Here's to You, Senora Robinson

Haha.  So that "whole week of Dinner and a Movie" plan didn't go so well.  But I'll get to them!  Next up is The Graduate and a very 1960s meal - fondue!  I've always been a fan of fondue and I had been wanting to try this extremely non-traditional Fondue with Tequila and Chipotles.  I made a few substitutions based on what I had on hand.  I've found that as long as there is cheese and booze, you can improvise however you want with fondue.  Instead of the chipotles, I used fresh roasted Hatch chiles which were at their peak a few weeks ago.  Using white wine seemed strange in this dish so I substituted Lone Star.  It's the national beer of Texas!  I also decided to add some turkey chorizo, but I think that may have been guilding the lily.  I only make fondue about once a year, so I usually go fairly traditional, but I'm glad I took the chance and branched out.  If you have a favorite fondue recipe, please share!

Of course you can't have fondue without dippers!  While picking up a nice crusty loaf at the local baker is certainly an option, I opted to make the pain de campagne - a French country bread - from The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  It's a rustic loaf made mostly of white flour with a small amount of wheat flour for flavor and texture.  It comes together quickly and can be formed into boule for sandwiches or any number of other shapes.  With a bit of steam in the oven, I got a perfect ratio of crust to soft interior.  I formed half of the dough into an epi (wheat stalk) which not only looks fancy but also maximizes the exterior so that each piece has a crusty edge.  For some variety, I also roasted up a head's worth of cauliflower florets to dip in the fondue.

I enjoyed The Graduate mostly for the soundtrack (Simon and Garfunkel were a frequent presence in my childhood) and the casting of Mr. Feeney as the dad.  However, I had trouble keeping myself from seeing the movie other than through my own, modern lens.  I suspect that, in 1967, this was a tale of disaffected youth refusing to strive for their parents' suburban ideals and adults who aren't happy in the lives they built for themselves.  It's Rebel without a Cause, a toned-down Feminine Mystique, a bit of On the Road (like The Graduate's Benjamin, Sal Paradise just needs to get over himself, quit mooching off everyone around him, and find a job).  Perhaps because I've been a curmudgeon since age 18, none of this particularly resonated with me.  Dustin Hoffman, who was 30 playing 21 while looking 45, is funniest in his discomfort at being seduced by an older woman.  But I didn't much care for Benjamin and saw the movie through Elaine's eyes except for why she could possibly be attracted to him.  The moral of Elaine's story seemed to be "you are smart and driven young woman, here's a lazy, morose partner (who slept with your mom) to drag you down."  I would have been happier with the iconic final scene showing Elaine riding off in the back of the bus alone.

Huevos Rancheros

I've made quite a few variations on huevos rancheros.  My quickest and easiest version is a heated can of Goya black beans in sauce, warmed tortillas, sunny side up eggs, and herdez salsa verde.  All done in about 5 minutes.  This version, from Rick Bayless, is a bit more complicated, but not much. I cooked the black beans from scratch, but they never reached the degree of tenderness you get with the canned beans.  Any suggestions?

Nevertheless, I persevered and made them into chunky refried beans.  The ranchero sauce was much easier.  Just toss a can of charred tomatoes, 1/2 an onion, 2 cloves of garlic, and chipotles in adobo to taste into a blender.  When it is thoroughly combined, cook it down for about 5 minutes to thicken while you cook your eggs.  Plate the whole mess on top of some tortillas and your ready to go with dinner or a very hearty breakfast.

Quick and Delicious Tortas

This yummy sandwich was inspired by this recipe I saw on Mexico Plate by Plate on PBS.  The recipe gives the option of making these with grilled zucchini (which I will definitely try this summer), but I've been trying to clean out my freezer and had some left-over pork mojo from when I went a little citrus crazy in January.  The tart pork, spicy beans, and creamy avocado make an awesome torta.  For the beans, I like to use Goya's black bean soup, mashed and cooked down with some extra hot sauce or chiles.  While that is cooking, mash up some avocados with lime and cilantro.  Pile whatever you want in between the black beans and avocado and you'll be pretty happy.  If you are looking for a quick side dish (and have some fresh corn on hand or some in the freezer), corn browned in a super hot skillet with butter and chili powder is done as quick as you can make the torta.

