A happy sunday

One weekend, there we were, my mom, an aunt and I, the three of us craving some good Mexican food. So I took out my recipe book to try out some of the dishes it so diligently proposes.

We decided on a combination of Choriquezo with raw green tomato sauce, Rajas (strips) de chile poblano with some Guacamole (has its own post).

RAW GREEN TOMATO SAUCE

- ½ kg green tomatoes without the skin and diced in 4 pieces. (about 12 tomatoes).

-         3 serrano chiles (if not available, the small peppers should suffice), fresh, troceados (diced)

-         ¼ cup of white finely chopped onion

-         ½ tbls of finely chopped garlic

-         ¼ cup of fresh cilantro (coriander), thickly chopped.

-         1 ½ tbls of salt

Blend some of the tomatoes first, no water. Then add the rest of the tomatoes and chiles, and blend for about 20-30 seconds. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend again. Adjust salt.

RAJAS DE CHILE POBLANO

-         6 chiles poblanos

-         3 tbls of olive/corn oil

-         ½ tbls of finely chopped garlic

-         Salt

1.     Put the chiles on a pan until the skin becomes black; then put the chiles inside a plastic bag for about 15 min so they can sweat. Remove the skin from the chiles. Make sure not to touch them directly with your skin, do it through the bag or use gloves.

2.     Cut them in the middle and remove the inside: pulp and seeds. This is the hottest part of the chile so make sure not to touch it.

3.     Cut the chiles in long thin strips. Heat up the oil on a pan to high heat; fry the garlic and add the chile strips. Add salt

CHORIQUESO

-         600gr of melting cheese, grated.

-         Fried chorizo

-         Wheat flour tortillas

1.     Preheat the oven at 200°C.

2.     Put the cheese in a casserole (clay or ceramic), or several small casseroles, and bake for 10 min.

3.     Take out the cheese and mix with a fork. Add chorizo and put back in the oven for 5 more minutes or until the top layer becomes a little brown.

4.     Take them out of the oven, put inside a tortilla and add sauce and rajas!

A beer is always welcome with this meal ;) we certainly did. In the end, a lot more people came to eat and rejoice in this deliciousness

Pecan bread

This is my recipe for brownies, with the exchange of pecan nuts for chocolate :)

INGREDIENTS
- 6 eggs
- 1.5 cups of flour
- 3 cups of sugar
- 270gr of salted butter
- a bit of baking powder
- a splash of vanilla
- smashed pecan nuts

HOW TO...
First melt the butter. In the mean time, preheat the oven at 180°C, mix the eggs with the sugar. Add the butter, make sure it is not too hot or it will cook the eggs. Add the flower and the baking powder. Make sure it is well mixed. Then add as much pecan nuts as you like and a splash of good real vanilla. If you cannot get hold of good vanilla, then do not add it at all!!! the secret is the vanilla. Mix all good and well.
Put in the oven for about 30 min. This time depends a lot in the oven. Just make sure that when you put a knife through the bread, it comes out mostly clean.

Then decorate and enjoy :)  Happy eating

Yucatecan Cuisine

I didn't cook this one... just ate it ;)
From left to right:
- Papadzules: hard boiled eggs tacos, showered with fresh tomato sauce and pepita (green pumpking seed)
- longaniza: our version of chorizo
- Salbutes: fried tortilla with turkey and veggies
- Panuchos: fried tortilla with refried beans inside, with turkey and veggies

Hungry yet?

Guacamole

-          2 Hass ripe avocados (aprox 250g each)

-          ½ small table spoon (tbls) of salt

-          ¼ cup of chopped ripe tomatoes

-          ½ tbls of chopped  green Serrano chile (small green peppers)

-          3 spoons of chopped white onion

-          2 spoons of chopped fresh cilantro- coriander (optional)

-          Tortilla chips

Cut the avocados in half and smash them with the salt until it makes a pulp. Add the rest of the ingredients, mix and try for salt. Add the seeds of the avocados, both for conserving it and for looks

Serve at room temperature with the tortilla chips.

Now, this is the traditional guacamole recipe, but even as the only non-avocado-eating-Mexican, I have one more tip for you: squeeze half a lemon on top of it so it doesn’t oxidize (go black) so fast. This enables you to be able to take it to a party in a fresh looking state; also, everything tastes better with lemon.

So.. make your guacamole, get your beer, music and some friends and you are good to go to start the party or just have a good time with some friends!

Papas de cantina

This are the sort of potatoes people get at a regular mexican cantina or botanas bar, our mexican version of tapas. They are so delicious and addictive, you cannot stop eating nor drinking beer, specially when it is crazy hot, like most of the time.
so, to do this you need, I do not give out the quantities cuz well, frankly, I do not know. Depends on how garlicky you like your potatoes I guess.
- potatoes chopped into squares
- garlic in tiny pieces
- guajillo chile (it is not hot, just for flavour)
- olive oil
- chicken broth powder, or meat broth powder. I preffer porkchops flavour jijiji
- lemon

first fry the chiles and the garlic in some olive oil, when the garlic changes color, then add the potatoes and some more olive oil, just enough to fry them. Also add the broth powder. stir and make sure they don't burn, but leave them until fried. DO NOT BOIL the potatoes, that makes them saggy.
when they are good and fried, squeeze some lemon on top of them.
get a nice cold cold beer and enjoy!!!!

the first page...

Hello, so.. to start, a little backgroung.

I was forced to learn how to cook because, on a student budget, to eat properly and in a delicious manner (like I like it) you cannot eat out all the time, you need to learn how to cook! so I did.

Given the company at the moment and the ingredients at hand, mostly I learnt about pasta. But now that I am not a student anymore, I decided to expand further my cooking horizons. I am into making good and real Mexican food.

This does not mean I will discriminate dishes based on their origin, no no, that would be wrong and terrible, not to mention that I would be missing out in the flavours they could offer me.

so... i would be talking about my cooking adventures, and posting some recipes for all

kiss kiss sweetlings! and buen provecho, enjoy, guten appetit, bon appétit, buon apetito...