Tag Archives: Tex-Mex

Foodie Tuesday: Getting a Menu Transplant

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Sticking to my ribs, yes, but maybe with the barbecue sauce twisted into a (Southern) peach chutney style to suit the Basmati rice alongside . . .

It’s not what it used to be, moving to a different place. The world is so much smaller than it once was! We talk via computer and cell phone as though we were sitting right next to each other–and sometimes when we’re sitting next to each other. Language and culture and history are all getting a good mash-up in this shrinking world where we live.

One genuinely wonderful aspect of this not-entirely-perfect scenario of homogenization is that we have access to so much that was once unreachable to everyone but the most extremely far-flung intrepid explorers and have commonalities that our ancestors could never have dreamed remotely possible. Not least of all, we can indulge in the joys of cuisines and ingredients from places we can’t even pronounce, let alone afford to visit.

Most of these regional, national, racial, cultural treasures, by virtue of being intermingled with and sampled by so many others to such a degree that sometimes it seems something learned from the Chinese by the Dutch traders and then passed along to their colonial outposts in the south seas, who in turn brought it along when they immigrated to North America, well, these ideas and arts and recipes have been so transformed along the way that they, like the initial message in the old game of Telephone, are utterly new inventions by the time the Chinese ever experience them again. And yet, in a happy twist, we who create and share the first iteration often fall in love with it and repeat and refine it until it becomes part of who we are, so it’s not wholly lost in the translation, either.

For someone who grew up in one part of the vast American patchwork of a country and experienced East Coast specialties, Southern cooking, Midwest traditions, and Southwest cuisine as being no less foreign in their ways to my Northwestern experience and palate, it’s always been a pleasurable study to try out the fabled deliciousness of Other Places. So while I’ve long loved Chinese and Dutch and Polynesian and Italian and German and Thai and Indian and North African foods of various kinds, it’s no less exotic and thrilling and delicious to sample the comestible culture of different regions of my own homeland.

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Fajitas today, quiche tomorrow . . .

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. . . but you only have to switch from a Coronita to a Trappist ale to suit the occasion, right?

Still, it’s been an entertaining and tasty part of the adventure of moving from Washington state to Texas that I’m experiencing Tex-Mex and Southern and cowboy cuisines in places of their origins and that’s mighty rich learning and dining, too. So I’m more than happy to indulge in all of those special items here anytime I can. But you know me, y’all: rarely do I go into the kitchen without bringing my own machinations and deviations to the party, so I am more than likely to emerge bearing platters and bowls filled not only with classic Texan foods but also with Texan foods as filtered through Washingtonian hands, perhaps with a hint of Chinese cookery here, Dutch baking there, Polynesia and Italy and Germany and Thailand and India and North Africa and all of my other palatable favorites making inroads and appearances whenever I see fit.

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A Texas-sized pork chop can also be cooked sous-vide, even if it’s getting classic Southern sides like bacon-sauteed sweet corn and coleslaw . . .

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. . . and if you want to shake things up a little in a more cosmopolitan way, you can always make the slaw a variant of Waldorf Salad while you’re at it by adding chopped apples and celery and sliced almonds . . .

What’s-in-My-Kitchen Week, Day 3: Relishes and Remnants

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photoBest way to have a head start on preparing a meal: keep lots of shelf-stable or frozen flourishes convenient–they don’t have to be artificial or toxic, you know–and be kind to the best of your leftovers. It’s important to have the usual dry goods in stock; flour or thickeners, if you use them; spices; rice or oats or that kind of thing, but small prepared items are just as crucial for time and taste’s sake. Yesterday it came in handy to have stashed a few servings of easy-to-serve chocolate dessert items like my homemade nut truffles and almond-flour brownies. Today it was an assortment of fresh fruits that rounded out the meal with no cooking and virtually no prep, unless you count washing and cutting just enough for two plates; I certainly don’t find that onerous compared to prepping and cooking actual side dishes. Tomorrow, who knows? If someone pops by unexpectedly and we sit to lunch or dinner, it’s just nice to know that there’s almost always something in the pantry that can be served up in a trice.

Or in a casserole, if one prefers.

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I like to have a variety of types and flavors of oils, vinegars and the like close by me–including a couple of spray-on kinds of oils for pan prep.

