♪ CHRISTOPHER KIMBALL: Welcome to Milk Street's My Family Recipe.

We help home cooks rediscover and recreate lost family recipes.

- My grandmother Margaret's was the absolute best.

- Don't put any pressure on us or anything!

CHRISTOPHER: We bring home cooks to our Boston studio...

I'm gonna stand back.

...where, along with our host and pastry chef Cheryl Day... - Isn't it great how food can take you back?

CHRISTOPHER: ...we teach them how to make their family recipe from scratch.

- You're gonna be able to bake this cake.

- I can do it.

CHRISTOPHER: Just the way it was made by, say, their grandmother.

- Beautiful!

- Grandma would not tolerate lumps.

CHRISTOPHER: Then we send them home to recreate that recipe for the toughest audience... - There it is.

CHRISTOPHER: ...their own family.

[laughing] CHRISTOPHER: Can our home cooks pull it off?

- Mom, that's really good.

- I think that's a yes.

CHRISTOPHER: Or will the recipe be lost forever?

Right here on Milk Street's My Family Recipe.

- That is delicious.

[upbeat music playing] ♪ Funding for this series was provided by the following.

Mowi Salmon comes ready to cook.

Ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

Mowi Salmon.

♪ - My name is Teryluz Andreu, everybody calls me Tery.

I live here in Pembroke Pines, Florida.

We're surrounded here by beautiful nature, lakes, trees.

And my sister lives just across the street.

I'm originally from Puerto Rico, from a very small town called Humacao.

It's on the east side of the island.

We lived in Chicago for a couple of years and moved here.

For me, it was very important to be close to my family.

And after many years of living apart, it's been great to have them very close by.

My mom Luz Teresa was a very special and amazing person on so many levels.

She was the first one in her family to go to college and even have a master's degree.

She was a professor at the University of Puerto Rico.

And on top of working full-time, she had four kids.

She was and still is my hero.

In September 2019, my mom passed away.

My mom was a-- a really caring person, and one of the ways in which she showed how much she cared about us was through her food.

One of the things I remember the most about her is my mom serving pernil al caldero.

Basically, it's just a roast pork.

It has a lot of oregano, salt and pepper, garlic, olive oil.

It's a pretty involved recipe.

It takes a couple of hours to cook, but it tends to be the star of the dinner.

The last time my mom made this dish was around 2018, which was the year before she passed.

We had our last Christmas together.

The pernil was juicy, and we just had a great time.

After my mom passed, I got a recipe book.

It had all these little notes that she has written over the years.

And between those recipes, that's when I found the specific ingredients she used for the rub.

And that really made me curious.

Maybe this could be a better way of trying this dish.

♪ Even though I'm not the best cook, I love to host.

I am pretty good at putting together amazing appetizers.

I actually enjoy doing charcuterie boards, but I want to make this dish because this is a personal challenge.

I know my brother-in-law, who is a chef, can make it.

I know some of my neighbors around here, who are also Puerto Rican, can make a mean pernil.

I want to do this.

♪ So, I'm about to get on a call with Chris and Cheryl.

I'm really looking forward to get some guidance to see if I can figure this recipe out.

[video chat rings] CHERYL: Hi, Tery.

- Hi, Tery.

How are you?

- Hi, Chris.

Hi Cheryl.

- Hi, we're so excited about this recipe because this is one of our favorite meals to eat.

- This particular recipe is one that my mom used to make when we had big gatherings.

When we got together, this was kind of a special dish.

CHRISTOPHER: Is it roast in the oven or is it cooked on the stovetop?

- This particular version is cooked on the stovetop.

- So, here's the million-dollar question.

When she did it in the stovetop, was the skin crispy?

- That's-- yes.

- That's it, - that's the one.

- Yeah, the skin was crispy on the outside, and then it was juicy and tender on the inside.

- She didn't, like, sneak it into the oven or the broiler for the last 20 minutes or something, did she?

- I don't know that answer, but that would be something interesting to see.

Maybe that's the piece that I'm missing.

- Do you know what the cut was?

- I think it's the pork leg, 'cause pernil is-- is literally leg.

