The National Pastor-time

 

Tacos al Pastor (“shepherd style”) (or in British, The Pastor’s Taco) is fusion at it’s best.  It is thought to come from Lebanese immigrants in Mexico (similar to the shawarma).  Mostly it’s just delicious!  This happens to be one of my favorite things to order at a Mexican restaurant.  You know you are at a truly authentic Mexican restaurant if you can find this on the menu.   

For the home version, we had previously been relying on a Southern Living recipe that is quick and easy and comes from a local chef in Austin.  However, it always seemed to be lacking something.  The flavor was fine, but not amazing.  And the meat lacked a lot of the crispiness that you get in the traditional version.  It makes me think that when a chef gives their recipes to a magazine….they tend to leave something out. 

So our quest continued to find a good Tacos al Pastor recipe that we could make at home.  UNTIL we got the latest magazine from America’s Test Kitchen!

The star of the show is the Boston Butt (which is pork shoulder).  Other key ingredients include guajillo chilies and pineapple.  Everything else is pretty standard (tomatoes, onion, garlic, lime, various and sundry spices).

You start by making the sauce.  First step is to roast the chilies in a dry pot for a few minutes until they are warmed through.  Then you add the tomatoes, garlic, some water, bay leaves, and other spices.  This simmers for about 20 minutes until cooked down.

 

We pureed it in a blender, and then ran it through a strainer to get rid of all the lumps and seeds. 

You are left with a smooth and silky sauce!  The pork is cut into large chunks and then nestled in with the sauce.  Now the pork cooks in the sauce low and slow for almost 2 hours until tender.

Now comes the part that I think was lacking in the Southern Living version.  We grilled the pork on a cast-iron grill for a few minutes on each side until it got nice and crispy.

Next up is grilled pineapple.  The pineapple really gives these tacos a freshness that pairs nicely with all the spices.  And it’s so pretty!  We chickened out on buying a whole pineapple and cutting it up ourselves.  Turns out, the grocery store will sell you a pineapple core that has already had the skin and leaves removed.

The meat and pineapple get diced into smaller chunks, and then they go back in the pot for a final coating of sauce.

Now comes the fun part:  assembling the taco.  We chose corn tortillas (again, no self respecting taco is served on flour) and garnished with white onion and cilantro.  You could also add a fresh tomatillo salsa and/or queso fresco.  The sweet pineapple and the flavorful chilies really make this taco stand out.  The pork is tender and juicy and has a little bit of crispiness from the grill.  While we may still continue the quest for great Tacos Al Pastor, for the time being we have a reigning champ!

Tout the Sprout: These Brussels Have Muscles!

 

Fun fact:  there is an extra “s” in Brussels sprouts.  Try saying it out loud.  Makes you slow down a bit, doesn’t it?  I never would have figured this out except for spell-check.  You’ve been saying something your whole life, and then spell-check tells you that you’ve been saying it wrong this whole time.  Dang it!

Back to the matter at hand.  Brussels sprouts are making a come-back.  It’s the vegetable that everybody loves to hate, and yet we’ve been seeing it on restaurant menus, cooking shows, friend’s houses, etc.  No self-respecting kid ate their Brussels sprouts in my day.  My mom would only make me eat TWO LEAVES of the stuff, and then she wouldn’t make me eat any more.  Triumph!

But now Modern Science has uncovered ways for the average person to cook Brussels sprouts in such a way that you actually LIKE to eat them.  Sauteeing with butter and pancetta is a favorite that we’ve seen frequently.  You’re basically adding a bunch of butter and fat to make it taste good, right?

Today, however, we introduce you to Top Chef winner Paul Qui’s Brussels Sprouts.  Now you may think it’s weird that we are linking to a People Magazine recipe, but that’s truly where it came from.  I was sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office when I came across the recipe.  I am only slightly ashamed to say that I ripped it out and took it home!  We are also big fans of the show Top Chef, and it’s pretty cool to have the winner living in your home city.  We’ve eaten at his restaurant!  We are total celebrity chef snobs!

Today’s recipe uses some pretty standard ingredients:  vinegar, sugar, chili pepper flake, garlic, lemon, basil, sprouts (of course), and a serrano chili.  Piece of cake.

