Tag Archives: recipies

The Martes Chronicles: In Queso You Were Wondering

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It’s a fact repeated so often that it’s become slightly cliche: that great cuisines are forged in poverty. It’s no secret that people who are forced to do more with less every day tend to get really good at that thing. It’s easy to forget that throughout human history, and for much of the world population now, the ingredients you had at hand were first of all dictated by geography and climate and secondly by your level of poverty. Cooking processes all developed in the various regions of the world in order to maximize limited fuel resources. Dishes that we often call ‘comfort food’ are enjoyed because they underwent a process of refinement through being cooked and served to hungry people almost every day of the week, generation after generation.

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Homemade Focaccia

A look at any high-end restaurant menu will show that many of the dishes and ingredients we celebrate now as ‘gourmet’ were once considered subsistence food for the poor people of the world. Polenta is just a simple mush that has fed Northern Italians since Roman times (when it was usually made from chestnuts; corn didn’t arrive until the colonization of the Americas). Lobster used to be fed to French prisoners. Slow-food staples like Pot-au-feu are all about stretching a few simple ingredients into something otherworldly.

I bring this up because I’ve been poor as shit lately. Not to the point where I’m eating clay in order to gain nutrients, but certainly at a point of more limited resources than I’ve been since I was much younger. Fortunately I know way more about food and cooking than I did in my teens and early twenties, so my lack of disposable income (especially when it comes to food) has become a really excellent opportunity to stretch my skills to the limit.

From-Scratch Neapolitan Pizza

Because of this I’ve been cooking a lot of Italian food. Making bread and pasta completely from scratch is something I’ve dabbled in from time to time, but having to make it day in and day out in order to have a meal outside of work has been a crash course in developing technique. I’ve extended the noodle making to Chinese food as well; rolling out hand-cut noodles and stir-frying them with ginger, garlic, scallions and soy.

I feel I’ve been eating better than when I had a hundred extra bucks every month to have someone else bake my bread, make my pasta or roast my chickens. The money I save is nice, but what really feels great is the calorie burn. When you spend the better part of the day putting serious energy into what you cook; you can go a little heavier on the extra bread and butter.

Chicken Cacciatore with Homemade Pappardelle

I’d like to give you a recipe for some of these things I’ve been working on, but the truth is I’m still trying to formulate a system for myself. Plus, I’m not eating like this every day. Sometime I just want something kind of terrible to eat while I watch another terrible Cowboys game.

I want Queso Dip. So I make it myself from scratch without any processed cheese. Here’s the trick:

You will need:

  • 2 Cups Whole Milk
  • 3 Tablespoons Butter
  • 3 Tablespoons Flour
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
  • 1 1/2 Cups Cheddar Cheese* (shredded)
  • 1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese (shredded or grated)
  • 1/4 Cup Chili Garlic Sauce or Sriracha

*I used a red-wine cheddar from Tratante Jose’s and I highly recommend you find something similar. It may sound weird, but the red wine note with the sharp cheddar does a pretty good job of imitating Velveeta’s sharpness without the nasty chemical components.

Here’s what you do:

In a medium sauce pan; melt the butter over medium-high heat.
As soon as it’s melted; whisk in the flour and salt.
Keep whisking until the flour is lightly toasted; about three minutes.
Add the milk and whisk constantly over high heat until it begins to boil.

Turn down the heat to a simmer and whisk it every minute or so till it reduces by a quarter and begins to thicken up.

At the point where it’s roughly gravy-consistency; begin whisking in the cheese a couple tablespoons at a time; make sure each batch you throw in melts completely before you add the next.

Once all the cheese is melted in, quickly whisk in the chili sauce/siriacha and remove from the heat. Pour into a bowl (or even a small slow-cooker set to low), dip some chips in that sucker and wonder aloud to a compassionless universe why Dallas can’t beat Eli Manning at home.

Huevos Fritos with Homemade Garlic Toast and Sauteed Arugula

So as I progress with my experimenting; I’ll keep you updated. If you’re curious about specific dishes that you want me to write up in the future; let me know in the talkbacks.

The Martes Chronicles: Moves Like Nikujaga

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I’m busy and it’s cold, cold, cold outside. Let’s cook up some meat and potatoes, Japanese style. Nikujaga (pronounced like Mick-oo Jagga) is Japan’s answer to the pot roasts and beef stews of the western world. In fact, it was developed by Japanese naval chefs in imitation of the beef stew the British navy served to its sailors. I’m sure you’re at a loss to come up with a finer culinary pedigree than “British Military Cuisine“, but bear with me for a moment. In order to understand why the Japanese would adopt something so seemingly mundane with, as it turns out, a great deal of enthusiasm, we must step into the WABAC Machine for a moment. For the better part of three centuries, Japan experienced a period of self-imposed isolation from external cultural influence. From 1603 to 1853 Japan experienced minimal contact with foreigners beyond their archipelago; limited mostly to Dutch trading ships allowed in once a year and private Chinese vessels. This isolation was in direct resistance to European (particularly Portuguese) attempts at colonization. By avoiding the economic and religious domination from foreign powers experienced by so many of the neighboring countries in East Asia, Japan underwent a cultural refinement almost unprecedented in world history. Despite (or possibly because of) near-constant civil warfare; the Japanese took a culture and cuisine largely borrowed from China and Korea and created something wholly unique. In the 1850′s; American gunboats forced the Japanese to open their harbors to foreign trade. The rapid mixing of modern industrial society with that of a country sequestered within an idiosyncratic feudal culture had longstanding historical and cultural ramifications ranging from World War II to tentacle rape. Free trade brought in new dishes which the Japanese began to develop a taste for like curry, spaghetti and tomato sauce and breaded pork cutlets. These days Japanese cuisine is loaded with borrowed dishes that, while only about a century and a half old, are intrinsic comfort food to the Japanese.

