Pati, voice-over: Pan dulce, Mexico's treasured sweet breads.

It's a centuries-old tradition that makes classic European pastries uniquely our own.

Pati, voice-over: Today, I'm in Monterrey, Nuevo León, meeting with pan dulce master panadero and award-winning author Irving Quiroz, who's helping me in my obsession to create the crunchiest campechanas.

[Crunching] Pati: Mm.

Irving: Perfecto.

Pati, voice-over: And I break bread with one of Irving's former students-- Chuy Elizondo, who runs one of the hottest brunch spots in town, at a location you would least expect.

Pati, voice-over: And one of the key ingredients in Chuy's famous chilaquiles verdes is also one of the most commonly used meats in the State-- chicharrón.

Today, we'll meet the family who owns a butchery known to have the best chicharrón in town.

Pati: Si!

Let's get to the kitchen, where we'll try another Mexican pan dulce delicacy-- sweet pineapple empanadas.

But first, let's listen to this bite one more time.

[Crunching] ♪ Doesn't stop.

Mm!

Mm mm mm!

Ha ha ha!

♪ Mm!

Man: I am going to give you a secret.

Yes.

I love secrets.

Pati: Mm.

Mm.

Mm.

♪ It's like nothing I've tasted before.

♪ Announcer: "Pati's Mexican Table" is brought to you by... [Singers singing in Spanish] Announcer: La Costeña-- ¡por sabor!

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♪ Men: ♪ Avocados from Mexico Over 40 years, bringing authentic Latin American flavors to your table.

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♪ Announcer: Gobierno de Monterrey.

♪ Pati, voice-over: Today, I'm excited, because I get an exclusive look inside the workshop of a baker I've admired for a long time.

What a view!

No wonder you make such amazing bread!

Yes, yes, yes.

Pati, voice-over: Irving Quiroz is a bread-making trendsetter.

He's one of the few generational bakers willing to share his family's secrets.

As an author and teacher, he has dedicated his career to generating pride in Mexican breadmaking.

Pati, voice-over: After leaving home to train in France, he returned to Monterrey with renewed purpose, to explore and share his country's baking traditions.

Pati, voice-over: One of those traditions is the perfect campechana.

A classic Mexican pan dulce made with puff pastry consisting of only 5 ingredients-- flour, salt, sugar, water, and fat.

Pati: I'm obsessed with the campechana.

Irving: Yes.

And I feel like it's a very simple thing, but almost impossible to achieve, right?

Yes, yes.

Pati, voice-over: It's anything but simple to achieve the crunch of the perfectly caramelized exterior that gives way to the deliciously crisp and airy center.

I didn't know!

Really?

Pati, voice-over: Within a few minutes of learning from Irving, I'm already a better baker, I think.

You're looking for the windowpane.

The windowpane.

Pano.

So, if you stretch it soft and long enough, you should be able to see light through it.

I'm making holes.

[Laughs] [Irving speaking Spanish] Pati: You did it right.

OK. Pati: Yeah.

Let me try.

Irving: Sure.

and the challenge here is not to break it.

I can feel the pull.

This is so much fun.

[Speaking Spanish] Ay--wow!

Wow!

I need to find me one of those sticks.

Pati, voice-over: Irving is an encyclopedia of baking knowledge.

He's spent years researching his top-selling books by building trust with local bakers who, over time, share their secrets, like how to create 60 layers in a single pastry.

That's amazing.

Pati, voice-over: All of this new information is making me very hungry.

So, let's get these in the oven already.

Pati: So glorious!

Irving: Yes, yes.

This is insane, 'cause it's now-- oh, and they're puffing and they're bubbling.

Yes, yes.

'Cause now it's all puffed up with the first rise, and I can just imagine the crisp layers, and now the top is completely melted into caramel.

Yes, yes.

A real campechana.

I'm dying to bite into one.

Whoa.

Look at that.

Yeah, no, this is-- And to smell it.

this is so-- you're making me so happy!

Matt, I think that we need to bring the microphone down so you can get the sound of the crunch.

Ready?

[Crunching] Mm.

Mm.

Mm.

Mm.

Mm.

Mm.

No words.

Mm.

The millions of crunches.

Yes.

It's not too sweet.

Just a little bit.

But it's crunchy in every bite.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

You like it?

Mm!

No, I love it!

I can see your face.

Have you ever heard this big of a crunch?

[Crunching] Pati, voice-over: Nothing beats a perfectly crunchy campechana, and it's even better learning from someone whose mission it is to record, preserve, and share these traditional recipes.

I am sure that the next time that you make campechanas, you are gonna get it.

Pati, voice-over: I don't want the sweets to stop.

Irving has inspired me to make one of my most requested recipes for you-- sweet pineapple empanadas.

So, I'm gonna start my dough for making pineapple empanadas by adding 3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour.

Now I'm gonna add a half a teaspoon of baking powder, half a teaspoon of salt.

I'm gonna add one tablespoon of grated piloncillo.

Now, you know piloncillo by now.

Piloncillo is the most unprocessed form of natural sugar.

