Cowgirlchef » Tex-Mex

Chicken Tinga Chili

epierce — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:54:36 +0000

What do you get when you mix chicken with chipotles?

Chicken Tinga, a smoky, fiery Mexican classic that’s just as fabulous heaped onto a crisp tostada, and eaten as a chalupa, or spooned between two flour tortillas and grilled as a quesadilla.

Which is where the whole idea for this chili came from. Last week, I had dinner with some friends at the new downtown Dallas Mexico City-style restaurant, Wild Salsa (which with more than 150 tequilas on the menu, might be better named “Hangover Grande”), and for an appetizer, we ordered the chicken tinga quesadillas, which none of us had tried before. The menu described chicken tinga as simply shredded (the word “tinga” means shredded) chicken with chipotles; and that, my friends, was good enough for me. Indeed it was so simple – just tender chicken that had been cooked with smoked jalapeño chiles and sandwiched between a couple of flour tortillas with some cheese and corn. Nothing much more than that.

I haven’t stopped thinking about it since then, so I decided to come up with a version that would be just as good served in bowl, like chili, and happily scooped with fat tortilla chips, or used as a filling for a soft taco or enchilada. Plus, I just wanted to do something different for the Twitter #LetsLunch chili throwdown…something that would be totally Texas, but with an unexpected twist.

I had our state’s reputation to uphold. A lot was riding on this.

Plus, I only had an afternoon to pull this together, since I was heading out of town the next day.

I decided to take my chances and just march myself into the kitchen and give it a go. I poached the chicken tenders – a mistake, actually; I meant to buy chicken breasts, but these cooked up much more quickly – and chopped up my onion and garlic. It took just fifteen minutes to poach the chicken; another fifteen or so to sauté the onions and garlic, add the rest of the ingredients (chipotles, sweet corn, and black beans), and fold in the chicken and the fire-roasted tomatoes after that. Seriously, 30 minutes, from start to finish – I didn’t intend to make such a quick and dirty chili, but that’s what happened. I love it when things come together effortlessly like that.

Easy, quick as a wink, and totally delicious, with the sweetness of the corn offsetting the fire of the chiles, served up with a squeeze of lime, some cilantro, avocado, and goat cheese. I scooped this out of the skillet with tortilla chips (testing, of course), then heaped it onto tortillas for soft tacos (this is one of my favorite ways to eat any kind of chili). Then I ran out of tortillas and had to stop.

For now.

Not a traditional bowl of chili, for sure, but it’s a new year, and I’m hopeful that it’ll be even more exciting than the last. So I figured, Chicken Tinga Chili, why the hell not? Let’s get this 2012 business off to a rousing start — let’s break some rules!

Plus, as my friend Lucy likes to say, “This is no time for caution.” I’m thinking of making t-shirts with this printed on the front.

Here’s what the other chiliheads came up with:

Karen’s Hawaiian Chili at Geofooding
Linda’s Smokin’ Hot Vegan Vaquero Chili at Spicebox Travels
Grace’s Chinese New Year Chili at Hapamama
Cheryl‘s Keema Chili at A Tiger in the Kitchen
Cathy‘s Chunky-Style Cowboy Chili at Showfood Chef
Charissa‘s Clean Out Refrigerator Night Cassoulet, A “Frenchified” Chili at Zest Bakery
Emma‘s Dave’s Chili at Dreaming of Pots and Pans
Felicia‘s Low-Concept Vegetarian Chili at Burnt-Out Baker
Lucy‘s “Full of Beans” Chili at A Cook And Her Books
Pat’s Miso Chili con Carne at The Asian Grandmother’s Cookbook

Chicken Tinga Chili

Makes 4 to 6 servings

1 pound/500 grams of chicken tenders
1 celery stalk, halved
1 carrot, halved
a couple of sprigs of parsley
about 10 peppercorns
olive oil
½ of an onion, diced
3 to 4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 chipotles in adobo, finely chopped
⅔ cup/170 grams of canned corn, rinsed and drained
1 cup/172 of canned black beans, rinsed and drained
1 14.5 ounce/411 gram can of diced fire-roasted tomatoes
6 to 8 tortillas (corn or flour), for serving
1 avocado, chopped, for serving
a handful of chopped cilantro, for serving
3 to 4 tablespoons of goat cheese, crumbled, for serving
2 to 3 limes, cut into wedges, for serving

1. Poach your chicken tenders: Put the chicken, celery, carrot, parsley, and peppercorns in a saucepan. Cover with plenty of water and put on the stove over medium-high heat, and cover. When it boils, reduce the heat to a simmer and set the timer for ten minutes. Let the chicken cool in the pot if you have time; if you don’t (and I often don’t), proceed to the next step.