Nikujaga is one of the most accessible examples of this kind of proto-fusion cuisine. Literally meaning “meat and potatoes”; nikujaga is simple to make, delicious on a cold day and easily adaptable to whatever variations you feel like making.

Here’s what you need to serve about 8 people:

  • 1 1/2 LBS Short Ribs, Bones removed (Sliced or Ground Beef will suffice)
  • 2 large White Onions (sliced into rings)
  • 4 large Baking Potatoes (Peeled and cut into large chunks)
  • 1/2 LB Carrots (scrubbed and sliced into 1″ lengths)
  • 1 oz Dried Shitake Mushrooms (rinsed)
  • 1 1/2 Cups Sugar
  • 1 Cup Mirin*
  • 3/4 Cup Tamari or Light Soy Sauce
  • 1/2 Cup Dark Soy Sauce
  • Short Grain Japanese Rice
  • Sliced Scallions
  • Shichimi Togarashi (optional)
*If you don’t have any Mirin sub 3/4 cup of Rice Wine (can be found at most asian markets) and 1/2 cup honey.
Steep dried mushrooms in 2 cups boiling water for ten minutes. Strain and reserve the broth. Once mushrooms cool; remove and discard the stems and slice the caps in half.
In a large pot; brown your meat in batches so that it looks good and you have a decent amount of rendered beef fat in your pot.
Add a little extra vegetable oil to the pot if need be and throw your Mushrooms, Onions and Carrots into the medium-hot (but not smoking) beef fat. Saute them until the onions and carrots begin to soften, about ten minutes.
Deglaze the pot with your reserved mushroom stock. Add the beef, sugar, soy sauces and mirin to the pot along with enough water to comfortably cover everything and bring to a boil. Skim the fat from the top using a ladle or the “traditional Japanese method” I learned from the person who taught me how to cook nikujaga; using a paper towel. Once skimmed, simmer on low with a lid on for about an hour. Add the potatoes and simmer with the lid on for another hour.

Check and see how the broth tastes. Too salty? Add more sugar. Too sweet? Add some salt. Too bland? More soy sauce. Meanwhile, drink some sake.
You should be all set. Is your rice cooked? The short-grain sushi rice?
You better get on that.

Ladle the stew into bowls. Top with a big scoop of rice. Garnish with the scallions and if you want some spice; the Shichimi Togarashi.

Enjoy the benefits of cultural apropriation.

The Martes Chronicles: Cholent Eruption

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Jewish law requires that I eat a hot meal for lunch on Shabbat, but also that I not do any cooking. This has been the case for my people for roughly 3,000 years and in that time there has been very little advancement in how that meal is prepared.

Sure, there are regional variations from around the world that seem to originate with the slow-simmered sabbath soups of the Jews. Cholent and Hamin, the two most well known, seem to have inpspired the French cassoulet, Spanish Fabada and the Portuguese Feijoada. All of them have the following in common: Beans, meat and slow cooking. All other differences are a matter of what ingredients are available on hand.

The other week I had some beans, pearl barley and some beef soup bones that, despite their meager origins, turned into an unctuous and satisfying dish after a long, slow cook in the crock pot. Here’s what I did:

I browned a bunch of soup bones in a heavy dutch oven until much of the fat had rendered out. I set the bones aside, keeping the fat in the pan so that I could…

Sweat some onions and garlic in the beef fat. Never ever, ever, ever put uncooked onions into a slow cooker unless you want your food to be inedible and your kitchen overwhelmed with noxious onion gasses. Science!

Once your onions are nice and golden, de-glaze the pan with a couple cups water and use a wooden spoon to scrape up all that nice beefy fond you’ve built up in the pan.

Put your washed and sorted beans in the bottom of the cooker.

Follow that with the onion/garlic/pan-drippings and a half cup of pearl barley.
Throw in maybe a tablespoon of salt. DO NOT OVER SALT THIS!
You can always salt it to taste when you serve it.

Add some potatoes and carrots, a squirt of ketchup (seriously) and cover the whole thing with water.

Set it on Low and don’t touch it for about 12 to 16 hours. That’s it.

I don’t have a picture of the finished product because I don’t take photos on shabbos, but even so, it’s not the most visually appealing dish. This is where having some chopped parsley on hand can really dress things up.

Those are the basics, but the possibilities are limitless. The following week I used just pinto beans, various chili seasonings, browned some chuck roast instead of soup bones and used canned, drained hominy in place of pearl barley for a sort of Tex-Mex cholent (garnished with sliced radishes and avocado).

Guess what? It was AMAZING.

Pretty much any meat or bean combo is a good one, all you need is time, patience and a judicious hand with the salting (nothing is worse than over-salted cholent). By no means should you limit this dish to Jewish holidays you don’t celebrate. You could easily  use the outline of this recipie to make a duck and white bean cassoulet for a dinner party, or make something resembling chili (because chili has no beans) for a football game or potluck.

Go nuts. It’s practically idiot-proof.

The Martes Chronicles: Challah! Challah!

