Despite me pushing them on her many times before, my wife has recently (finally!) discovered the wonder that is an avocado. Served with simply a dash of salt, its a fantastic thing. Given how many more avocados I’ve suddenly found consumed in our house, it only seemed appropriate that I center a dinner around it. Many ideas came to mind, but it had been awhile since I’d made a risotto, and given how creamy and rich those tend to be, this seemed like a match made in heaven.
The tricky thing with avocados is I think they disappear into a dish very easily, becoming an indistinguishable source of creaminess and I really wanted their unique flavor to be at the forefront. They can also be a bit tricky in that you can’t really cook them. My solution? I began with a lemongrass infused stock for cooking the risotto. I opted to flavor the rice with a good amount of shallots and a
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Posted by mike on June 26th, 2009 in Beef, Fruit, Main course, Mexican
I love when corn is in season. I tend not to cook with it all that much–I usually just grill it by the day and eat it straight off the cob. But after seeing this chipotle corn chowder, I knew I had to do something similar. I originally planned to replicate the recipe as is, but as I started making changes, I found I was tending to add a bit of a South American flare to it, so I ran with it.
Now I had no interest in making a soup–I wanted a chowder, and a chowder needs a bit more body to it. So to add a thick, starchy base, I opted for green plantains instead of the usual suspects like roux or potatoes (although I did add a bit of corn meal, but hey, its a corn chowder, so that’s different, right?). Melting cheddar into the soup towards the end also added a bit more body in a great way.
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Posted by mike on June 18th, 2009 in Main course, Mexican, Soup & Stew
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love paella. This Spanish cousin-of-risotto leaves itself wide open to modification and reinterpretation, and so in keeping with my recent interest in Mexican flavors, I decided to focus this paella on a bunch of my favorite green Mexican produce, grabbing peppers, limes, avocados, and tomatillos before seeing where this took me.
I was originally worried this dish would come out almost too green in color, but instead, the rich, chili flavored stock colored the rice with a fantastic brown/amber that made the other components of the paella really pop out visually (and when it comes to paella, appearance matters since you typically serve it straight from the pan).
Discussions about appearance aside, what about the flavor? The paella was delicious! It had a surprisingly full, earthy, nutty, solid foundational flavor brought by a rich chili-centric stock. The tomatillos added pockets of sweet/sour tanginess while the avocado added nice, creamy relief. The poblanos gave
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Posted by mike on May 4th, 2009 in Chicken, Main course, Mediterranean, Mexican
I’ve mentioned before that this is a year of change for my wife and I. One of those changes is my wife’s graduation from medical school. We’ve had a somewhat infrequent tradition with some of her friends from school where we’d have them over and I’d go to town fussing over a nice meal. Before everyone heads in different directions to the next step of their careers (side note: we’ll be headed to the Raleigh/Durham region of North Carolina and I’m looking for new opportunities), we thought it would be nice to have one more of these nice meals so everyone could enjoy good food, good company, and just spend some time relaxing and catching up in ways that just aren’t so possible in the day-to-day hustle and bustle.
So for this meal, given my newish interest in Mexican food, I decided to center this dinner around a Mexican theme where the focus would be some really nicely done enchiladas. Now
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Posted by mike on March 29th, 2009 in Beef, Chicken, Main course, Mexican, Sauce
One of the nice things about running this site is that it forces me to try new things all the time (since you wouldn’t keep coming back to see the same set of dishes each week). With all the variety, I’ve come to appreciate how much more there is for me to learn, and on my agenda for this year is to learn more about Mexican cuisine (something I’m always drooling over). So today, I thought I’d share a chicken recipe with you that is topped with mushrooms and a really tasty poblano cream sauce.
This dish comes from Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen. In flipping through the book, somehow, this was the first thing I turned to and I was instantly intrigued. The only pepper cream sauce I’d ever had before was with red bell peppers. Poblano cream seemed a lot more interesting, especially combined with mushrooms.
And sure enough, it really was something–the chicken itself was quite simple, but the sauce
Read more about Pollo a la Poblana con Hongos (Chicken with Poblano, Mushrooms, and Cream) »
Posted by mike on January 31st, 2009 in Chicken, Main course, Mexican, Sauce
I absolutely love chili. Honestly though, who doesn’t? A meaty meal with lively south-western/Mexican inspired flavors are sure to please anyone. Winter brings out the chili cravings in me, but I’ve already shown you a fiery chili once before, so I thought I’d try to mix things up a bit and bring you a new twist on this favorite meal of mine. Rather than the usual approach to chili where the focus is on a variety of dried peppers, I opted to work with a large variety of fresh peppers (so be calm Texans, I know this isn’t an authentic chili!), and to make things a bit more interesting, I also chose to steer this to have decidedly Mexican flavors by working in the major components for a strong set of molé flavors. And so Chili Molé was born.
Now like I’ve said, I love chili, but this one gets a big wow! It beautifully met the goal of bleding the characteristics of
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Posted by mike on December 18th, 2008 in Beef, Main course, Mexican, Pork, Sauce, Soup & Stew, Spices, dry rubs, and breadings
