Antojida.

I love that word. An antojo is a craving.  Being antojida means you are seriously jonesing for something yummy.  Today, for no apparent reason I got one of those completely random antojos for some chicken flautas with guacamole, sour cream, Spanish rice, and some salsa.  I was working on something, so I kept pushing off the images floating in my head till finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.  I put down the laptop, put on my shoes, put up my hair, grabbed my handbag and ran out the door.  Grocery list?  Pfft.  I knew exactly what I wanted.

• Chicken
• Tortillas
• Chipotles en escabeche
• chiles gueritos
• tomatoes
• avocados
• fresh thyme
• sour cream

I ran into the market (I do everything fast) and grabbed one of those little hand baskets.  I was in and out of the market in ten minutes and home in another five.  I did notice it was a gorgeous day in Southern California, but I didn’t linger to enjoy it.  I was on a flauta mission.  I couldn’t make up my mind which salsa I wanted more, so I made them both.

For the flautas:

Boil the chicken with sprigs of fresh thyme, two cloves of garlic, a quarter of an onion and some sea salt to taste.  Today, I used breast filets rather than a whole chicken because I was in a hurry.

Once the chicken is cooked, pull out the pieces and let cool.  Once cool, shred into strips.  Reserve the cooking liquid/broth.

Heat corn tortillas right over the flame or on a comal (griddle).  They won’t roll if they are cold.

Fill a heavy skillet half way with cooking oil and heat on medium.

Add some of the shredded chicken.  Not too much or your flautas will be unwieldy and too thick.  Think flute-like and elegant.  That’s what flauta means – flute.  Roll the tortilla up tight.  You can use toothpicks to hold them together.  I don’t. I use tongs and put them directly into the hot oil, one at a time.

Let the flautas brown completely on both sides until the tortilla is golden brown and crip.

Drain on a plate with paper towels to absorb the oil.

Serve with salsa, guacamole, sour cream and rice.

They look mild, but they are HOT!

For the salsa de chile guerito:

4 chile gueritos (yellow chiles)

2 cloves of garlic

4 Roma tomatoes

1/4 of an onion

salt to taste

cilantro

Boil the chiles, onion, garlic and tomatoes in a heavy sauce pan until very soft.  Keep in mind that yellow chiles are HOT.  They look mild, but don’t let that pale yellow color fool you.  If you don’t like heat, dial it back and use two chiles instead of the four I use.

Strain and cool, reserving the water.

Peel the tomatoes and chiles.

In a molcajete (blenders make it foamy and the texture is all wrong so if you don’t have a molcajete, try a potato ricer), crush the chiles, onions, tomatoes, and garlic until you have a smooth yet rather chunky mixtures.  Add in some of the water that the chiles cooked in until you get the consistency you want.

Add salt to taste (alternatively use Knorr Pollo) and cilantro leaves.

Salsa de chile guerito

For the salsa de chipotle con lima (Chipotle salsa with lime):

1 can of chipotles in escabeche

cilantro

chicken broth

salt to taste

two cooked chile gueritos

two cooked Roma tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic, minced

juice of fresh limes (about 1/8 cup)

Peel the cooked tomatoes and chiles and crush in a molcajete or using a potato ricer.  Pour into a bowl, adding the minced garlic.  In the molcajete, crush the canned chipotles until you have a thick paste.  Add that into the bowl with the tomatoes and chiles, using some chicken broth to thin it out a little.  Add salt to taste and some fresh cilantro (about a handful). Add the lime juice and stir to mix well.

Hot, smoky, tangy and oh so yum!

For the guacamole:

This is super simple guacamole.  The purist kind.  All you do is mash avocados and put them into a bowl.  You don’t want any other flavorings, not even salt.  The salsas you serve and the chicken itself will provide lots of flavor so leave the avocado pure.  That’s it!

Time to dig in!

