Blistered: How to be a Top Chef
Resident Taqueria's Andrew Savoie schools me in the art of chilaquiles
Any day I get to use a blowtorch is a good day.
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Resident Taqueria is my favorite restaurant. It used to be a few miles from my house when I lived in Lake Highlands in Dallas and moving away from it was probably the hardest part about moving 30 minutes north to East Plano. My wife and I would go there at least once every few weeks.
What sets it apart from a regular taco shop is chef and owner Andrew Savoie. He’s a highly trained chef who has worked and trained in top restaurants in France, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Maine, and more. After working for many years as a culinary professor at The Art Institute of Dallas, Savoie opened up Resident in 2015 (with a little help from his sister-in-law, musician St. Vincent, who ran the register and cleaned tables during their opening weekend) in his neighborhood of Lake Highlands that lacked many local restaurants. Instead of serving traditional tacos he makes what he describes as “avant-garde” tacos. Meaning, the homemade tortilla is the base for him to use his creativity to come up with all kinds of creations without being limited to making only traditional Mexican dishes. My favorite is the short rib taco, but I also love trying any of his specials like the crab cake or rack of lamb milanesa.
Andrew is also the type of chef that takes pride in befriending his customers and supporting the neighborhood. Over the years I’ve gotten to know him so I set up a cooking lesson with him for Trial & Error. He decided to teach me how to make chilaquiles, a traditional Mexican breakfast dish that he described as the “perfect hangover food.”
Migas and chilaquiles are similar, but different, as Texas Monthly’s taco editor, and longtime Resident fan José Ralat, explains here. I’ve had migas many times so I was excited not only to learn how to make chilaquiles but to try them for the first time.
T&E Club members will get exclusive access to to recipe we used in this demonstration, sign up here for only $5 a month to get access to exclusive offerings, interviews, and posts.
Andrew already had all the ingredients laid out for me when I got to Resident at 10 AM. Resident’s manager Parker Canterra showed up a few minutes later to see the demonstration as well. Andrew told him they might start offering chilaquiles as a Saturday brunch option soon. That’s the beauty of the position Andrew has put himself in as the owner and chef of a restaurant like Resident. He can decide things like that on a whim and he’s got good enough people working with him that he can trust they’ll be executed to perfection.
Chilaquiles are as simple or as complicated as you want them to be. For our purposes, Andrew tried to find that balance. He could have done everything at such a high level that no one would be able to replicate it at home, or he could have taken such an easy route that it wouldn’t have been fun.
I’m not going to give you details on the recipe itself or the step-by-step of the process, instead I’ll give you some of the highlights of what I learned in my one hour training session.
The first and most important part of chilaquiles is the salsa. I’ve never made salsa before, so I was really interested in what all goes into the process. He started by toasting the coriander and cumin seeds before crushing them with a mortar and pestle. Then he toasted the guajillo and arbol chiles. While that was happening, I got to do the one really fun thing: use the blowtorch.
The tomatoes, jalapeños, and garlic needed to be blistered before we put them in the pot for the salsa. This was super fun. If I had one of these at home I would use it for everything. Alas, I don’t. In lieu of having a blowtorch, you can broil the veggies in your oven to get a similar effect. The garlic was then pressed, the jalepeño chopped and de-seeded, and the onion chopped, while the tomatoes were left intact and everything was thrown in the pot along with the spices and oil.
Meanwhile, Andrew started heating up the refried black beans. He used canned black beans instead of making his own which would have taken hours. As someone who isn’t a huge fan of refried beans, I would never spend hours creating them when I could use a can so I appreciated this approach.
As the salsa simmered Andrew got out some tomato sauce. This is not necessarily a required step, but it’s one that helps set him apart. He used the pincé technique, which is a French cooking technique where you put a small amount of tomato sauce or paste in a pan to caramelize it and then you de-glaze it with wine. Andrew used water instead of wine in this instance. It added a unique flavor profile to the dish.
Everything I just said in the previous paragraph is probably wrong so if any French cooking experts want to correct me please send an email to rodrigoblankenshipsecond@gmail.com where I will absolutely not read it.
Once the salsa was ready, he poured the contents in what he calls the world’s best blender (a Vitamix) and blended everything up. He kept it at a medium consistency, not too chunky but not saucy. Then he poured it all back into the pot and gave it a taste. After adding some different spices, mostly salt, to taste we gave it a try. I don’t like spicy things and this had a bit of a kick, but it was delicious. When salsa tasted right, he folded the chips into the sauce.
The salsa is used to coat tortilla chips in the dish, which means that the chips will get soggy quickly. So Andrew suggests using stale chips. Making a dish like this is a way for a restaurant to use leftover chips without having to throw them out.
He also fried three eggs sunny side up. You can poach your eggs if you want as well. Now it was time to plate the dish. He added the base layer of black beans, then poured the chips on top, and garnished with avocado, radish, queso fresco, cilantro, and a lime.
Though at the time it seemed complicated, looking back I realize just how simple chilaquiles really is to make. It’s just the salsa, chips, and your typical garnishes for a Mexican dish topped off with an egg. Hard to go wrong.
And yet, while watching this one simple dish get made I learned so much about cooking. It was super fun and has inspired me to try my hand at some more cooking. In fact, today I took shredded chicken, threw it on a pan, added lemon pepper and lemon juice, and put it on a tortilla. I am a master chef.
Oh, and the chilaquiles was delicious. I liked it better than any migas I’ve ever had. Though, to be fair, I’ve never had Andrew’s migas.
As Andrew cooked he gave lessons on all kinds of things related to food. I learned so many random facts. Like:
Coriander is the seeds of cilantro.
You can tell a Grade A egg by the way the yolk sits in the center of the egg white as it fries. Grade B and lower are more off-center. If you want an egg that presents perfectly like in a commercial, use a Grade AA egg.
Clarified butter is butter with the milk solids and water removed
Thanks again to Andrew for allowing me in the kitchen and teaching me how to make this dish. I can’t wait to give it a try myself.
T&E Club members will get exclusive access to the recipe next week, and I’ll give an update on how my attempt to recreate this went.
Speaking of updates, many of you had opinions about the Veri sensor that I tested last month. I said that I would try out the sensor again after the first one fell out. Well, I did and the second one fell out even earlier than the first! Oh well, hopefully for their sake they can get that figured out.
If you haven’t already, please sign up for Trial & Error’s email list and share this free post with anyone who might be interested. I’ve already got next month’s trial scheduled and let me tell you…I am TERRIFIED.