It comes from the sugar cane.

You grab your knife and then you just chisel it.

And it's actually really satisfying.

We only need a tablespoon, but now I'm having fun here.

Now I'm gonna mix this a little.

So, I'm adding a quarter cup of unsalted butter that I already diced, and a quarter cup of vegetable shortening, and then you're just gonna mix like this, and you're gonna squeeze the butter and vegetable shortening into the flour until you get a little bit of a, like, coarse meal.

It's really delicious here.

If I press with my hands really hard, it comes together.

If I go like this, it crumbles again.

So, that means we did a really good job mixing the fat into the flour.

What people used to add to the dough was pulque, which is kind of a fermented drink in the style of beer.

I like to add some light beer, and I'm adding it little by little as I mix it, and it's gonna help it rise and leaven.

So, it will give it a very light texture as it fluffs and puffs a little.

And I just want to make sure that you know that this dough does not have to be perfect.

See how it's a little lumpy.

We're gonna wrap it in plastic and put it in the refrigerator anywhere from a half an hour to, like, 24 hours.

Pati, voice-over: While my dough is resting, I might grab a concha and a tire rotation.

A former student of Irving Quiroz now runs what might be the most hipster bakery in town.

Pati, voice-over: Chuy Elizondo worked his way up from very little to now owning Benell, a renowned bakery and brunch restaurant with 4 locations in Monterrey.

He takes a traditional pan dulce like the concha and completely reimagines wild, new dishes, like this sweet and savory bomba chilanga, a vanilla concha with chilaquiles rojos and shredded chicken, loaded with toppings.

like the sweet concha... and the chicken.

Pati, voice-over: Now for the machacado toast, traditional carne seca, or dried meat of the region, atop a buttered piece of Chuy's fresh bread, with ripe avocado and a dusting of corn hash.

Mm.

Mm.

Pati, voice-over: And last but not least, this insane croque madame with beef barbacoa.

Wow.

You're just finding ways to make your bread shine.

Yeah.

[Laughs] [Pati gasps] Chuy: Ironically, we have bread-- bread restaurants, Yeah.

and the bestseller is a chilaquile verde with chicharrón.

That's so funny.

Ha ha!

Pati, voice-over: Chicharrón is fried pork rind, and almost everyone gets it from the same place.

I'll take you there later to find out why.

Like most entrepreneurs, Chuy has overcome challenges, but in Monterrey in the late 2000s, cartel violence was reaching new levels and crippling small businesses.

Chuy's resilience was key to his success.

You can't leave the house after 9 p.m.

There was a curfew.

Yeah.

So, you closed them all.

But the brownies.

Pati, voice-over: With only one business left, the bakery, Chuy kept going.

He discovered his love for making pan natural, bread without preservatives, and in 2016, he opened Casa Benell.

Pati, voice-over: But there is one item I need to investigate-- those delectable deep-fried chicharrones in his chilaquiles have appeared on nearly every menu in town, and they're all from the same place-- Carniceria Ramos.

Pati, voice-over: Chicharrón, or fried pork rinds, are a popular treat here in Mexico.

You can eat them in so many ways-- in tacos, with salsa, guacamole, or just by themselves as a tasty snack, like French fries.

Yum.

[Laughs] [Speaking Spanish] Pati, voice-over: I've arranged to meet Samuel Ramos, co-owner of Carniceria Ramos and son of the founder.

Pati, voice-over: Carniceria Ramos started as a humble butcher shop in 1968 by Samuel's father and now has countless locations serving nearly two tons of pork rinds a day.

Pati, voice-over: One of the reasons that Ramos chicharrón is so rich with flavor is using the pork cheeks instead of the pork belly.

Mm!

Super crispy all around and it has the meat inside.

[Laughs] Pati, voice-over: Now I know what everyone's talking about when they say chicharrón Ramos.

My empanada dough is almost finished resting.

Let's get the pineapple filling going.

Just gonna remove the top, the bottom, all of the outside, and I also wanna remove all of these little eyes.

I'm going to cut it up into small bite-size pieces, but I'm gonna remove the core.

Doesn't have to be perfect.

You want to make sure that your pineapple is really sweet.

Mm.

Mm!

It's so sweet!

It's so delicious.

I think that the two most popular sweet empanadas are the pineapple and the pumpkin, and the great thing is that if you make enough of a filling for both, you have extra mermelada, marmalade or jam.

So juicy.

OK, so, I'm adding a cup of piloncillo, which is, like, 7 ounces, and I already grated it, and I'm gonna keep it over high heat for, like, 6 to 7 minutes until the pineapple really starts letting out most of its juices and it starts bubbling.

Meanwhile, I'm gonna get my orange and my lime ready, because I need to get some really delicious taste from both of them and I need pectin.

So, pectin is a substance that is found in the rind and the core, and many times, the seeds of fresh fruit, and pectin kind of helps achieve that deliciously jammy, gelatinous texture that you find in jam or mermelada, marmalade.

We have the sweet, it's the tropical sweet from the pineapple, and then we have the very rustic, kind of barnyard-y sweet from the piloncillo.

