Cinco!

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everybody!

In recognition, for dinner I had left-over pasta marinara accompanied by left-over roasted root vegetables, roasted mushrooms, and roasted garlic. Matt had a bowl of cereal. How very celebratory of us.

I had every intention of making Huevos Whatevers tonight, but somehow that didn't happen. Don't tell anyone I told you this, but throwing something together that's even slightly multi-step is really hard after a full day of work.

Here is a recipe for Mojo de Ajo (courtesy of the lovely and talented Rick Bayless, just like every other mexican recipe we make). It's good for everything. Seriously.

MOJO DE AJO
(makes about 3 cups)

Ingredients
4 large heads garlic:

OR 10 ounces (about 1 3/4 cups) peeled garlic cloves
2 cups fruity olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
*optional: chile flakes, added at the same time as the lime juice. Optional recipe calls for 1/2 tsp. Adjust as needed.

Directions:

Heat the oven to 325˚.

"Break the heads of garlic apart, then mash each clove (a fist against the side of a knife is what I do) to release the clove from its papery skin; if using already-peeled garlic, scoop the cloves into a heavy recloseable plastic bag and use a rolling pin to mash them slightly.

Stir together the garlic, oil and salt in an 8x8-inch pan (make sure all the garlic is submerged), slide it into the oven and bake until the garlic is soft and lightly brown, about 45 to 55 minutes. Add the lime juice and return to the oven for 20 minutes for the garlic to absorb the lime and turn golden brown.


Using an old-fashioned potato masher or large fork, mash the garlic into a coarse puree. Pour the mixture into a wide-mouth storage container and refrigerate it until you’re ready to enjoy some deliciousness. This mojo will keep for up to three months in the refrigerator as long as there's enough oil to keep the garlic covered."

As I said, this is fantastic for anything. Cook with it, use it in a dressing, drizzle it, breathe it. It will become your best friend, and you will be grateful.

Now, go have another Margarita!

untitled.

"These pickled onions are the best things ever!"

"You're just saying that because they're pickled. You're biased towards anything pickled."

"-No, they're delicious!"

"You'd probably like pickled dirt."

Huevos Whatevers

We've been on a Mexican kick lately.

When that happens, you just know that certain stand-bys are going to pop up on the menu. One of those stand-bys is Huevos Whatevers. It's like Huevos Rancheros, but from a different part of Mexico, though I can never remember the name of the region it's actually from.

It's freaking incredible, and it uses three of our favorite staples.

(Not that kind of staples.)


Eggs, obviously, are a rather key ingredient. Without those you would just have Whatevers. Those are probably passably good (and more akin to a pre-Columbian Mexican dish), but it's just not the same without that little golden spot of yolk.

Under the egg is a crispy tortilla, and sandwiched between the two are black beans that have been mashed and cooked down with garlic until they resemble the texture of lumpy mashed potatoes, but taste more delicious than that sounds. Traditionally, pork fat is used in the cooking of the beans, which imparts a smokey, sophisticated saltiness. We rarely have that on hand, though, so usually we just use a good quality olive oil. (If you're going to make these, keep some liquid on hand to add to them as they cook, in case they start cooking down too quickly. I usually put some water in the can I poured them out of and slosh it around really well, so that as I add liquid I'm also adding more beany-ness. And don't salt them until you're ready to serve! Sometimes you don't need any salt at all.)

Over all of everything goes what is possibly the easiest-to-make sauce ever. Pour a 28-once can of crushed tomatoes in a pot. Split one or two serrano chiles length-wise and add them to the pot, as well. Simmer the two together (covered) for 30 minutes, and add a little salt "to taste." Tada! (For a thinner sauce, I use the same trick with the can as I do with the beans, above. Why just add water when you can add flavor?)

So, from the bottom up, the order goes: tostada (the crispy tortilla), beans, egg, sauce. End result:

Nirvana.

It all goes so great together - it's like all the disparate ingredients have found their polygamitic soul mates! You've got the crispness of the tostada, the creaminess of the beans, the spicy acidity of the sauce, all tied together by the richness of the still-runny yolk and the nicely bland white of the egg. (You can cook the egg for longer if you want, but that would mean you're crazy.)

Garnishes could include crumbled chorizo sausage, fresh cheese, or fried plantains. Ideally all three. Weirdly, we seem to only make this on a whim, so we usually only have fresh cheese (queso fresco). On this particular night, we didn't even have that, and it was still fantastic. We usually serve it with a bottle of hot sauce on the side - usually Tapatio or Cholula.

mwah!

Cracked.

As alluded to in a previous entry, an instigator has given me a recipe for crackers. I will not name any names, but her initials are Kina Reid. She is evil.