You’ve no doubt noticed in any previous food posts, especially if I’ve referenced my pantry shelves, that I’m mighty fond of pickles and toppings and condiments of many kinds. I tend toward the salty, savory and sweet rather than extremely spicy ones, though I’ve been known to crave some good north Indian lime pickle with my Palak Paneer or pickled jalapeños with my Tex-Mex treats. Mostly, I like a fairly wide assortment of olives, vinegar-pickled vegetables like green beans and carrots and asparagus, preserved lemons, mild pickled okra or clove-scented beets; relish, chutney, sweet watermelon rind pickles also tickle my palate, as do pickled ginger and preserved sauces, and so forth ad mortem. Because I do concede that it’s just possible I could eat myself into a happy coma followed by cheery death, given constant proximity to such dainties. Nearly all of these delights, not to mention those aforementioned (okay, I did mention! deal with it) garnishes and toppings, like the ubiquitous southeast Asian fried shallots, salted and unsalted nuts, fried herbs, candied peel and ginger, shaved coconut, and so much more, can be nicely preserved to be either shelf-safe or freezer friendly without too much difficulty.

And yes, there are commercial preparations of those and other easy-to-keep foods and edible accoutrements that I willingly stock and use. Perhaps one of the most favored is tinned tuna, but I admit I don’t like many of the commercial brands, preferring those that can only the tuna itself, usually with a little salt, and simply let it be preserved in its pristine glory and its own juices. There are more and more good guys out there who are trying to do right by the tuna and our tastes, so it takes very little effort to find them out, and the boost in flavor and concomitant decrease in artificialities are well worth it. Canning fruits and vegetables does commonly act as a killjoy, destroying much of their texture and flavor and, not surprisingly, nutrients as well. Now, I know that much of the destructive character comes from mass production and that many people are able to home-preserve beautiful specimens of both fruits and veg, but frankly, that’s almost always too labor-intensive and plodding for my energies and attention span.

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Dried fruit: check. Coconut: check. Tinned seafoods: check. *Lots* of good coconut milk: oh, yeah, Baby (throw-it-together curry, here we come)!

So I tend to lean toward decent quality fast frozen green-groceries if I’m keeping some around for quick use. These are often perfectly delish in soups, cooked dishes and quick pickling, where they take up the dressing and seasonings more readily than raw foods because of the slight cellular breakdown inherent in freezing. And there are, for that very reason, also a few commercially canned things besides jam or jelly or pickles that I will concede to stock on my shelves and eat. For example, I wanted a speedy picnic sort of salad the other day, so I took out tins of cut green and wax beans and baby carrots, all of which I admit would be strikingly unappealing to me for straight-from-the-can eating, and bathed them in a light dressing of plain rice vinegar, vegetable oil, orange juice, orange zest, salt, pepper and snipped dill, and had myself a tasty little salad that has fed me all week long, gaining in flavor as it sits but having been quite edible right from the ceremonial Opening of the Tins.

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Not quite the traditional Three Bean Salad, but perfectly edible all the same.

Salmon is something I generally prefer fresh or smoked over tinned as well, but having a couple of cans on hand does have its moments. If, as with the tuna, it’s prepared well enough to not taste of the tin rather than of the sea, why it too makes a very useful salad when mixed with good mayonnaise and seasonings and can sit lightly on crackers, in a sandwich or stuffed into hors-d’oeuvres plenty well. I’ve made mine up with Asian-grocery wasabi mayo (another good condiment to keep in the refrigerator, mind you), minced gari, and a splash each of ginger juice and soy sauce, and enjoyed it even more for those uses. When the salmon is not tinned but instead left over from yesterday’s dinner, it can do similar things. We’re not overly enamored of leftover seafood, my spouse and I, in its previously served form, always feeling a bit like it’s sure to have gone bad. But a little change-up can rescue that leftover fish too: the oven roasted salmon, smoked salmon, and a few cooked prawns from the other night’s dinner got mashed to a pate with the stick blender, using some mayonnaise, and then spread on a small Romaine leaf and topped with slivers of yellow capiscum, a curl of gari and a dab of that nice wasabi mayo–whose squeezable bottle charmingly arrives with its own built-in star tip for decorative application–and voilà! Snacks.

