even.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Yeah, you know, because you can put it, you can start it, you can go, you know, go out and do whatever it is you need to do, come back, and dinner's basically done. You just need to put a few finishing touches on it. Um that's what I that's what I So it's cooking all day. Yeah. Yeah, okay. But at a really super low temperature, so the bee so the protein will cook, yeah, but it still looks kind of raw-ish because you don't ever denature the protein. That happens at temperature. Okay, interesting. So um you it won't caramelize, you won't get any color. So you're gonna you would have to uh you have to you have to steer it to get any sort of flavor color like that. It's kind of a rule whenever you grab tongs, you have to make sure they work.

SPEAKER_03 33:45

There was I saw a social media video where it was the test, and it was like if you grab a drill, do you go and then 100%, you tap it? Yeah, that's funny. A scoop. Yeah, like all the things you gotta you gotta do.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

All right, I'm just making sure we're getting a good sear. Here we are.

Blend The Sauce And Check Doneness

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Okay, so the chilies now are completely broken down, they're really soft. So I'm gonna take this over to the blender. And when I blend anything, I pour down. When I when I'm pouring anything that's hot, I try to pour down.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

So if it spills, it spills in the sink.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

You know.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

First you do it, then you do it right. Okay.

unknown 34:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

All right, that little left in that. All right, so with the Vitamixes, these things are like the Harley Davidson blenders. Okay. And so I take a little cap out because I'm gonna blend something high. Oh, and so you see it's uh you've got to release the steam. Yeah, makes sense. So if you do that, the there's four still four layers of fabric here. You're still safe. Yeah. And it, but it's still gonna let the steam out so you don't build the pressure below the lid. Okay. You just want to dissipate that little pop of steam.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

Oh, we'll pop up. Yeah, I just did that yet. Okay, so now it's professional. All right, here we go. Okay, and I'm gonna show you figuring out the dominant.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

Oh, absolutely. All right, so you're gonna take your dominant, your non-dominant hand and hold it up. Right. Are you right-handed or right-handed?

SPEAKER_03 36:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Okay, so take the index finger of your right hand, push it right here, right in the fabbish part. Okay, that's rare. Right. Okay, medium rare.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Medium in the middle.

SPEAKER_03 36:31

Oh, I did get.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Also known as the driving finger. Okay. Yeah. The medium well. Yeah. Well done. No, thank you. Yeah. That animal gave its life for you. You know, but actually, I'll say this. So that tail end of the tenderloin, that top end of the tenderloin, or the actually the head end of the tenderloin, yeah. I love the medium wells when they come in. Oh, and that's when that's when that's that's who gets the medium well. Oh, yeah. It's not a bad piece of meat, right. It's just not what you want to give somebody who's ordering a medium rare or rare. Right. And actually, tenderline, I wouldn't order it rare. Medium rare is about where it's at.

SPEAKER_04 37:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Um just because you still want some caramelization, you still want it to be cooked a little bit, you want it a little bit warm in the middle, I think that's I think that's where the meat stands out.

SPEAKER_03 37:20

Well, and and my my thing too, my spiel is I don't, I don't care how you order it, we're excited you're ordering beef, right? Because every time you order beef at a restaurant, at a um, you know, even even at a fast food restaurant, whatever, anywhere you're eating beef, grocery store, you're cooking it at home, anywhere you're supporting a rancher. You're making it so that families can continue to ranch and live on the land and you know, ride out on a horse where there's no sound and except maybe a rattle. And yeah, so anytime you're eating beef. So yeah, so I I tease, but I I'm not gonna judge how anybody orders beef. I just hope they're ordering it.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Yeah, I I am, you know, I'm a native Texan, and even though I'm come from El Paso, um, it's still Texas.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

Yeah, barely.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Yeah. Um, but you know, beef is what beef is part of like what you're raised on. And I I I am an omnivore, and I could I I thought about being a vegetarian for a minute, and I thought, why would I do that? I couldn't have a hamburger. Yeah, what are you thinking?