2. Drizzle a little olive oil in a large skillet, add your onions and garlic and turn the heat to medium-low. Cook just until the onion is translucent; about 5 to 10 minutes. Now add the chipotle, corn, and black beans and give it a stir.

3. Add the shredded chicken, combine with the rest of the ingredients, and let this cook for 10 to 15 minutes; then add your tomatoes and let it go for 5 minutes more. Taste and add seasonings if necessary — I didn’t add any additional salt when I made this because it didn’t need it. Serve either in a bowl, or heaped onto warm tortillas with chopped avocado, cilantro, goat cheese, and limes.

Flat Spinach Enchiladas with Ancho Sauce

epierce — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 12:11:59 +0000

I’m happy to report that the spinach at the Belleville market this week was gorgeous – so pretty that I bought 1 kilo. Do you have any idea what 2.20 pounds of spinach looks like? I pulled it out of the sack and it filled up my whole sink – then of course, shrinkage — I was left with about 3 cups’ worth.

So all we’ve got here is spinach, corn tortillas, ancho sauce and a fried egg. Super-simple, but it does require that you make the ancho sauce, which takes a teensy bit of time, and I do mean teensy. I make up a batch and keep it in the fridge for times just like these – when I have something fresh and wonderful that I want to be the star, like this spinach, and I want to put something together in a flash.

I made flat, Santa Fe-style enchiladas because I wanted to heap on the spinach, and then I thought that it needed something gooey and runny, too. Enter the fried egg. Plus, I’ve been thinking a lot about eggs lately, as y’all are well aware.

Did you know that the USDA said last month that eggs have 14% less cholesterol and 64% more vitamin D than the last time that they were analyzed (in 2002)?

Of course, I fried the eggs in duck fat, but that’s because there was a little bit leftover from the tortilla-frying (see below), and I didn’t want to let it go to waste.

A word about spinach. I enlisted X to help me pull the woodsy stems off of the big pieces, but the man at the market told me that he never does this. Of course, we were in the middle of a Mexican standoff over the price of a potimarron at the time (he wanted 4.50 for one and I told him that the same size was just 3 euros the week before, which it was), and I was picking out leaves of spinach one at a time, peeling off the stems as I was doing so, and sort of taking my time about it, lalalalala. When he gave me the spinach stem news, I looked at him with amazement, and I said that I’d have to try that. Then he said he’d give me the potimarron for 3 euros. So I bought two. And I stopped picking off the stems and grabbed a couple of big handfuls of spinach and stuffed them into the plastic sack.

Now I go to his stand every week and he has stopped trying to rip me off.

This is how you have to play it, people. It’s never just a relaxing morning of picking out the prettiest fruits and vegetables and putting them in your cute little straw basket. It’s a fierce, highly competitive game — over price, over who gets waited on first, and over what quality of fruits and vegetables end up in your sack. The only way to win is to stand your ground, argue when necessary (frequently), and you’ll earn the respect of the person on the other side.*

The next thing you know, you’ll start to get a few free onions tossed in as a gift-with-purchase.

Which never happens at the Kroger.

*This same idea applies to all transactions, whether at the market, the butcher, or the boulangerie, where they’ll always try to sneak in an undercooked baguette even though you requested “bien cuit.”