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Salmon salad–straight from the shelves of the pantry, fridge and spice cabinet.

I’ll grant you that any amount of ‘trim’ kept in the kitchen guarantees nothing like conferring gourmet status on what I make of it. And it’s a virtual miracle when I bother to gussy up my food as much as even that last little snackable item, so presentation isn’t instantaneously improved either. But having the stuff right here at my beck and call is the only way either is likely to happen, even by accident. And who says I can’t eat all of this tastiness right out of the box, bottle, jar or tin, anyway?

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Foodie Tuesday: When in Doubt, Bring Leftovers Out

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Non-chef that I am, I’m not really all that often full of impressive inspiration when headed into the kitchen. Lack of super-skills aside, my more impressive store of laziness usually wins the day, and if there’s nothing spectacular lurking in fridge or pantry that simply cries out to be doctored up and consumed, what’s much more likely to occur is that I’m faced with a modest selection of bits, bites and bobs that require a small amount of creative re-combination or even disguise to avoid boring us all to starvation.

And there are those items best made in large quantities anyway, or at least larger amounts than needed for a single meal for our household-of-two. You’ll never catch me making chili or lasagna or any other labor-intensive concoction in a two-serving batch when most of them taste better with the passing days for their fridge lifespan and the rest can be frozen in smaller packets for time beyond that.photo

So the pulled pork lying in wait in the refrigerator might dress up as crispy-edged carnitas redolent with cumin one day, to be served with an array of good Mexican side dishes, and then appear as a chopped topping with cheese and vegetables and hard boiled eggs for a big chef’s salad, and finally, become glistening barbecue pork, sauced with a sweet and spicy Memphis-style stickiness and served up with buttery roasted sweet potatoes and creamy coleslaw. Yesterday’s leftover fried chicken gets broken down into chopped meat and chopped crispy skin; the meat gets tossed together with an equal amount of leftover rice and stirred up with salsa and cream, topped with shredded cheese and then the skin ‘cracklings’, and it all gets baked up into a simple Tex-Mex fried chicken casserole that’s hearty and heartwarming enough nobody even complains that it’s YMCA (my Oz compatriot John’s loving title for leftovers as Yesterday’s Muck Cooked Again).photoAnd of course, roasts and chops and steaks are easy as, well, Steak-and-Guinness Pie to deal with any old time. Besides the infinite variations on a casserole possible, there are the omelets, quiches and frittatas, the sandwiches and salads, and the curries and stir-fries. So many ways to spell deliciousness without excessive slavery over the hot cooker. As witness, a quick variant of teriyaki beef that goes neatly atop a cold sesame noodle salad, steaming fried rice, or on a marvelous glossy heap of citrusy wok-fried snow peas, yellow capiscum, celery, carrot flowers–when you cut 5 or 6 v-shaped grooves lengthwise down the sides of whole peeled carrots and then slice them across, you get nice little folk-arty orange flowers to throw in the pan–and finely julienned fresh ginger.photoJust hot up the sliced leftover steak in a hot skillet or wok with a mixture of appropriate Asian flavors that suits your mood and the occasion and blends the sweet, the sour, the spicy and the salty to your taste, and there you have it. The solution to your empty-stomach problem in the blink of an eye. The steak here was glazed with a mixture of soy sauce, raw honey, ginger juice, lime juice, and a couple of drops of toasted sesame oil for mellowness, and finished with sesame seeds for a little delicate crunch. A little hot oil or hot sauce at the table for those who like a hit of zing on top. No fuss. Lots of flavor. If you ask me, the only thing to add is your chopsticks, then your teeth.photo

Foodie Tuesday: Real Cowboys Do Eat Quiche

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When lots of Americans ask 'What's for dinner?' they want to know what *meat* they're getting as a main course, not hear a recitation of all the fabulous accoutrements you are painstakingly preparing for their delight and delectation.

