- [Beryl] Some meals just taste like home.

The flavors and smells evoke a sense of comfort.

Is that satisfying?

- Yes.

- [Beryl] One dish can remind us of people, places, and happy times in our lives.

No, I won't double dip.

No I won't do it.

My name is Beryl, and this show explores how our foods can bring our different cultures together.

And this is our "Comfort Foods" episode.

Today I've paired up Rosie and Dan to swap their most comforting dishes from their cultures.

Dan will make Ecuadorian Enconcado.

- This is gonna be very new to me.

- [Beryl] While Rosie will make Italian mozzarella in Carrozza for the first time.

- This is the scary part.

- [Beryl] Will Dan and Rosie like one another's dishes?

- I'm not happy about the butter.

- Red onion isn't my favorite.

- [Beryl] Only one way to find out.

- I will trust Dan, okay?

(bright music) - Dear Dan, my name is Rosie, and you're going to be making Ecuadoran Enconcado.

I live in New York and my family is originally from Ecuador.

My favorite comfort food is Encocado or in English you would say fish stew with coconut sauce.

- All right, so today we're gonna cook Enconcado.

- I cook Enconcado the time because it's so easy, even though it looks complicated because of all the ingredients.

- [Beryl] What does that do?

- Well when you roll a lime, it softens it a little bit.

Makes it a little easier to squeeze.

- [Beryl] It's like really juicy.

Okay, wait, we're gonna do a little extra juice.

I just need to see.

- You got it.

You got it.

- This is not that easy.

- You nailed it.

- No, come on.

Hold on.

- Oh yeah, don't you feel better?

- I mean, kind of.

That's like the craziest way to juice an orange.

- [Rosie] So my mom's number one trick is to leave the fish with lemon and all the spices for a long time before you cook it.

- All right, so what do we have next?

- I think most Ecuadorian people know this dish.

The flavors are complex.

- [Beryl] Do you like red onions?

- I find it to be a little bit aggressive, a little harsh.

- [Beryl] How do you feel about bell peppers?

- [Dan] I love red bell peppers, one of my favorites.

- And green?

- Well, about that, not my favorite.

- [Rosie] To me it tastes like vacation because it represents the flavors of the coast region.

- [Beryl] Do you think your experience on "Great American Recipe" showed you how like different cultures and different foods could kind of like open you up in a way and like find things interesting that you may not have known about before?

- I find with "The Great American Recipe," that was the biggest thing I took away from the show, the different cultural backgrounds and learning how they're made and everything.

I like Asian cooking, but I never ever cook it.

But when I seen guys doing it, I'm like, oh, it kind of inspired me.

I reach out to them for technical support every now and then.

And yeah, no, I love it.

- I sometimes feel alienated from my roots, and I started cooking this dish as a way to keep reminding myself where I am from.

(lively music) - [Beryl] Wait, I'm sorry.

What is this?

- Can opener.

- This?

- You never seen a can opener?

- [Beryl] I mean, I have, but that.

(laughs) It's magic.

- Oh, I love the color.

It's red, my favorite color.

That's why I took a job as a firefighter.

I love the trucks.

- How's it looking?

- Oh, it's looking good.

We're reduced, we're boiled.

- Time to taste.

I'm gonna call it.

I think that Dan will like this dish despite the pepper and red onion.

- I think you might be right.

- I usually am.

- This is a great comfort food because it may seem that you need a lot of ingredients, but once you start making the dish, it's super quick.

I think also it's a very nice comfort food because you eat it with rice and sweet plantains and green plantains and that is absolutely wonderful.

I hope this dish inspires you for the next time you're craving comfort food or you want to share something with friends and that you love it as much as I do.

Love, Rosie.

- All right, time to try it.

Let's see what we came up with.

Think I wanna just taste the fish first, see how that is.

That's really good.

I can definitely pick up on the lime because the flavors are so bright and light inside of this dish.

You could definitely eat it out on the beach.

All right, now we'll taste some with the sauce and the green bell pepper and the red onion.

That's really good.

- [Beryl] I'm like really proud.

I feel like you went into this with a little bit more trepidation.

- Red onion isn't my favorite of the onions, let's put it that way.

I like the dish a lot.

It makes me feel like I'm on an island somewhere to tell you the truth.

- You really made me want try this.

I'm really excited.

It's also smelled amazing the whole time you were cooking.

Oh my God, yum.

As a lover of red onion and green bell pepper, I'm not surprised at all that this is incredible.

I love how you really went outside your box today.

- Thank you for the opportunity.