Spinach Enchiladas with Ancho Chile Sauce

Makes two servings

The ancho chile sauce is adapted from a recipe in Diana Kennedy’s “The Art of Mexican Cooking” (Clarkson Potter)

INGREDIENTS

4 ancho chiles (these are dried and available at Mexican markets – I brought mine from Texas)
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 cloves garlic, chopped (divided use)
1 pound fresh spinach, washed and stems removed (or not)
2 tablespoons olive oil (or more if needed)
big pinch sea salt
crank or two of freshly cracked black pepper
6 corn tortillas
1 tablespoon lard or duck fat (you may need a bit more to fry the all of the tortillas and the eggs)

1. Remove stalks, seeds and veins from the dried chiles and toast on comal or another heavy skillet on medium-low heat until the chiles turn an opaque tobacco brown — they’ll curl up as they heat through and you’ll need to press the chiles down with a wooden spoon to toast them. Be sure and toast both sides and be careful not to burn the chiles.

2. After the chiles are toasted, remove and soak in 1 cup of hot water for about 15 minutes — until they’re reconstituted.

3. Pour the chiles and water into a blender and add one clove of chopped garlic and the 1 teaspoon sea salt. Blend until smooth. Note: this can be done ahead of time and kept in the fridge.

4. Cook the spinach. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet, add the other clove of chopped garlic and turn the heat on medium. When the garlic begins to cook and you can smell it, add the spinach, turning it with tongs so it cooks evenly and quickly. Add the sea salt and pepper. Remove the spinach and put it into a colander to drain. You may need to do this in batches, but it won’t take more than 5 minutes or so to cook all of it.

5. Make the enchiladas. In a small skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of duck fat or lard over medium-low heat; in another small skillet, on low heat, heat 3-4 tablespoons of the ancho chile sauce. When both mixtures are warm, stack your tortillas on one side of the stove and your plates on the other. One by one, dip the corn tortillas into the lard or duck fat, and fry until soft, turning over a time or two. Then, dip each soft tortilla into the ancho sauce, flip it over so it’s well-covered, and put it on the plate. Do this two more times for one serving; then do three more tortillas for the second plate.

6. Using your tongs, heap a large pinch of spinach on each tortilla.

7. In the same skillet with the duck fat or lard, fry up a couple of eggs, putting one on each plate. Now, stab that yolk with your fork and let the yellow ooze.

Chipotle Salsa

epierce — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 16:31:12 +0000

This looks like the good stuff that you can buy in a jar at the grocery store, doesn’t it? ( Well, if your grocery store is in Texas and not Paris.)

I used to buy all sorts of salsas when I lived in Texas – green ones, red ones, and salsas both smooth and chunky — because there were so many brands and so many flavors to choose from. Here, I can find champagne and foie gras at the corner store, but salsa, not a chance.

There are definitely some drawbacks to living in Paris.

Which is how I came up with this little salsa. I’m running really low on jalapenos – down to just one can – but have lots of canned chipotles hanging around, so I thought that I’d start to ration myself on my favorite green chile, and save them for something else, like pizza, which I can’t eat without jalapenos and hot chile pepper oil.

I make this salsa in a pot on the stove, and I love that it’s both warm and spicy, too. Even after it cools and I refrigerate the rest, I pull it out and warm it up — back in Dallas, one of my neighborhood Tex-Mex joints, La Calle Doce, always served its salsa roja warm, which I just loved.

Still do. Even though right now I’m eating tacky tortilla chip triangles with it and not proper chips. It works just fine.

Chipotle Salsa

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon corn oil
1 medium white or yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 32 oz. can diced tomatoes (and juice)
2-3 chipotles in adobo (you may use more or less, depending on how hot you like it)
½ teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Drizzle the corn oil in a medium saucepan, add the chopped onions and garlic and turn the heat on medium. Let the onions and garlic cook until the onions start to become translucent, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, chipotles, and cilantro and cook for another 10 minutes. Blend with a stick blender, add the salt, blend again, and taste. Serve warm. Will keep in the fridge for a week.

Vegetarian Black Bean Chili

epierce — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:26:42 +0000

Y’all may have noticed over the last few months, I’ve gone a bit lighter with the recipes (I’m not talking about desserts, which I believe are the key to happiness). It all started back when X decided to be a vegetarian for two weeks way back in the spring, and I started putting together meatless dinners, because, you know, I’m supportive that way. Truth be told, it was already warmish, so it was quite easy to do, and the less-meat idea sort of just stuck through summer and into the fall, and here we are, in winter, or almost. It certainly feels like it’s already here.