First you make the sauce:  vinegar, sugar, garlic, black pepper, and pepper flake go into a sauce pan for just a few minutes until heated through.  The sauce gives it nice tang, sweetness, and a little heat from the pepper.  (Later in the week we tried to use leftover chili syrup to make a vinaigrette… just a little too sweet.)

Meanwhile, the sprouts are roasting in the oven for about 30 minutes with a little olive oil and salt.

A lemon is juiced and zested, which gets added at the very end.  We also diced up the serrano chili (not pictured) and tore up some fresh basil.  The serrano really kicks this dish up a notch.  It would have made for a nicer picture if we had a red serrano, but the store only had green (pout).

And here you have it folks.  It’s bitter.  It’s sweet.  It’s spicy (very spicy!  I pretty much had a runny nose by the end).  It’s delicious!  Never again will you completely ignore the Brussels sprouts at the grocery store.  Give it a try!

Flip you for real: Pineapple Upside-down Pancakes

 

Much creativity is spawned by odd leftover ingredients.  In this case, we had about half a sliced pineapple left from some tacos al pastor (yet to be posted).  In the meantime, we stumbled across this recipe for pineapple upside-down pancakes.   Serendipitous! And tasty.

Now the recipe calls for making the pancakes from scratch and making a custom syrup.  We didn’t have all of those ingredients, so I just used bisquick and maple syrup. 

You have to precook the pineapple a bit so it gets soft, and so it gets some great color.

The pancakes cook for two or three minutes so that one side is basically done.  That way the pineapple doesn’t fall all the way through!

The pineapple gets wedged into the still-raw side.  And then flip!  (Look at that one sad normal pancake.)

Ta-da!  I imagine this is what they have every morning in Hawai’i.  Or something.  (If you look really close you can see the sad, normal pancake underneath all the cool pancakes.  Pancake my ass… more like plaincake.  Burn.)

Super Tasty Tangy Spicy Tuna Tacos

 

We’ve been on a bit of a taco tear.  It’s easy to do when you buy corn tortillas by the 20-pack. (BTW no self respecting taco gets served in flour tortilla – save those for burritos and fajitas.)

We had some great tuna steaks on hand, and as is so often the case, we went hunting for a recipe to match ingredients we already had.  This is the one we found. 

So while we were TRYING to be resourceful, we STILL had to make a trip to the store for everything else  (Like our new fancy recipe-display device?)

The first thing to get started was the sauce: fresh squeezed OJ, minced chipotle peppers, and a little vinegar simmered for 15 minutes. 

It’s not much to look at, but its tasty, tangy, and HOT.  You might want to de-seed the chipotles if you like less heat.

Let me introduce you to the jicama.  Now, I’ve eaten it before, but I’ve never seen or bought a whole one.  It looks like a very round russet potato, but it tastes (and crunches) like an apple.

Matchsticking.  Nice knife cuts, me!  I didn’t get a picture of it, but the jicama gets mixed in with cilantro and a lime juice vinaigrette.

Tuna, lightly oiled, and crusted with salt, pepper, coriander, cumin, and chili powder.  All ready for the Foreman grill!  That thing is great for weeknights.

A very nice and tasty crust, though a little less pink than we’d ordinarily like.  Still moist and tender.

Jicama salad, arugula (have you seen the price lately?), slice of avocado, and zesty orange sauce.  A very tasty, and oddly enough, healthy taco!  This is no ho-hum tuna taco.  For something so simple, it tasted like it came from a restaurant (a Chez Venza restaurant, perhaps?).  We’ll definitely be adding this to our regular weeknight repertoire!

Chilaquiles-zilla

Another attack of food writing /food photography taking control of our will to cook!  Look at this photo and recipe.  Am I wrong, or are you now compelled to make it?  It haunted my imagination until I was able to do so.

So look at the link, and then look at this picture.  Yeah, I’d say we freaking nailed it.

I’ve lived in Texas my whole life, but I’d never heard of chilaquiles.  Basically, its tortilla chips, tossed until semi-soggy with a Mexican red sauce, layered with cheese and broiled until melty.  The egg on top is of debated authenticity, but it played a big role in selling me on this.

We skipped making our own tortilla chips, and in retrospect, we’d recommend making the sauce the night before.