]]> http://donalupeskitchen.com/2011/12/chicken-flautas-with-two-kinds-of-salsa/feed/ 0 http://donalupeskitchen.com/2011/06/the-salsa-that-ate-through-tupperware/ http://donalupeskitchen.com/2011/06/the-salsa-that-ate-through-tupperware/#comments Thu, 16 Jun 2011 21:15:40 +0000 Gina Ruiz http://donalupeskitchen.com/?p=959

Albert - He likes his salsa HOT.

This post may kill you…just kidding.

My boys love salsa.  Red, green, black, corn salsa, mango salsa, you name it they love it but when it comes to their favorite all three of them will tell you the same thing: “My mom’s Tupperware-eating salsa”.  They mean my salsa negra, an intoxicatingly good and rich salsa made with chile pequins and chile del arbol and yes, it once melted Tupperware.

My grandmother would occasionally make this salsa, opening all the windows in the house so that the smoke of the roasting dried chilis wouldn’t make everyone start coughing, gasping and running for the door.  Whenever she made it, it was put in a glass bowl, but I never knew why.

I made it often as my children were growing up.  It’s one of those salsas that are perfect for barbeques and long summer days.  A small scoop topping your carne asada taco, slowly dripping off that slice of avocado gives just the right piquant bite.  Salsa Negra is HOT, meant for small tastes but it is full of flavor and my boys go absolutely nuts for it.  Especially since the Tupperware incident…

One summer I couldn’t find my Pyrex bowl and I was in the midst of making Salsa Negra.  My boy Albert handed me a Tupperware bowl and not really, paying attention I took it.  I opened all the windows, put a bandana over my nose and mouth (yes I looked like the cooking bandida todo ala Joaquin Murrieta) roasted the dried chiles del arbol and pequin in big handfuls until they were blackened nicely.  Coughing, I roasted onion and cloves of garlic till they were dark and limp then got out my old molcajete.  I added sea salt to the basalt bowl, then started crushing first the garlic, then onion, and chiles while I roasted fat, juicy tomatoes on the samel comal I had previously roasted my chiles on.  When the tomatoes were done, I quickly peeled them and one by one, they went into the molcajete too.  I scraped out the contents of the bowl into the plastic bowl my son had handed me and got to carefully stripping cilantro leafs off their stems.  A ladleful of chicken broth went into the bowl and a handful of the plucked cilantro.  Then I started to stir it with my wooden spoon.  As I stirred, I started noticing what appeared to be little white threads.  WTH?  I stirred some more.  More white threads.  I picked one out.  Felt it.  It felt like plastic.  WTH?  Then I noticed the sides of the bowl had what appeared to be little scratches.  It was EATING the plastic!!

I showed my boys who marveled at it.  Needless to say, I sadly poured the salsa down the disposal and started over, this time grabbing a glass bowl.  I wondered aloud what it was doing to our stomachs, but my son Albert said, “Who cares?  That’s your best salsa and damn it eats tupperware!”

My Salsa Negra never again was called that.  Twenty years later it’s still Tupperware-eating Salsa, a thing to brag about to their Navy buddies, guys stationed with them in the Middle East, wives, etc.  Whenever they come home and I ask what they want to eat, the famous Tupperware-eating salsa is always the first thing that comes out of their mouths.

Next time I make it, I’ll post pictures.

Fiestas Patrias is a big deal for me.  I usually go all out and have a big party, invite tons of people, make mountains of red, white and green food, have papel picado and paper flowers decorating the house, my Aztec dancer group dances, the big Mexican flag is out, there’s music (sometimes mariachis) and we all go out the door at midnight and scream at the top of our lungs, “Viva Mexico!  Viva Zapata! Viva la Patria!”

Yeah, we’re those crazy, noisy, party-loving Mexicans down on your block.