Tortas
serves 3-4


1 baguette
1-15 oz can Goya black bean soup
2 cups shredded pork in mojo sauce
1 avocado
juice of 1/2 a lime
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
Hot sauce, to taste

1. Lightly mash black beans and cook down until thick.  Add hot sauce to taste.
2. Mix avocado with lime juice and salt to taste.  Stir in cilantro.
3. Split baguette and dig most of the bread out.
4. Smear black beans along one side and avocado along the other.
5. Layer in the meat or grilled vegetables.
6. If you bread isn't fresh, you may want to press the sandwich in a cast iron skillet.

Mole Part 2: Mole Verde

I know that I have already made mole for the blog, but a few months ago we went to Guajillo's restaurant here in town and I had an AMAZING version of mole verde that I just had to try and recreate at home.  Mole verde is anchored by tomatillos and pepitas (pumpkin seeds) along with cilantro and green chiles. Oh and lettuce, you cook lettuce into it.  The flavor is fresh and light, exactly the opposite of the dark and rich mole oaxaqueno and a perfect springtime dish.

You can get fresh tomatillos in the summer, they look a bit like green tomatoes in a husk. Canned tomatillos will work just fine the rest of the year, or when you can't be bothered to husk the sticky tomatillos.  By the way, tomatillos are NOT green tomatoes (no matter what the can or guy stocking the shelves who had to help me find them says).  Anyway, I used a recipe from Rick Bayless' Authentic Mexican, which my brother gave me for Christmas last year and I am loving the regional focus and simple treatment of ingredients.  The recipe is quite similar to this one, but there seem to be a thousand slight variations.  The recipe made a ton of of leftovers and it freezes and reheats very well.

Pescado a la Veracruzano

The Mexican state of Veracruz is narrow East-West but long North-South having claimed much of the prime gulf real estate.  As a result, Veracruz is most famous for seafood served in the style of Veracruz (pescado a la Veracruzano) and as the point from which Cortes began his march on Tenochtitlan.  This later point, perhaps, explaining the heavily Spanish influence on salsa veracruzana.

Salsa veracruzana contains several classically Mediterranean ingredients - olives, capers, marjoram, and thyme - along with a number indigenous to the Americas - tomatoes and chiles - plus a few warming spices from Southeast Asia - cloves and cinnamon - for good measure.  It is quite the melting pot of a salsa.  I made mine loosely following the recipe in Rick Bayless' Authentic Mexican, which contains quite a few really delicious seafood dishes, but there are hundreds of versions online.

Because Texas and Veracruz share a gulf, I thought it would be appropriate to use a gulf fish and the fillets of Texas Redfish looked fresh and was on sale.  (Texas Redfish is also known as red drum and is found as far north as Massachusettes and as far south as Veracruz.  I don't know why Texas likes to use a different name for it, but that is the only way I've seen it labeled at the fish counter.)  Cooking the fish couldn't have been easier, just gentle poaching in the salsa for about 10 minutes while I focused my attention on the homemade corn tortillas.

I really don't care for corn tortillas.  I find the mass-produced variety too dry, too bland, and with a rather unpleasant consistency.  But before I wrote them off entirely, I decided to give handmade a try.  Corn tortillas are easy to make - just masa, salt, and water (although next time, a little fat wouldn't hurt) - but sort of a pain to roll out.  My first several attempts were too thin and tore as I tried to get them onto the griddle.  With a little patience, I persevered and ended up with very fresh, soft, tasty, but irregularly-shaped corn tortillas staying nice and warm in the embroidered tortilla warmer our friend Maria gave us.  Totally worth the effort - although in the future, I'll definitely be picking up one of the $15 tortilla presses sold in every grocery store in town.

