At first, my standards were pretty high - I wasn't interested in Old El Paso brand enchilada kits, thank you, I wanted the real stuff. Then I tried the Waitrose brand "Salsa Relish" and found it to be more like relish than salsa. As in, syrupy sweet tomatoes and peppers. I tried adding vinegar, hot sauce, lime and spices to it, but that only made it even weirder. Okay, fine. So I'd be making salsa from scratch. I've tried making corn tortillas before and had difficulty pressing them out thin enough - and I wasn't sure where to get masa flour here. Although! London water has so much lime content that maybe I could actually nixtamalize corn? (edit: nope. looks like I will need 1/4 cup pickling lime in 3 quarts water to treat 2 pounds of corn)
After a tip from Dave Wallin at Eight of Swords Tattoo in Williamsburg - I made these flour tortillas. They were really good, but not thin enough for rolling up into burritos; that could have been due to my technique rather than something inherent in the recipe. While I'm okay with making every element from scratch, that does add a bit of time to dinner preparation, so I'll reserve that for a more special occasion. I was used to having acceptable tortillas available in Brooklyn, with my only responsibility that of creating the fillings.
There is some stuff in the "International Food" section of the grocery store that was labelled as Mexican. Besides the Old El Paso, there is "Discovery (TM) More Adventurous Tastes" brand tortillas, refried beans, and jalapeno paste. It was next to the jars of Uncle Ben's "Creole" "Tex Mex" and "BBQ" sauce. I had my doubts, especially about the tortillas, which were labelled "TORTILLAS FOR FAJITAS and other authentic Mexican dishes like Quesadillas, Burritos and Enchiladas". The blurb on the back claims that quesadillas are "Mexico's answer to Pizza". Silly me; I had no idea that pizza was a question; it's always felt more like a declarative statement. Still, what can one expect from Mexican food manufactured in Milton Keynes?
Don't get me wrong; I'm not a total stickler for authenticity and I think that a healthy dose of adaptation does a recipe good, especially the use of seasonal or locally available ingredients. But if you want brown sauce, catsup with a little worcestershire in it won't be the same, and there's a world of difference between english mustard and French's (tm). So the goal is to get something about as close as I could in my kitchen in Brooklyn, with heartfelt apologies to the rich and varied traditions of real, authentic Mexican cooking.
This is going to be a continuing series of efforts - the first dinner was perfectly acceptable, but there's definitely room for improvement.
Spanish rice with peas:
- 1.5 cups brown rice
- 3 cups water
- cumin, turmeric, salt, pepper to taste.
- fistful of frozen peas.
- butter
pretty basic: cook the rice, add the spices, butter and frozen peas when the rice is done. Not too complicated.
Black Beans:
Due to a slight mishap (beans ran out of water while cooking, subsequently burned.) we ended up using a 50/50 mix of black and adzuki beans. So, I boiled the beans in water till they were a little harder than al dente, and finished them up by cooking in chicken stock. Then I added TVP, or textured vegetable protein and homemade chili powder.
Homemade chili powder:
- 1 part oregano
- 1 part black pepper
- 2 parts cumin
- dash cinnamon
- dash salt
- red pepper, ancho pepper and cayenne to taste.
and then to finish up, I made homemade fresh salsa
- 6 cherry tomatoes
- red bell pepper
- one small onion
- coriander leaves
- orange-peel infused olive oil
- juice and zest of two limes
- salt
- pepper
- chipotle pepper paste
i have no idea of the proportions here, just chopped up all the veggies to about the same consistency, added the lime juice and oil, stirred it up a bit and added the salt, pepper and chipotle until it tasted about right. This one is pretty easy to eyeball if you've had fresh salsa before and enjoyed it.
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