Recipes Featured in this Article
Restaurateur, chef and author Bricia Lopez is stopping by the TODAY kitchen to share a few of her favorite recipes from her new, perfect-for-summer cookbook "Asada: The Art of Mexican-Style Grilling." She shows us how to make michelada-marinated steak paired with micheladas, flour tortillas with avocado oil and a spicy grilled tomato salsa.
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Fourth of July in Los Angeles is something that everyone must experience at least once in their lives. There are so many explosions in the sky and family carne asadas going on at once that the sky is one big puff of smoke. I usually host my family and, one time, I thought: What if I added my family's michelada mix to my carne asada marinade? The result was incredible. It tenderized the meat and added a savory and spicy juiciness that goes perfectly ... with a michelada, of course! Our mix is inspired by the way micheladas are prepared in Oaxaca, which emphasizes sauces and dried chiles over a tomato cocktail mix. The longer the marinade, the better, but the steak also tastes great after just 30 minutes of marinating time.
In Oaxaca, our micheladas don't have much or any tomato cocktail mix. We depend on chiles and Worcestershire sauce to add a boost of savory flavor to them. We love them so much that my restaurant launched a bottled line of michelada mix inspired by this recipe.
Flour tortillas are an art, and the more you make them, the better your tortilla will get. There is something extremely satisfying about making your own from scratch, unlike many of the packaged flour tortillas out there. This one — inspired by Caramelo tortillería in Lawrence, Kansas — only takes three ingredients. Using avocado oil is a more recent substitute to old-school ingredients like lard or vegetable shortening.
When you think of salsa for a carne asada, chances are you think of this fire-roasted salsa. We like it extra spicy at our house, so we pack the chiles in. Chiles that are sitting in the refrigerator longer have a more stubborn spiciness to them with a heat that doesn't dissipate as quickly, so try to use the freshest chiles you can.