Caldo Tlalpeno

This really isn't much a a recipe, but rather a suggestion to add more avocado and cheese to your soups.  These are pretty much two of my favorite things, so it took very little convincing for me to do so.  I made my version of  caldo tlalpeno based on this recipe but you can find many variation online.

Essentially, this a chicken and vegetable soup with chickpeas (I left out the chicken and added extra chickpeas).  Sounds a bit dull, right?  It's not.  The soul of this soup are the spicy and smoky chipotles blended into the broth and the chunks of cool avocado and panela cheese.  If you aren't familiar with it, this cheese tastes a lot like mozarella, but softens without melting when dropped into the soup.  It's easy to find here in San Antonio, but you might try substituting those cute little mozzarella balls you can find at the olive bar at your fancy grocery store.  Feel free to substitute in whatever vegetables you may have on hand; this is a very forgiving soup.  Buen provecho!

Carne Guisada + Tamales

Carne Guisada is something I hadn't heard of before moving to Texas and the incarnation that I find at most restaurants here is a very thick gravy and deliciously falling apart meat stuffed into tacos, enchiladas, and tamales.  I'm pretty much a sucker for anything in gravy so I was going to make it regardless, but I was curious about it's authenticity.  I had found a good-looking recipe at Homesick Texan, so I knew it was legit Tex-Mex, but did it really cross over from south of the Rio Grande?

According to my friend Clarissa, "my grandma made it, but it is a stew, she would never have put it in enchiladas."  So with that blessing, I seared off the meat, deglazed the pan, and dumped it all in my crockpot.  Then I went to teach some friends to knit while it cooked a solid six hours on low.  Because I cooked it in the crockpot, there was less evaporation than there would have been on the stovetop and I found that it needed the thickening power of a bit of flour at the end.  The chunks of beef were falling apart and fresh, warm tortillas were perfect for sopping up the gravy.

Eating it as a stew was fantastic.  But there was a lot left over.  A lot.  So, undoubtedly bringing shame to Clarissa's abuela, I made the leftovers into tamales.  And you know what, those were delicious too.

Chicken Tinga

I recently came across a dish called Tinga at our new favorite Mexican restaurant here in San Antonio.  A little research (okay, a chance encounter with the Homesick Texan blog) revealed that this is a traditional dish of Puebla, Mexico.  I love chipotles and I find they add a smokiness that makes everything taste like it has been cooking for hours.  The version I had at La Fonda on Main was a delicious slow-cooked pork dish, but I decided to lighten it up a bit (and cut down the cooking time) by using chicken thighs and turkey chorizo.  The result is a spicy, thick stew that would delicious over rice or sopped up with freshly cooked tortillas.  I love this ready-to-cook variety:

Chicken Tinga
Serves 6

6 chicken thighs
1 lb turkey chorizo
1 small yellow onion
4 roma tomatoes
4 cloves garlic
4 chipotle peppers in adobo
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. oregano
2 tsp. salt
12 tortillas
cilantro
avocado and/or queso fresco
limes

1. Remove skin and excess fat from chicken thighs.
2. Cook turkey chorizo in a deep pot for a few minutes until cooked through.  If you can't find turkey chorizo, you may want to remove some of the rendered fat.
3. In a blender, combine onions, tomatoes, garlic, peppers, herbs, and salt with 1/2 cup of water.
4. Stir tomato mixture into chorizo and add chicken thighs.  Simmer 30 minutes uncovered or until thighs are cooked through.
5. Remove chicken thighs and turn up the heat on the sauce to reduce.
6. Taste sauce for seasoning.  Shred the chicken and return to sauce.
7. Serve on warm tortillas with avocado, lime and cilantro.

Tacos al Pastor

The most complex part of making tacos al pastor (Geoff's all-time favorite type of taco) was constructing the rotisserie, like so:

photo by Madhav Pai Licenced under Creative Commons

Just Kidding!  Obviously, authentic vertically spit-roasted pork at home isn't feasible.  But slicing the meat to about 1/2 inch think and cooking it over a very hot grill did a surprisingly good job of replicating the char and still yielded juicy meat.  

