Pork Chile Verde Enchiladas

The weekly "Happy Hour" party was at our house this Wednesday and I decided I wanted to cook an authentic mexican meal for 20 people. Not the easiest thing I've ever done. After quite a bit of planning I decided on red and green enchiladas, refried beans, rice, chile rellenos, guac and pico de gallo. All made from scratch. I don't think I realized just how long this was going to take me. Needless to say with all the running around I was doing trying to get people fed, I didn't stop to take any pictures. This picture was taken the next day with the little leftovers I had (hence the sorry looking beans). But take my word for it, it was delicious. I'm just writing up the green enchiladas (the best part of the meal) right now. I'll do the rest later, so get used to that picture, you'll be seeing it again.

These enchiladas were absolutely delicious. They were by far my favorite part of the meal. Tender pork simmered with Anaheim chiles, onion and garlic, shredded and rolled in tortillas, and smothered in fresh salsa verde and cheese. I love Mexican food.

Pork Chile Verde Enchiladas

for the pork

8 Anaheim chiles

2 tsp ground cumin

2 Tbsp safflower or other flavorless oil

1 cup chopped onion

2 lbs. pork shoulder or country-style ribs, cut in chunks

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

4 cups water

Salt and Pepper

Char, peel, seed and chop the chiles, I've shown this before. Heat oil in heavy pot or dutch oven and saute onion for about 3 minutes. Add the pork chunks and brown while the liquid evaporates, about 15 minutes. Add chiles, cumin and garlic and cook for another 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Cover with water and simmer, covered, until meat is tender about an hour and a half. Then uncover and reduce the liquid a bit (otherwise you'll have soggy enchiladas). When you are ready to stuff the tortillas, shred the meat. I find a potato masher makes quick work of shredding meat. Place a bit of the meat mixture into a flour tortilla (I used soft taco sized because I was feeding a bunch of people) and roll it up. Place in a roasting pan and cover it with the salsa...

for the salsa verde

3 fresh Anaheim chiles

5 tomatillos

15 oz. chicken stock
1/2 cup chopped onions
1 jalapeno, deseeded and chopped
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
juice of 1 lime
1/4 cup sour cream
Salt and pepper

Char, peel, seed and chop the chiles like before. Combine the broth, tomatillos, jalapeno, garlic, and onion in a saucepan over medium heat. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes and cool to room temperature. Transfer to a blender, add the chile, cilantro and lime juice. Blend until smooth. Whisk in the sour cream and season with salt and pepper. Pour over the rolled enchiladas, cover in some mexican cheese (I recommend asadero, chihuahua or oaxacan) and bake until the cheese melts.

Notes:
1. If you want to go real traditional then you can use corn tortillas and dip the tortillas in the sauce, shake off the excess, then roll the enchiladas. I think that the flavor of corn tortillas kinda bullies everything else in a dish, so I like flour. And I'm not spending all that time dipping and rolling.
2. If you can't find anaheim chiles, canned green chiles are usually anaheims or something pretty close. Get the whole canned chiles, they are already roasted, peeled and seeded.
3. If you want to add some texture to these enchiladas you can add some raw chopped onion on the inside and maybe sprinkle some chopped tomatoes ontop.

Crispy Lemon-Fennel Chicken

A  perfectly grilled steak, tender melt-in-your-mouth pork, a freshly picked juicy piece of fruit. These are simple things which I really enjoy. Add crispy chicken skin to that list. You can have the best recipe and most amazingly flavored piece of chicken in the world but if you bite into a big piece of chewy, fatty skin it just won't matter. Food is all about flavor and texture, and that is what this dish is all about.

Crispy Lemon-Fennel Chicken

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs

4 chicken legs

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 1/2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed

Salt and Pepper

Crush the fennel seeds in a mortar and pestle or put them in a plastic bag and smash them up with a rolling pin. They don't need to be a powder, just do it roughly. Mix all the ingredients in a big, resealable plastic bag and throw in the chicken. Massage the marinade into the chicken and then place in the refrigerator

for at least a half hour (a couple hours would be better) and turn occasionally.

Preheat your grill to high heat. Put the chicken on skin-side down and render the fat out of the skin until it is crisp (about 5 minutes). Flip the chicken and give the other side about 3-4 minutes, just for a sear. Then move the chicken to medium heat to finish cooking, about 10-12 more minutes.

This chicken went really well with a simple grilled asparagus. I tossed the asparagus in olive oil, minced garlic, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Put the asparagus on the grill about 5-7 minutes before the chicken is finished. They should still be a little crunchy, and the pepper flakes give it a nice bite.