SPEAKER_03 38:19

Yeah, no, I I'm uh um very much an omnivore and uh have have some friends that are even carnivore. Yeah. So okay, so we've talked about um you know your start small restaurant in um Northern California. What town in Northern California?

SPEAKER_01 38:39

A little town called Venetia, California. Okay. That was the actually the state capital from 1853 to 1854.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Oh how cool. Yeah, how neat.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Um yeah, it was a great place to grow up. It's about um an hour from Napa, an hour from San Francisco, an hour from Sacramento. And I didn't make this social thin. I don't want to open it for a few people.

SPEAKER_04 39:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Um, so it's it's it's really um its location for me was key because there were so many different influences. Yeah. Um there was the culinary scene, there was this when we moved there, this was about the time that the California food and wine scene was really taking off.

SPEAKER_04 39:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Farmers markets were taking off.

SPEAKER_04 39:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Um, my mom always cooked at home, she was a great cook, so now we had access to all this amazing produce all year long. Um, I mean, California is really the the the produce basket of the country. Yeah. And it was amazing growing up there.

SPEAKER_03 39:35

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Um, but having access to that kind of food and and just being around the restaurant scene, I I I wanted to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_03 39:43

I wanted to neat, very neat.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:46

And and um you're also a horse girl, right? You also have been around 100%.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

I've been around livestock and and love that aspect too, right? And it's a dream to to have a small tractor farm someday. Yeah. Um, I love horses. I've owned three geldings now, and would like to someday again in the future. Yeah. Um there's something about the connection, and I don't I don't know what it is, I don't know why it is, I just know it is, and I felt it since I was a kid. So neat, yeah, working around you know, ranchers and cows, and there's no harder working people than ranchers.

SPEAKER_03 40:22

Oh, yeah, I agree. And we uh we love the horse, right? So the horse is often a a tool, but also uh um an asset, and I think bankers call them a liability. A competitive, but yeah, yeah, just they're just neat animals, and it that's a neat thing about New Mexico is because we're such a vast state and things are so spread out, oftentimes ranchers have to use a horse. Um and and even you know, when they're using federal lands leases and and um uh so you're not allowed to take a motorized vehicle off the road, right? Yeah, so you have to take your feet or your hoes. And so horses are a really important tool in New Mexico, and it's pretty sweet, you know. We were the Wild West and we are the Wild West.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

We still are the Wild West, and you know what? That's why we live in here.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

Cowboys are often found in New Mexico.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Alright, so we've got a tenderloin. That's beautiful. Alright, so now I'm gonna pepper it. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 41:47

What's the uh most unique thing you've ever cooked with beef? Or maybe just a fun, fun uh story.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Oh, um, so I had some friends, I don't I they may still be out there, I don't know. Uh Shane and Sage Faulkner that owns or are we managing Soaring Eagle Ranch up near Lake Heron.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:09

And I was trying to get back into just being around horses again, and I asked them if I could come up there and ride, and they said, Yeah. So I was checking, they have Scottish Highland cattle.

SPEAKER_04 42:19

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

They are cra they are crazy looking cows. Right. Okay, so on the left is the tender, on the right is the um yes, thank you. Yeah, so I was out riding on this vast ranch, and there's all this water up there, it's just gorgeous. You see eagles up there all the time. Yeah, and um this little baby, this this Joe and Fawn were just walking in front of me down the road. Yeah, they smelled the horses first, it was just incredible. And then I came back and they we grilled like this incredible dinner with their beef, and um it was good.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

That's that sounds like a very memorable experience. And I think you know, even when you started talking about your background and your start, it's it's a lot about um nostalgia and you know, food brings us together, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:10

It should.

SPEAKER_03 43:11

Yeah, hopefully.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

I think so. Yeah.

Taste Test And Simple Home Tips

SPEAKER_01 43:14

Try it. We'll try it. Here we go. So imagine that slathered on some ribs.

SPEAKER_03 43:25

Oh my goodness, that's delicious.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

But it's a little smoky, kinda hot.

