How San Francisco’s Best Mission-Style Burrito is Made

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♪ Oh yeah ♪

I am Victor Escobedo.

Welcome to Papalote.

We focus on the quintessential Mission-style burrito.

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What separates a Mission-style burrito

from all other burritos is that

the founders of the burrito here in the Mission

about 50 years ago

focused on very simple ingredients.

Rice, beans, protein, and pico de gallo.

As it evolved,

people started making it differently,

but if you want the best,

you want the original,

you want to come to the Mission

and have a Mission-style burrito.

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We are gonna start with the beans.

Beans, the way they're processed,

the way they're delivered to us,

they're not always super clean, right?

So you wanna make sure there's no little rocks or anything

'cause nobody likes taking a bite into a burrito

and then losing a tooth.

We use two kind of beans.

Pinto beans are typically Mexican.

Black beans are more of a Caribbean thing.

Black beans are popular here in San Francisco

and in the United States because it's a melting pot.

Pinto beans are more neutral.

Black beans have more of a flavor to it.

That's also what makes a Mission-style burrito.

The fact that it starts with a Mexican tradition,

but it also combines Latin American flavors.

I'm gonna put my beans in the pot.

Five minutes later.

Tell me if I'm talking too much

'cause I don't wanna spill the beans.

[Victor laughs]

We're gonna put six ounces of salt

and we're gonna put one whole onion.

We cut it to get the flavor out of it,

but leaving it whole just makes it easier to fish out.

Okay, let's get the beans started.

So we're just making beans from scratch

and it's a simple process.

I could have bought 'em frozen or canned,

but I like making everything from scratch

because you can control the consistency.

Consistency is everything

when you make something that has

so many simple ingredients put together,

each ingredient matters.

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So now we're ready to do the rice, the Spanish rice,

as most people call it,

we're gonna use long grain rice.

Traditionally, that's what we use.

It's rice, beans and your protein

plus the pico de gallo.

The rice,

it contributes to the burrito

being really substantial, really filling.

We're gonna fry it first

and what's gonna happen is the long grain,

it's like popping corn, right?

So you add oil to it and you pop the rice.

There's a few reasons why you do that.

It does give it a nuttier flavor.

Frying the rice prevents it from clumping.

For this, we're using vegetable oil,

just a little bit will do.

[Victor laughs]

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The goal is to coat every grain with oil,

but we don't want it to pull at the bottom.

So now I'm gonna let this sit here

so that the oil drains all the way to the bottom,

and we're gonna be making the the sauce for the rice

to add some flavor to it.

Let's cut the vegetables,

onion, bell pepper.

It's a rough chop because we're gonna be blending it,

and that's kinda rice that you would get

when you went to your grandma's house

if she had a little bit of rice.

Sometimes she would make a little carnitas on a comal.

These flavors are very simple

but very reminiscent of what's really eaten in Mexico.

I'm gonna go ahead and cook this.

I'm gonna put four ounces of my vegetable base

and then I'm gonna put four ounces of salt in here.

Once we have our sauce ready,

we're gonna add the rice into it.

I'm gonna add the last of the tomatoes to our rice sauce.

So this is an immersion blender.

Once I blend it,

we're gonna boil it

and then add the rice to it.

[blender stirring]

If you're not making a mess,

you're not cooking.

[blender stirring]

When we're done blending,

there won't be any particles of any vegetable.

It's just gonna be the flavor,

so you won't notice it.

When I put the rice and the rice is finished,

it'll just be a nice redish rice.

[blender stirring]

Now our sauce is fully boiling.

I'm gonna bring it down just a little bit.

This is getting ready for the simmer.

I'm gonna take my rice and put it in there very slowly.

Gonna cover it,

let it simmer for about an hour,

hour and a half.

Let the steam do its thing

and we'll have a nice,

beautiful Spanish rice,

nice and fluffy.

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Okay, let's get the meat going.

This is gonna be for a steak.

So traditionally you can have a steak burrito.

There's also chicken burritos,

that's very popular.

It's bottom sirloin flat meat.

I like this meat

because it cooks really nicely,

really evenly.