As I write this, wet flakes of snow are falling. Again.

Thing is, once X got used to the idea of not eating meat at every meal, he stopped asking for it, which left a lot more room for me to experiment with veggies and different grains, too. It’s not hard, either, to get excited about veggies when you’ve got fresh markets to peruse nearly every day of the week.

We both needed to eat healthier, and I wanted to cut down on what I spent on food each week, too. Turns out that eating less meat was the answer. As a recovered vegetarian, I know this, but living here has introduced me to sooo many lovely things that I’d never find at home, like duck confit (and duck fat), braised beef cheeks, and the joy of eating foie gras on Pringles, I’ve been sampling it all like I’ve been at a 24-hour, all-you-can-eat buffet on cheap cruise ship with no dock in sight.

For four years.

It was time for a change. My now-snug, once baggy “Boyfriend” jeans told me this.

So I signed up for yoga classes again a few months ago, and started making dishes like this one, a Texas-inspired, chunky black bean chili, perfect for any cold winter’s night, and especially good with Fritos (something that I always bring back from home – which I just ran out of, sadly, last week), grated cheddar, and jalapenos.

It’s also a perfect way for me to kick off my participation in Meatless Monday, a growing worldwide movement to urge people to eat 15% less meat as a way to improve their own health and that of the planet, too. Lots of celebs (Gwyneth, Paul McCartney, Simon Cowell, among others) and celeb chefs (Mario Batali, Marcus Samuelson) have gotten on board, as well as the Baltimore School District, which completely embraced the idea for all of its schools.

I love the Meatless Monday idea, too — it’s good for us, the planet, and as an added bonus, our pocketbooks, too. I’ve actually been doing more meatless than meatwith, anyway, so now I’m making it official.

X loves this chili, and says that he likes it just as much as my meaty chili – and perhaps better, but I must make another batch, he says, so he can be sure. He tells me that he just wants to know now if I’m going to make it again this week, so he can go out and buy some beer.

Pick up a six-pack.

Vegetarian Black Bean Chili

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 large carrots, peeled and chopped into 1/2-inch dice (appx. 2 1/2 cups)
1 pound black beans, cooked and drained
1 32 oz. can whole tomatoes and juice
1 16 oz. can diced tomatoes in juice
1 5 oz. can tomato paste
5 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cayenne (or less if you don’t want it too spicy)
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons oregano
1 teaspoon smoky Spanish paprika* (if you don’t have this, don’t worry — skip it, or add 1/4 teaspoon of chipotle powder)
2 teaspoons sea salt (or more to taste)
2 cups water (you may need more)
4 cups **cooked grains (I use a mixture of pearl barley, oats, wheat and brown rice, but you may use just one grain or a mixture of your favorites)
cilantro, optional, for serving
lime wedges, optional, for serving

1. In a large stockpot, put the two tablespoons olive oil, the onion and the garlic and turn the heat on medium-high. Let cook for 3-5 minutes, or unti the onions begin to become translucent.

2. Add the carrots and keep stirring them in the pot for a few minutes until they begin to soften and release their carrot-y scent. Add the cooked, drained black beans, the can of whole tomatoes, the can of diced tomatoes, the tomato paste, and gently stir to combine. Add the spices and the water, stir well, and turn the heat to low to cook for an hour.

3. While the chili is cooking, make the grains. Once cooked, you have a few choices. You can add them to the pot and stir them all up; serve them on the bottom of a bowl of chili, or just put a spoonful in the center of the bowl.

Serve with chopped cilantro and lime.

*I use Santo Domingo/agridulce. You may order this online here.

**Cooked grains usually double in volume, so to yield 4 cups of cooked grains, simply use 2 cups of uncooked.

Slow-Cooker Pork Carnitas

epierce — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 06:57:19 +0000

The other night, I happily ate carnitas with fresh, chopped jalapeno peppers – which I’ll get to in a minute – and for the first time in months, I experienced that familiar jalapeno-high. A burn that was as flat as it was wide, and once it came, it stayed for a while. Even my lips were burning.