Last year, I didn’t host the party.  I was ill and battling something for months that made me incredibly tired, a slacker blogger and have serious lack of stamina to stand in a kitchen for hours cooking.  This year, I had thought I could do it.  I’m feeling great actually so I was geared up to throw a huge one and make up for  last year.  Then I got the call from my daughter telling me she was HIV+.  I suppose this has no place on a cooking blog, but it’s my blog and my life so there you go.  Welcome to my world.  She’s my only daughter.  I’ve three sons and one daughter.  After finding out, I went to bed for a little over a month and barely left it.  Not like me at all.  I’m usually the optimist and the “let’s fix it” person.  Not this time.  This knocked me down hard and it took a long time getting back up.  I’m up.  I’m fighting because that’s me.  I’m learning all I can and I’m being strong for my girl.

As far as Fiestas Patrias goes, I decided not to do it at all.  Not in a party mood, although I did go to Olvera Street for a little while to get my fill of it on Sunday afternoon.  Check out my photos of the event there, si quieren. 

I was sitting here at my desk working when I looked at the little Mexican flag in my pencil cup and thought to myself, “I should at least do a tiny Fiestas Patrias for Jasmine & Aiden.  They need to experience their culture”.  Bueno.  I got up, ran to the store and picked up a few things.  This is what I made:

Ground Beef Hard-Shelled Tacos (my daughter’s favorite)

What my grandmother would call salsa patria – a mixture of chopped tomatoes, cilantro and onion sprinkled with salt.  We use it to serve over tacos or as a side dish.

A chile salsa I only make de vez y cuando (once in a while).  It doesn’t have a name and I can’t remember which aunt taught me to make it, but it’s very delicious.  Made with chiles gueritos, cilantro, onion, garlic, salt, white pepper, tomatoes and vinegar.  Recipe below.

White rice

Boiled chayotes served with lemon, salt and chile powder.

Tunas (prickly pears) ice cold and sliced.

Fried chiles

That’s it!  Very simple, very homey but still with the red, white and green theme.  Still traditional and very much enjoyed by all.

Recipe for the tacos:

Extra lean ground beef
1/4 of an onion, chopped fine
dash cumin
dash white pepper
dash ground bay leaf
salt to taste
oil
corn tortillas

Cook the ground beef with the onion and spices on medium heat, making sure it’s finely crumbled.  Set aside when completely browned and the onions carmelized.

Heat the oil in a deep frying pan on medium heat.  I like to pour the oil about half way to the top.  Use any oil you like, this time I used extra virgin first cold-pressed olive oil.  Whatever works for you is fine.

When the oil is hot, slide in a tortilla and quickly flip it to the other side, then fold carefully.  Tongs will help.  I use two forks – I don’t know why, it’s just easy for me to hold the taco shell open with one and hold down the other end of it with the other one.  If you let the taco shell close, it will harden shut and you won’t be able to fill it.  Keeping it open while frying is key.  Fry till golden brown and crackly hard.  If you don’t fry it long enough, it will be chewy and get soggy from the filling quickly.

Set each taco shell aside on either brown paper or paper towels on a plate or pan so that the oil gets absorbed.  Bad enough we’re frying them, so make sure to get all the excess oil off.

Stuff the tacos with the beef and any other fillings you like.  For these, I just stuffed them with the meat, the salsa patria and chile salsa.  You can add lettuce, tomatoes, rice, beans, cheese, whatever.  It’s completely up to you and tacos are very flexible.  I make some from mashed potatoes that are to die for.  I’ll put that recipe in another time.

Salsa de chiles gueritos con vinagre (Chili salsa with vinegar)

Yellow chiles – chiles gueritos (how many depends on how hot you want it, for this one I used three in the sauce, but fried more to serve on the plate)
Cilantro, chopped or torn
1 tomato, diced
¼ of an onion, sliced and fried with the chiles
3 cloves of garlic, whole and fried with the chiles
salt to taste
white pepper, a dash
½ c. vinegar (any kind you like – this time I used white balsamic)

Wash the chiles and pat them dry, them fry them in a little oil.  Since I had just finished cooking the ground beef for the tacos, I fried them in that with a little more oil.  The meat drippings add flavor to the salsa.

Add the sliced onions to the chiles and fry those as well as the cloves of garlic.