Italian-style Pizza

I had been looking forward to this day for nearly five years and I didn't even know it. Well I suppose I kinda knew, at least I knew I have been craving real Italian pizza since I got back from Italy. It is something I ate many times while I was there and ever since I haven't tasted anything with the same flavor or texture. The flavor here was pretty spot on. The herbs out of the garden gave it an amazing freshness and I finally found a crust which tasted right! However, it wasn't a total success because I still have not got the texture of the crust correct. The greatest part of good Italian pizza is how thin and crisp the crust is. Not just thin like New York style pizza, but almost wafer thin underneath. In Italy this comes from a super thin pizza being cooked in a scorching hot wood burning oven, unfortunately I don't have one yet.

After some researching about how the best way to cook this would be I came up with the pizza stone. The idea of the stone is to get it preheated and then put the pizza on it. The stone holds the heat well and begins cooking the crust as soon as the pizza is put on it, hopefully getting it nice and crispy. Obviously a wood burning oven is already lined with brick, so this is supposed to mimic that. So I set the oven for 475 degrees and heated the stone up, then baked away. The crust never got as crispy underneath as I wanted. I don't know if I should cook at a higher heat or toss the dough even thinner, maybe both. The crust could have been a product of the weather. I don't recommend making any sort of dough when it's over 90 degrees in the kitchen and you're practically swimming because it is so humid, the dough rises to quickly and stays to sticky. Also, having an almost 500 degree oven running while you are standing next to it isn't as enjoyable as it sounds. 

Pizza dough

adapted from Jamie Oliver

800 grams high gluten bread flour or tip '00' Italian flour

200 grams Semolina flour

2 - 7 gram dry yeast packets

650 mL of luke warm water (try for between 105-110 degrees)

1 Tbsp kosher salt

1 Tbsp sugar (or honey)

4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Mix the water, oil, sugar and yeast together in a container and let sit a few minutes while you start the dried stuff.

Sift the two types of flour and salt together onto a flat, clean surface. Make a well in the middle of the flour and pour in the liquids.

Take a fork and begin mixing in some of the flour. As the dough begins to come together, start adding more and more flour until you can begin mixing it with your hands (make sure they are clean, dry and floured). Knead until you have a nice, elastic dough. Place the dough in a floured bowl and cover with a damp towel, place somewhere warm to rise.

After the dough has doubled in size (it takes about an hour). Remove it from the bowl and knead it to remove the air bubbles. Cut off a chunk of the dough for the first pizza (this dough will make about 6 medium sized pizzas). Roll out the chunk of dough on a floured surface until it is about an eighth of an inch thick. It is good to get this done about 15 to 20 minutes before you make the pizza. It lets the dough rest a little, I think it makes the dough lighter.

The Sauce

5-6 Tbsp olive oil

5 cloves of garlic, sliced thin

A good handful of fresh basil leaves, torn

A smaller handful of fresh oregano, torn

1200 grams skinned and canned plum tomatoes (1 1/2 big jars)

Salt and Pepper

A few shakes of red chili flakes

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and throw in the garlic, when it starts to color toss in the herbs and tomatoes. Break up the tomatoes with a spoon as best you can. Season the sauce with the salt, pepper and chili flakes and bring to a simmer. Let it go for a little while to get all the flavors into the sauce.

I differed a bit from the recipe with this sauce. The recipe said to strain the sauce through a coarse sieve to get rid of the garlic and basil chunks. When I did this I ended up with a bowl of tomato water, both in consistency and taste. So I put all the stuff back in and just used it that way. It was really good and I don't mind a bit of chunks and color in my sauce. The one nice thing was that the sieve basically ground up the tomatoes and garlic to make the sauce relatively smooth.

Now take one of your doughs youve got rolled out and get your sauce and any other ingredients you want on your pizza ready. Take the pizza stone out of the hot oven (remember it has been preheating) and put your pizza dough on it. Get your sauce and cheese and toppings on as fast as you can and get it back in the oven. The pizza will not take very long to cook, just watch the crust. When it is golden brown and crispy, pull it out. I pulled the pizza in the above picture out a little early, it could have used another 2 minutes I think.

Notes:

1. I know I know, this is all in metric units. If you've ever been to Europe, especially France, you've probably had bread or pizza dough or croissants. Ever wonder why they are just so much better than what you get here? Largely that is because of the metric system. The proportions just aren't the same in our imperial system. Try converting the dough recipe to imperial. 800 grams of bread flour translates to 1.7637 pounds. Well thats fine but someone might say, "the proportions can be kept the same, 4:1 bread flour to semolina." Sure that's true but what about the salt? What about the water and sugar? You just can't get the same proportions, so I recommend going out and buying a cheapo digital scale. I got mine for 20 bucks.