That's what it means.

- I just walked into that one, right?

Pernil means "leg."

- Is there a special reason why this dish is so important to you?

- I think it's a way of honoring my mom and my family.

So, my mom passed away in 2019.

This recipe in particular is one of those recipes that really recalls a lot of great times with family, with friends, you know, and having her being part of that.

We were kind of collecting her things after she passed away.

I found a cookbook, and inside the cookbook there was all these Post-it notes from, like, little recipes - she has collected over time.

- Oh, that's special.

Mm-hmm.

- And in one of those Post-its, which is kind of this one, it's her handwritten note of how she made the rub-- we call it adobo.

- Is this adobo a-- a dry adobo with just spices or is it a wet adobo with some vinegar - or sour orange juice?

- It's a wet adobo.

So, it has vinegar, it has olive oil, it has garlic, oregano... pepper and salt.

- So, tell me, who, Tery, are you most excited to share this recipe, provided we can pull this off?

- So, I'm planning a big gathering of friends.

So, I have invited my sisters with their significant others, my nephew, who is a pretty harsh critic.

And then I have my Puerto Rican friends and my cousins.

- Wait, wait, this sounds like a lot... - Of people.

- I mean, is this, like, ten people?

Is this 20?

How many people is this?

- So, hopefully we'll have around 12 to 15 people.

- Great.

- And they are all excited to be coming over.

- Okay, we got to get busy.

- Thank you, Chris, and thank you, Cheryl, - for helping me with this.

CHERYL: Oh, thank you.

- Yeah, nice to meet you.

We'll see you soon in Boston.

CHERYL: Bye-bye.

- 12 to 15 people?

♪ - So, now we're going to work on a recipe I call Puerto Rican pot roast, pernil al caldero.

It's cooked in a caldero, which is essentially a Dutch oven on top of the stove.

Now, we're starting with an adobo seasoning, just a spice rub.

But very often, it used a wet rub with vinegar or sour oranges.

In fact, adobar means to marinate.

Now, Tery said to us, her memory of her grandmother's pernil was that the skin was crispy and the meat was juicy at the same time.

So, we're gonna start our recipe development.

We're gonna really focus on that skin and the nice juiced meat but also work on the adobo seasoning, so we can actually make a sauce from the juices in the pot and serve that with the pork.

♪ - So, pernil, braised pork.

This is no little recipe.

This is a monster.

Feeds a crowd.

We've got to get this right.

You said they tucked all the seasoning in.

Did you-- did you also do that?

- Yeah.

- We tried poking that pork with a knife deep and getting some of that adobo in there.

- It sounds like it would make the pork very flavorful, but what it did was just open up the pork and let all the juice out.

- So, you have to really regulate the amount of liquid when you cook something in a slow braise.

Oh, yeah, the-- the one that was not poked is definitely-- has more moisture to it.

Flavors were great.

Got the cooking time down.

Delicious.

Nice and juicy.

But then there was that skin.

How in the world can you make crispy skin in an oven braise, in an enclosed environment that's nothing but steam?

- Okay, I tried everything I could think of without using an oven.

- We dried it off overnight.

- And it just kept spattering and spattering.

- We deep fried it.

- And that exploded.

- We tried a million ways and couldn't nail it.

- I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how you get crispy skin in a steamed piece of meat.

♪ - Want some of this juice on yours?

- Yeah.

- It's quite tasty.

- So, we got that meat cooked beautifully.

It's tender and moist, but the skin.

- So, then the challenge became how to get that crispy skin, which was to cook it in a shallow amount of oil.

- Right.

- On really low heat.

- That what you have back there?

- The result is this delicious-looking piece of skin.

- Oh, wow, yeah.

Look at that.

That looks awesome.

So, we finally had the idea of cooking it very low and slow from cold oil in a pan.

How long do you cook it?

- Half an hour.

- And it crisped very gently, and it's cracklingly good.

[skin cracks] Oh, yeah, you hear that?

DIANE: Listen to that.

- Yeah, that's crunch-- that's so good.

That's part of it.

You got to have a little bit of that broken up over the top of the pork, or it's not pernil.