The internet (source of all authentic cultural information) indicates that this particular type of taco is a Mexicanized version of the gyro that came with Lebanese immigrants.  True or not, the marinade that I found at Mexico: Food, Drinks, and More  yielded deliciously vinegary and sweet meat.  I thinly sliced the pork loin before marinading to maximize the surface area and then grilled it alongside some onions.  

The meat was pretty tasty on it's own with just the grilled onions on top but I felt that the tacos really needed some more moisture in the form of a spicy avocado salsa.  (Really, I think anything is better with avocados.)

But the best topping (it's an easy meal to put together so go a little crazy with the condiments) was the pineapple salsa I made.  Just fresh pineapple, lime, onions, jalapenos, and cilantro.  Even if you don't make the tacos, make the salsa.

I also parcooked some ears of corn in the microwave before finishing them on the grill and then brushing them with a butter-lime-chile powder mix.  You know, because vegetables are important.

Tiny Tlayuda

We had lunch last weekend at La Gloria, a restaurant that specializes in the street foods of Mexico.  Street food is perfect to make at home because it is so simple.  Although we have no gigantic metal sculptures at home.

Tlayuda, which you will sometimes hear called "Mexican Pizza", sounded like the perfect application for the chorizo verde (pork with jalapenos, serranos, and poblanos) I picked up at the farmer's market this week.  Native to Oaxaca, Tlayuda is supposed to be made on a 12" or larger corn tortilla, but I couldn't find any.  So tiny tlayuda (well the size of a normal corn tortilla) it would be.

The recipe for this is so simple that you could figure it out from the photos but I'll break it down for you: (1) puree cooked black beans with onions, garlic, cumin, and hot sauce to taste (2) smear black bean puree on corn tortillas and top with chorizo and queso oaxaca (or mozzarella) (3) cook directly on your hot pizza stone just until cheese melts (4) add some shredded cabbage and cook about 5 more minutes.  Done!

I added a little avocado and hot sauce to gild the lily.  Since the tlayuda was so quick and easy to make, I also made some brown rice horchata.

Yum!

Holy Mole

In a slightly belated celebration of Cinco de Mayo, I decided to kick-off my Mexican culinary odyssey with the intimidating Mole Poblano.  This dish hails from the city of Puebla where the battle we celebrate on Cinco de Mayo was fought so I thought it would be appropriate.  When I order mole in restaurants, I love it about 40% of the time and hate it about 60% - there doesn't seem to be much middle ground.  So I was hoping to up my odds by learning to make it at home.

I started with a recipe from Rick Bayless' Authentic Mexican.  Unfortunately, the bourgeois grocery stores in our neighborhood had a relatively limited supply of dried chiles.  I'm sure the south side of town has many more options.  So we had to limit it to just ancho and guajilla chiles.  Not a problem, though, because there were still 24 more ingredients!!

Wisely, the first step in the recipe is to set out your mise en place (this is just French* for "things in place", but it does sound fancy doesn't it?).

While the chiles soak in hot water, all the other ingredients get fried.  The raisins puff back up till they look like grapes again and then deflate as soon as they are off the heat - who knew?

The chiles get pureed and then that gets fried.  Do yourself a favor and remember to turn on the exhaust hood before you do this.

Everything else gets pureed down as well and it all goes into a big pot with some chicken stock.  This fantastic mix slowly simmers away for an agonizing hour while perfuming your whole house.

When you can't stand it any more, smother some chicken breasts in the mole and bake for 20-30 minutes until just done.

When it emerges, the mole will be darker and thicker.  Slice up the chicken, wrap in some warmed tortillas, spoon on more sauce, and snarf.

Surprisingly, since the sauce starts with no fewer than 27 chiles, the final sauce was spicy but not overly hot.  The only thing missing from the sauce is a little acid to round out the flavors.  If you can take the heat, the vinegary hit of hot sauce is a nice finishing touch.  If you planned ahead better than we did, some sliced avocado or queso fresco would be good but not essential.


*Is it inappropriate to use French cooking terms in a post celebrating a holiday that represents Mexico winning a battle over France?