Hey mouth, welcome home.

How did I get jalapenos in Paris? Well, these jalapenos, still in their cheery plastic bag from Central Market in Dallas, were a gift from my sweet friends David and Bobbie, whom I met earlier this year when David signed up for one of my cooking classes. When I found out that he and Bobbie (who is of course, from Fort Worth – isn’t Bobbie a great Texas girl name?) were from my same neighborhood in Dallas, Lakewood, and even more serendipitous, lived part-time in Paris in the very same arrondisement, we struck up an immediate and easy friendship. They invited us over for chili one night, and we had them over for dinner, too. When he returned to Texas, David would email me about new recipes that he’d found, and how the ones that he tried off of my website turned out.

The jalapenos were a Christmas surprise for me.

But there was more. Red chile tortillas from Central Market. Handmade corn tortillas. Fritos. TAMALES!

I was so happy I thought I was gonna cry.

Being away from home, especially during the holidays, can be hard, but it’s a whole lot easier when you’ve got friends with big suitcases, and even bigger hearts.

On their last trip, David and Bobbie packed up the apartment for good. Bobbie’s next post is in Shanghai, and soon, they be traveling back and forth from Dallas to China, just like they did to France. There’s been a mass exodus of my friends this year – one moved to a diplomatic post in Africa; another, back home to Los Angeles; one to Lima, Peru; and another still, to Beijing.

It seems like this year has been one long goodbye.

Yes, it’s easier to stay in touch with email and Skype, but nothing beats sitting around a table with good friends, laughing and eating and drinking too much Champagne (OK, that’s me). As much as I’ve hated to see all of my friends leave Paris, I now know that I’ve got more tables around the world where I can feel right at home.

Slow-Cooker Pork Carnitas

Makes enough for 10 to 12 tacos

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium white onion, chopped into big pieces
2 pounds pork shoulder
4 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole
1 stick cinnamon
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon Mexican oregano
1 teaspoon Spanish paprika* (if you can’t find this, you may want to use chipotle powder, but a bit less)
sea salt
black pepper

1. In a large skillet, put the 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the chopped onion and turn the heat on medium. Let cook until the onions begin to become translucent, about 5-10 minutes. Then, add the pork and sear on all sides. Remove the pork and onions and put into the slow cooker.

2. Add the rest of the ingredients, including a generous (around 2 tablespoons) bit of salt. Stir everything together, and add enough water to cover the pork two-thirds. Cook on low for 5-6 hours. Let cool, and refrigerate until ready to eat.

3. When ready to eat carnitas: first, preheat oven to broil, and the top rack to the middle of the oven. Put the pieces of shredded pork and and some of the juices in a baking dish, and cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the pork gets crispy.

Serve with warm tortillas, chopped jalapenos, lime, cilantro, and pico de gallo.

*I use Santo Domingo/agridulce. You may order this online here.

Spinach-Potato Tacos

epierce — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:32:57 +0000

It was a cold and rainy day – BIG surprise for Paris in November, right? — and I wanted to make something warm and spicy, too. X put in a special request for spinach (can you believe?), so I figured I’d do something fun – and since I’d already spent most of the day in the kitchen, making a cake here, a batch of ice cream there, I wanted easy, too.

Hmmm, I thought and thought. Tacos! Tacos with spinach…and what’s that I see in the blue bowl about to go south, potatoes?

Get over here, red-skinned potatoes. Right this instant.

OK, then. Spinach and potatoes. With caramelized onions on top, and feta (since queso fresco’s not available – this is a great substitute wherever you are, by the way). I think that caramelized onions are one of the easiest ways to dress up anything — they’re great on top of soups, tacos, folded into an omelette, or on any sort of sandwich with grilled veggies or meats. Every time I make them, I think, these are so good, I have to do this more often – just chop up some onions, caramelize them, and stick them in the fridge. Then I forget that I told myself to do this. (Where are my Post-Its? How did I remember to do anything before them?)