So, this is gonna help contrast and add, like, another dimension.

I'm gonna start getting my rind packet ready.

I'm really fond of using cheesecloth.

Not only is it really cute, but it's really useful because then you add your seasonings or any ingredients that you want to add flavor or get something out of in a stew or anything that you may be cooking, and then you don't have to be fishing for them.

Now, I'm gonna remove the pit and the white parts of the orange and the lime because we don't want that much bitterness.

And then you go in between the membranes, like this.

Mm.

OK, so, now I'm adding all of these in here.

Then what's gonna happen is I'm wrapping my rind packet, just like this.

Then this is gonna be very easy to fish out.

So, now you see why it was really good to wait until all the juices started to come out, because these need somewhere to sit.

The orange and lime supremes are gonna break into this filling and you won't even see them, our filling, but they're gonna render all of their flavor in there.

So, now we're gonna reduce to medium low, and it's gonna cook here anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour.

And while this is happening, I'm gonna get my dough ready into empanada portions.

I have my dough that's been resting.

I'm going to separate it into 18 pieces and I'm gonna cut this dough into about 3 even pieces.

Smells so good!

Smells like a bakery in a, like, small town out in the country in Mexico.

This is not very even but it doesn't matter.

I'm gonna cut each of these 3 pieces into 3, each of the 3 pieces into two, and then I'm just shaping them into balls.

The balls don't have to be perfect and the dough feels nice.

It already feels a little springy.

OK, so, now I'm gonna let these rest for about 10 minutes, and let's check to see how the pineapple filling is doing.

So, as you can see, the pineapple filling is ready.

I can remove the rind packet, but I'm going to squeeze any and all syrup that may be in there.

Look at the beauty!

We have very little syrup.

That got nice and thick.

And we can see the bottom of the pan.

It leaves a trail.

Mm.

Mm!

Mm!

It's orangey, very tropical.

It has a little of a tangy feel on the outside, but then it has a really, really nice, juicy bite.

So, this on top of some, like, queso fresco on top of toast or pancakes or French toast or whatever it may be, but for empanadas, it is pretty extraordinary.

And I'm adding some flour to my hands and some flour to my rolling pin.

And now I'm gonna grab-- oh, this is now so much softer than it was before.

So, the dough rested in the refrigerator for a half an hour and then it's been resting here for, like, 10 minutes, and the difference in feel is like a universe away.

It doesn't have to be a perfect circle, but this I learned from the bakers in Mexico.

So, you roll it a few times and you just rotate, and I do like my empanadas chubby with a lot of filling, so, I'm going to add a very generous tablespoon and a half, and I'm adding it right in the center, just like this.

I mean, just look at this color.

It is like pure sunshine.

Add a little bit of water with my fingers all around, because I want to seal the empanada as I close it, just like this.

Then I want to press really well.

You don't want the filling to come out.

Once you have the empanada like this, this is the folding method.

So, you go like this with the empanada, and you go with your finger like this.

You fold with your index [indistinct].

Is this the index?

This is the thumb.

So, you go like this with the index and then you press with your thumb.

Go like that with the index.

Press with your thumb.

And then we're giving it a beautiful shape, regardless of how you rolled the dough.

Now we go to dressing them even more, 'cause now we shaped them so pretty.

You want to do egg wash all over, and this is gonna give it an even more crispier texture with the granular sugar.

These are gonna bake in the oven at 350, anywhere from 30 to 35 minutes, until the empanadas are golden on top and on the bottom.

Empanadas are super ready.

I like to sprinkle a little bit more of the cinnamon sugar on top when they're hot.

I'm hoping the taste delivers as much as the smell, 'cause the smell is so delicious.

They all look so cute!

Makes me happy!

It's really good, sturdy dough, but I bet when I bite, it's gonna be soft in the middle.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

I'm getting... the deliciously sweet but not too sweet from the filling, and then I'm getting the slightly sweet from the dough, and the different kind of sweet from the cinnamon sugar on top.

And this is such a delight.

♪ Pati: For recipes and information from this episode and more, visit PatiJinich.com and connect!

Find me on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest @PatiJinich.

Announcer: "Pati's Mexican Table" is brought to you by... ♪ Announcer: La Costeña-- ¡por sabor!

Announcer: Traditional recipes, authentic flavors and ingredients, a taste of México in 90 seconds.

Somos--food from the heart of México.

♪ Men: ♪ Avocados from Mexico A tradition of authentic Latin flavors and family recipes.

Tropical Cheese.

Announcer: Stand Together, helping every person rise.

More information at StandTogether.org.

Announcer: Here, the typical arroz con pollo... or not!

Unfollow la Receta.

Mahatma rice.

Announcer: King Arthur Baking Company.

Find out more about our Masa Harina at KingArthurBaking.com.

[Nationwide theme playing on guitar] Announcer: Cozilumbre-- cookware, bakeware, and kitchenware for cooking up tradiciones in your cocinas.

♪ Announcer: Gobierno de Monterrey.

Announcer: Proud to support "Pati's Mexican Table" on Public Television.

♪