**17 Mexican Cooking Tricks That Will BLOW YOUR MIND & Make Life Easier — Transcript & Summary | SozAI** Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/mexican-cooking-tricks-life-easier/ Discover 17 essential Mexican cooking tricks from Bertha Cooks that transform your dishes and bring authentic flavors to your kitchen. ## Key Takeaways - Small traditional techniques make a big difference in authentic Mexican cooking. - Proper seasoning and cooking methods unlock deeper flavors in beans, rice, and sauces. - Using leftover ingredients like bean broth maximizes flavor and reduces waste. - Attention to detail in preparation, such as charring and frying, is essential for authentic taste. - Learning these tricks can elevate home cooking to restaurant-quality Mexican dishes. ## What the video covers - Bertha shares 17 foundational Mexican cooking tricks passed down from her mother that elevate everyday dishes. - Salt beans at the beginning of cooking to season them thoroughly and avoid tough skins. - Never discard bean broth as it adds flavor and creaminess to dishes like refried beans and soups. - Toast rice in fat until it rattles before adding liquid to achieve authentic Mexican rice texture. - Use bean broth instead of water when cooking rice to enhance flavor and create a cohesive meal. - Fry salsas and sauces in hot fat to develop deeper, richer flavors and avoid raw tastes. - Char ingredients unevenly to add complex smoky flavors without bitterness. - Keep garlic skin on when toasting to prevent burning and bitterness. - Toast dried chilies briefly to avoid bitterness and ensure bright, sweet flavor. - Master tortilla making with the pinch test for masa hydration and flipping tortillas three times for perfect puff. ## Chapters 1. 00:00 Introduction to 17 Mexican Cooking Tricks 2. 01:35 Salt Beans at the Beginning 3. 02:38 Never Pour Out Bean Broth 4. 03:28 Toast Rice Until It Rattles 5. 04:16 Use Bean Broth to Cook Rice 6. 05:16 Fry Salsa and Sauces 7. 06:22 Char Ingredients in Patches 8. 07:24 Keep Garlic Skin On When Toasting 9. 08:24 Toast Dried Chilies Briefly 10. 10:48 Tortilla Making: Pinch Test and Flipping Answers ## Questions about this video Why should I salt beans at the beginning of cooking? Salting beans at the start seasons them all the way through and prevents tough skins. Adding salt only at the end results in bland beans surrounded by salty water. What is the benefit of using bean broth in cooking rice? Bean broth contains salt, onion, garlic, and fat, which infuse the rice with flavor and create a cohesive taste that ties the meal together. How do I know when the rice is properly toasted? You listen for the rice grains to make a rattling sound against the pot, indicating they are dry and toasted, which is essential for authentic Mexican rice. ## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown 00:00 Speaker A Miha, sit down because today I am not teaching you a dish. Today I am giving you the 17 things. The 17 small tricks that live underneath every dish I have ever shown you in this kitchen. The ones my mother did without thinking. The ones 00:17 Speaker A that are the actual difference between your food and your Tia's food. And I am going to go fast because you do not need a story for each one. You need a trick, and you need to know why it works, and 00:28 Speaker A then you need to go use it. But here is the honest part because you know I do not lie to you. Not one of these is new. 00:36 Speaker A I have taught every single one of them somewhere on this channel one at a time buried in a video about beans or rice or eggs, but nobody watches everything. Miha. 00:48 Speaker A And half of you found me last week. So today all 17 in one place in order. And by the end of this video, you will know more about how a Mexican kitchen actually works than most restaurants do. 01:00 Speaker A Some of these will make you laugh at how small they are. One or two are going to make you argue with your mother. All of them are going to make your food taste like somebody's Tia made it. And that is 01:11 Speaker A the only review I have ever cared about. You know me, I'm Bertha. Over on my other channel, I keep a house the old way. And in this kitchen, we cook the old way, the way my mother did it in 01:22 Speaker A Guadalajara. And every one of these 17 has a video of its own on this channel where I go