I am antique enough to remember the time when what Americans knew as Chinese food was ‘Chop Suey‘ in a glutinous and sickly-sweet sauce, followed by fortune cookies filled with good-luck predictions that were exciting and interesting only when recited with the popularly immature addendum ‘between the sheets’. When Italian food meant spaghetti, cooked until ‘al dente‘ only to infants under six months of age and smothered in characterless tomato puree with some insipid approximation of a meatball-like object swimming in it and perhaps a halfhearted sprinkling of pretend Parmesan cheese granules from the canister that sat on the shelf until nearly archaeological in quality. And French food was just plain weird, some sort of girly, foofy stuff that, if any man would be caught eating it, he had better be wearing a beret and a pencil-thin mustache and sticking his pinky finger out while wielding his tableware.

Then there was a bit of an awakening. It was slow, to be sure, but meant that people might actually admit that their ancestral foods from the aforementioned regions were ever so much more varied, colorful, flavorful and exciting than the paltry offerings that had been dumbed down to virtual nothingness and blandness and predictability, supposedly to suit the American palate. Of course, that completely ignored the reality that the vast majority of the American populace originated in other countries, on other continents, and eating anything but boring cuisines. And not just Chinese, Italian and French either.

At some point, some wit decided that the US simply needed to be reeducated one dish at a time, choosing the humble yet incredibly versatile vehicle of the quiche as focus, et voilà! The 1970s became the era of the quiche-eaters. Thankfully, many of the quiches promoted were perfectly edible and did in fact counter the myth that ‘Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche‘ (originating in Bruce Feirstein‘s book poking fun at masculine stereotypes) because they were good, tasty, and ultimately satisfying concoctions. Even better, the idea that being a fledgling foodie nation was permissible, even laudable, meant that suddenly a whole host of other delectable cuisines became gradually more familiar, dish by dish and restaurant by restaurant. That’s not to say that every flavor is for every one, by any means.

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For some, anything spicier or more exotic than an oven-roasted potato is too wild for the table.

But quiche, as it happens, is such a simple and endlessly variable dish, being pretty much an egg base used to bind and carry any combination of vegetables, meats, starches and other flavors suitable to one’s own taste, kitchen contents and the occasion. Quiche, omelette, tortilla española, frittata; whatever you call it, if you’re not averse or allergic to eggs, the possibilities of a wonderful, simple-to-make meal are endless. If you happen to be an old Texas ‘Cookie’, watching the hungry horde of cowboys close in on your chuck-wagon from across the lonesome plains, it might not be a bad idea to throw whatever you’ve got on hand into those trusty cast iron skillets and pots with some stirred-up eggs and get ’em cooking over the camp fire as speedily as a jackrabbit can dodge your shot. Use some of your biscuit dough for a dumpling-style crust, or just serve the stuff without crust–no one will complain, as long as the food’s hearty and ready when the dust settles around the corral.

Being in Texas, I do take advantage of the ready availability of good beef pretty often, so I end up with a little left over from time to time, and the egg-based dish is a perfectly easy way to make good use of all manner of leftovers. Heck, I even live in a ‘ranch-style’ house, for what it’s worth. So, since I had a whole lot of good eggs on hand at the moment and a very meat-and-potatoes, manly-man sort of collation of ingredients lurking in the ol’ refrigerator, I cooked up a crustless quiche fit for any sturdy appetite, Tex-Mex or plain cowpoke, from hereabouts to, say, Paris, Texas. Being so all-fired Frenchified and all.

Cowboy Quiche

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You can layer the solid ingredients for a quiche and pour the egg mixture over them, as I did (wanting the cheese all on top), or you can throw it all together and stir it right up. The end result tastes just as fine either way.

The base, in this case, is nothing but about a half-dozen eggs (I like plenty) and a half cup of thick plain yogurt, stirred together and thinned with a little tiny bit of water as needed to coat the other ingredients well. The rest of the filling comprised about a cup and a half of 1/2″ diced leftover lean beefsteak, two small leftover oven-baked potatoes in their jackets, diced about the same or a little smaller (skins and all), three slices of crisp-cooked bacon, broken into pieces, and a good half cup of grated sharp cheddar cheese.

Between the bacon, the cheese, and the salt with which both the steaks and baked potatoes had been prepared, I didn’t think there was much necessity for added salt (you may gasp with amazement at this salt-aholic’s abstemiousness now), but I seasoned the mixture with a good dose each of chili powder and smoked paprika.