SPEAKER_03 43:37

That tenderloin is delicious. I feel bad. Sorry, you guys don't get to taste it.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

I'm not fine at all.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

That's delicious, and that tenderloin is so tender. Even though, right, it's a select option, right? So that that even is just a reminder that you know, preparation and and all kinds of things, right? You can have a really delicious. Item and you don't have to buy the top prime every time. I don't know if that's a bad sales pitch for USD inspection.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

No.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

And honestly, if you're eating beef two or three times a week, you're not gonna be able to afford the prime cuts. That's a lot of money. And it doesn't mean I mean some of the other cuts are just as good, if not better. It just takes more time. So this is a little bit tougher. Yep. Because it doesn't have that intramuscular marbling. Right, right. So this would be better suited, maybe um, like you were saying, in your smoker or um in an Instapot, something that's gonna be that's gonna break that that break down those fibers.

SPEAKER_03 44:43

Yeah, absolutely. But even a tri-tip too, I love a tri-tip sandwich. I love uh where you can, you know, where you're expecting chewy and you're you're okay with it, and uh or tri-tip salad, anything, and it's and it's so it's typically an affordable option. So that's why yeah, and you can feed a family of four on a on a good chunk of and maybe even have leftovers for uh you know, throw it in a quesadilla for the kids. Green chili stew. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Absolutely, uh-huh. Absolutely. Okay, are there any simple tips for a home cook that's I mean, you've said a bunch of tips and a bunch of things, you know, read the directions, not just the ingredients. Yeah, look for the marveling, those kind of things. Yeah, um, but what's are there any other simple tips if someone is cooking beef, choosing beef, um, how they can uh make sure, even encouragement, that they it's it's not that hard to mess it up? Maybe it is.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

You know, like no, not necessarily. You know, fat is flavor, don't be afraid of the fat.

SPEAKER_03 45:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

If you're making meatloaf, you can pour off whatever excess is there, but if you're starting with a super lean meat because you're trying to make it healthier, it's not gonna taste good. It doesn't matter how healthy something is, if it's not good, you're not gonna eat it. Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 45:58

Well, yeah, and and like we talked about, beef has the healthy fats, right? These are these are fats that are good for you.

SPEAKER_01 46:03

We've been eating them for yeah, millets millennia. Yeah, right. Um start with a hot pan. Ooh, okay. And you know, I didn't use any oil. Yeah, I noticed that. So cast iron, you can sear really hot with no oil. Okay. And that's what you want. Minimal oil, high heat, get a good sear. Whether whether you're searing, whether you're doing like the tenderloin or not, or the tri-tip, you're gonna have you're gonna like maybe put it into a pressure cooker or or roast it. You still want to sear the outside to get some some flavor and some color.

SPEAKER_03 46:38

Okay. Um, and then um, I think my phone keeps locking. I forgot to do the um okay, so we have I'm gonna keep eating because I'm hungry. I know, I I might actually as well. Okay.

Favorite Beef Meal And Farewell

SPEAKER_03 46:51

Um, but my I feel like this is this has been really good, and we we can probably kind of close it out. And so, my my question I ask everybody at the end is what is your favorite way to eat beef? It can be the forever favorite, it can be the right now favorite, but just the what's what's your favorite way to eat beef?

SPEAKER_01 47:08

So, every chef um will play when we get together, we play death row dinner. What's your death row dinner?

SPEAKER_04 47:14

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

So, my death row dinner is beef tenderloin wrapped with bacon with Chipotle marinated shrimp wrapped with bacon and a chili random.

SPEAKER_03 47:25

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Yes, that's delicious.

SPEAKER_03 47:27

Delicious, it's New Mexican. Yep, yep, it's beef, it's all kinds of ammo protein.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Yeah, yeah, it's all kinds of chili, it's all kinds of flavors. Yeah, that is my death row dinner right there. Yeah, that sounds delicious. That sounds delicious.

SPEAKER_03 47:39

Well, thank you so much for agreeing to do the podcast and all the work you do for us, and um, and then yeah, a special shout-out, thank you to Santa Fe School of Cooking for letting us uh film and uh eat some delicious beep here in their kitchen. And uh yeah, thank you again. Thank you for asking. Absolutely. Well, that's another episode. We'll see you next time. Okay, okay. Okay with the bite.