Salsa Borracha (Drunken Salsa)

This one is a little unusual. When I first saw Marcela Valladolid cooking it on her show "Mexican Made Easy", I thought she may have been drunken herself. I had never heard of making a salsa with dried chiles, orange juice, and tequila, but it looked like a pretty good topping for meats and tacos.

Start by removing the stem and seeds from 8 ancho chiles. These chiles are dried from the poblano chile. They are a deep red color and are sweet with tastes of raisin and plum.


Put the chiles on to a dry frying pan over medium heat for a minute per side until they are slightly toasted. Tear them apart and put into a blender.

Add to the blender, a cup of orange juice, 1/2 cup of a good anejo tequila, a minced garlic clove, and 1/4 cup of olive oil. Puree until well blended and add back into frying pan over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until thickened.


Puree until well blended and add back into frying pan.

Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until thickened.


Now for the fun part. I created a little dry part of the pan to pour the tequila into a pool.

Then I set the tequila on fire and let it slowly burn out.

Finally, blend it all together and season with salt and pepper.


Let it cool down, then transfer to a serving bowl. Top with crumbled anejo cheese. While the alcohol is cooked off, you will soon be singing and dancing once you make this one.

Chiles en Nogada

It has been a long time since my last post, but I have found a new show that has inspired me to try some new dishes and crank out some new posts. The Food Network show is called "Mexican Made Easy", but I find the title to be a little misleading. The host, Marcela Valladolid, breezes through multiple dishes in 30 minutes, while it could take me a couple of hours to finish one of them even after procuring the ingredients.

Today's dish is Chiles en Nogada, Stuffed Poblano Chiles in Creamy Walnut Sauce. The name comes from the Spanish word for the walnut tree, nogal. This famous dish is said to have been developed by the residents of Puebla to honor General Don Augustín de Iturbide at a celebratory banquet held in August 1821, after the signing of the Treaty of Córdoba. All of the dishes served at the banquet featured the colors of the Mexican flag (green chiles, white sauce, and red pomegranate seeds). Still a popular dish, chiles en nogada is often served in August when walnuts and pomegranates come into season.

The first part of this dish is the picadillo, a mixture usually containing chopped or ground meat, aromatics, fruits, and spices.


Cook a diced onion and a few teaspoons of vegetable oil over medium-high heat until translucent. Add a couple cloves of minced garlic and cook for a minute longer, until fragrant. Add a pound of ground pork, a pound of ground sirloin, a bay leaf, and a cinnamon stick and cook over medium heat until meat is cooked through, about 7 minutes.

Chop 1/2 cup of dried apples, 1/2 cup of dried apricots, and 3/4 cup of dried pineapple. Combine dried fruit with meat and remove from heat. Mix in a teaspoon of ground cinnamon along with salt and pepper to taste. Remove the cinnamon stick and bay leaf and set aside.

For the walnut sauce, you are going to need to peel 4 cups of walnuts. This sounds a little intimidating, but really isn't that bad. In a cup of boiling water, add the walnuts and cook for 1 minute, then drain into a colander. After they have cooled, the walnut skins will mostly fall off. A paring knife can be used to remove the stubborn skins. Peeling the walnuts will make a smoother, whiter sauce. Unpeeled walnuts can be used, but the texture will be grainier and slightly bitter.

Combine the walnuts, 2 1/2 cups of Mexican crema, and 4 ounces of goat cheese in a blender and blend until smooth and silky. Sauce should coat the back of a spoon. Add a few more walnuts or crema to adjust thickness. Season with salt.

Next, char 10 poblano chiles on a gas stove top. Keep rotating until the entire chile is thoroughly blackened. I actually needed to get a little bit more of a char on mine to cook the flesh a little more. It was a sufficient amount to easily remove the blackened skin, but I thought that the meat was a little too crunchy.

Immediately after pulling from the stove top, put the chile into a plastic bag for 15 minutes allowing it to sweat a little loosening the skin. At this point, use a paper towel to pull the skin right off.

Cut a slit into each chile lengthwise and carefully cut out the seeds and veins. Leave the chile stem intact.

Spoon as much filling into each of the chiles as you can.

Finally, top the exposed filling with a couple of tablespoons of the walnut sauce. Top with some pomegranate seeds to resemble the colors of the Mexican flag.

Squash Blossom Quesadilla

Went on my first trip at the farmers market last weekend of the year. My problem at these events is that I keep buying more ripe fruit and vegetables than I can possibly eat before they start going bad. This year was going to be different.

While wandering through the produce, I saw something that I hadn't seen in years, zucchini blossoms. I remembered how delicious these were when I was a kid and my grandmother used to fry them up. I had to take a second look.


Now I was recalling my Oaxaca trip, enjoying a quesadilla filled with Oaxacan cheese and squash blossoms. It was one of the most wonderful things I had ever eaten. The whole thing was made in front of you on a wood burning comal. The cheese was like strands of thread with a milky texture while the blossoms were recently picked. They were spread on top of a freshly made masa tortilla until the cheese melted out of the sides.

The quality of Oaxacan cheese here isn't nearly as good as that in Oaxaca, here it is a drier, matted string cheese that doesn't melt as easily. However, the flowers were beautiful and I decided to give the squash blossom quesadilla a try.


This is a pretty easy thing to make once you acquire the flowers. I went with a flour tortilla and placed it on a dry iron comal. After a few seconds, I did my best of shredding Oaxacan cheese and putting on top of one half of the tortilla. Next, I tore up some of the flowers and put on top of the cheese.


Once the tortilla started to brown and the cheese started to melt, I folded in half and let the whole thing melt together.