It's easier to cut for me.

It's a popular cut for carne asada.

And carne asada to me,

the way I know it is a steak with salt

and maybe a little pepper.

People get confused with carne adobada,

and that's when you marinate the meat.

We want to taste the grill.

We want to taste the flames, right?

So steak, flames,

fire, salt, and pepper.

Now I'm just gonna cut some of the fat.

We take four ounces of steak to make one burrito.

You want to cut against the grain

because it's a fiber, right?

When you're eating it,

it's gonna make it tough to eat right?

So the elasticity of the grains,

it helps you cut better

and it also helps you eat it better.

Okay, meat's ready.

Now we're gonna grill a nice piece of steak for a burrito.

Salt and pepper,

garlic and some other cool stuff.

It's a secret.

What is carne asada?

It's grilled meat.

It's the simplicity of freshly cut steak

and seasoned with salt pepper

and your choice of little spices.

That's the way I grew up in Chapultepec

in the park in Mexico City,

and I remember going to a carne asada.

Carne asada means grilled meat,

but it's also the event

where people get together to grill meat.

So we're gonna let this grill

for about three minutes each side.

You don't want it to be too cooked.

We're looking for a medium rare, medium.

We have four ounces of meat

and it's really important for our burritos

to be consistent, right?

So four ounces of meat, four ounces of rice,

four ounces of beans,

and just kind of brought together

with a little bit of pico de gallo.

And then eventually you can put the Papalote Salsa.

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Pico de gallo is tomato, onion,

cilantro and serrano.

A little bit of lime juice,

a little bit of salt.

And this is what's gonna bring freshness

and some vegetables to the burrito.

Everything is chopped.

I could...

But I don't do that.

We have a little machine right here that helps me.

I have the power.

I only have to do this 200 more times.

I'm gonna knock out the tomatoes.

Then I'll move on to the onions

and the rest of the cilantro,

and the serrano,

and then we'll keep going.

Everything is prepped for the pico de gallo.

I put some salt first,

some fresh chopped onion.

We're gonna do our cilantro with our serrano.

The finishing touch is lime.

Now we're gonna mix the pico de gallo.

Pico de gallo brings vegetables,

brings freshness,

and it brings part of the culture into the dish.

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We're about ready to make a burrito.

We're gonna use a 14 inch tortilla.

This is also called a tortilla sobaquera in Mexico.

And [indistinct] they have...

They're a little bit bigger.

Sobaco is your armpit.

And so they call it that

because it goes the length of your arm.

These are tortillas from Sonoma.

So we get all of our tortillas made for us.

It's not something that we get at the supermarket.

We're gonna throw it on the grill.

Grated jack cheese,

that's gonna melt as your tortilla is warming up.

Right now we're making a super burrito.

So that's gonna have rice, beans,

pico de gallo,

your protein,

and we're gonna add sour cream,

cheese and guacamole.

The first step is warming up the tortilla

and making sure that cheese melts on the tortilla.

So you wanna warm up the tortilla,

even if you're not putting cheese on it to melt it.

Because it makes it more pliable, right?

So now we're gonna cut the steak.

We're gonna create a base with the rice.

The rice is the foundation,

so it's gonna soak up all the juices from the meat.

Four ounces of black beans.

We're gonna put our meat on top.

Put some pico de gallo on there.

This is gonna be a super,

so we're gonna do guacamole,

sour cream.

The cheese is already there.

We wanna make sure that every bite has every flavor.

So what we're gonna do

is we're gonna take it and spread it out.

Once we do that,

we're gonna tuck it in,

bring it in.

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And that is your Mission-style burrito.

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This baby has to be able to travel,

put it in there,

roll it up,

and we're gonna tuck it in.

The foil will keep it warm,

it makes it easy to travel.

Maybe you don't have time to sit down,

maybe you have to go to work and need to carry that

and need it in the car or whatever,

so that's what makes that burrito very practical,

but still very authentic of the flavors of Mexico

that I grew up with.

The one thing missing is the salsa.

Bon appetit.

I mean, buen provecho.

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