Baking up Comfort

Overview

David Sterling, chef and author of “Yucatán: Recipes from a Culinary Expedition,” brings Rick on a whirlwind tour of the peninsula. The pair of Oklahoma-born, Mexico-obsessed chefs begin their journey with a conversation in Hunucmá, where Dona Lupita serves home-cooked meals at the kitchen table of her family’s cocina económica. Though the Yucatán is not known for its bakeries, David brings us to the rustic wood-burning ovens at Panadería Liz in Merida. Then it’s back to the gorgeous kitchen at Los Dos Cooking School, where David makes a pan of buttery, indulgent hojaldras — a sweet-and-savory pastry stuffed with ham, cheese and chile and dusted with sugar. Inspired by all of the homey comfort, Rick makes a nourishing frijol con puerco and a hojaldra all his own.