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Challah is the cornerstone of almost every festive Jewish meal. Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, in particular has a great deal of symbolism related to the forming, baking and serving of this bread. Outside of Jewish practice, challah is beginning to be embraced by chefs from all over the world as a unique alternative to other enriched breads like brioche or pão doce.

I spend the bulk of my Fridays preparing for Shabbat. Cleaning the house, setting up food for the evening (and the next day), making sure the DVR records Saturday’s Longhorns game and most importantly- baking bread.

Depending on what kind of food I’m making for Shabbat; I’ll either hand-make some tortillas or bake a pair of challot for the weekend. I used to just buy my challah from a kosher baker, but distance and money often conspire so that baking it myself is the cheaper/easier option. In truth, home-made challah just plain tastes better, and can be modified to suit the taste of the baker.

That’s what I ended up doing with my grandmother’s recipe (passed to me from my mother). It was just fine how it is, but because I have to tinker with every recipe I use, I ended up creating a recipe that’s a little fluffier and sweeter than the original.
Also I knew I’d be posting it here, and it struck me as kind of wrong to give a family recipe away without charging anything for it.

The recipe as it stands is basically fool-proof. I don’t consider myself a terrific baker, but I have yet to produce a loaf using this formula that wasn’t delicious and beautiful to look at. I’m not sure what more you could ask for.

You will need:

  • 6 cups All-Purpose Flour (Plus extra for dusting)
  • 2 packages Dry Yeast
  • 2 cups Warm Water
  • 4 Eggs
  • 1/4 cup Sugar 
  • 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
  • Teaspoon of Salt
    (Don’t use Kosher Salt or the bread won’t rise as well!)

Start by adding the Sugar and Yeast to the warm water, let it sit for about ten minutes.

Mix 4 cups of the flour with three of the beaten eggs, the oil, salt and the water mixture until you have a uniform consistency.
Add the other 2 cups of flour and work it until you have a knead-able dough.

Knead the dough for 10 to 20 minutes until you develop strong gluten, meaning the dough stretches when you pull it instead of breaking.

Place in a large, lightly greased bowl with a dry towel to cover it.
Put it in a warm part of the kitchen for 1 to 3 hours or until it doubles in size.

Go work on your Cholent.

Once your dough has doubled, punch it down and do the following:

Do this with both halves and then pinch the little braids securely to the top of the larger braids like so:

Place these on a floured or parchment papered cookie sheet, cover and let rise for another 20 minutes while you preheat the oven to 350º.

Beat your one remaining egg and thouroughly brush the surfaces of both loaves, making sure to get in all the nooks and crannies.
You can leave the challot unadorned, or you can sprinkle them with sesame or poppy seeds.

Place them in the oven for 45 minutes, and there you have it.

If the braiding seems a little too advanced, you can always make round challah (usually served for Rosh Hashana with an extra 1/2 cup of honey and a cup of raisins in the initial dough) which just requires that you divide the risen dough in half and elongate each half to about 12″ with one end larger then the other.

Roll that up with the big end in the middle, proof and bake the same way and you’ll get this crowd-pleaser:

 

The Martes Chronicles: Pilaf And Go

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Moghul Style rice Pilaf with Curried Chicken and Grilled Tomato

Few dishes span geography and history in as grand a manner as rice pilaf. Or pilau. or palov. Or palau. Or pulao. Or sopa seca, if you will. How the did rice cooked in broth become a common dish stretching from Asia to the Near East, North Africa, Europe and Central America?

It starts with the Persians (that’s what Iranians used to call themselves), and their neighbors in Central Asia, who were some of the first rice cultivators in the world. Having rice (typically of a long grain Basmati-style variety) as your staple food can get boring very fast, so the Persians developed multiple preparations for their rice, each producing a very different result based on the steaming/boiling/par-cooking methods used.

It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that cooking the rice in a seasoned broth would be considered both highly nutritious and a little luxurious, what with broth being relatively more expensive than plain water. When Alexander the Great encountered the Persian Empire; he was fed a variant of pilaf by the locals; enjoying the dish so much that he brought the recipe back to Macedonia where it was in turn spread throughout Eastern Europe.

The story of pilaf is the story of the rise and fall of empires. The Persians spread the dish through Afghanistan, Central Asia, Turkey and the Arabian peninsula. The Turks brought it with them into their conquered territories, including parts of Europe and Asia Alexander never reached. During the course of the geopolitical rise of Islam the Arabs spread it throughout their domain, from the Middle East and North Africa all the way into Spain and Southern Italy.

The Spanish dishes of Arroz con Pollo and Paella and the basic methods behind Italian Risotto all stem from that Arab/Persian legacy. More on Spain in a moment.

The dish also spread eastward. The Mughal rulers of Northern India (and modern day Bangladesh, Kashmir and Pakistan) brought Islamic culture and religion to the subcontinent, and with it a variety of pilaf variations, such as Briyani and Pilau. In the parts of Southeast Asia where ethnic Indian communities traveled to (Burma and Indonesia especially) they brought variants of pilaf with them. Visitors to Singapore and Malaysia will find the same cooking style for pilaf utilizing Southeast Asian ingredients and flavors.

Over on the Iberian peninsula; the Spaniards reconquered their country after almost 800 years of Muslim rule. In 1492 they began both a campaign of ethnically cleansing Spain and Portugal of Jews and Muslims, as well as their exploration and colonization of the New World. Rice came with them, as well as refugee communities of Sephardi Jews who brought the Middle Eastern style rice, noodle and broth preparations. The descendants of those dishes can be seen on the everyday Mexican table in the Sopa Secas (literally “dry soups”) served with all main meals.