Chop or tear your cilantro (about a handful) and set aside
Chop tomatoes and set aside

When the chiles are well-browned, take them out of the pan and wrap them in a clean, damp cloth and let them sit a few minutes.  This steams the skins off.

After the chiles are cool enough to handle, peel them and remove the stems.  Leave in the seeds if you want it hot or take them out for mild.  I didn’t bother de-seeding or de-veining in this instance.  Add the prepared chiles to a food processor.

Add the onions, vinegar and garlic to the food processor with the chiles with a dash of salt.  Puree, but not too smooth.  You want a little texture.

Add the chile puree to a bowl with the fresh chopped tomatoes and cilantro.

Add salt and white pepper to taste and stir.

That’s it.  You’ll find this salsa spicy, tangy and delicious on tacos or other dishes.

Buen provecho y feliz fiestas patrias.

Jasmine really loved the chocolate glaze.

The Challenge: Chocolate Eclairs from Pierre Hermé’s book, Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé.

The Hosts: Tony Tahanand/Meetak

Many, many thanks to our wonderful hosts this month. What a wonderful recipe they chose and how supportive and marvelous they were. (Insert applause here).

Hurry up Autumn, I’m getting a little tired of baking in a 100 degree kitchen and worrying I’m going to drip sweat into dough or something. This month’s challenge was Pierre Hermé’s (swoons  because I worship the pastry laden, rose petal Isapahan ground he walks on) luscious chocolate éclairs.

Did I stay true to my idol’s recipe? Um well, I changed one little thing. The cream filling was not chocolate but something summery and lighter. Lavender-orange pastry cream. The rest was true to Mr. Hermé’s recipes (is it not wonderful that he is not only a pastry God but has the same last name as that vintage buttery leather 72k handbag on ebay)? I’m just saying. Pastry, Birken…ecstasy, heaven. Okay, okay get on with the recipe. No one cares about my obsession with Hermé, both the bags and the chef. And yes, I know the bag is Hermes but its close enough for me.

Marissa dropped the kids off early and we washed up and got ready to bake. The first thing we started with was the pastry cream. It turned out perfectly, smooth, thick and lucious until i put it into its ice water bath. I turned to grab ingredients for the chocolate sauce and Aiden took the opportunity to add about a quarter cup of ice water INTO THE CREAM! Yeah, so. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t. He’s three, he thought he was creating something wondrous and being helpful. I wanted to fix it, but I couldn’t. It was his little creation. So we had runny cream filling, so what?

This is when he did it

I took several deep breaths and moved onto the chocolate sauce, which was divine. Mmmmm chocolate. Jasmine and I made the glaze together. She looked at me and said, “Grammy, you’re going to put chocolate in chocolate?” and looked puzzled. When I said yes, she beamed and squealed something about chocolate and more chocolate. I agreed. Chocolate on chocolate is a marvelous thing. When it was all done, I reached for a bowl to pour it in and Jasmine quickly grabbed her favorite Barbie bowl instead. Beaming proudly, she said “Grammy that yummy chocolate can use my bowl.” So it was that Pierre Hermé’s sleek, sophisticated chocolate glaze ended up in a 99 cent pink plastic Barbie bowl. I won’t get into my militant feelings about Barbie because Jasmine can read now.

Next up the Pâte à Choux. Yeah oooooooooh. I was dubious about the whole cooked dough thing and I could tell Jasmine was too. She wanted to know why it wasn’t going straight to the Kitchen-Aid but I just shrugged and started heating the milk. When it was boiling, I handed her the cup of flour and nodded. “All of it Grammy?”, she asked. I nodded. She looked at me, her little eyes wide and then shrugged and dumped it in. Wow. I started stirred and we had a big lump of golden dough. I kept stirring to dry the dough and it did create a little crust on the bottom of the pan. Once it had been dryed enough, I transferred it to the Kitchen-aid and started mixing.

