Lobster Tacos (They are the Best)

Revisiting something we made almost 10 years ago. Oh, I dropped it. Oh no, what am I gonna do? Lobster down. Why do I have to be so anal like this? We bring to you the rather outstanding Puerto Nuevo-style lobster tacos. About an hour south of San Diego in Mexico is the little town of Puerto Nuevo, known for one thing, lobster. And boy, do they do it well. Comes to the table, there's fresh tortillas, there's rice, there's beans, there's butter. It's amazing and you take a tortilla and you put some lobster in and the butter and you eat the beans. The whole thing's fantastic. We're doing a little version of that today by making tacos. Oh, it's great. Look, nice big lobster tails here at the ready. But we'll start by making some refried beans because refried beans in a warm tortilla with this buttery lobster is heaven. Heaven, my friends. Did you hear what I said? I said heaven. And by the way, if you're just joining us for the first time and you haven't subscribed, hit the subscribe button. And if you're joining us for the 8,000th time and you haven't subscribed, hit the subscribe button because A, that says you love us because we love you. We pour our hearts out three times a week to make these videos for you. And if you are a subscriber, one of those knives could be yours. We're giving away one every video this year. That's insane. I don't know why we decided to, well, Max decided to do that. So hit subscribe, like, let us know what you want to see us make. All right, let's forage on. The beans are a simple beginning. If this is not how you do it or your abuela does it, then I'm sorry, but this is me. Little oil. And I like onions, so a little diced white or yellow onion starts to soften in our pot. We'll give that about two minutes. Not trying to brown them, just trying to soften them. And next in will be one can of drained pinto beans, like this. We start them off like this. The bean juice will come back in a little bit to help soften them. Little stir, and then we can season. Only two things, a little kosher salt and a little cumin. And we mix, give them about two minutes, and then we'll continue with the bean juice. Let's soften these guys up. Here's the bean juice from the can. Oh, three quarters of it goes in. Now we want to mash this a bit, and I say a bit because I like a little bit of bean chunk. Bean chunk, that sounds awful. Potato masher or whatever you've got. You can start it now. Look, the more it sits in this liquid that bubbles away, the softer they're going to get and it will be easier, but I'll start them here. Give them a couple minutes. I'm going to turn the heat down, let them simmer away a little bit. In the meantime, let's address our lobsters. Here we are. Three very nice, beautiful lobster tails. These are about seven ounces each. So here's our goal. Beautiful meat. We want to cut the shell down to the tail, not through the tail, then down to like this breast plate. I don't know what to call this. The undercarriage, what is that? The undercarriage, but not through the undercarriage. And there's two different ways you can do it. One, you can take a pair of scissors, and I can't find my good shears. I don't know where they are. So here's the scissors Chance uses to make my little mic tape thing every video. You can cut like this, go under the shell, try to stay away from the meat though. Not that it really matters, because you're going to get there, but you can now just cut like this, down to the tail, not through the tail. And then you can take a big knife, come in and just down. Knife out, open like a book. Gorgeous, right? Do that two more times. Max makes a good point. We're doing this because we want to expose more of this meat to the grill when we get there. Now, repeat. This is some pretty lobster meat. You know, sometimes you'll see, oh here, here's a good example. White, mostly white, pink. It's based on the diet of the lobster. I don't know what causes that. They're eating pink sea urchin or something, but who knows? Okay, these guys are ready. Let's go to the grill, and I'll show you what we've got happening there. All right, these kids are going on on their backs. I suppose that would be their back, wouldn't it? One, two, and three. We're going to let them start to cook a little bit. Bottom up, or back up, whatever you want to call it. But we're going to want to base the tops. And here's what I've got. Let me move my little pot over. This is a stick of melting butter. That's it. I'm going to add garlic. We'll add two more things. A pinch of salt, and then some minced chipotle peppers. You know, you can buy them whole. You can also buy them already minced in a jar. I find it a little handier sometimes. And this we will mix. Goodness gracious, lads. Do you know what's going to happen here? All right, give these guys just a couple of minutes on that backside before we turn them. But in the interim, how about a little baste? How about a little bastey-baste, like