Rice pilaf has even become a staple in the US. What did you think Rice-a-Roni was?

Sopa Seca con Fideos

The running current of all these dishes, beyond being rice cooked in broth, is that they lend themselves to being served to large groups. Pilaf isn’t something you throw together for yourself, it’s a dish representative of hospitality traditions spanning the globe. From the breaking of a Ramadan fast in Jakarta, an upscale hotel in India, a Bedouin tent or a Quinceañera in El Paso- the presence of a rice pilaf transforms a meal into a feast.

So how the hell do you make it?

At it’s most basic; all you’ll need is long grain rice and good flavorful stock. The rest is a matter of plugging in different savories, spices, meats, fruits, vegetables, nuts and noodles to customize it to whatever framework you want it to fit in. Below is the basic technique, along with a few different variations you can try. Mix and match them. Experiment. That’s how we got the wealth of pilaf recipes we have now.

Your basic ratio should be 1 part rice; 2 parts stock.
Any long grain rice will do, but Indian Basmati rice is ideal for fluffy pilafs where the grains are separate. I recommend rinsing and draining the rice three times, making sure it’s not too damp when you’re ready to cook.

The flavor of the stock is up to you. Neutral stocks like chicken and vegetable tend to be flavorful without overpowering the other components. If you’re serving lamb with your pilaf, then use lamb stock, and so on. Make a little more than you need, just in case, and have your stock just short of boiling when you’re ready to cook.

Before you heat up your cooking fat in a heavy bottomed pan with a tight fitting lid; you’re going to need to consider a few things. Namely; which of the following ingredients you care to incorporate:

  • Cooking Fat:
    Vegetable oil, Olive oil, Grapeseed oil or Ghee (clarified butter)
  • Starches:
    Rice (rinsed), dry toasted noodles (like fideos)
  • Savories
    Onion, Garlic, Carrot, Chopped Peppers, Ginger,  Mushrooms.
  • Spices
    Curry or Cardamon and Fennel Seed (for Indian-style), Cinnamon and Cardamon (Turkish/Persian), Saffron, Cumin and Cardamon (Middle Eastern).
  • Veggies, Fruit & Nuts:
    Peas, Tomatoes, Raisins, Grapes, Cashews, Slivered Almonds, Sultanas, Chopped Dates, Apples.

So you heat your fat in the pan to medium high. Throw in your onions and saute until translucent (or brown them if you prefer a stronger flavor).
Toss in your rice and stir constantly until each grain is lightly toasted.
If you’re using toasted noodles; throw them in now.
Add your spices and remaining savories and stir until lightly toasted.
Add your stock and any fruits, veggies or nuts you plan on adding. Stir well.
Bring to a boil and cover. Immediately bring to a low simmer.

That’s it! It should take about 35-45 minutes to cook.
DO NOT OPEN THE POT BEFORE THAT!

Once all the liquid is absorbed; fluff with a fork and serve immediately. If you don’t open it too many times; you can keep it warm in the oven with the lid tightly sealed.

Serve by itself or with anything that sounds good. Enjoy.

 

 

 

The Martes Chronicles: What We Did Last Summer (Part One)

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Ow-ah skyline is gritty-ah than you-ah skyline!

I don’t have a tremendous amount of love for the state commonwealth of Massachusetts.
I have family there; I’ve lived there; I’ve even been thrown out of a couple schools there. But like Homer Simpson in New York, bad things always seem to happen to me in Massachusetts, and Boston in particular.

Oh, excuse me, I meant Baaaahs-tan. Sacred centah of facking REDSAWX WELKAH NATION! THE TAAAAWN OF FIGHTAHS!

Boston brings up a lot of mixed feelings for me. For the most part it’s a lovely city. Beautiful neighborhoods, nice restaurants and a rich connection to American history make it a town worth seeing at least once. On the other hand; Boston is pretty much what you get when you take New York City; remove most of its ethnic diversity and replace it with clones of Frasier Crane and THIS guy:

WEEEEEELKAAAAAAAAAH!

Boston is a town with an inferiority complex so deeply woven into its cultural tapestry that they make Chicagoans seem slightly less provincial. For a city that rubs its connection to the American Revolution in everybody’s face, they certainly seem to have less of a problem with draconian tax policy, political corruption and social engineering than they had 200+ years ago.This is also a city that prides itself on the loyalty of their “die-haaaahd” sports fans, and yes, their beisbol fans are very serious, possibly the most vocal in the country, but their run of championships in all the major professional sports leagues over the last decade has dimmed memories a bit.

It used to be Red Sawx and Celtics and nothing else and HOLY CRAP WE HAVE A FOOTBAAAHL TEAM! AND THEY’VE WON THREE SUPAAAAH BOWLS!

I know this because when I lived and visited Massachusetts frequently in the mid-nineties, all their teams sucked, with the perpetual-bridesmaid Sawx being the only show in town. When I visited for the first time in over a decade this last summer; I saw an awful lot of pristine Bruins jerseys and Pats throwbacks with the tag still on them.

Rockport, MA

We didn’t spend all our time in Beantown. Mostly we explored some of the seaside towns north of the big city: Salem, Gloucester and Rockport. We saw our share of “quaint” and “distinctive” villages, salty locals in Sawx hats and fishstick factories.