Anyway. These little tacos are fabulous. And if you want, you may use Swiss chard instead of spinach, like Rick Bayless does in his book, “Mexican Everyday,” or add mushrooms, which always love hanging out with spinach. I actually roasted my potatoes, cooked my spinach about halfway, and caramelized my onions in advance, so when it was time for dinner, all I needed to do was heat it all up, warm the tortillas, and spoon on the salsa.

My only regret was that I didn’t make more. (Don’t make this mistake, y’all. Double – heck, triple! – the recipe for even more taco fun.)

Spinach-Potato Tacos with Caramelized Onions

Makes 4 big tacos

INGREDIENTS

1 pd. red potatoes, cut into 2-inch pieces
6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
sea salt
freshly cracked black pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
½ yellow onion, diced
Appx. 20 oz. fresh spinach, washed and stems removed
pinch nutmeg
¼ teaspoon lemon zest
2 large yellow onions, sliced
4 flour or corn tortillas
salsa, for serving
limes, for serving
crumbled feta, for serving

Preheat oven to 450 F.

1. Lay the potatoes out on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil over them. Sprinkle a bit of sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper on top and just use your hands to mix it all up, so that all of the potatoes are evenly coated. Pop into the oven for 30-45 minutes, making sure to check them frequently and flip to the other side when the edges start to brown.

2. While the potatoes are roasting, in a medium skillet, drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the sliced onions, and turn the heat on medium-low to medium. Cook the onions slowly, for 30-40 minutes, until they’re brown and caramelized.

3. Put the last 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet, and add the diced onion and garlic. Turn the heat on medium-high and cook until the onion begins to become translucent, about 5-10 minutes. Add the spinach, nutmeg and lemon zest and cook only until the spinach begins to wilt. Remove from heat and into a colander.

4. Assemble the tacos: layer a bit of spinach and potatoes across the middle of a tortilla, top with caramelized onions and feta. Serve with salsa and lime.

Black Bean, Quinoa and Swiss Chard Tacos

epierce — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 06:01:36 +0000

I’d made a big ol’ mess of black beans, and they were just sitting in the fridge, waiting for something to come along and give them a bit of zing and turn them into Sunday night tacos — Swiss chard, roasted red bell pepper, it turns out, were up for the task.

Both of which I’d already cooked, but neither takes too long to make if you don’t spend your Saturday afternoons cooking and roasting veggies, which I sometimes like to do.

Quinoa’s my go-to grain (it’s really not a grain, but a tiny seed of a leafy plant that’s related to spinach, beets, and Swiss chard) instead of rice these days because it’s protein-packed, it only takes 10 minutes to cook, and is incredibly versatile, working with both savory and sweet dishes. I’ve been known to spoon leftover quinoa into my pancake batter, too – something that I picked up while hiking through Peru many years ago.

Even more than the good-for-you benefits, I love quinoa for its shape and texture – it imparts a slight crunch — and its subtle nutty taste. Not that I need to be any nuttier than I already am, but there you are.

Black Bean, Quinoa and Swiss Chard Tacos

Makes four generous servings

INGREDIENTS

1 bunch Swiss chard, well-rinsed and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 clove garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper
1 cup quinoa
3 cups cooked black beans (canned are OK, but be sure and drain and rinse them first)
¼ teaspoon chipotle powder
1 teaspoon cumin
sea salt
freshly ground pepper
8 flour or corn tortillas
fresh goat cheese, for serving (optional)
limes, for serving (optional)

Preheat the oven to 200 C/400 F.

1. Put 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large skillet and add the minced garlic. Turn the heat on medium, and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until you can smell the garlic starting to cook. Add the Swiss chard, a bit of sea salt and pepper, give it a stir, cover and reduce the heat to medium-low. It’ll cook as quickly as spinach — in less than 5 minutes — and shrink almost as much, too. Just cook the Swiss chard until tender; you don’t want it mushy. Put in a bowl to cool and set aside.

2. Chop the red pepper into 1-inch pieces and spread out on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Drizzle with the other 2 tablespoons of olive oil and sprinkle with a bit of sea salt and pepper. Cook until the edges begin to brown, about 20-30 minutes. Remove the roasted peppers from the cookie sheet into a small bowl.

