Quesabirria Tacos: rich and crunchy

We first had Birria tacos at Fusion Street Eatery, in Dunedin, Florida: they were slow-cooked beef shank, wrapped in a crunchy fried tortilla. A week later, I stumbled across this YouTube video which was clear and direct: soak chilis, blend, fry in oil, cook meat in the sauce; to assemble, paint the corn tortillas with oil from the sauce, fry then fill and fold, fry until crisp. The "quesa" in the name is from letting the cheese melt on the tortilla while it's frying.

I cut down his recipe by half: 6 tacos were enough for the two of us for dinner, and we had lots of the cooked meat, sauce, and oil to make more anytime we want -- enough for two more dinners. My first stab at this took more than the 30 minutes prep that the chef claims, but now that I understand the process, I expect that's a reasonable time; the meat cooks in the sauce for 3 hours, so plan ahead. The recipe's slightly adapted from the print version on Vice.com.

For sauce and meat:

2 oz    60 g   guajillo chilies (about 8), stemmed
4              morita/chipotle chilies, stemmed
1              ancho chilies, stemmed
1              small plum tomato
2              garlic cloves, peeled
1 tsp          oregano
1 tsp          ground cumin
1/2 tsp        black peppercorns
1 whole        clove
1              bay leaf

1/4            white onion, peeled 
1/8 C   60 g   kosher salt
2.5 Tbs 40 ml  white vinegar

2.5 Lb   1 Kg  beef shoulder (or shank, etc)
3/4 C  200 ml  vegetable oil

For the tacos and serving:

Shredded cheese: Monterey Jack,Cheddar, Mozzarella, or Mexican cheese
Corn tortillas
Cilantro, minced
White onion, finely chopped (we used pickled red onion)
Lime wedges

Cover chilis and tomato with 4 C / 1 L water, bring to boil, remove from heat, cover, and let soften 10 minutes. Strain, retaining the liquid.

Put 2 C / 500 ml liquid into a blender, and blend the chilis and tomato, and all the other sauce ingredients (excluding the meat and oil).  Add the oil to a sauce pan over medium heat and fry the sauce for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

While that's cooking, cut the meat into roughly  2 inch / 5 cm cubes, and season generously with salt and pepper. 

When the sauce is finished cooking, add the meat, and the remaining 2 C / 500 ml chili liquid to the pot. Cook until meat is tender, about three hours. 

Strain everything through a coarse sieve to hold back seeds and other bitter bits. Shred the meat by hand, forks, or a large knife.

Skim off the fat from the top of the sauce into a separate small bowl. I had about a cup / 250 ml of oil and 2 cups / 500 ml of sauce.

Sauce, meat, oil

Add some of the sauce to the meat to keep it moist.

To assemble, dip one side of the tortilla in oil, or paint it with a pastry brush. Place on hot skillet until pliable, top with cheese, meat, cilantro, onions, etc. Fold over the tortilla before it becomes too firm, and continue to fry until crispy; flip and crisp the other side. 

To serve, add some sauce to a small bowl, and add cilantro and onion. You can stuff other condiments in the taco as you like. Dip the taco in the sauce and "shove it in your mouth". It's a bit messy, but so good.

Blue Cheese Straws

From John Martin Taylor in Gastronomica, Fall 2008, who bases his recipe on a survey of old southern recipes. Also in https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/john-martin-taylors-blue-cheese-straws/13436/.

We used a delightful, intense, creamy French Blue (from Costco) for this, and the result was good, but in the straws, it loses some of its unique quality as an eating cheese, it's blue-ness. We've also used a Cheddar and a mix of Cheddar with Pecorino with fine results.

With a processor, this comes together very quickly. I grate the hard cheeses in the processor, but just crumbled the softer Blue. I then rolled the dough between sheets of cling film and cut with a pizza wheel or pastry scraper; both worked well, but the scraper made transferring to the parchment easier.