Gorton's Fishtick Factory: Gloucester, MA

In all seriousness; it was nicer than I expected it to be. The setting is beautiful (and I don’t even like the ocean that much), the people seem to be genuinely friendly and the food is pretty damn good. If you’re like me, however, and you don’t eat shellfish, you’re going to run into some problems finding something on a menu that won’t incite anaphylaxis/anger your sky-deity.

Haddock: f***ing get used to it.

Interestingly; Massachusetts state law requires sufferers of shellfish allergies to identify themselves to the server and for management to speak with the customer on the subject. At nearly every sit-down restaurant we went to I would have a brief interview with either a floor manager or chef on the severity of my allergy, and they would suggest whichever Haddock dish I could order off the menu. The one time I was shy about it and just decided to order whatever looked safe without alerting the waiter was the only night I had a reaction.

I normally disagree with states micromanaging the restaurant business, but in a state where even the ice in your drink has lobster in it, it’s not the worst idea.

Pictured: A Gloucester Sno-Cone

One thing Massachusetts has on everywhere else is the ubiquity of Dunkin Donuts.

FACKIN DUNKIN-NATION!

You know that Simpsons where Bart walks into the mall and every store is a Starbucks? You cannot walk 50 yards in any Massachusetts town without passing a Dunkin Donuts. This is not a complaint. I miss my Dunkin; they don’t have it anywhere near me; it’s a real treat and their coffee is underrated. It is a little weird how they changed the name of the airport in Boston from Logan to Dunkin, but I suppose that’s better than FACKIN LARRY-LEGEND-WOODHEAD-WELKAH-DUNKIN-PEDROYAH International Airport.

The joke is that they don't think through names very well.

Then there was the fishing.
I’m not a big fisherman, but when given the opportunity to get up at the crack of dawn with a stomach full of Dunkin and do some ocean fishing, I jumped at it. I never caught a thing, shlimazel that I am, but two members of my party each a caught 30″+ stripped bass that they kept, and two huge bluefish they threw back.

The freshest sashimi you'll ever eat.

Beautifully; the guys running the boat were happy to butcher the fish on the ride back to port (for a small portion of the catch). At one point they had to tend to boat-business, so my cousin (who took us on this trip in the first place) finished the job for them, rinsing the freshly cut pieces in the ocean water and handing them off for us to eat.

How the sausage is made...

It was easily the freshest fish I’d ever eaten. When we came ashore we headed straight for the grocery store to pick up a few components to dress up our catch.
Here’s a selection of what I whipped up for everybody:

Stripped Bass Sashimi

  • Wrap your fish steak in plastic wrap and put in freezer for 15 minutes.
  • Remove from freezer. Slice thinly with sharp knife against the grain.
  • Serve with shoyu and wasabi.

Stripped Bass Crudo

  • Wrap your fish steak in plastic wrap and put in freezer for 15 minutes.
  • Remove from freezer. Slice thickly (roughly 1″) with sharp knife against the grain.
  • Dress with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

 

  • Stripped Bass Poke
    • Cut fish into bite size cubes.
    • Dress with shoyu, rice vinegar, sesame oil and scallions to taste.
    • Because this isn’t real Hawaiian Poke- be sure to pronounce it the way they do in Massachusetts- as if it’s something you do on Facebook.

    Stripped Bass Ceviche

    • Cut fish into slightly larger than bite size cubes.
    • Add some sliced purple onion, some chopped cilantro, a little chopped jalapeno, salt & pepper and enough lime juice to cover the whole mixture.
    • Marinate in the lime juice for a minimum of 45 minutes.
    • Serve with chopped avocados and corn nuts/parched corn.

Last breakfast in Rockport

So that was it. Just a few days out east and then back to the Midwest where a massive heatwave was waiting for us. Next week here at Reducer: Miami.

In Massachusetts: only Kennedys are allowed to play football on the beach.

Frito Pie: Monday Night Football Edition

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Get it?

In just over an hour; the Dallas Cowboys (whooooo!) will host their most hated rival; the Washington RACIST TEAM NAME REDACTED in a classic Monday Night Matchup. Until I move to Texas; I have to be content with only watching the six to eight nationally televised Cowboys games a season. Monday night games, especially versus Washington, are particularly special, and so I celebrate them with appropriately Texan football food.

Frito Pie is the more highfalutin version of the classic Walking Taco (something I mentioned near the end of this article) and is perfect for a Monday night game when you don’t have much time to cook after you get home from work.
It’s so simple that even a RACIST TEAM NAME REDACTED fan could make it.

If he wasn't full of boiled peanuts and smoked ham, that is.

Here’s the rundown:

image

Ingredients:

  • 1 large bag of Fritos
  • 2 cans bad chili (seriously; don’t waste the good stuff on this one)
  • 1 block Sharp Cheddar Cheese
  • Beer (for drinking)

Optional:

  • Chopped onions
  • Jalapenos
  • Olives
  • Sour Cream

Ok. Preheat your oven to 350. Dump the Fritos in a deep casserole dish.Dump the chili on top of the chips. Shred the cheese on top of that and bake it for 5-10 minutes, depending on how done you like your cheese.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing. Now drink beer and yell at your TV every time they break another one of Tony Romo’s ribs.

For dessert? Guava and cheese empanadas. Here’s everything you need for that:

Do I really need to explain this one to you?

Have fun. I’m gonna go watch some football.

The Martes Chronicles: Tortilla Me Up, Tortilla Me Down

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After my totally fair and in no way hyperbolic critique of the Walk-A-Taco last month, I expected more people to come to its defense. Apparently I made a pretty good case against the product, as most of the feedback I received was in agreement with my less-than-positive appraisal.