It wasn't nearly as good as the one I got in Oaxaca, but it turned out pretty tasty. I will be looking for squash blossoms again at the farmers market.

Roasted Green and Red Salsas

I got this cool new comal for my birthday and have finally got the unique device ready for its maiden voyage. Its primary uses are for roasting vegetables, grilling meat, and even cooking tortillas.

Carne asada is the dish for the night and I will be describing its process for making it in a future posting. To complement this meat dish, roasted green and red salsas are on the menu.

Adapted from Rick Bayless "Mexico, One Plate At a Time" PBS series.

Ingredients for roasted green salsa vary depending on the spiciness that you desire. I chose a serano pepper today so the salsa wouldn't be too spicy. You can easily substitute a couple of jalepenos to turn up the heat.


Get you comal (or barbecue grill) hot on in one area. This is the center, right over the burner with the comal. Roast the chile over this intense heat. Turn every few minutes and let it blacken on all sides.

While the chile is roasting, we need to roast the rest of the vegetables over an indirect heat. This is the outer ring of the comal or unlit side of the barbeque. Cut the tomatillos in half and put over the medium heat. Place on a piece of aluminum foil if you are using a grill to minimize the mess. Cut the white onion into quarters lengthwise, spray lightly with olive oil, and place on the heat along with few cloves of garlic. Let everything else brown on both sides turning once.


I wanted to get a smooth consistency for the green salsa, so I put all the ingredients into a food processor with a little water. Finally, add salt and lime juice to taste and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Next, the roasted, chunky red salsa.



This time, I put a serano chile, red bell pepper, and jalepeno pepper on the intense heat. Over medium heat, add 3/4 of a white onion sprayed lightly with olive oil along with 5 cloves of garlic. Let the peppers blacken on all sides and allow everything else to brown on both sides.



I took a more rustic approach to processing this salsa, using a molcajete (mortar and pestle) made from lava rock. Each of the ingredients were roughly ground and mixed together in a bowl. Again, salt and lime juice are added to taste. This one was served without refrigeration and it turned out fine.


Both salsas are great additions to many Mexican dishes and also work great for chips and salsa. As you can see, substituting a variety of ingredients and techniques offers a wide variety of flavors and textures.

Fish a la Veracruzana

The combination of tomatoes, Kalamata olives, and capers gives this dish more of a Mediterranean appearance and flavor than Mexican. It shows the influence of the Hernan Cortes and the Spanish expedition had on the Gulf of Mexico region and and beyond.

Adapted from Rick Bayless "Mexico, One Plate At a Time" PBS series.

Fresh ingredients are the key to this dish. I was able to find some fresh whole red snapper, but you could use a variety of whole fish here. Sweet, ripe tomatoes are a key ingredient for a memorable sauce.


Have your fish cleaned, scaled, and washed. Remove fins from the side, top, and bottom. Put 3 slashes to the bone on both sides of the body to allow the marinate to penetrate the meat and encourage even cooking. Marinade each side of the fish with lime juice and salt. Cover with saran wrap and put in refrigerator for an hour.

In a frying pan, brown a thinly sliced onion and a few crushed garlic cloves. Add 4 cups of diced fresh tomatoes, a sprig of fresh marjorum, a few bay leaves, a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley, some mexican oregano, sliced kalamata olives, capers, and thin slices of canned jalepeno peppers. Once the tomatoes start reducing, stir in 1/2 cup of water and simmer for 15 minutes. Taste and season with salt as necessary.



Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the marinated fish in a baking dish large enough to hold the entire fish. Cover with the Veracruz sauce and place in the oven for around one hour, based on a 4 pound fish.

Once cooked, put the fish on a serving platter and cover in the Veracruz sauce. Put some sliced kalamata olives, capers, and sliced jalepeno peppers over the top of everything.

Arroz con Pollo

Brought a few simple recipes to Tennessee because I really wasn't sure what kind of ingredients that I would find here. There is a serious lack of beef cuts available, mostly steak and pounded steak. At least the chicken packs seem to be familiar. There is a minor Mexican food section in the grocery store and a surprisingly decent produce section. All of the ingredients that are required for making Arroz con Pollo.


Adapted from Sunset "Fresh Ways with Chicken".

Start by marinating bone-in, skinless chicken thighs with crushed garlic, salt, ancho chile powder, and cider vinegar in a Ziplock bag for an hour.

While the chicken is chilling, dice a couple red bell peppers, onions, and carrots. Fry four thick slices of bacon in a pot and put on a paper towel for later use. With remaining bacon grease (Tennessee style), saute the diced vegetables.


Once the chicken is marinated, push the vegetables to the sides of the pot and put the chicken pieces in the center browning the outside for a couple of minutes on each side. Push the browned chicken pieces to the side again opening up the center for additional pieces. Continue these steps until all the chicken is browned, then stir up the pot contents.



Add crushed tomatoes, chicken broth, and red pepper flakes. Simmer over medium heat for 30 minutes.


Preheat oven to 350 degrees and transfer the pot contents to a baking pan. Add rice to the top, cover pan, and put into oven. After 10 minutes, turn chicken over and mix rice around. Cover and put back into the oven for another 10 minutes. Again, move the chicken and rice around. If the contents are a leaning dry, add some water.


Cover and again put back in oven for another 10 minutes. At this point, the chicken and rice should be cooked. Now its time to remove the chicken meat from the bones. Luckily, my sister-in-law is a doctor and showed me an easy way to remove with the hot meat without burning my fingers. The double-tong-pinch-and-pull. Same technique used to remove people organs.


Once all the meat is separated from the bones, mix in a jar of sliced red peppers and the diced bacon from earlier. Enjoy.