2. I made two kinds of pizza. One I put on sauce, fresh sliced mozzarella and fresh basil leaves (the traditional pizza margherita). The pizza a made into a garlic pizza. I quickly dimpled the dough all over with my fingers and then spread some extra virgin olive oil over the dough. The dimples make little wells for the oil to sit in. Then I finally minced 3 or 4 cloves of garlic and sprinkled it on with some more chopped, fresh basil leaves. Delicious.

A Tale of Two Dips

Two food staples, opposite sides of the world. To call these "dips" is really a misnomer, or at the least a significant cultural misconception, because in their perspective countries they are not usually eaten as a dip. Tzatziki is a yogurt based cucumber sauce eaten around the mediterranean and middle east, but it's most well known in Greece. When I was in Greece, and everytime I've had a gyro or souvlaki since, this sauce was served as a side dish with the meat. Like I said, it is not usually a dip. The acidity of the sauce is used to cut the fatiness or to brighten up many dishes. We aren't in Greece though, so I serve this as an appetizer with bread or vegetables and it is delicious. 

Tzatziki Sauce

2 cups (16 oz.) of Greek plain yogurt

1 cucumber peeled and grated

3 cloves garlic, crushed and minced

2 tbsp chopped dill

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

Salt

Grate the cucumber and place in some paper towels. Squeeze as much liquid out of them as you can. Add everything else and stir it up. Cover with plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge for at least an hour before you eat. Give it a stir right before serving.

Guacamole is one of my all time favorite things. I love it. I could eat it everyday. Because of this, I've eaten my fair share of guac. Now I don't mean to be immodest but my guac is the best I've ever had, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. The thing is, I don't do anything special. When people ask me what's in my guac, I tell them, and they wonder why mine tastes different from theirs. Everybody uses the same stuff; avacados, lime, onion, cilantro. What's my secret? Salt! I am blown away by the number of people who do not salt things. I put salt in almost everything I make. I even put salt in fruit dishes. I've even heard of people putting salt in their wine. The salt isn't there to be tasted and, if it is used correctly, does not make things taste salty. Salt is a natural flavor enhancer which intensifies all the other flavors in a dish.

My dad asked today, over a bowl of this deliciousness, "why is it called guacamole?" I said it probably means avocado in spanish, but I really had no idea. It turns out it is the Aztec word for "avocado sauce," which I should have known because I know "mole" means sauce. Now I said in the beginning of this post that these aren't usually eaten as dips. This is more true for the tzatziki than the guac, although guac is usually used as a topping for many dishes in Mexican cuisine. The coolness and fattiness of the avocados balances the spice of many mexican dishes in the same way I have described before. This fattiness of the avocados is another reason for using the salt. Avocados are kinda bland on their own and just adding other veggies isn't going to change that much, it needs salt. And lots of lime juice.

Guacamole

4 ripe avocados

2-3 limes (to taste), juiced

1/2 a medium spanish or sweet onion, diced

1 medium tomato, deseeded and diced

1 jalapeno, deseeded and diced

A handful of fresh cilantro (to taste), chopped

Salt and pepper

Cayenne pepper

Open the avocados by cutting around them the long way and then placing in the palm and twisting the top half opposite the bottom. To remove the pit, hold the half in your palm and smack the base of your knife blade into the pit so it sticks (watch your fingers). Twist out the pit. Scoop the flesh out with a spoon into a bowl. Add the lime juice right away because avocados brown very quickly. Add the onion, jalapeno, cilantro, salt, pepper and cayenne and mash it all up with a fork or potato masher. Leave it a little lumpy for textural purposes. Then add the tomato and stir with a spoon. Give it a taste and adjust the lime and salt. I like mine nice and limey. I recommend eating this right away because it really will brown fast. If you can't, put it in an airtight container to try and stop it. Enjoy!

Notes

1. I deseed the tomato because I want to keep as much liquid out of the guac as I can. It already has a bit with the lime juice and you want it thick and creamy, not mushy. To deseed the tomato, cut it in half and scoop out the middle with a spoon.

2. You can use any type of onion for the guac really, but I like the sweet onion the best. I used to use red onion but I had a few that were pretty harsh and I didn't like how they overpowered this avocados.

3. I add everything but the tomato and mush it up because I think it gets all the flavors incorporated. Add the tomato after so it doesn't get squashed and change the color of the guac.

4. Lime juice, like all citrus, slows down the browning of many foods (avocados, bananas, apples). The citurs acid in the juice denatures the proteins which cause oxidation of certain foods.

5. In the tzatziki I use english cucumber (seedless) to cut down on the amount of water. You could do this with a regular cuke by cutting out the seeds.

6. You can use mint instead of dill in the tzatziki if you want. That is more traditional of Cyprus and some of the middle eastern countries. For some reason I just haven't gotten into the whole mint thing. People put mint in a lot of things nowadays, including hearty meat dishes. Maybe I've got to try eating it more, I don't know, but I'm not big into the flavor.