This crustless quiche got baked in a small, well-buttered ceramic casserole, and today it was cooked in a newfangled microwave oven, because even though it does just fine in a conventional oven I was really hungry, cowboy on the plains hungry–somehow breakfast and lunch got forgotten in the midst of other doings today–and I didn’t want to wait any longer than I had to. I’d made up the quiche beforehand and put it in the fridge, so all that was required was to pop it in the oven and hot it up until it wasn’t too wiggly and jiggly anymore. I’m never entirely certain on timing and temperature, so in the microwave I just cooked it for 4 minutes to get the initial cooking underway and then several 2-minute intervals after, cooking it on High for about 8 minutes total and then letting it rest and set up for another five minutes or so.

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The quiche comes out of the oven just slightly quavery in the middle, but a few minutes cooling on the counter (so as not to scald your diners) will thicken and set it up further.

To serve it, I went with Tex-Mex favorites, because I like them well and so of course I had them handy. Guacamole, which in our house is nothing more than mashed ripe avocado seasoned with fresh lime juice, salt, pepper, chili powder and lots of ground cumin, lasts longer in the refrigerator than you might think–but only if you make a big batch, because we do eat it in quantity when the mood strikes. Salsa must always be on hand. As I’ve said before, we like a mild chunky-thick salsa, spiced up at home with a chipotle en adobo or two well blended in. Some fresh, bright Mexican crema. A few black olives. I think all I left out of the meal was a nice chilled cerveza, but not every day calls for it. Or does it? I forget. Anyway, there were no other fruits or vegetables today, because that would just be too girly, wouldn’t it!

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This'll fuel up any tough hombre for another day out punching the dogies, or wearing the ten-gallon hat of a CEO, or whatever.

You know, even with such a frilly sounding French name, a quiche like this ain’t half bad after a long day running the ranch.

Foodie Tuesday: Keeping the Tank Full Makes Me Thankful

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Let’s just say I’m not the most compliant or enthusiastic when it comes to trying to eat what I think I ought to eat. It’s not that I don’t love eating practically everything–it’s that I do–limiting my choices to what’s right at the moment seems amazingly hard to manage when I’d rather just eat what I feel like eating, in the largest possible quantities and whenever I’m so moved. Sadly, this is what gradually moves me toward the zaftig and less ‘peep show’ sexy than that of a Marshmallow Peep. While its High Season of springtime is ever nearer on the calendar, I don’t really fancy being the latter shape no matter how popular the treat is with other people as sweet-toothed as I am. In fact, I’d have nightmares about being chased around by lust crazed Sugar Zombies in a yellow snowstorm. The very thought!

So I’m going to see if I can’t reduce my carbohydrate footprint, so to speak, and eat things that stay with me in a more kindly manner, that is, in the form of longer-lasting energy and higher nutritive value and deeper savory satisfaction. Frankly, I’m not as worried about fats as I am about the quantity and quality of sugars I’m capable of packing away and have no real need of, nutritionally. So pardon me while I butter myself up, as long as I can learn to more nearly kick the carb habit.

Today I went for an easy start: steak and eggs, Tex-Mex style. I put a couple of cuts of steak in the Sous Vide cooker last night just before bedtime, and when we got going (at our respective times) today, each of us had a piece of medium-rare beef to sear off in the skillet when we were ready to eat. I browned mine in butter and while it rested momentarily on the plate, deglazed the skillet with some of the bone broth from the last batch, handily waiting for the summons from the fridge, and while the broth cooked down to a thin gravy I poached an egg in it. I topped it with a little gussied up salsa: I often buy a jar of Pace Picante Chunky salsa–a pretty mild type–and stick-blend part of it with a (yes, one) chipotle en Adobo, mixing all together for a slightly smoky kick. Then a spoonful of sour cream (didn’t have real crema on hand) and a spiff each of smoked paprika and some lovely crunchy Maldon sea salt flakes, and immediately stuck my fork in and got to work.

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I'm just a Steak and Egg sort of cowgirl, I guess . . .

Thankfully, such a hearty brunch (I won’t lie to you about when I got up) holds up well when it comes to that Work thing, so I’m contentedly looking toward a 7 pm supper with nary a twitch. Well, okay, there is that completely hunger-unrelated humming in my candy molars . . .