Posted by Anita on 04.11.05 3:41 PM
Oaxacan Black Bean: it was delicious. Cam just finished the last of it for lunch today. (Well, not quite… there’s another 2 servings in the freezer for one of those “I dunno, what do you feel like eating” nights.)
Next time I would probably add a bit more chorizo, or perhaps sautee another 1/4 pound of it for garnish… most of the long-cooked stuff simmered down and/or got pureed so smoothly that you didn’t know it was there. Garnished with some mexican cheese, crisp tortillas, and a little bit of avocado. Mmm….
There’s a really dumbed-down version of the recipe I used here. The real version calls for avocado leaf instead of fennel, and pasilla oaxaquena instead of chipotles; the shrimp (which I didn’t use) are optional.
cooking, Mexican, recipes, Soup o' the Fortnight
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Posted by Anita on 03.27.05 10:54 PM
Was sitting here, jonesing for Mexican food — even though I have dinner already prepped to go in the oven in a few hours — and I thought of my friend Jaymes’ quicky chilaquiles. Boy, am I glad I did! They’ve been the subject of some serious “more Mexican than the Mexicanos” backchat on Mouthfuls, as they’re made in the microwave with storebought ingredients.
I just have one word for the naysayers: Yum.
Salsa verde (tomatilla sauce); torn tortilla chips; queso manchego (or asadero, or ranchero, or fresco, or any other Mexican white cheese that you like); and sour cream.
In bottom of microwaveable dish, spread a little tomatilla sauce, then layer of tostadas or Fritos, then more sauce, then sour cream, then “bastante queso.” Repeat, until dish is full or ingredients are all used up, finishing with cheese. Microwave one minute, or till chilaquiles are heated through and cheese is melted. You’ll probably have to experiment a time or two in order to get all of the proportions just right. Use as much salsa verde as you wish in order to get it as ‘wet’ as you like.
I used a small rectangular pyrex dish (I’d say 5 x 7″), half a cup of the salsa, three handfuls of chips, and two or three tablespoons of the faux-crema. It took about 2-1/2 minutes, all together, for the cheese to melt and the chips to soften a bit. These quantities made a nice snack for two.
I wasn’t planning to share, but Cam came in and said “Mmm, that smells good” so I gave him half, and still ended up having plenty. (Of course, he has a batch of shortbread cooling on the counter right now, so I know which side my bread is buttered on!) For a full meal, I might try making about 2/3 this much and eating it with an egg. Hmm, that’s a good idea for breakfast tomorrow. I can only imagine how good it would be with the right cheese and homemade salsa…!
I had a bag of going-stale blue corn tortilla chips in the pantry, along with a small can of Embasa salsa verde. Good cultured sour cream (which I thinned a bit with half-and-half) in the fridge; alas, no Mexican cheese, so I had to make due with mild cheddar for this try.
Muchas gracias, Jaymes. It’d never occured to me to try doing chilaquiles the shortcut way, and now I can see this becoming a house favorite.
cooking, food boards, Mexican
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Posted by Anita on 03.23.05 3:37 PM
We made the broth for our beef soup yesterday. It’s chillin’ (along with half of the beef used to make it) in the downstairs fridge now, ready to have its fat layer peeled away. I think it’s destined for Beef Barley later in the week, unless I change my mind again.
Update: We finished making our beef-barley soup last night. The photo was kinda dodgy, so I don’t think it will add much to the story.
We tried Pam Anderson‘s recipe, since we’d always wondered if it was good, using the “2 pounds marrow bones plus 4 pounds chuck meat” option — there were no beef shanks to be found in the area without ordering them. The rest of the ingredients couldn’t be simpler: carrot, onion, 1/2 cup chopped canned tomatoes, a bit of barley, and some fresh thyme.
The broth was good and beefy, though I don’t know if it was worth using 6 pounds of meat and bones to get it! Unlike Anderson’s chicken broth, you do end up with usable meat at the end of the process. And since the recipe itself only calls for half of the meat, I used some of the rest for the picadillo project, and expect to make some sort of italian stew with the remainder. But all in all, I don’t think it was much better than what I’ve made in the past with beef stock, and it was a lot more trouble. And it also made a LOT more than then 6 servings she said it would, so we’ve got about 4 servings in the freezer, even after setting aside 3 lunches.
cooking, recipes, Soup o' the Fortnight
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Posted by Anita on 03.15.05 3:32 PM
I made a pot of Pam Anderson’s chicken soup from The Perfect Recipe. I don’t think my batch came out as good as Cameron’s usually does — he is the designated chicken souper of our clan — but I compensated by adding my own homemade farfalle pasta.
I love this soup because it doesn’t deplete my stock stash: you use a whole chicken, cutting all but the breast into tiny bits to make broth, then add breast meat poached in the broth, and veggies sauteed in the chicken fat. It turns out really chicken-y, even more than you’d expect from such a reasonably quick preparation.
cooking, recipes, Soup o' the Fortnight
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Posted by Anita on 03.01.05 11:21 PM
Excerpted from Mouthfuls’ Mexican Cooking Project #2: Cochinita Pibil
Cameron and I made cochinita pibil last night, using a hybrid of two Rick Bayless recipes: we used the small batch from Mexican Kitchen, but cooked it in the grill a la One Plate at a Time. We also made his habanero salsa — just a drop per taco was enough! — plus pickled onions and homemade tortillas.
We used a whole pork shoulder, and had plenty of meat. Ours took about 4-4.5 hours for a bone-in roast about 3.5 pounds and 4 inches thick on our gas grill that we kept at around 325 degrees F. The marinade didn’t completely dry up, but we did add about a cup of chicken stock to it to deglaze the pan, and then simmered that down to reduce back to the right consistency. We didn’t lift the wrapped roast up off the bottom of the dutch oven, nor did we cover it.
I’ve never had cochinita before, and I loved it. The achiote and the banana leaf gave it the most ethereal scent and taste. I had 2 tacos this morning for breakfast, and another 2 with some leftover black beans for lunch today. Man! It’s a good thing I have another project planned for dinner, or else I would eat it again!
cookbooks, cooking, food boards, meat, Mexican
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