The only thing that seemed to throw people were a few throwaway comments I made disparaging flour tortillas. I’ve made no secret of my Mexican food snobbery and the various excuses I have for expecting you to tolerate it. At the same time; I don’t consider myself some kind of omnipotent expert on the subject. There are limits to my knowledge, and as much as I might like to be, I’m not the Space-Pope of Mexican food.

Rick Bayless is the Space Pope of Mexican food

That would be this guy.

It just happens to be something I was raised with; that I’m both deeply familiar with and constantly learning something new about. If Mexican food can be quantified as a single entity (which is asking a lot) it holds the strongest sense memories for me. Every Mexican dish and technique in my repertoire, simple or complex, in inextricably tied to people, places and events from my life. The smells and tastes often remind me of family and friends; parties held; romances kindled; places visited long ago.
Even the right combination of stray scents from the right restaurant or mercado, caught on a random street in a random American city, will transport me to being three years old in a Juarez market with my parents.

Often just the suggestion of Mexican food, even bad Mexican food, will make my mouth water like nothing else. This isn’t like a “reclaiming my lost childhood” kind of thing either; I’ve always been this way. Sesame Street was on right before lunch when I was a kid.
How could you not NEED tacos after watching this?

It’s easily my favorite culinary framework to operate in, being a perfect combination of challenging and familiar, with enough breath and depth to never be boring. I guess what I’m trying to say is that when I’m cooking you Mexican food, I’m showing off as much as possible.

I also happen to think, and this is merely my opinion, that when ranked against the other three major cuisines (arguably: Chinese, Italian and French. Feel free to disagree) that Mexican cuisine DESTROYS them in terms of sophistication and influence.

But I repeat.

I’ll give all due credit to the Chinese for inventing cooked food, the French for innovating technique and the Italians for showing the world how to treat ingredients- among many other obvious contributions to world cuisine. But remove the tomato, corn, beans, squash, sweet potato, peanuts, chile peppers, avocado, chocolate and vanilla (all of which either originated or were cultivated in Pre-Columbian Mexico) from those cuisines and many of their “classics” become less than awesome.

In terms of sophistication; read about how the Mayans and Aztecs figured out how to process chocolate and vanilla; both of which require precise fermentation and processing in order to transform the raw ingredients into the flavors we recognize. If they were smart enough to figure that out on their own, then they were certainly smart enough to build pyramids without extraterrestrial assistance.

http://twitpic.com/5qa0it

I’ve been cooking a lot of simple Mexican food for myself lately. About four days a week, I make my own tortillas.
Now, I don’t hate flour tortillas. Given the choice I’ll almost always choose corn over flour and I have a lot of difficulty accepting flour tortillas for items like tacos and enchiladas, but sometimes you want/need a burrito and flour is the only thing that will do.

Part of my snobbery stems from my upbringing, but it was working at the Restaurant of the Peninsular States Just Below California where I became spoiled on flour tortillas fresh off the comal. Corn tortillas have a fairly lengthy shelf life if stored properly. Flour tortillas begin to taste bad the moment they begin to cool down. Factory-made flour tortillas are particularly bad this way, as the heavy amount of shortening they use to keep the tortillas moist takes on an unappealing sour taste in no time.
Most burrito joints will warm these factory-mades on a flattop of some sort, but anyone who’s eaten a leftover burrito that they had in the fridge for a night knows that the tortilla is gonna be the worst part.

So I’ll eat flour tortillas; but I’m picky about when I do.

Making them at home is no picnic. You can buy flour tortilla mixes like White Wings at most large grocery stores (requiring only that you add water). They’re a staple in lots of homes and they make for a great product. The problem is that even the instant mixes require a lot of kneading and rolling out by hand, and failure to use a roller properly can result in tortillas that belong in the pita bread family. If you have the time and the energy; fresh flour tortillas are totally worth the effort and can elevate a meal quite a bit.

The other potential downside to flour tortillas is the lack of options for leftovers. Even homemade ones start to taste funky after a couple of days. They don’t make very good chips, or fry well for soups, so I find the best option is to make pizzas out of them.

Nothing is this world, however, can touch the fresh, soft corn tortilla.

First off; the smell of fresh masa is amazing. Whether in comes from a mix at the grocery store or it’s being ground fresh in a Mexican marketplace; it’s easily one of my favorite smells. Getting up early in the morning and making a stack of corn tortillas to last through the day improves the quality of every day I do it. They can be a lot of work for one person (like a lot of Mexican food, tortillas are a lot more fun when made in an assembly line of family or friends), but once you get the technique down, it’s no more difficult than baking bread.

 

Masa mix can be purchased at nearly any large grocery store, but Mexican mercados might carry fresh ground masa or other specialties like blue corn masa. I use a cast iron pan to cook mine on; and I recommend you do the same.


Because I make a lot of tortillas at home, buying a tortilla press made sense a long time ago. My wife and I went through two Mexican-made cast aluminum presses before we realized that our tortilla making was too heavy duty for these common grocery store models.

While shopping in an Indian grocery store, we stumbled on a cast iron chapati press (size 4) that seemed perfectly suited to our needs. We’ve had the same one for more than five years and it’s been nothing but reliable. The one in the picture above isn’t ours.
Ours came with a swastika on it for some reason.

I’ve posted plenty of taco-related recipes on here before, but when you’ve finished with tacos and still have plenty of leftover corn tortillas you have a whole world of other options for them.