Now the crap part they don’t tell you about. Pâte à Choux is sticky, way sticky. Getting it into the pastry bag was a mess. Working with it was tough. I thought I had done something wrong, so I took a minute to chat online with a chef friend. “Is Pâte à Choux supposed to be stick?” Answer: “it has been every time I’ve worked with it” Great. Back to work. Aiden kept eating the sticky dough and I couldn’t get the gunk off my hands but managed to pipe some éclair-like blobs onto the baking sheet. I popped them into the oven and did the oven door wooden spoon trick later in the baking. They came out beautifully and puffed up proudly. Things were looking up.

Jasmine and Aiden were so excited they couldn’t stand it. I could barely fill the mini-eclairs and cream puffs fast enough. The lavender-orange filling was so good with all that chocolate. Marissa came home and ate several in quick succession and we both decided for the sake of our butts to take the rest of the platter over to That Yarn Store for David and the gang to munch on.

We had so much fun making these and I can’t wait till the weather is cool and we can do it again. Next time though, I’ll make cream puffs only. They held much more pastry cream and were easier to pipe.

Pierre Hermé’s Chocolate Éclairs
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 20-24 Éclairs)

• Cream Puff Dough (see below for recipe), fresh and still warm

1) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Divide the oven into thirds by
positioning the racks in the upper and lower half of the oven. Line two baking sheets with
waxed or parchment paper.

2) Fill a large pastry bag fitted with a 2/3 (2cm) plain tip nozzle with the warm cream puff dough.
Pipe the dough onto the baking sheets in long, 4 to 41/2 inches (about 11 cm) chubby fingers.
Leave about 2 inches (5 cm) space in between each dough strip to allow them room to puff.
The dough should give you enough to pipe 20-24 éclairs.

3) Slide both the baking sheets into the oven and bake for 7 minutes. After the 7 minutes, slip the
handle of a wooden spoon into the door to keep in ajar. When the éclairs have been in the
oven for a total of 12 minutes, rotate the sheets top to bottom and front to back. Continue
baking for a further 8 minutes or until the éclairs are puffed, golden and firm. The total baking
time should be approximately 20 minutes.

Notes:
1) The éclairs can be kept in a cool, dry place for several hours before filling.

Assembling the éclairs:

• Chocolate glaze (see below for recipe)
• Chocolate pastry cream (see below for recipe)

1) Slice the éclairs horizontally, using a serrated knife and a gently sawing motion. Set aside the
bottoms and place the tops on a rack over a piece of parchment paper.

2) The glaze should be barely warm to the touch (between 95 – 104 degrees F or 35 – 40
degrees C, as measured on an instant read thermometer). Spread the glaze over the tops of
the éclairs using a metal icing spatula. Allow the tops to set and in the meantime fill the
bottoms with the pastry cream.

3) Pipe or spoon the pastry cream into the bottoms of the éclairs. Make sure you fill the bottoms
with enough cream to mound above the pastry. Place the glazed tops onto the pastry cream
and wriggle gently to settle them.

Notes:
1) If you have chilled your chocolate glaze, reheat by placing it in a bowl over simmering water,
stirring it gently with a wooden spoon. Do not stir too vigorously as you do not want to create
bubbles.

2) The éclairs should be served as soon as they have been filled.

Pierre Hermé’s Cream Puff Dough
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 20-24 Éclairs)

• ½ cup (125g) whole milk
• ½ cup (125g) water
• 1 stick (4 ounces; 115g) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
• ¼ teaspoon sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
• 5 large eggs, at room temperature

1) In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to the
boil.

2) Once the mixture is at a rolling boil, add all of the flour at once, reduce the heat to medium
and start to stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon. The dough comes together very
quickly. Do not worry if a slight crust forms at the bottom of the pan, it’s supposed to. You
need to carry on stirring for a further 2-3 minutes to dry the dough. After this time the dough
will be very soft and smooth.

3) Transfer the dough into a bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using your
handmixer or if you still have the energy, continue by hand. Add the eggs one at a time,
beating after each egg has been added to incorporate it into the dough.
You will notice that after you have added the first egg, the dough will separate, once again do
not worry. As you keep working the dough, it will come back all together again by the time you
have added the third egg. In the end the dough should be thick and shiny and when lifted it
should fall back into the bowl in a ribbon.