Wow, the pork is delicious.

- That's how you do the impossible.

- Well, we'll have to do it up right for her when she gets here.

Hopefully you nailed it.

- Yeah, I hope so.

- It's pretty good to me.

♪ - Hi, Tery.

- Hi, Cheryl.

- Welcome.

- Thank you.

Chris and I are so excited to have you in our kitchen.

- I am very excited, too.

I think that if we can figure this out, my family is going to be super surprised.

- So, tell me the proper name.

- So, the proper name in Spanish is pernil al caldero.

- Pernil al caldero.

- Very good.

- What do you think about that, huh?

- Well, hopefully we are going to show you how to do it.

- That's our favorite word here, "hopefully."

Well, we're going to start with a rub, adobo, sort of a marinade.

I need to pat this dry first.

- Maybe that was the reason why my prior version turned out with a very soggy skin.

- And so, you have your garlic.

- So, we have garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, a little vinegar.

But the problem is, marinades don't really get deep into meat.

Like, garlic, it's a big molecule with, like, almost 20 atoms.

Salt's, you know, sodium and chloride, it's a small molecule.

It's negatively charged and needs positive charge - that pulls it in.

TERY: Okay.

- So, the salt's gonna get in.

The garlic will only get sort of on the outside.

But when you sauté the meat, that's okay.

- And I thought that that was the way of adding flavor, you know, putting in more garlic.

So, it's really the salt.

That's very interesting.

♪ - So, we've cut the skin, sort of hinged it here.

- Okay.

- You gonna rub this, or I'm gonna rub this?

CHERYL: You can rub away.

TERY: Oh, that's the fun part.

- Playing with your hands.

CHRISTOPHER: I get to do all the fun stuff here.

- Rub it, oh, that's gonna be so good.

So, we're going to get this wrapped up.

- Okay.

- Let it sit for about four hours, and then we're gonna get cooking.

- Great.

I'm excited.

- That's hot, it's going in.

[sizzling] Sizzle, that's what you want to hear.

- Exactly.

CHRISTOPHER: I'm just gonna sear this for a few minutes.

- Okay.

- We're adding a little bit more garlic, oregano, and two cups of water.

But a lot of juices will come out of the pork, too.

- And the garlic are like the whole clove of garlic.

- Yeah, it's a whole clove of garlic.

Garlic's gonna get mashed into the sauce at the end.

- Okay.

- So, you get this really nice, mellow flavor.

So, bring this up to a simmer.

Cover it, we'll cook it for about five hours.

And you want to get that pork up to, I don't know, 195, and all that connective tissue in the-- in the shoulder, in that roast, is going to gelatinize and break down, and you get nice fat, and...

I'm getting excited.

What's this?

- [laughs] - Anyway, five hours and we'll be back.

- Okay, great.

CHRISTOPHER: So, it's been five hours.

You can tell it's gotten a little smaller.

And we also have the wonderful juices here, which we're gonna de-fat and turn it into a sauce.

TERY: Okay.

- And then we're gonna smash the garlic.

- And do you smash it inside the pot?

- We'll smash it right inside the pot.

I bet it's super soft.

Oh, yeah.

And then we're gonna add this vinegar.

Give it a good stir.

- There's a lot of steps into this recipe that I haven't realized were needed.

- And now the pork.

TERY: Okay.

CHERYL: Look at that.

TERY: Look at that, yes.

How it comes off the bone.

- Yeah, that's really nice.

- That also makes, like, great Cuban sandwiches.

CHERYL: Oh, yes.

- Yeah.

- Now we're going to take the skin, scrape off some of that excess fat underneath.

And this is the technique we came up with after two weeks.

We had to make a lot of these.

You put it in a clean pot like this with about half an inch of oil, low heat with the top ajar.

Then you cook it for about half an hour.

♪ So, the first thing to notice is this.

This is the skin, and it's super crispy.

- Oh, wow.

- So, you probably want to cut it up, you know, sprinkle it over the top of the pork.

So, I'm just going to make sure it's okay for the rest of you.

[skin crackling] Oh.

You can hear that, right?

- Yeah.