113 g  8 ounces Blue Cheese

 56 g  2 ounces Unsalted Butter, cut into chunks (half stick, 4 TBS)

   1/2 tsp Salt, plus more for garnish 

1/4 tsp Cayenne pepper, plus more for garnish

145 g  1 cup All Purpose Flour (preferably soft Southern)

1 Egg Yolk (if needed for moisture)

Preheat oven to 375F (or 350F convection).

Line 2 cookie sheets with a Silpat or parchment so straws don't stick.

Crumble or grate cheese in a food processor.

Combine all ingredients except egg in processor with metal blade and process a minute or two until it forms a ball. 

If it's too dry, add the Egg Yolk (some recipes use a bit of Milk or Buttermilk).

Divide into two batches.

(Many recipes chill the dough for 30 minutes at this step, try if you've got a hot kitchen)

Roll into 1/8 inch thick slabs about 6-inches wide between sheets of cling film;

I use a rolling pin with thick O-rings on the ends for even thickness.

Garnish with Salt and Cayenne, roll once lightly to press in.

Cut into 1/2 inch wide strips, each 6 inch long.

Lay out on cookie sheet, with strips not touching.

Bake 20-25 minutes until just lightly brown.

Cool on rack.

 

 

SER's Beet Gazpacho with Goat Cheese Foam and White Anchovies (Boquerones)

At a recent dinner at SER, we had a beet gazpacho topped with Cabrales cheese foam, garnished with white anchovies. We've re-created it here, using goat cheese, and it turned out wonderfully -- earthy, rich, not too beet-y, and the cheese foam and anchovies elevate it to restaurant level. For the gazpacho, you'll need a powerful blender for a smooth texture, and for the foam, you'll need an iSi whip cream siphon. We got a large tub of Boquerones from a restaurant supply store. 

Make the gazpacho and foam, and chill both. Plate the gazpacho then top with foam and boquerones; garnish with grind of black pepper.

Beet Gazpacho

I started with recipes from the New York Times and Washington Post.  The quantities below don't need to be exact, but these (barely) fit in our vintage Vitamix blender. We normally sieve our tomato gazpacho but didn't feel the need for that here.  Pre-cooked and peeled beets made this very quick, and we used canned tomatoes because it's now after tomato season; you could cook and peel fresh beets and use fresh tomatoes, of course.

500 g        1 pound   cooked and peeled Beets, roughly chopped

400 g     14.5 ounce   canned crushed Tomatoes, unflavored

225 g      1/2 pound   English Cucumber, skinned, sliced

1/4                    Red Onion, sliced

1/2                    Red Bell Pepper,  sliced

  4 cloves             Garlic

 60 ml     1/4 C       Extra Virgin Olive Oil

 30 ml       2 Tbs     Sherry Vinegar (to taste)

 10 g      1/2 Tbs     Kosher Salt (to taste)

Add the Beets and Tomatoes to the blender and blend, adding the other ingredients one by one. 

Blend until very smooth.

Taste and adjust Salt and Vinegar.

Chill for at least 2 hours.

Goat Cheese Foam

I used this recipe, cutting it in half for a few servings, but you'll need to double the below quantities to provide for the amount of gazpacho above.  We have a little 0.25 L iSi, which is fine for this amount, but you'll probably need the 0.5 L model for a double batch. If you have any flecks in your ingredients (pepper flakes or herbs in the cheese) you will need to sieve it to prevent clogging the iSi, but our cheese was plain so we didn't need to. Here too, the quantities don't need to be exact. The small amount above was too little volume for our Vitamix so I used a stick blender; a food processor might work, but might also be too large for this amount.

125 g     4.4 ounce  soft Goat Cheese

 65 g     2.2 ounce Sour Cream

 11 ml   0.75 Tbs  Extra Virgin Olive Oil

  5 g     3/4 tsp Kosher Salt

 65 g     2.2 ounce Heavy Cream

Blend the Goat Cheese, Sour Cream, Olive Oil, and Salt until smooth.

Add the Heavy Cream and blend briefly to combine (you don't want to whip the cream yet) or stir in thoroughly.

Load it into the iSi Whipper: I filled a ziptop bag then snipped off the corner and used it like a pastry bag to get the thick cream mixture into the whipper.