4) The dough should be still warm. It is now ready to be used for the éclairs as directed above.

Notes:
1) Once the dough is made you need to shape it immediately.

2) You can pipe the dough and the freeze it. Simply pipe the dough onto parchment-lined baking
sheets and slide the sheets into the freezer. Once the dough is completely frozen, transfer the
piped shapes into freezer bags. They can be kept in the freezer for up to a month.

Chocolate Pastry Cream
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by PierreHermé

• 2 cups (500g) whole milk
• 4 large egg yolks
• 6 tbsp (75g) sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch, sifted
• 7 oz (200g) bittersweet chocolate, preferably Velrhona Guanaja, melted
• 2½ tbsp (1¼ oz: 40g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1) In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. In the meantime, combine the yolks, sugar and cornstarch together and whisk in a heavy?bottomed saucepan.

2) Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture.Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.

3) Strain the mixture back into the saucepan to remove any egg that may have scrambled. Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture returns to a boil. Keep whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 more minutes (still over medium heat).Stir in the melted chocolate and then remove the pan from the heat.

4) Scrape the pastry cream into a small bowl and set it in an ice?water bath to stop the cooking process. Make sure to continue stirring the mixture at this point so that it remains smooth.

5) Once the cream has reached a temperature of 140 F remove from the ice?water bath and stir in the butter in three or four installments. Return the cream to the ice?water bath to continue cooling, stirring occasionally, until it has completely cooled. The cream is now ready to use or store in the fridge.

[bNotes:[/b]
1) The pastry cream can be made 2?3 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator.

2) In order to avoid a skin forming on the pastry cream, cover with plastic wrap pressed onto the cream.

3) Tempering the eggs raises the temperature of the eggs slowly so that they do not scramble.

Chocolate Glaze
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 1 cup or 300g)

• 1/3 cup (80g) heavy cream
• 3½ oz (100g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 4 tsp (20 g) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
• 7 tbsp (110 g) Chocolate Sauce (recipe below), warm or at room temperature

1)In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil. Remove from the heat and slowly begin to add the chocolate, stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula.

2) Stirring gently, stir in the butter, piece by piece followed by the chocolate sauce.

Notes:
1) If the chocolate glaze is too cool (i.e. not liquid enough) you may heat it briefly
in the microwave or over a double boiler. A double boiler is basically a bowl sitting over (not touching) simmering water.

2) It is best to glaze the eclairs after the glaze is made, but if you are pressed for time, you can make the glaze a couple days ahead of time, store it in the fridge and bring it up to the proper temperature (95 to 104 F) when ready to glaze.

Chocolate Sauce
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
(makes 1½ cups or 525 g)

• 4½ oz (130 g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 cup (250 g) water
• ½ cup (125 g) crème fraîche, or heavy cream
• 1/3 cup (70 g) sugar

1) Place all the ingredients into a heavy?bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil, making sure to stir constantly. Then reduce the heat to low and continue stirring with a wooden spoon until the sauce thickens.

2) It may take 10-15 minutes for the sauce to thicken, but you will know when it is done when it coats the back of your spoon.

Notes:
1) You can make this sauce ahead of time and store it in the refrigerator for two weeks. Reheat the sauce in a microwave oven or a double boiler before using.
2) This sauce is also great for cakes, ice-cream and tarts.

I love this chile salsa for my soup. I think I know hundreds of variations of chile salsas and about so many different ways to prepare them. I’m not sure though, there are just so many that I know without thinking, till something comes up and I want a certain kind I remember or a taste I crave.

This salsa is smoky, sweet and has a slight kick. It gives depth and a beautiful color to the verdure, clean taste of the Caldo de Pollo and also makes a great salsa for chips.

Salsa de Chile California/Salsa made with dried California Chiles

7-10 dried Chile Californias
4 tomatoes
1 bunch of cilantro
5 cloves of garlic
1 onion, sliced into rings
chicken broth
salt to taste
olive oil

In a heavy frying pan, add olive oil about a cup and a half. I use extra virgin first cold press olive oil because the taste is so good and compliments the chilies well.