- Mmm.

I'm just gonna take this and go home.

- So, peas and rice.

CHERYL Wow.

Chris is gonna serve us up.

How does this look in terms of your memory?

- For Puerto Ricans, what-- that are going to be watching this, I think they will recognize this.

Very much so.

It looks very authentic.

- We got to get the sauce on.

- Oh, yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

- We don't forget the-- - our version of chicharrones.

CHERYL: Most important.

- That's a good idea of putting that sauce on top.

CHERYL: Okay.

- All right.

- This one looks very authentic.

- I'm excited for you to try.

And I hope this will remind you of your mother's dish.

- Well, if it tastes like it looks, I think it will, so let me see.

- Let's taste.

♪ - This is so tender and good.

It tastes like home.

It really tastes like home.

- The real question is, are you getting that crunchy bit that you remember?

[crunching] - You hear it?

- I hear the crunch.

- I really like the way that the flavors came together.

- Does that taste like Mom's?

- Certainly, it tastes a lot like hers.

This is very heartwarming, for sure.

I owe so much to my family.

They have been there for me during many challenging and difficult times.

That's something that we got from my dad and we got from my mom.

Keeping these family traditions alive means the world.

- Well, we're excited for you to take this and bring it back into your family tradition.

[exciting instrumental playing] ♪ - Today is the day that everybody is coming over.

Last night I did the rub.

I realized getting that rub ready takes a little bit of effort in that mortar.

Took out the pernil.

Took the skin out, which was-- actually took a little bit longer than I expected.

Rubbed the whole pernil with the garlic and the oregano and the oil.

Wrapped it up, and put it on the fridge.

Oh, my God.

It smells good.

♪ And let's pat it dry.

I invited my sisters, my brother-in-law, and then once I told one of my cousins, everybody else wanted to come.

I think at the end, I'm going to have about 12 people, and they all know about my mom's original recipe.

So I'm a little bit intimidated.

Okay, we need the Dutch oven.

I'm gonna get my caldero to put the pernil in it.

And I think this caldero's going to be too small.

Yeah, this is not going to fit.

My caldero is not big enough.

[laughs] That can't fit either.

Let me see.

Options, options.

So, I'm gonna have to get creative and find a solution.

And this one is bigger, it doesn't have a lid.

I think this one will be easier to maneuver.

And I think with some aluminum foil, we can make, like, a makeshift lid for our makeshift caldero.

So we're back on track.

So now I need also the garlic cloves...

I am using some of the things that I learned from Chris and Cheryl.

[oil sizzling] I put the pernil in there, making sure that the skin is on the right side, so it doesn't get soggy.

After a couple of minutes, I pour some water, put in the garlic cloves and also the oregano.

And now we're just gonna have to let it cook for about four hours.

And we'll do that.

Let me take my timer.

[timer beeping] And now we just wait.

♪ - Shall we bring the flowers?

TERY: Yes, bring them in, please.

My sisters arrived a little bit earlier.

They're helping me put together the table, the flowers.

We like to use real plates, not fake plates.

So, what started as a dinner turned out into a little party.

♪ - I love when we gather, and we do that very often.

When we gather here and Teryluz cooks... TERY: Let's check this out.

- ...it's always a surprise.

TERY: Smells good.

- So, I'm looking forward to a very delicious pernil.

- So now it's the tricky part.

Now we need to get that skin.

This is the part that's definitely the most challenging.

All right, so now I'm going to flip this.

[laughs] This is challenging.

I'm about to fry the skin of the pork.

All right, it's turning.

The skin fell off.

Not good.

I'll rescue a little bit of that over there.

This didn't turn out the way I remember.

So I'm just gonna have to rethink.

What do I do next?

I was able to rescue a little bit of it, so I'm hoping that I can use that to have the crispy texture.

[oil sizzling] I'm crossing my fingers because if not, we don't have a plan B.

- I had my grandma's pernil, it was amazing.

Every day I would wake up and I would just smell it and I'd be like, "Oh, my God, I'm so happy."

- This turned out crispy as it was supposed to.

I'm excited.

Okay, I got to try this.