Add the lid, and charge with 1 Nitrous Oxide cartridge (2 for a 1 L whipper).

Chill for at least an hour

Smoky Pork Chili

In the past two chili competitions our friends host, we've come in #2 and #1; we hope to keep our crown this year with a pork-based chili that focuses on smoke.  It uses smoked pork, smoked oil, smoked tomatoes,  smoked tomato water, and smokey chilis. 

TL;DR: we came in tied for 2nd place in this year's competition!

Smoked Tomatoes and Tomato Water

We got bulk tomatoes from the farmers market. 

To skin easily: freeze hard, remove, and soak each for a minute or two in water.

Nick the skin in an X at the bottom and peel it off; it should slip off pretty easy, but if not, let soak a minute more and try again.

While still semi-frozen, cut each in half at the equator.

Put on wire racks, cut-side down, over trays (like lasagna pans) to catch the drips as they thaw and smoke.

Cold smoke several hours.

You may be able to do this while you smoke the Pork and Oil below, if you've got lots of room.

Keep the tomatoes and water to make the chili.

Both are great for other uses, and the smokey water makes a fantastic Bloody Mary.

Pork

   1 Kg   2 Lb  Pork Shoulder, with a moderate amount of fat

   1 L    1 Qt  Olive Oil (as much as you want, it's versatile)

Cut Pork into strips that will fit into meat grinder; arrange on wire rack.

Fill a large low tray -- a lasagna tray -- with Olive Oil and add to smoker.

Cold smoke Pork and Oil; we used apple wood pellets in an 18-inch stainless perforated tube, works well.

Flip the meat periodically to expose all sides.

This smoking runs a bit over 4 hours.

Chill Pork hard before grinding.
Grind through coarse plate, about 3 mm wholes.

Sear in a little of the now Smoked Olive Oil.

The Pork threw off 43g of fat, leaving 607g meat.

Reserve the fat for sauteing later.

Beans

225  g    8    oz  Dried Black Beans (Frijoles negros, secos)
  1  L   32 fl oz  Smoked Tomato Water

Cook beans in Tomato Water, covered, very low, until nearly tender, add water if needed; may take 1-4 hours.

Drain, reserve smokey bean liquid.

Makes 3 C cooked beans.

Chili Sauce Base

Build a base using Irene's Vegan Chili, sans chick peas, and substituting as many smoked ingredients as we can find -- smoked chipotles, smoked oil, smoked tomatoes, ... 

17 g   7 whole  Chipotle chilis, dried

15 g   3 whole  Sweet dried chilis (Costeño, New Mexico, Choricero)

52 g   3 whole  Fruity dried chilis (Ancho, Mulatto, Negro, Pasilla)

 1 L   1 quart  Smoked Tomato Water and smokbean-cooking liquid

Remove stems and seeds from Chilis.

Microwave chilis between two plates in 10 second increments until pliable and toasty smelling, about 30 seconds total.

Add Chilis to Smoked Tomato Water, cover, and microwave until it simmers, about 5 minutes.

Transfer to blender and blend until smooth -- be careful, the hot liquid can explode, so start with slow pulses and cover loosely with a paper towel.

Makes 4 Cups.

Assembly

 230g    1 large  Onion, diced

  ? g    3 clove  Garlic, minced

 10 g  1.5 Tbs    Cumin seed, toasted, ground

3.5 g             Fresh Oregano, or 2 tsp Dried, minced

 10 g    ?        Pimenton

400 g   14 oz     Tomatoes, preferably smoked, fine chopped

  ? g    3 whole  Chipotle chilis from a can, chopped

  ? g    1 Tbs    Chipotle can sauce

 95 g             Smoked dried Chipotle peppers, rehydrated

 20 g             Poblano Chilis from the garden, seeded, chopped

  ? g    1 tsp    Marmite or Vegemite (for Umami)

  ? g    1 Tbs    Soy Sauce (for Umami)

Saute Onions in rendered pork fat, then add Garlic, Cumin, Oregano; drain, reserving fat.