slow. So if one of them stops you, the long version is waiting. Quick, while I have you. My mother made me 01:35 Speaker A promise to write her kitchen down before it was lost. So I did every recipe and every measure in one book la cocina de Bertha scobook.com links below. Back to the tricks. Numero one, salt the beans at the beginning, not the end. Your mother told you never to 01:54 Speaker A salt beans until they are soft. That salt makes the skins tough. Miha, that rule is backwards. And page 92 of my book says it exactly that way. Salt in the water from the start seasons the bean all the way to its middle. Salt at 02:09 Speaker A the end can only sit in the broth because a bean that cooked without salt never really takes it in afterward. That is why you have eaten a lifetime of salty water around bland beans. One tablespoon at the start, and when your 02:22 Speaker A Tia argues, feed her a spoonful. That was the whole beans video. Numero two, never ever pour out the bean broth. That black gold liquid is the half of the beans nobody sells you. It is where the flavor went. It makes the refri creamy. It 02:38 Speaker A loosens a soup. It is what you freeze the beans in so they do not dry into pebbles. Page 102. Salt from the start, acid at the end, and never throw away the broth. The can drains it because a 02:53 Speaker A factory cannot ship liquid. And that is exactly why the can tastes like nothing. Number three, the rice rattles before the liquid goes in. Mexican rice is fried, not boiled. It belongs to the pilaf family, and the rice gets toasted 03:08 Speaker A in fat before it ever meets the water. And you do not watch a clock for that. 03:12 Speaker A You listen. Wet rice is quiet. As it toasts and dries, the grains get lighter and harder, and they start knocking against the pot like little stones, like a maraca. When you hear the rattle, the toast is done. My mother could hear it 03:28 Speaker A from another room. Page 75. The toast is not optional. The toast is the recipe. 03:34 Speaker A Number four, bean broth in the rice. Mer is the one that ties trick two and trick three together. And it is what separates a Mexican kitchen from a kitchen that makes Mexican food. When the rice is ready for its liquid, use the broth from 03:50 Speaker A the pot of beans instead of water or half and half with chicken broth. It has salt in it already. It has the onion and the garlic and the manteca in it already. And it turns plain rice into something that tastes like it was cooked 04:04 Speaker A next to the beans because it was nothing wasted. Miha, that was never a slogan. It was the flavor. Number five, fry the salsa, fry the sauce, fry every red thing. 04:16 Speaker A This is the law of this whole kitchen. And once you have it, you have half of Mexican cooking. Raw blended tomato is sour and thin. Raw blended chile is sharp and unfinished. But pour either one into a spoon of hot fat and let it 04:32 Speaker A fry for five minutes until it darkens from bright to brick and stops smelling raw and it becomes a sauce. The rice does it. The salsa roja does it. The fideuá does it. The enchilada sauce does it. And page 66 calls it the step the 04:48 Speaker A jar never does. A salsa that was never fried tastes exactly like the can. That is what the can is. Number six, charring patches, never all over. For the salsa, for the latte, for the chile, for the salsa verde. Fire is an ingredient, and 05:06 Speaker A it is the only one that has always been free. The tomatoes and chilies go on a dry pan with no oil and they stay there until they go black in patches. Some spots blistered, some golden, some nearly burnt. That unevenness is the 05:22 Speaker A flavor. If it is perfectly even, you did not go far enough. And if it is black all over, you went too far and it is better. Go one shade past where you get nervous. That is exactly far enough. 