  • You can fry them whole for tostadas or roll them up with cheese for flautas (or taquitos, if you will).
  • You can fry large strips or triangle for your own homemade tortilla chips (always better than from a bag) or for chilaquiles.

My personal favorite is migas (featured at the very top of the page). A simple combination of day-old corn tortillas torn roughly and sauteed in oil until crispy with onions and peppers, then scrambled up with eggs. Migas are a little more Tex-Mex, especially with the addition of cheese, salsa and sour cream, which even I can’t resist some times.

There are no hard and fast rules for how to make them, but the basic ratio is two 6″ tortillas to every one egg, and the order into the pan goes as follows:
Tortillas; onions; chiles; eggs; cheese; cilantro; etc…

Of course the greatest thing anyone can do with a tortilla chip; the one thing all little pieces of corn dream of being a part of someday; is the nacho.

But I think y’all already know how I feel about nachos.

The Martes Chronicles: 110° is Soup Weather

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Caldo de pollo

EDITOR’S NOTE: Martes Chronicles is Headchef’s new regular column, and can be found here at Reducer every Tuesday.

If you’re living in one of the 17+ states currently experiencing a brutal heatwave; you’ve probably noticed that it’s hot out, Bucky.

Dog-kicking hot*.

The last few days have featured the kind of heat and humidity that give Vietnam flashbacks to 8 year-olds, and fill the heads of adults and children alike with elaborate plans for refrigerator tents.

It’s uncomfortable at best, but some people are behaving as though this is the first time in recorded history that summer has been hot. Having spend the summers of my youth in New Mexico, Texas and Florida; the heatwave we’re experiencing in Minnesota lacks a certain novelty for me. Don’t get me wrong; it’s gross and I hate it and I wouldn’t recommend going out and playing soccer in it, but having toughed it out as a wheezing little kid, it’s not so tough as a wheezing adult.

In this kind of weather most people would rather be doing two-a-day football practices than spend any time cooking in a kitchen, so they go to restaurants to enjoy the air conditioning (a feature typically not installed in the kitchen where your food is being made). Even barbequing, a normally robust and favored activity, becomes dangerous when the heat index is pushing 115°.

People with working air conditioning don’t really have this problem. When you live in a perpetually-chilled wine cellar, not only does the heat outside not bother you, but you’re not subject to the hot-weather metabolism everyone else is experiencing. For example; if you’re out in the hot sun all day (or an ancient apartment building with no AC) and you can actually muster the energy to eat, you’re probably going to crave lighter fare like salads or pitchers of margaritas. Maybe you can stomach a hamburger if it’s late enough at night, but for the most part you and food maintain a tenuous distance during the hottest days of summer.

Not the privileged few living in the blast-chiller. People with AC are living in the future. Four months in the future, to be exact. Their bodies have been magically transported to November and so have their appetites. Air conditioning isn’t what jacks up your electricity in the summer; it’s the crockpot and bread machine you’ll have running at all times if you DO have AC. This is why people from Florida and Houston, where it’s 110° and humid all year round, are still so damn fat.

Head to a place with 100°+ weather and oppressive humidity where AC is a rare exception rather than the rule; and you’re pretty likely to find people eating hot soup in order to cool down. Pho, ramen, miso, matzoh ball, caldo- these are all perfect summer soups. I live on these soups during the summer.

In fact, if I don’t have hot soup for a meal at least once a week during the summer I tend to get really bad colds because I ride my bike in the city and inhale a lot of toxic shit. You ever ride your bike on a hot, dusty day and end up feeling like your palate is made of steel wool? Hot soup (especially spicy soups) will make you feel human again. Miso soup is particularly good for removing toxins related to air pollution, and a well-made bowl can be shockingly refreshing at the end of a hot day dodging traffic.

Caldo de Pollo, or Mexican chicken soup, is my favorite standby. Pretty much any Mexican broth-centric soup is good eating in this weather. Most of them are based on simple stocks offset with whatever is on hand. Many of them seem to work best as a breakfast, and if you’ve never experienced a huge bowl of Mexican soup for breakfast I highly recommend it. If you know where to look; there are plenty of small restaurants that specialize in it. Or you could make your own.

No pressure.

If you haven’t read my classic menudo recipe; you should check that out. If tripe and beef feet are a little too hardcore for you; here’s the puss-out method:

  • Throw four chicken thighs in a large pot with a quartered onion, ten cloves of garlic, two bay leaves and a few peppercorns. Fill with water and bring to a boil.
  • Once boiling, skim off scum from top of stock and reduce (ha!) heat to simmer. Let it bubble until it reduces by 1/4.
  • Cover a handfull of dried chiles in boiling water. Let sit for 20 minutes. Strain the chiles, reserving the water. Remove stems and seeds.
  • Puree the chillies in the chile water with a can of tomatoes.
  • Remove chicken thighs from stock and let them cool before removing bones.
  • Put the chicken along with the chile mixture into the stock with 1 tablespoon Mexican oregano. Bring to a boil.
  • Reduce to a simmer. Salt to taste.
  • Serve in large bowls with fried tortilla strips, avocado slices, chopped onion, chopped cilantro, wedges of lime. Fresh tortillas or Mexican bread are great for soaking up soup as well.

There you have it. It’s infinitely adaptable. I’ve made vegan and vegetarian versions of this. Experiment with it and see what you get.

Am I crazy, or does anyone else like soup in the summer?

*This is a Southern Expression. Reducer Network does not support kicking dogs.