Rehydrating dried  guajillo chiles in boiling water.  Oh yeah, this is some authentic stuff.

Tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, paprika, guajillo chiles along with some reserved liquid.  Puree!

Sauce gets cooked for about 15 minutes and then just a little honey is added, along with salt and pepper.

The chips get tossed with a little sauce, place in a skillet, topped with Monterrey jack and queso fresco, then more chips more cheese and more sauce.  Like a mexican breakfast lasagna.  Then it gets broiled until melty. 

On top… a beautifully poached (rather than fried) egg.  My wife had to sneak out in the middle of the night to get them!

The recipe warns that the garnishes are key, and I can see why.  The white onion, radish, lime, and cilantro add more than color… they add a ton of flavor.  ¡Vámonos Amigos!  Make Chilaquiles!  And yes, you can have milks with it.

Báhn Mì-atloaf!

 

So, we previously did a post on making the delicious (and semi-trendy) Vietnamese sandwiches called Báhn Mì.  And now… we’re riffing on it.    We found this recipe in an issue of Bon Appetit magazine.  It is basically a meatloaf infused with asian flavors, served as an open-faced sandwich with Báhn Mì style condiments.  Delicious!

Growing up, my family did not have meatloaf, and for most of my life I have been disturbed by it as a dish.  It really isn’t much to look at, and the traditional ketchup glaze was …. not my thing.  Since I’ve grown up though, I’ve certainly tasted many a tasty meatloaf… but this is the first one we’ve ever made.

A fairly diverse and varied group of ingredients.  Plenty of chopping to do!  We had to substitute ground turkey for ground pork, as the store was out of ground pork, but I’m glad we did.  The end result was great, and I can pretend it was healthy!

Cubed, crustless, stale, Texas toast-style bread.  I had no idea you could buy loaves sliced this way.  They’re pretty great.  This bread gets put into some chicken stock until its basically mush.

 

Chopped scallions and celery in the measuring cup, and more minced ginger than I’ve ever seen.  Ginger is kind of woody and it can be a bit of a workout to mince it sufficiently, but it adds awesome flavor and aroma.

Bacon.  Natch.  All the chopped items from above, plus a massive amount of garlic get cooked in the bacon fat with the bacon.  Apparently I forgot to photograph that.

Our mushy bread and our Asian-style glaze, which is made of rice wine vinegar, garlic, ginger, and hoisin sauce.  I think of hoisin as kind of a chinese bbq sauce.  It’s thick and sticky and good also.

The veggies and bacon, strained from excess grease, get mixed in with the bread.  Also added is Chinese 5-Spice powder.  Unlike Allspice, which is really just one spice, Chinese 5 spice has five spices in it.  Typically it is a blend of fennel, cloves, and cinnamon, along with star anise and Szechuan peppercorns. 

If you get into trying Chinese-style recipes, there’s an initial investment you sort of have to make into prepared ingredients that you probably think you’ll never use again… 5 spice powder, rice wine vinegar, hoisin sauce, black bean curd, oyster sauce, sriracha sauce… but if you like making these recipes, then having these on hand is a life saver, cause they’re in practically every one.

The meat, along with 2 eggs and a bit of hoisin glaze, gets mixed into everything else and put into a greased loaf pan to bake. Pretty standard meatloaf procedure, as I understand it.  (That’s canned water, not beer.)

As I’ve said, on its own, meatloaf is not a pretty, pretty princess.  I omitted the shot of it in the pan with all the fat that rendered out of it while it baked.  But it is REALLY flavorful.

Now, part of what makes báhn mì unique is the blend of vegetables.  This recipe calls for carrot, radish and cucumber.  I think they picked cucumber and radish to try to emulate the more exotic daikon, which looks like a cucumber and is a type of radish… but that’s just a theory.  Here they all are pickling in the fridge in vinegar, salt, sugar, and oil.

Slices of meatloaf get fried a bit on each side to brown up.  Why on earth I photographed the non-browned side and not the other… I’m getting sloppy.

A little toasted bread, a little hoisin glaze, meatloaf, pickle, and cilantro. 

Bangarang, that’s a super sandwich!  It’s got some of the báhn mì flavor, but clearly the meatloaf is the star of this show.