Heat the oil but don’t let it get so hot it smokes. Lay the chiles down in the pan and lquickly fry them. Don’t let them burn. You just want them to swell up and split their skins. They will get slightly blackened. Remove from the pan and put into a bowl, then cover it and let sit so the skins can steam off.

In the same oil you cooked the chiles in, add the thick rings of onion and the garlic. Keep the garlic to one side as it will cook very quickly and you don’t want it to burn. Gently brown the garlic on both sides then remove from the pan and set aside. Cook the onions till slightly caramelized, then remove from the pan.

Add the four tomatoes whole to the same pan and let cook till the skins split. Remove from the pan and cool. Peel.

Save the oil that remains. It will make a nice flavored chili oil that you can use for other things.

Peel the chiles and remove the stems, seeds and veins. I leave the seeds in one of the chili just to give it a slight kick. I save the seeds from one more chile and add that to the reserved chili oil with a little more olive oil.

This is a smooth salsa, so I use the blender. I add the chiles, onions, garlic, salt, cilantro and tomatoes all in one fell swoop. I add about a quarter cup of the chicken broth to the blender and hit the pulse button. If the salsa is too thick, add a little more broth to it. When it can all move through the blender with ease, stop pulsing and blend till it’s completely smooth.

Turn out into a bowl, add more salt if needed and garnish with cilantro.

Okay, okay so Federico Garcia Lorca probably didn’t even know what the heck chile verde was but I love his poem Romance Sonambulo and love that line, “verde te quiero verde” so much that it just had to be part of my Chile Verde recipe. You come to Doña Lupe’s, you’re gonna get some poetry and literary references. It’s the price you pay if you want my recipes.

Chile Verde is great with pork, a perfect compliment so I added some of my chile verde to some of the shredded pork. The reason I made it though, was for my favorite tamal, the delicious, chile and cheese ones. For this recipe, I used very little chile and kept it very mild. I was going for flavor only and no heat. In the tamal, I use a strip of roasted pasilla chile, a slice of cheese (use queso fresco or Monterey jack) and a generous spoonful of my chile verde. My grandmother always put a tangy green Spanish olive in the center but I chose not to this time.

Ingredients

About 1 pound of tomatillo milperos (use regular tomatillos if you can’t find the smaller milperos)
1 head of garlic, peeled
1 bunch of cilantro, washed and trimmed
1 onion, quartered
1 roasted tomato, peeled and seeded
salt to taste
2 chile gueritos, roasted, seeded, de-veined and peeled
chicken broth or water – a bit at a time (about one cup total)

Roast the chiles and steam off their skins. Peel, seed and de-vein them. Add to a blender.

Remove the husks from the tomatillo milperos and wash them. Boil in a small saucepan till they’ve changed color and are soft. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon and add to the blender.

Add the garlic, onion, salt, cilantro, roasted tomato and a bit of the broth. Puree. If the blender gets stuck or the sauce is too thick, add more broth. The sauce should be tangy, slightly salty with the rich herbal flavor of cilantro.

You can cook the shredded pork in this chile sauce but I used it for the chile cheese tamales as seen in Tamalada Part 4.

Rajas de Chile Verde – Roasted Pasilla Chile Strips for Tamales

For chile and cheese tamales, I like to use fresh roasted pasilla chiles. I take several of the chiles and wash them, then place them onto a baking sheet and put them in the oven at 350 degrees for about a half hour. Then turn them over and roast for about another 15 minutes.

Once the chiles are done roasting, wrap them in a clean, slightly damp dishtowel and leave to steam off the skins. I generally leave them there till they cool off.

When the chiles are cool, slide the skin off, remove the stem, seeds and veins. Slice the chile into thin strips and set aside till you need them. That’s it! If you have left over strips from the tamales, save them to make rajas con crema y queso (recipe at a later date).