At the Pollo… Pollocabana.

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The hottest place north of Havana...

Just because you never worked at an overrated Cuban restaurant for a couple of years doesn’t mean you can’t be taught how to make Cuban food yourself. The fact that you don’t have to unlearn many of the dirty shortcuts you would have been taught means you have a slight advantage over me.

In the years since I worked at redacted, I’ve had to research the more traditional techniques and flavors that Cuban cooking requires. It’s not that it’s particularly difficult or challenging; it’s just my restaurant experience left me with the false impression that Cuban cuisine could come entirely off the back of a Sysco truck and still be considered tasty and authentic.

Most of South Minneapolis still suffers from this misconception. (burn)

Real Cuban food, made with fresh ingredients and attention to detail, is delicious, filling and usually cheaper to prepare for large groups of people than a lot of other cuisines. One of the cornerstones of Cuban food is pork roasted in garlic and lime juice.

Since I’m a reasonably observant Jew, I don’t eat pork anymore, but I still use the same technique for turkey and chicken that I would for pork. The result is equally delicious, moist and versatile as the original, without all that nasty swine.

If you dare question the authenticity of cooking poultry in this style, please note that Jews have been in Cuba since at least 1493, and have been cooking chicken and turkey in this manner for almost as long.

So below I have your chicken recipe; plus some notes on the required sides to this dish (black beans, rice, mojo criollo, fried yuca) and more.

You’re going to need the following:

For the Poultry:

  • Either: 3 Chicken Breasts (split into 6) or 2 large Turkey Breasts (split into 4). Both must have skin & ribs intact.
  • 1 head of Garlic, peeled and chopped
  • 2 cups Lime Juice (preferably fresh, but if not, use the bottled Key Lime juice)
  • 1 1/2 cups Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 1 tablespoon dried Oregano
  • 2 Bay leaves, crumbled
  • 1 teaspoon Ground Cumin
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt

For the Mojo Criollo:

  • 8 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped.
  • 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 cup sour orange juice or 1/4 cup sweet orange juice and 1/4 cup lime juice.
  • 1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (preferably Spanish)
  • 1 teaspoon salt.

Preheat your oven to 375°

Rinse and pat dry your chicken breasts. Arrange them in a deep roasting pan so that they aren’t overlapping too much.

Sprinkle with salt and cumin.

 

 

Pour your lime juice into the pan. Then sprinkle the garlic, oregano and bay leaf evenly over the surface of the chicken.

Carefully pour the olive oil all over the chicken making sure the garlic/herb mixture gets a decent coat of it. Tightly cover the pan with foil and roast in the 375° oven for 1 & 1/2 hours.

 

You’ve pretty much got the hardest part out of the way; so consider some sides…

Black Beans:

Make one package of dry black beans according to instructions. When fully cooked; do the following:

  • Saute 1 medium onion, 1 green pepper (preferably a Cubanelle) and 6 cloves of garlic in 1/2 cup olive oil.
  • When fully sweated add 1/2 teaspoon of oregano and 1 crushed bay leaf
  • Stir that around a bit more, then add the mixture to your cooked beans with 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar and 1 tablespoon bouillon seasoning*.
  • Heat the seasoned beans back up slowly, and they’re ready to serve.
  • Serve with medium grain white rice.

*The bouillon is optional if you have a complex about MSG, but at this point in history it’s pretty authentic.

Okay; if it’s been an hour and a half; check on your chicken. Pull the foil off that bad boy and baste the surface of the chicken with some of the cooking liquid. Turn the heat up to 400°.  Put it back in the oven for another 45 minutes to an hour.

Meanwhile…

You should let all your mojo ingredients sit out at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. Right before you’re ready to serve; heat the 1/2 cup of olive oil on medium-high in a medium sauce pan. When it gets very hot (but not smoking) throw in the other mojo ingredients and stir quickly with a wooden spoon (watch out for splattering).

That’s it. You’ve made mojo. Now when you serve your Cuban food you can dump that stuff on all your sides. As a challenge to you the reader; I’m only going to list them until you DEMAND FROM ME THE RECIPES! The meal just won’t be complete without:

  • Boiled or Fried Yuca (cassava)
  • Twice-fried Plantains (tostones)
  • Collard Greens
  • A simple salad of Avocado, Grapefruit and Red Onion

All of these should get a healthy dose of mojo, but if you take the cowards way out and opt not to make them, you can always dump that mojo on your chicken…. Which should be ready by now.

This is about what your chicken should look like when it’s done. There are two schools of thought on what to do next; and either one will work depending on your immediate purposes:

  1. Let the chicken cool for just a few minutes then shred it with a pair of meat forks until it’s all a big mess of shredded chicken and saucy goodness. You can pick out the bigger bones; but expect that your diners will do some of that work themselves. This is the technique you want to employ if you’re serving it up on a platter with rice and beans. OR…
  2. Let the chicken cool for an hour; then pull it apart by hand (wear some rubber gloves for this part, please) taking extra special care to remove all the little rib bones. This technique is perfect if you’re going to use the chicken in tamales, empanadas or sandwiches.

With all that rice, beans and chicken; you’ll probably be full for a couple of days. But unless you’re feeding a squad of partisan guerrillas, you’ll probably have some chicken left over.

In addition to begging me for the secrets of yuca and plantain (one’s easy, the other is potentially toxic if you make it wrong) if you want to make the best use of your leftover chicken; you’re just going to have to come back to Reducer and learn how to make one of these bad boys:

Oh yes we did...