05:33 Speaker A Number seven, the garlic keeps its jacket on. When you are charring for salsa, the garlic goes on the pan with the skin still on. Garlic is small and it burns faster than anything else on that comal and burns. Garlic is not 05:48 Speaker A smoky. Miha, it is bitter. A bitter cannot be fixed ever. The skin is a little jacket that protects it while it toasts sweet and soft inside. When it gets to a squeeze off, the skin slips right off. Number eight, dried chilis toast 06:05 Speaker A for seconds, not minutes. The single most common reason a red sauce in this country comes out bitter. Guajillo and anchos go flat on a medium hot dry comal pressed with a spatula and page 64 gives you the signal. You smell them 06:24 Speaker A turn bright and sweet like dried fruit warmed in the sun. 10-15 seconds, aside and off. If you smell smoke, you already lost and bend one in the store before you buy. A good bright chili bends like leather. If it shatters like an autumn 06:41 Speaker A leaf, it is old, and old chilies make dull sauce. Number nine, the pinch test for masa. Whether it is real nixtamal or the bag of masa harina, the dough has to be right. And there is one test, my 06:56 Speaker A mother's and her mother's. Page 110. Pinch off a piece. Roll a little ball. Press it flat between your palms. If the edges crack, it is thirsty. Knead in water a teaspoon at a time. If it sticks to your hands, too wet, right? It's soft 07:14 Speaker A like play-doh, like an earloop. And do it every few tortillas because masa dries as it sits. And the whole difference between a tortilla that puffs and one that cracks is one spoonful of water. Number 10, three flips and the 07:28 Speaker A puff. On the comal, a corn tortilla gets flipped three times, not once. First flip after only 15 seconds, it barely colors. That side is just setting a skin. Second flip after about a minute when there are toasty freckles. Third flip back to the 07:47 Speaker A first face. And now you watch because it swells and inflates like a little pillow. Page once again tells you why. 07:54 Speaker A The short side sealed one face, the long side sealed the other. And by the third flip, it is a sealed envelope, and the steam pushes the two layers apart. The first time you see your own tortilla do that, you will make a sound you have not 08:09 Speaker A made since you were a child. Number 11, 15 seconds through the oil before you roll or plate. For enchiladas, for rancheros, for anything where a tortilla is going under a sauce, it does not go on raw from the back and it does not 08:25 Speaker A get fried crisp. It goes through a little hot oil for 15 seconds aside. Soft, still bending. That quick pass waterproofs it. Page 258 so the sauce does not turn it to paste. Raw tortilla on hot sauce dissolves in 90 08:43 Speaker A seconds. Crisp tortilla shatters under the fork. 15 seconds. That is the whole difference between a plate that holds together and one that does not. 08:56 Speaker A The lime does two jobs. Every time you squeeze a lime over something in this kitchen, it is doing two things at once. 09:04 Speaker A And knowing that changes how much you use. Hogwan is the taste. That sour brightness that cuts through fat. 09:20 Speaker A cuts the cream. So the lime is never decoration. Misha, it is seasoning and it is protection in one squeeze. My book says on page two, 80, never let anyone skip it. Not even the child who claims to hate limes, especially that child. 09:35 Speaker A Nume, salt, garlic, and chile go in the mahete before the avocado. This is the takeria guacamole trick. And it is not an ingredient, it is an order. salt, a little garlic. The chile and the cilantro stems get ground into a paste 09:52 Speaker A in the stone first because patch 338 says the salt is your sandpaper and the garlic disappears into it. And only then does the avocado go in and it gets folded, not mashed. And you stop while there are still pieces standing in 10:09 Speaker A cream. Grind the flavor fine. Keep the avocado coarse. Two textures out of one bowl and a fork can only ever give you one. Number 14, the chile fries with the onion, not with the tomato for salic for ais for almost anything that starts in a 10:28 Speaker A pan. The onion and the chile go into the hot fat together first for 2 minutes and the tomato comes after. Page 259. Fat pulls the flavor out of a chili and tomato juice never will. Put your chile in with the wet tomato and it just sits 10:46 Speaker A there being spicy. Put it in the hot fat and it gives you everything it has. Most people get this backwards their entire lives. Number 15, 30 minutes in salt water before the meat sees the pan. For the chilletas, for chicken, for any lean 11:02 Speaker A cut that comes out dry, a bowl of cold water with two tablespoons of salt and the meat goes in for 30 minutes to two hours, never overnight. The salt water moves into the meat and changes its proteins so they hold that water when 11:16 Speaker A the heat comes. Patch 96. Give the salt a head start and it seasons the inside, not just the frost. My mother did not call it brining. She called it putting the meat in water. And she never made a 11:32 Speaker A dry chop in her life. Number 16. Dry the meat and give it its one chance. A wet piece of meat steams. A dry one sears. 