Embrace.

Okay.

Ready?

Hey there.

My name is Alexa Buckle your seat belt because you're about to come with me on an international culinary journey.

Recently, I took a DNA test and I found out I have three major components of my ancestry Ashkenazi, Jewish, British and Portuguese.

So this was really cool for me to learn about, but then it hit me that I don't really know as much about those three cultures as I would like.

Thio and I really wanted to learn more.

So then, naturally, I thought the best way to do that would be through food.

The plan is to make a dish from each of the three parts of my heritage.

I started off by trying to cook some traditional Jewish foods.

My grandma made the absolute best matzo ball soup.

I'm not even just saying that.

Sadly, my grandma's no longer with us, so I can't ask her advice.

But luckily I am in the US capital of Jewish cuisine.

Much more fun to talk about history through food.

And like I was gonna say, it's like food, learning about a culture and cuisine.

I feel like food is the number one way to do it.

I'm getting a real Ashkenazi Jewish education here.

European Jews fled or emigrated to New York.

Those foods were brought with them and landed.

Here, for the most part, is another very classic, quintessential Jewish dish and one of my personal favorites.

So we use a quarter teaspoon, and then they get rolled out into tiny, cute little ball.

My God, that's the cutest thing I've ever seen.

It's a little roll roll.

Yeah, she's perfect.

She's perfect.

So for my traditional Jewish matzo ball soup that I'm making here at home, I'm gonna use kind of a combination of techniques and hope for the best.

I'm gonna use my grandma's technique on making the broth sweet and flavorful and delicious.

I'm gonna use my own culinary technique for making the broth technically correct.

And I'm also gonna use the Polk's idea of making the matzo balls really, really tiny and bite size.

And hopefully this combination of ideas turns out to be the perfect unison.

So wish me luck.

My matzo ball soup recipe I've come up with is going to involve two days of work.

Day One is for making the homemade broth from scratch because I'm extra like that.

My grandma's matzo ball soup was the best tooth I've ever had ever.

She did always tell me when I was little that what she used to give it kind of a nice sweetness was rutabaga, which is a strange root vegetable that I'm going to incorporate into my homemade broth.

And hopefully this will have the flavor that reminds me of my grandma.

So bless my grandma's heart.

Getting that giant through the Vega sliced up was the hardest thing I've done in a long time.

I am sweating.

Getting this rutabaga into the soup better be worth.

Besides my nemesis, the rutabaga.

My grandma didn't tell me what else she used in her breath.

So I'm going with some tried and true ingredients I think will work well.

Her soup was so flavorful and comforting, it really was food for the soul.

In my opinion, it's all about using the right combination of veggies, herbs, spices and chicken.

All right, it is a new day.

I have my chicken broth that is now a gelatinous blob from sitting in the fridge overnight so I can remove some of this fat from the top.

This is a technique I figured out on my own.

I don't want the broth to feel too greasy.

My grandma's was nice and clear, so that's what I'm going for.

Now it's time to incorporate the advice from the masters.

Making my tiny matzo balls.

They're really easy to make and look so lovely covered in the broth containing my blood, sweat and tears.

Kind of kidding, but not really Now.

Time to make it pretty.

Okay, this is it, baby.

Matzo ball soup.

Multiple days of work trying to make it like my grandma's.

We've got anybody, baby Matzo balls.

E love them.

They're adorable.

This'll is the closest soup I've had to my grandma's.

Oh, my God.

It's so good.

It's really takes me back.

I'm so happy, E.

Okay, so we're here in the room where it happens, the room where it happened.

And I am drinking some late afternoon English to you to get into the spirit.

Excellent.

So I was born in London, England, in the sixties, and my dad decided that he wanted to pursue the American dream and bring me my older brother, younger sister over to the States lived pretty much like every other kid growing up in New York.

But we sure did hold on to our British heritage in the form of food.

My grandma was a master at making fresh pastries, so of course, that's what I'm going to do here.

My absolute favorite dish of my grandma's was her British mince pies.

They're small pies filled with minced meat, which is not meat.

It's a fruity cinnamon e filling, and the pies are the best.

I made mince pies with her several times growing up, but I don't remember exactly how she did it.

Hopefully, this is pretty close.

It's a good thing I have you as a new assistant and cultural guide.

That's right.

Uh huh.

It took me all day, and I will admit that right off the bat, they're not perfect.

They're not what I remembered.

I'm still excited about them.

They smell great and they're really cute.

They're cute little pies, and that's why I used to love them so much.

I eat.

I just wolf, Um, you know, on Thanksgiving they're my favorites, so I'll give it a taste.

They're close.

They're still delicious.

I still feel British F for making these e am.

She is British.

I am, even though I'm more than 40% Portuguese.

I got to say, I really don't know what I'm doing here.

Let's see what my dad has to say.

It's his side of the family.

That's Portuguese.

Well, maybe.

I mean, I ate a lot of Portuguese food growing up.

I would have liked to have made That's a few guys when you were little, but you're very picky, but I didn't think you'd like it.

Well, that's a valid point, I guess.

I guess I could just go to a restaurant, appear and learn about Portuguese food from a chef.

Yeah, how big the prawn is.

E should know the most famous is very important goal.

And I'm very embarrassed that I don't, but no longer.

I will be educated that while I'm ashamed at how little I know about Portuguese cuisine, I am picking up on the fact that Portuguese chicken Petey Petey is a game changer.

The chicken PDP is one of the most famous dishes we have.

What's your favorite on the idea?

Chicken way?

Even when I close it, I get hungry.

What makes it like what is the preparation on the chicken that makes it different.

And just like roasted chicken marinated needs the way.

Okay, I'm a little bit nervous about this one.

I'm going to try and do the chicken PD pt here at home.

My friends at the restaurant told me the marinade is the key to developing the quintessential delicious Portuguese flavors.

So I'm getting really intimate with these chicken breasts, getting them slathered in marinade ingredients.

So full disclosure.

Marinating this chicken is not a very glamorous process.

I feel like I'm covered in raw chicken juice and garlic, but hopefully, messiness equals flavor in this situation.

My Portuguese experts also told me to cook the chicken low and slow.

It's topped with a piri piri sauce for even more flavor.

Here it iss my peri peri chicken.

That was certainly a labor of love.

It smells so good.

Let's see how it tastes.

It's really fantastic.

And the recipe that gave me is really good.

I'm bummed.

My dad thought I was too picky to enjoy this type of food growing up.

Turns out, chicken PD PD actually came from Angola and Mozambique when Portuguese settlers brought back the chili pepper Portuguese culture is a hodgepodge of many different tribes.

Really proud of myself for making something that's so traditionally Portuguese, something that I had, like no experience with.

So mission accomplished.

I feel like I did a really good job making my matzo ball soup, my mince pies and my chicken.

Petey, Petey!

And it also makes me feel like I know a lot more about those three ancestries.

Thank you for joining me on this culinary journey.

I hope you had a much fun as I did.

Oh.