Signature Dish
Watch LULU'S WINE GARDEN Create Savory Carne Asada Tacos with the Perfect Kick
Clip: Season 4 Episode 4 | 5m 6sVideo has Closed Captions
Seth heads to Lulu’s Wine Garden on the U St. Corridor for their signature carne asada tacos.
Seth Tillman heads to Lulu’s Wine Garden on the U St. Corridor in Washington, D.C., to watch Chef Cable prepare Lulu’s signature carne asada tacos—marinated with citrus, layered with Hatch chiles, and seared to perfection on the grill. The tacos are served alongside house favorites and paired with Mexican wine for the ultimate bite.
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Signature Dish is a local public television program presented by WETA
Signature Dish
Watch LULU'S WINE GARDEN Create Savory Carne Asada Tacos with the Perfect Kick
Clip: Season 4 Episode 4 | 5m 6sVideo has Closed Captions
Seth Tillman heads to Lulu’s Wine Garden on the U St. Corridor in Washington, D.C., to watch Chef Cable prepare Lulu’s signature carne asada tacos—marinated with citrus, layered with Hatch chiles, and seared to perfection on the grill. The tacos are served alongside house favorites and paired with Mexican wine for the ultimate bite.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipCABLE: We're going to make our signature dish here at Lulu's, which is our carne asada tacos.
We're going to load it up with Hatch red chiles from New Mexico, along with some other ingredients, just to really punch through that flavor.
SETH: Awesome.
So how do you get started here?
CABLE: We're going to start off by making our marinade.
So we're going to start off with all of our liquid.
This is pineapple, orange juice, lime juice.
That sweetness really helps the char on the outside of the steak.
The lime juice kind of helps tenderize it as it's cooking.
SETH: After the juices, Cable adds garlic, shallots, jalapeños, and a parade of dried ingredients before adding the star of the show.
CABLE: Now we're going to go with our Hatch red chiles from New Mexico.
This is the green chile that has been dried out.
You get a lot of sweet, mild heat with this chile.
SETH: Just about every New Mexico dish, Hatch chiles, that's going to be the foundation, right?
CABLE: Absolutely.
Everywhere you go, you're going to get red or green, and you could get a little bit of both, and they call it Christmas style.
SETH: All right, Christmas, and it's that time of year.
CABLE: It's perfect.
And then we have black soy.
SETH: Ooh.
CABLE: We have citrus vinegar and then canola oil.
Last thing, I'm going to add a little bit of fresh cilantro just for some herbaceousness, and we're going to get this mixed up.
SETH: After the ingredients are blended, it's time to marinate the steak.
CABLE: So we are using a skirt steak from Roseda Farms in Maryland.
Not a lot of fat on it.
We'll get this nice and covered.
SETH: And that is a pretty color on that marinade.
CABLE: You can smell it too.
We're going to get this all rubbed in.
This is going to go ahead and set for about 24 hours.
So Seth, we have one here that's ready to go.
We're going to go ahead and take this over to the grill.
Let's get this cooked up.
SETH: Let's do it.
CABLE: So this has already been oiled.
I'm going to go ahead and hit it with some salt and pepper.
Go ahead and get this thing down.
SETH: There we go.
Now we're cooking.
CABLE: I'm going to go ahead and oil it and get salt and pepper on the other side.
SETH: All right, we've got some flare-ups happening here.
And for carne asada, you're looking for that kind of quick, high-heat cooking, right?
CABLE: Absolutely.
Because it's such a lean cut of meat, we want to hit it really high heat, so all those sugars in the marinade really start to caramelize, give us a nice char on the outside.
Because these are carne asada tacos, we need tortillas to go with it.
New Mexico is all about the flour tortilla.
We make these fresh in-house.
We've got a hot comal.
SETH: Yeah, and some people hate on flour tortillas for some reason.
I think they're delicious.
CABLE: They're the best.
SETH: Oh yeah, and as soon as it hits that comal, it's puffing up real nicely.
CABLE: Absolutely.
So once these tortillas get nice and puffed up, we're going to go ahead and get this steak flipped.
We're just looking for a little bit of crust on the edges just for some texture.
Steak is done.
We're going to pull it off, let it rest for a little bit.
Then to plate up our carne asada tacos, we're going to go ahead, slice it against the grain, really thin, serve it up with those fresh puffed flour tortillas, some of our Shiner Bock beans, pickles just to cut through some of that fattiness.
Queso fresco.
And our aji sauce.
And the carne asada tacos will be ready to enjoy.
SETH: All right, guys.
Taco time.
CABLE: Yeah.
Absolutely, let's go for it.
PAUL: Let's go.
SETH: All right.
You lead the way.
You can kind of make a bite to your own choosing here, taco on your own terms?
BRITTANY: Absolutely.
SETH: Thank you, Paul.
PAUL: Of course.
CABLE: You just want to get a little bit of everything here.
You're going to get some good acid from the pickled onions.
Nice fat from the avocado.
Top it off with a little bit of sauce and queso fresco and you're good to go.
SETH: Oh, there we go.
BRITTANY: That is my favorite sauce.
PAUL: We have sold it by the bottle.
That's right.
BRITTANY: We've sold it by the bottle.
People love it.
SETH: All right, and a little more acid with the lime.
And these are the Shiner Bock beans, chef?
CABLE: Yep.
Shiner Bock beans just from a little bit of my Texas roots.
Lots of bacon, more Hatch green chiles in there.
SETH: You're speaking my language.
PAUL: Delicious.
SETH: All right.
This right here is a pretty-looking taco.
BRITTANY: A stacked taco with like all of the flavors.
I think that's one thing that Cable does so well.
He nails all of like the different flavors and textures.
It's just perfect.
CABLE: What do you think?
PAUL: I don't have words.
I'm eating.
It's delicious.
Oh my God.
SETH: Get out of here with that.
The tortilla, nice and pillowy.
Perfect little bed for those flavors.
Love the acidity.
PAUL: That's my favorite part.
Between the pickled onions and the sauces and the lime, it's just like that bomb of acidity is delicious.
CABLE: The Hatch chile isn't too spicy.
It doesn't overpower any wines you might be doing with it.
I think it just turns out just right.
SETH: Mmm.
All right.
Obviously, it is a wine garden.
What are we drinking with this, Paul?
PAUL: So we're going to be pouring some wine from Mexico.
SETH: From Mexico?
PAUL: Yeah.
So we really like showcasing certain regions of the world, but one of the regions that we love is just Mexico.
Historically, Mexico is the home of wine in the Western hemisphere.
It originated when missionaries came to Mexico and started planting grapes just for their own consumption.
It is a combination of nebbiolo, which is the primary grape here.
And there's a little Cabernet to kind of blend it out.
CABLE: Sounds good to me.
Cheers.
SETH: Yeah, let's try it out.
CABLE: Cheers, guys.
SETH: Salud.
CABLE: That's amazing.
SETH: Really good.
Really kind of almost like berry-forward.
A little sweetness in there.
PAUL: Yeah, of course.
I think the chill that has on this wine also just makes it so approachable with all the different like peppers and spices and stuff like that comes with Southwestern cuisine, and this dish in particular.
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