Mexican - - Page 5

by Borracho

Carnita-Vore

Editors’ Note: Please welcome new blogger Borracho, who is joining the ES team to share stories of Hispanic cooking, foodie football fests, and more.

The wifey and I recently ventured out to a new local Mexican restaurant, and due to my almost maniacal obsession with all South of the Border cooking, I was delighted to see a simple carnitas plate on the menu. However, what came out, while very good, was not exactly what I was looking for. It is tough to find carnitas that are the same at any two places. The word carnitas just means “little meats,” so they can be made of beef or pork and can be fried, braised, put in a slow cooker, thrown on a Foreman grill…you get the picture.

By the time we left the restaurant, my mouth was already watering at the idea of coming up with my own version. For me, ideal carnitas are the crispy on the outside, moist on the inside nuggets of pork gold I had from a street vendor in Mexico. That version had been simmered for hours in a large amount of lard. While I believe lard does not get nearly enough respect, leaving a couple pounds of it simmering on the stove for 10 hours would just be cruel to our dog, Guinness, so in stead I decided to go with a mojo as the base liquid to cook my carnitas in.

You Can Still Soup in Summer

Who says soup’s not for summers? Rachel from over at Good Bite brings us a one-pot recipe that’s prefect for drowning the heat in.

The best summers in Texas are those spent indoors. For three months the heat blazes and iced tea becomes a daily necessity, along with light delicious fare. With summer staples like sweet yellow corn and squash readily available, thoughts of barbeques, picnics and bowls of caldo brimming with vegetables fill my head. Infinitely adaptable, simple and sublime, caldo vegetal is a Mexican vegetable soup that begins with a basic stock and results in a trifecta of spicy, tangy, cheesy harmony.

A veritable laundry list of vegetables are first sautéed in a great big pot with plenty of onions and garlic. Gently rubbing the herbs between my hands, the heady aroma of Mexican oregano infuses the squash, carrots, jalapeños and green chilies with a warm, earthy essence. Chicken stock fills the pot, mingling with smoky ground cumin, coriander and fresh cilantro. Sneaking in for a taste, the slow burn of the spicy broth and chilies serves up just the right amount of heat to slurp and savor the rich complexity of flavors. As the caldo gently bubbles on the stovetop, big rounds of corn bathe in the simmering broth. In shallow bowls, yellow squash and zucchini peak out from under the golden liquid as sprigs of cilantro and fresh limes lay alongside crunchy tortilla chips and sweet corn. Difficult as it may be to disturb this beautiful arrangement, a generous sprinkling of cheese goes on top followed by a less than delicate stir until the caldo is delightfully messy looking. Simple, delicious and completely casual, caldo vegetal is light summer fare at its best and a soup worthy of cranking up the air conditioning.

Caldo Vegetal (Mexican Vegetable Soup)

in Veggie 0 comments

by BS

Is It 5 Yet? Happy Cinco de Mayo

Yay for holidays with little actual significance and much boozy celebrating!

If you’re still looking for ideas on how to celebrate Mexican St. Patrick’s Day, don’t forget Britannia’s spicy/drunky jalapeno cucumber margarita.

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by Roo de Loo

Texas Tuesdays, Part II: Who You Callin’ Trailer Trash?

Photos: Matthew Wexler

I like to sit down at a proper table when I eat. And after closing the door on fifteen years in the restaurant industry, I like to be served. Sometimes I feel the phantom pain in my side when I see a defeated waiter struggling to get through a shift—but for the most part, I’m just happy it’s not me. So the thought of traipsing through sweltering downtown Austin like my ancestors crossing the Egyptian desert with matzoh in their pants made me wary. I imagined when I set off on a food trailer crawl that I might be disappointed with greasy funnel cakes and toxic yellow lemonade. And where would I pee? What I stumbled upon is an entire subculture of dedicated food artisans leaving their tire tracks all over town.

photos: Matthew Wexler

Chasing Chi’Lantro

One of the newest additions to the food trailer scene is Chi’Lantro, a name derived from two cultural staples: kimchi and cilantro. The fusion of Korean and Mexican food had me all a Twitter, which is a good thing because it’s the only way you can track this trailer down. With locations that vary like the changing winds, I have to credit a friend’s i-phone for my spicy pork taco with Korean soy vinaigrette salad and salsa roja. I can’t get too attached though, as this newcomer is already revamping their menu along with their ever-changing locale.

Holding the Torch

Torchy’s Tacos is a benchmark of Austin’s food trailer scene. They are “living the taco dream” by serving up an array of tortilla-stuffed concoctions—from classic breakfast tacos to more daring fare like The Brushfire, filled with Jamaican jerk chicken, grilled jalapeños and diablo sauce. Founder and Executive Chef Michael Rypka mortgaged his house and maxed out a couple of credits cards in pursuit of the perfect taco. And it’s paid off. The homemade salsas were a knockout, and I have to give the guy a hats off for continuing to locally source the majority of their products and meats.

These Tacos Are Making Me Thirsty

So, I went to Mexico City. And I survived. And it all happened in Denver. Allow me to explain:

Mexico City is a Mexican restaurant in downtown Denver. They’re famous for their……FRIED TACOS. Don’t believe me? Check out their aptly named website.

The tacos are fried with the cheese embedded in the fried taco shell. In the taco: steak, lettuce, tomato and avocado (a nice touch). The issue with melting the cheese to the fried taco shell is that the distribution of the cheese is somewhat uneven.

Some bites provide cheesy, delicious explosions, while others are dominated by the steak and other toppings. This is why one member of our group exclaimed, “That’s why I order four—to maximize the amount of opportunities for a fried taco/cheese explosion party in my mouth.”

Touche.