There's only so much yard work you can do in the rain (two blueberry bushes planted, ftw!), so I actually set about making these today. To my astonishment, the hardest part was rolling the dough to a consistent 1/8-inch thickness. Have you ever tried doing that in a poorly-lit kitchen? It's hard!

But somehow I got everything rolled out reasonably evenly, cut it into not-quite squarish shapes, shoved them in the oven, and ended up with some lovely rosemary-oat crackers.



These are absolutely fantastic when topped with some goat cheese, a drizzle of olive oil, and some freshly-cracked black pepper. You'll have to take my word that I actually did that, because my camera won't process a decent picture.


Recipe (from "Party Line with the Hearty Boys"):

Ingredients

* 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
* 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon chopped rosemary leaves
* 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
* 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Put the oats into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add flour, salt, pepper, rosemary, baking powder, and butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add milk and pulse until a dough forms about 15 seconds. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8-inch thick (about a 13-inch round) and cut out about 60 square oatcakes. Arrange oatcakes on baking sheets 1-inch apart and bake in middle of oven 12 to 15 minutes, or until lightly brown on the bottom. Transfer oatcakes to a rack and cool completely.

Playing with Fire.

I am given to understand that most people do not have a hot sauce cabinet.

To this, I say: WHY NOT??

Seriously, what is wrong with you people? Take the plunge and start a hot sauce cabinet. Clear out some space and show some dedication. And don’t give me that, “I don’t like spicy things” excuse. If you don’t like spicy things, you obviously haven’t eaten enough spicy things. Keep trying them until you find something you like, find out what spices are in it, and start your collection there.

It’s that simple.

(Don’t give me any lip about tummy troubles, either. Spicy things are good for tummy troubles. Just ask any medical professional.)

Stock brokers will tell you that diversity is the key to success, and hot sauces aren't any different. What would happen, for example, if you wanted to add an herby, garlicky kick to your Chicken Kiev, and all you had in the house was some standard issue Tabasco? You’d be screwed! You’d have a lovely meal before you that someone – perhaps yourself – worked very hard to prepare, and you would be unable to eat it!

Keeping ten or twenty varieties on hand helps avoid that nightmare senario, and it looks pretty besides. So stop waffling and commit.

Hot sauce cabinet.

Do it.

ambition.

I had big plans this weekend. Among other things, I was going to plant things in the garden, make chicken stock, roast vegetables, make cheese, write an entry about parsnips, and make crackers.

Yes, crackers!!

What was I thinking?

I know myself well enough to know better. I'd be doing good just to get two of those things accomplished. In the end, I decided on planting things and making stock. Largely because all making stock involves is throwing stuff in a pot, covering it with water, and letting it simmer for four hours.

Here are some of the things I planted:

Oregano, thyme, sage, basil, and rosemary. There's more work involved here than meets the eye, actually - yesterday morning the only things in our side bed were roses, the occasional sticker weed, and some bare dirt. Now there's a nice brick border, hardwood mulch, and some yummy herbs (and some roses, out of frame to the right).

I also planted jalepeno, tomato, and eggplant. Which means Eggplant Parmesan will be on the menu in a month or so.

Maybe I'll make crackers tonight....

The Great Pickle Experiment.

Last Friday, a friend mentioned this rogue pickle concoction she'd experienced while working at a restaurant in her younger days: cucumber slices and blackened jalapenos (stripped of their skin), mixed with standard-issue white vinegar and ground black pepper, and left to marinate a few days.

She said it was outstanding.

We decided to each do a version with slightly upgraded ingredients and report the results. Photos are mandatory. Here we go:

I start with two cucumbers, cut for pretty.


Then blacken a (HUGE) jalapeno under a broiler (or on your grill, or on top of your gas stove), and wrap it in a dish towel for several minutes to help ease the skin off. I've never been entirely sure why you should remove the skin, but I suspect it's because it tastes like burning.


Peel off that skin and discard the top stem. Slice, if you want (I did).

The idea struck me to build on the smokey flavor, so I toasted 2 tablespoons of tellicherry black peppercorns over a medium heat until they were glistening and fragrant. Then I crushed them to death.


I layered everything in a jar - four layers (cucumbers, black pepper, jalapeno, repeat) - and topped with a simmered brine made from 1 cup rice vinegar, 3 tablespoons of miran, a crushed garlic clove, and 1 cup water to dilute. (let the jar cool to room temp before refrigerating)

I have to say, these pickles need to sit for two full days, at least. They are exciting right out of the pot, but very strong. When trying them the first time, I had to cut the acidity with other pickles. After two days, however, they have mellowed to a nice even heat and the miran has blended with the rice wine and other flavors to bring it all down a peg.

Nice.