this? I don't know how you would say ufa marron south of the border, but I'm sure there's something. Ay caramba. Yes, that very well may be true. Now, of course, the melting butter falls through the lobster tails, hits the heat below, and brings smoke up. And if you don't think that's a good thing, you'd be wrong there, shaky. It's a great thing. Let's have a look underneath. All righty then. We're not there, but I like to look. Oh, look at that little piece. We're pretty close to flipping these guys. We'll baste, give them a minute, then we'll flip. And we're flipping. Hey, you. And I might as well add a little bastiness to these pieces that are up on top. Well, I think we might be there. How pretty. White, firm flesh. We're looking for these guys to be about 135 degrees. They're gorgeous. That's why I like to grill lobsters. I think it's such a fun way to do it, such a delicious way. And now, of course, I'm an advocate of another baste before you take stuff off. And listen, it's going back in the butter when I pull them out of the shell, because it must. But I always wanna give it another baste. And now, these guys will come off. We'll see you on the other side of the counter to take it out. Ha ha ha. I could eat them just like this. They really don't need anything, except we're gonna make them better. So let's take them out of the shells, one at a time. And they should just, like that. Look at this. Holy S. Seven ounce tails, these were. And I'm gonna say that a seven ounce tail with tortillas like this, for sure three. So, you know, count on that. Maybe four, I don't know. You know, when they're cooked nicely, they just really cooperate. That's a pile of lobster meat. When everybody's out, first we get ourselves a knife, and now we're gonna cut these into smallish, bite-sized pieces. Boys, we're eating good today, huh? Again, giant pieces of anything. Chicken, steak, lobster, you know. Pieces like this in a tortilla, that doesn't really make sense. I always encourage you, consider how somebody is going to actually eat what it is you're making. You know, like pieces of stew the size of my fist in a bowl in front of somebody at the dinner table is ridiculous. Pieces of beef the size of my fist in a bowl for somebody's stew at the table in front of them is ridiculous. And a man in my position can't be made to look ridiculous. Okay, watch. Wipe the butter off. Take the lobster, put it back in here. The butter's warm, it's not hot. It's not gonna continue to cook this. And then we do this. God damn it. Sorry. Hear that? What that is? It's the sound of the lobster butter. Not what you were gonna say, Max. Okay, I'm cleaning this up, and we build. That is a flour tortilla that I've heated up on the grill, hence the grill marks. These are some of our refried beans. This is so glorious. I just, honestly, one of my favorite things ever. These are some beautiful pieces of our lobster. And if there was ever a time not to be cheap, it's now. You want your guests feeling special. And then, of course, a little drizzle of that. Look, you could add cilantro. You could add green onion. You could add parsley. No, don't add parsley. You could add almost anything, but you know what I'm thinking? Screw it. Don't add a damn thing, because this is all you need. And if your lobster taco, if your lobster taco drips, you've done everything right. This might be better than pork in huevo. That little chipotle. A little bit. I didn't want to make it spicy. That wasn't the goal. Just to add a little extra flavor. Holy shit. Come on. It's worth getting a couple tails in doing this. It really is. Okay, well. Pasta, I want one. Our new restaurant in San Diego's Little Italy. Italian-inspired eats. We don't make this. Shit, we should. This is so good. See ya. Fuck. Fuck me. What the? What the heck? Hi. Chance of Sam the Cooking Guy and crew and Chance Nation here. We are in Puerto Nuevo. That's right. Puerto Nuevo, Mexico. South of San Diego. The actual little lobster village. And I've already tried Sam's lobster taco, which was delicious, by the way. And now, we're gonna go get an authentic one. My fiance and I, who's holding the camera right now. So let's go inside and try it. Okay, so here's how it comes to the table. You get a half lobster with fresh tortilla, beans, and butter. I'm gonna build a taco and then eat it. All right, so I'm gonna try to do it just like Sam did, as far as I can remember. Beans, straight down on the tortilla. It's a light layer. Nice handful of lobster. I'm gonna do some melted butter over the top. Don't be cheap. Okay, let's go outside and take a bite because it's really loud in here. They have live mariachi. Okay, I'm really hungry. I'm so excited for this. Let's just go for it. Definitely some of the best lobster I've ever had. Just does something. You wouldn't think goes together with the lobster, but it really works. And the fresh tortilla is just amazing. Sam, you nailed it. Your taco was spot on. This is delicious.