The Twilight Report

Commonsense Goulash

2005-01-13T22:40:00

Background: This is a recipe that I found in the Commonsense Cookbook, which is the de facto standard if you are cooking in Australia. Since I am usually cooking it in the states, I decided to convert the recipe to American units and post it here so that I can find it again if I need it. Note: Since this is an Australian recipe for a slavic dish, I don't even pretend that it is authentic. It does, however, taste good.

1 lbs round or topside steak
1 tablespoon plain flour
1 medium onion
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup stock or tomato puree
1 small clove garlic
1 teaspoon paprinka
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch pepper
1 potato

Cut meat into cubes and roll in flour.
Peel and slice onion.
Lightly brown onion in melted butter. Add steak and brown.
Add stock or puree, and all other ingredients except potato.
Cover and simmer for about 1 1/2 hours.
Cut potato into cubes and place on steak. Simmer another 20 to 30 minutes, or until potato is cooked.
Serve on hot plates.

New Mexican Recipes - Guacamole

2005-01-06T20:08:00

Background: There is this restaurant named Gabriel's between Los Alamos and Santa Fe I used to go to a lot when I lived in, and even when I was only visiting New Mexico regularly. The food is upscale, by which I mean, somewhat unauthentic. There is nothing wrong with though - it is good food. The main reason you'd go there is to have the Guacamole, because they make it fresh right before your eyes. Pretty much the only reason actually. Anyway, at some point it occurred to us that what they did was pretty easy, so we asked the guy preparing it what the exact ingredients he was using. We then went home and attempted to recreate it in a controlled environment. I would say that we succeeded. You want to make this right before you serve it. It goes off pretty quickly. Serve with chips as a snack or along with sour cream with enchiladas, or other main dish.

4-8 avocados
1-2 tomatoes, diced
½ onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 bushel of cilantro
1 lime (or lemon)
salt to taste

Chop the avocados in half, remove the seed and scoop out the goodness. Cut the lime in half and squeeze the juices out. Mix with other ingredients and stir with a wire whisk. Usually I find juice from half of the lime is sufficient, so use half a lime, and taste to see if you need more.

To me, guacamole without cilantro is just wrong. Some like to add jalapeños, I can take 'em or leave 'em for guacamole. The lime juice lengthens the lifespan of guacamole considerably, so make sure you don't skip that.

New Mexican Recipes - Posole

2005-01-06T05:25:00

Background: hopefully this won't put you off, but I never made Posole until I moved to New York, and at the time I had this unexplained urge to have some, I was only vaguely aware of what it was. I looked it up on the Internet and found some good directions. I made some, and then I honed the recipe a little to my liking, made it again and served it to my friends. They seem to like it pretty well, and the recipe gets requested every now and then so I've decided to post it here so that I can point people to it.

1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon cloves
½ teaspoon Cayenne
½ teaspoon red chili powder
1½ pounds pork shoulder, or any other cut of pork
2 or 3 cups frozen, precooked posole or canned white or yellow hominy (this is what I use), drained and rinsed
5-10 pealed tomatoes (you can roast and peal them yourself, or just get them in a can), blended into a nice mush.
green chilies
Salt, as needed

Non-Vegetarian version: Start by putting the pork into a pot, and fill with water so that it covers the pork. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Remove the Pork and put the broth that you made to the side. Cut the pork up into little bits.

Vegetarian Version: skip boiling the pork and use vegetable stock instead.

Put the olive oil in a fresh pot and heat for a couple of minutes. Add the onion and garlic, and let wilt. Add the black pepper, cumin, cloves, red chili powder and cayenne, and stir them up. Give the spices a few minutes to ripen. The mixture will all tend to ball up, but that is ok. Pour the pork broth into the pot, add the pork and add all remaining ingredients. Turn up the heat, bring to a boil, cover and simmer for about an hour.

If you put it in the fridge it lets all the flavors stew together and it usually tastes better the second day, so if I am having a party on Saturday, I usually make the Posole on Friday. The same general advice in my Green Chili Enchilada Sauce recipe about "amounts" and green chilies applies to this recipe.

New Mexican Recipes - Green Chili Enchilada Sauce

2005-01-03T21:25:00

Background: I get asked for recipes for my Green Chili Enchiladas, Guacamole and Posole from time to time, so I thought I would write them up here so that I can point people to it when they ask for it. These are the instructions for the Green Chili Enchilada Sauce which should be made well in advance of the rest of the Whole Enchilada. I usually make some midweek or so (Wednesday) in preparation for a party on Saturday. Once prepared, you can store the sauce in the fridge for a couple of weeks. I will write up the other recipes later.

2 tablespoons olive oil
½ large onion, chopped
1 large clove of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons flour
¼ teaspoons ground cumin
1½ cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth, if you are cooking for vegetarians)
green chilies (see note below)
¼ teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon salt

Start off by heating up the oil. Once it is nice and hot, throw in the onions and garlic and cook at medium until they start to wilt and begin to become translucent. Stir in the flour, cumin and black pepper. The mixture will tend to ball up, but don't worry about that. Pour in the chicken or vegetable broth and stir with a wire whisk to smooth out the lumps. Add all remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and cover and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Note on "amounts": This is vaguely based on a recipe I got out of a book, but I don't measure things out anymore. I throw in the stuff that I like until it tastes good. One of the fun things about cooking is that you can sample as you go along.

The green chilies in particular play a big part in how spicy the sauce will be. The tricky thing is that spiciness depends in large part to the lack of humidity where the chili was grown. This means there is an enormous variation in the spiciness of two of the supposedly same kind of chili. I am usually making two sets of sauce, one hot and one mild. The mild one is pretty easy. I use canned chopped green chili; frozen is better; fresh is best; but I live in New York so I have to work with I got. Anyway, I usually put one or two 8oz cans of green chilies in the mild version and dump a whole lot in the hot one and sample it until it tastes right. This is important, because you are not throwing in all the chilies just to make it hot, you are throwing them in to make them taste good.

If you have fresh green chilies, you will need to roast and peal them. Chop them up and throw them in at the appropriate moment. If you can, you should get Hatch green chilies, as Hatch claims to be the green chili capital of the universe. Since I don't know of anyone else vying for the title I assume it is legitimate.

New Mexican Recipes - Green Chili Enchilada Sauce

2005-01-01T21:25:00

2 tablespoons olive oil
½ large onion, chopped
1 large clove of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons flour
¼ teaspoons ground cumin
1½ cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth, if you are cooking for vegetarians)
green chilies (see note below)
¼ teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon salt