Add part of the drained fat to a large pot for final assembly, and fry chopped tomatoes in the fat. 

Add cooked Onion mixture and cooked Pork.

Add Pimenton, chopped Chipotles and their sauce (this was a 4 ounce jar's worth)

Add 2 C of the 4 C blended Chili sauce, since we had less meat than expected.

Let cook a bit to combine, then adjust salt.

Cook covered, low, until meat is tender, maybe another hour.

Add the 1 C of cooked Beans; this proportion seemed high at first but turned out fine.

Cook a bit more to finish, or let cool, refrigerate, then reheat the next day when the flavors will be married.

If the chili is too loose, or maybe has a bit too much fat, create a slurry of Masa in a little water and add it to the chili a tablespoon at of time until it's thickened as much as you want.

I like to serve this over spaghetti ("chili mac"), with grated Parmesan or Cheddar -- better, smoked Mexican cheese like Cojita -- and some diced onions or scallions. 

For the competition, use 1 C Black Beans; for home, use 3 C.

Ruth Reichl's Pasta with Reduced Seafood Cream Sauce -- and Sea Urchins or Scallops

This is based on Ruth Reichl's "Michele's Pasta and Scallops" from her book "Comfort Me With Apples". Concentrating a flavorful fish stock -- then reducing it again with cream -- creates an intense, indulgent sauce. We've served this home made fettuccine and scallops, but the version pictured here is even better, topped with sea urchins and home made angel hair pasta that holds the sauce more gracefully. 

It's easy to make, just make sure you use good ingredients. We've been making it since 2003, it's a treat. Be warned that Sea Urchins are even more expensive than Scallops, a little flat will set you back about $14; they are quite perishable.  Makes a rich dinner for two.

2  cup  Fish Stock (use good stuff, not that junk in a box or can)

1  cup  Heavy Cream

1  flat  Sea Urchins ("tongues"), or 1/2 pound Sea Scallops

         Kosher Salt

1/2 Lb   Pasta, preferably home made angel hair

1  bunch Parsley, chopped fine for a garnish

1  Tbs   Lemon Juice, fresh, optional

1  Tbs   Toasted Bread Crumbs, wildly optional

Get pasta water boiling. Do the rest while it's heating.

Reduce Stock to 1/2 cup, about 5 minutes. I found a measuring cup to be helpful in judging this reduction and the next.

Add cream, simmer to reduce mixture to 2/3 cup, about 6 minutes. It's fine if the cream bubbles vigorously, it won't burn like milk would. It should start to take on a caramelized color and aroma. When sufficiently reduced, adjust Salt (don't salt earlier, the reduction will make it too intense), and keep warm on a very low flame.

Flat of Sea Urchins, home made Angel Hair pasta

Cook the pasta in salted water. If you use dried pasta you might want to start this step earlier; if using fresh, maybe a little later so it doesn't get ready before the scallops. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water. Drain.

If you're using Sea Urchins, you don't need to cook them -- think sushi.

If you're using Scallops, dry them well, sprinkle generously with coarse Salt, and freshly ground Pepper (the black pepper flecks look good against the cooked scallops when served). 

Heat a heavy metal (dude) skillet; I use a cast iron. Film with oil. Grill scallops until just barely cooked, about 1-2 minutes per side. Transfer to plate, cover to keep warm.

Drain and plate the pasta.

Top with Cream Sauce; if it's gotten too thick, thin with a little of the reserved pasta water first.

Top with (uncooked) Sea Urchins, or seared Scallops.

Sea Urchins on intense sauce and pasta

Garnish with Parsley for a color contrast.

Squeeze a little Lemon Juice to brighten, if desired.

I think black pepper distracts from the color, but add if you like.

You can also top with toasted bread crumbs for a crunchy contrast, but that pushes this elegant dish to a more rustic direction.

 

Farmers' Market Tomato Sauce, canned

Spring Valley Farm was selling a 25 pound box of tomatoes for $15, a bargain, especially since these ones were nearly blemish free. We made 10 Quart canning jars of sauce in a 1950's vintage pressure cooker I got long ago. This one is meat-free to give us the most flexibility later. Amounts are approximate and you can adjust the veggies and herbs.