- This was great.

(bright music) - Hi, I'm Dan, and today, you're gonna be making fried mozzarella, formaggio fritto, which is fried cheese.

I'm from Providence, Rhode Island, and I'm an Italian-American.

I'm third and fourth generation.

My family came over in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

- Okay, I'm going to make fried mozzarella.

- And one really important thing that you need to remember when you're making fried mozzarella is you're gonna need a really good marinara sauce.

- I love making tomato sauce for my pasta, so this is going to be interesting.

I'm terrible opening cans.

I always struggle.

- Do you want me to tag?

- Yes.

- [Beryl] I'm not really sure.

- You made it look so easy.

- Look at me, can queen.

- [Dan] I like this dish for a few different reasons.

It's kind of nostalgic for me.

- The remaining ingredients except for the butter.

Are we sure about the butter?

- [Dan] I come from a big family and my aunts would come over to my grandmother's house all the time and they would all be cooking in the kitchen together.

It'd be loud, they'd be arguing in a good-natured sort of way.

Just be complete and total mayhem.

- I'm not happy about the butter.

- It's not that much butter.

- Okay, it's not that much.

- So this is the best part.

The cheese part.

- Fried mozzarella is just a cheese that gets fried and it's one of my favorite comfort foods.

- I'm going to cut the cheese.

- [Dan] The dish is gonna be kind of a classic fried mozzarella.

- [Beryl] Have you done a lot of frying?

- I don't fry many stuff.

I'm always scared of the oil.

- I want to share this dish because it's very easy for anybody to make, even if you're not a very skilled cook, it's very user friendly and there's not a lot of steps.

Just a couple of little things you have to keep in mind.

- [Rosie] Flour.

- One other little tip that I would recommend is you have one hand that you keep wet and one hand that you keep dry.

- [Rosie] Then I change the wet hand.

- [Dan] Because if you have both hands and they're both wet, they'll get clumpy.

You'll have fried mozzarella fingers on both hands.

- Back to the wet hand.

- Back to the egg.

To the panko.

- Here's the first one.

- I'm tagging in because I really wanna make one.

This is my wet hand, this one is my dry hand.

- So I'll use an Italian breadcrumb for the flavor aspect of it, and then when it gets dipped the second time, I'll use a panko breadcrumb, which obviously is not authentic Italian.

I just love the crunch that it gives.

One of the most important things you have to do is freeze your cheese after it's been coated and breaded and just cook it when you're ready.

- [Beryl] This is the scary part?

- This is the scary part.

- [Beryl] Keep going, keep going.

Tilt it up.

There you go.

- That's a lot of oil.

- [Beryl] You got it.

You got it, you got it.

Let's go.

One, two, three.

It's not so scary, huh?

- Oh no, okay.

- My fried mozzarella stick is different than your bar type of mozzarella stick.

It's gonna be a lot bigger, it's gonna be a lot crunchier, and the sauce is definitely gonna be a lot better.

The best way to describe how it tastes is a mouthful of melted happiness every time you bite into it.

I hope that you like making this comfy dish.

It's one of my favorites.

I hope it becomes one of yours.

Love, Dan.

- I'm glad I managed to cook this.

We're hoping for a cheese puLl, so let's try it.

(dramatic music) - Is that satisfying?

- Yes.

(bright music) - [Beryl] How do you think you did?

- [Rosie] I like it.

- [Beryl] Does it feel like how Dan described it?

- Yeah, cheesy and crunchy, and the sauce is kind of sweet too.

Now I understand why it is a comfort food.

The most difficult part of this was putting the oil in the pan because I was very scared of that.

This seems like a lot of oil.

And putting the pieces of cheese in the oil and being afraid of them like exploding.

- Okay, I'm gonna try one.

I really hope that it gives me a pull.

Yes, this is so satisfying.

Oh my God.

That is comfort food to me.

There is nothing better than melty cheese and a warm marinara sauce.

You did such a great job.

- Thank you.

- Dan, we love it, thank you.

- Thank you, Dan.

(bright music) - I hope you enjoyed this episode of "Pan Pals."

Let me know in the comments what your comfort food dish is.

Mine is matzo ball soup, it was in season one if you wanna check it out.

And if you like home cooking, you should check out the latest season of "The Great American Recipe."

The show features eight talented home cooks in a competition that celebrates the diversity and flavors of foods across the US.

You can watch the first episode here on the PBS Food YouTube Channel, and check out the rest of the season every week on the PBS app and your local PBS station.

Check it out in the links in the description.