11:43 Speaker A So out of the brine, pat bone dry because the soak is already inside it and what is on the outside is your enemy now. And then a pan hot enough that a drop of water skitters across it and 11:55 Speaker A vanishes. Because a thin cat has one chance on medium heat, it steams, turns gray, and overcooks before it ever browns. Lay it in and do not touch it until the crust is built and it lets go of the pan on its own. And number 17, 12:12 Speaker A rest the meat under a cloth off the pan onto a warm plate and cover it with a clean kitchen towel for 5 minutes. Not foil, which traps steam and softens the crust you just fought for. A cloth keeps 12:28 Speaker A the warmth and lets it breathe. During those 5 minutes, the juice that the heat drove into the center relaxes back out to the edges. Cut it now and the juice runs onto the plate. Cut it in 5 minutes 12:44 Speaker A and it stays in the meat. Salmon chop 5 minutes and the juice that collects on the plate anyway. Page 197 back over the meat never wasted. What is 17 mi? And they want you to notice something about them because it is the real trick 13:00 Speaker A underneath all the tricks. Almost every one of them is free. Salt at the beginning instead of the end cost nothing. Listening for the rattle costs nothing. 15 seconds in oil. A lime a cloth instead of foil. Garlic with its 13:18 Speaker A skin on. There is not one gadget in that list. And not one thing you have to buy. 13:23 Speaker A The whole difference between your kitchen and my mother's kitchen was never money. It was 17 small things that somebody told her and nobody told you. 13:32 Speaker A Now, let me say the quiet word because you know I always do. Every one of these tricks has a product that was invented to replace it. The seasoning packet instead of toasting the rice. The jar instead of frying the salsa. The can 13:47 Speaker A instead of toasting the chile. The marinad in the bottle instead of a bowl of salt water. Somebody looked at each of these free things and asked how to sell it back to you in a package. And the answer every time was to make sure 14:00 Speaker A nobody told you the free version existed. There is no money in a woman who knows 17 things. There is a fortune in a woman who believes she needs 17 products. So here is what I would ask of you. Do not try all 17 this week. Pick 14:17 Speaker A three. the salt in the beans, the rattle in the rice, and the fry on the salsa because those three are the floor everything else stands on. And come back and tell me in the comments which one change your food the most because I 14:30 Speaker A already know it will be one of those three and I want to see which and tell me your county. And if there is one you already knew, one your own mother taught you, tell me that too because I want to 14:44 Speaker A know how many of us have the same grandmother. And every pan in this video, mi the bean pot ring, the black stock to the como, the red chili stains. That is the other half of my life. Come find me on clean 14:58 Speaker A the Mexican way. The link is below. The women who fed their families with their own two hands did not have 17 tricks. 15:06 Speaker A They had 17 abbots so old they did not know they were tricks. And they pass them down by standing next to each other at a stove. Nobody stands at the stove together anymore. So I am standing here instead. And that miha is a thing we are 15:23 Speaker A only just starting to Topics: Mexican cooking Bertha Cooks cooking tricks authentic Mexican recipes bean broth toasted rice salsa frying masa dough tortilla making traditional cooking --- This is the markdown twin of https://sozai.app/transcript/mexican-cooking-tricks-life-easier/ — the same content, without the markup. Published by SozAI (https://sozai.app). Reuse and quotation are allowed with attribution and a link back. Machine-readable index: https://sozai.app/llms.txt · data API: https://sozai.app/api/