25 pounds Tomatoes, fresh, trimmed of blemishes

 2        Onions, chopped
 2        Carrots, chopped
 2        Celery stalks, sliced

          Olive Oil

          Tomato Paste
          Red Wine
          Chili pepper flakes
 1   head Garlic, peeled, chopped 

 2        Bay Leaves, whole
          Parsley or its stems
          Basil, fresh

Freeze the tomatoes in a single layer, then remove. They develop a beautiful white frozen coating from the humidity.

To peel the skin, soak each tomato in a bowl of water a couple minutes, nick the skin with an X in the bottom, and it should easily peel and slip off; if it resists, give it another minute in the bath to thaw the skin.

Peeled and still quite firm

It's convenient to cut them while they're still a bit firm from the freezer, I cut them in 8 pieces each.

Saute the Onions, Carrots, Celery, Garlic in a generous glug of Oil until soft in a pot large enough to hold everything; we split ours between an 8 and 10 quart stock pot.

Add the Tomatoes, Tomato Paste, a healthy dose Wine, veggies, and herbs, then bring to a strong simmer.
Continue cooking until it's a little thickened.

Blend smooth so you don't have to worry about fishing out the herbs (our VitaPrep does a good job), then strain through a course sieve to remove the seeds.
Return to heat, bring to simmer, cook a bit more if it needs thickening, and finally adjust the Salt.

Fill 10 quart canning jars, add lids and seal. (did you know the Ball Aerospace Company is the same company that made Ball Jars?).
Add 2 quarts water to the pressure cooker, add the bottom rack, then the sealed jars.
Pressure cook at 5 PSI for 10 minutes (per the Mirro Matic instruction booklet), and let cool naturally. I had to run two batches in my 12 quart vessel.

Crispy Pig Ears: 2-ways

At a heritage pig break-down demo we went to, the butchers handed out the cuts at the end: we got the pig ears -- it's not like we had to fight off the others to get them! We've had pig ears once before, at Eola in DC, cooked by adventurous chef Daniel Singhofen. I wanted something crunchy, and found two preparations, so we tried both. All the recipes I saw boiled the ears for 2-3 hours, then finished them to crisp them up.  Serious Eats had a simple finish of searing on a hot grill. Rather than boil, which I thought would leech too much flavor, I cooked them sous vide, as suggested in a Great British Chefs article I found when searching for sous vide.

They both turned out quite well, without a lot of fuss, The seared ear was like a giant Chicharrón, one of my guilty pleasures. The fried slices were like an awesome bar snack.  Both are super rich, the 8 ounce total weight was enough for two of us for dinner.  Irene made a caper and cornichon salsa, but a zingy chimichurri would go well, too.

2 Pig Ears (225 g, 8 ounces)
Kosher Salt
Lard, frozen hard
Flour
Corn Starch
Cayenne Pepper powder
Oil for Frying

Singe the Ears to burn off any hairs; ours were scrupulously clean so this wasn't really necessary.
Put the ears in a zippy bag with about 25g Salt, a splash of water, shake to distirute, and chill 6 hours.
Remoe the ears, rinse and dry.

Place each ear in its own sous vide bag, add a pat of frozen Lard, seal, and cook 24 hours at 85C/185F.
Remove the Ears, press flat and weight down, then cool overnight.

Remove the Ears.
Heat Oil for frying to 190C/375F.
Heat two cast iron pans over high heat.
Mix Flour, Cornstarch, Cayenne in a baggie.

Place one Ear on a pan, and cover with the other pan to sear both sides. 
Cook a few minutes until it starts getting bubbly and crusty, flip the ear, cover, and cook another couple minutes. 

Cut the other Ear into thin strips.
Add the strips to the Flour mixture, shake well, then remove and shake off excess dusting.

 

Boil in Oil for about 3 minutes until crunchy, drain.

Serve with an assertive acidic sauce or salsa.