[skin crackles] Okay, that's crispy.

Mission accomplished.

I don't know when my mom actually did all this prepping.

I just remember eating the pernil.

Really makes me appreciate much more all the thought and all the planning.

I am a little bit nervous, but more than anything, I'm excited.

Okay, well, everybody's here and hungry.

Let's see what they say about my version of the pernil al caldero.

All right, everyone.

WOMAN: Wow.

- Are you guys ready?

- Yes, we are.

- One, two, three.

- That looks good.

- This is Mom's pernil al caldero.

I was able to get the crispy skin.

TERY: This is my proudest moment.

- Can we try it?

- Yes.

Yes, sure.

Let's go for it.

- You try it.

Let's see.

Let's see.

The moment of truth.

Let's see.

- It's pretty good, not gonna lie.

ENRIQUE: You did really good.

I like the food a lot.

Every time we meet up now, I expect to get a pernil, the same exact way or even better.

- Okay, so let's try it.

TERY: It's pretty good.

- Yeah, good job.

It tastes really good.

It's really good.

It was very close to Mom's taste.

I think that she should practice a little bit more, so she should invite us over and over and over until she gets it.

- Presentation, awesome.

Smells great.

Oh, my God, it's very juicy.

- It's good.

IVONNE: It was juicy and it was flavorful.

So I am very proud of her.

And in this house, when you think of a pernil, you think about my mom.

So, that's the way it's all connected.

It's a great recreation, Teryluz.

Thank you so much for learning.

- It's just not about the taste but about all the memories and-- and-- and your effort to do this.

You know, like, to bring a little bit of her to us today, so... IVONNE: Gave me chills.

TERY: I think if my mom would see me right now, I think first she would be surprised that I am-- that I took this big undertaking.

Good?

I'm glad you like it, Javier.

Your opinion means a lot to me.

But, two, I think that she would feel very proud that we are continuing to really enjoy these moments.

I'm not only honoring her memory but also doing this to continue to keep our family traditions alive.

♪ In September 2019, my mom passed away.

Most recently, my dad passed away just a couple of weeks ago.

So, having these moments together are now more important than ever.

- Who's missing the rice?

WOMAN: Me.

- And I think also this really makes me appreciate all the things that I didn't see at the time, that I just take it for granted.

Um... it just makes me appreciate them even more.

And every time that I was able to spend with them.

I certainly wish they can be here right now.

But I feel comforted that their memory and their spirit is-- is always with us.

[glass clinking] I want to make a toast.

I want to make a toast for all of you, my family, my friends, and especially I want to make a toast for Mom and Dad.

The food is great, but the company is the most important thing.

So, thank you, everyone, for coming.

And salud.

OTHERS: Salud.

♪ ♪ - My name is Simon.

We are here at Khantine.

The idea is back from a trip in Cambodia, to find new recipes, to taste newer things, we've had the idea of a new way of seeing the Cambodian cuisine.

The idea is choose a base, which is mainly rice.

Choose a vegetables.

But we want to consider the meats are the topping and not are the main part of the dish.

(laughing) So the idea is to start with a pork belly, and we want to make the skin crispy.

Firstly, we place the pork belly, in big pieces, in the water to make it boil to make it softer.

Depending of the size of the belly, it could be between 10 to 20 minutes.

(pork belly sizzling) And after, the idea is to pierce the skin.

Because after, when we will fry it, each time you pierce it will allow the oil to go in it, and it will make the skin crispy.

We salt the skin because we want to make it dry.

Important to remove all the salt, because if you do not remove the salt, when you place the salt in the fryer, it pops.

And after, you deep fry it.

(oil sizzling) When the color change and when the noise give you the idea that it's hot and crispy, normally it's fully cooked.

You plate the vegetables and the sauce.

You plate the chopped belly around.

At the moment, people are trying to elevate the cuisine.

But we want to go back to the base of it.

Recipes and episodes from this season of My Family Recipe are available at MilkStreetTV.com/MFR Access our content any time to change the way you cook.

Funding for this series was provided by the following.

Mowi Salmon comes ready to cook.

Ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

Mowi Salmon.

♪ ♪