3. Cook the quinoa. Put 2 cups of water onto boil, and when the water’s ready, add the 1 cup of quinoa, and 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt. Turn heat down to low, cover, and set the timer for ten minutes. Let the quinoa rest for 10 minutes before you fluff it up.

4. Now, make the taco mixture. In a large skillet, put 3 cups of black beans, 2 cups of cooked quinoa (this won’t be all of your cooked quinoa), the cooked Swiss chard and red bell peppers. Turn the heat on medium, give it a stir and add the chipotle powder and cumin and let heat through for a few minutes. Taste for seasonings. Serve immediately with flour or corn tortillas, goat cheese, and lime.

Mexican Pita Pizza

epierce — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:40:52 +0000

Last week, I worked up a menu for my Cowgirl Chef column for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram focusing on after-school snacks that kids could make themselves, and this Mexican Pita Pizza was one of the recipes that I came up with — but without the salmon, goat cheese, and chives. When I had some leftover salmon from a dinner party and some pita bread leftover from recipe testing, I made this grown-up version.

Super-easy, y’all. Just refried black beans (I like the texture of beans so I don’t puree them, I simply smash them with an old-fashioned potato masher), salsa, fresh goat cheese and already cooked salmon, finished with some snipped chives — but you could use cilantro instead, and I probably would, if I’d had some on hand. A little chopped avocado wouldn’t be too bad here, either.

What I really, really like about this is, besides the wonderful flavor of black beans and salmon (which may sound weird, but is tres good), is the lightening-fast cooking time. Just two minutes (seriously – set your timers or it’ll burn) to toast the pita in the oven; then less than 30 seconds to warm up the cheese so it’s a bit melty.

See how crispy that bread is? Totally like a pizza crust that you’d find pulled out of your favorite pizzeria — in Rome.

It’s not as strange as it sounds — the word, pizza came from pita, anyway.

For the kid-friendly version of this recipe, plus other after-school snacks, check out my most recent column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Mexican Pita Pizza

INGREDIENTS

1 piece pita bread (unsliced and left whole)
½ cup refried black beans (you may use canned or make your own)
1-2 tablespoons salsa (jarred or make your own)
115 grams/2 oz. fresh chevre
60 grams/4 oz. cooked salmon
Cilantro or chives for garnish (optional)
Avocado for garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to Broil.

In a small skillet or saucepan, over medium-low heat, gently warm the beans, stirring frequently so they don’t stick. Once warmed through, turn off the heat.

Now, pretoast the pita. Put pita bread directly on rack of the oven or toaster oven, and set timer for 30 seconds. When buzzer goes off, using your long tongs and flip the pita bread over to the other side. Set timer again, but watch carefully – this side may take less than 30 seconds.

Remove from oven, and put the hot, crispy pita “crust” on a cookie sheet, and carefully smear the ½ cup of refried beans all over the surface. Now add the 1-2 tablespoons of salsa, and the goat cheese.

Slide the entire cookie sheet into the oven and set the timer for 1 minute only. Again, watch carefully, because you’re just melting the cheese.

Add the salmon to the pizza, the chives or cilantro, and avocado if you’ve got it, and voila! – you’ve got dinner.

Roasted Veggie Enchiladas with Goat Cheese and Salsa Verde

epierce — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:16:27 +0000

Driving back to Mom’s from the Happy Nail Spa (home of the $32 mani-pedi) the other day, I realized that between running around to try and find an internet connection, zipping in and out of Radio Shack, Target, and other Denton retail gems, I’d somehow skipped lunch.

It was 5 p.m., and still 100 degrees, but I wanted Tex-Mex. I wanted to go fetch Mom, drive the half-hour back into town, and eat at Mazatlan, where I would order up the beef brisket enchiladas, with refried beans, rice and guacamole.

But I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk her into that.

I was driving along I-35 North, coming up on the exit for Sack ‘n Save, so I pulled off, bought tomatillos, jalapenos, cilantro, and some fresh tortilla chips, and headed on home. We’d still not eaten the zucchini that we bought at the farmer’s market the week before, and I knew that I could make something lighter, yet Tex-Mexy, too.

Turns out, it my little enchiladas were quicker to make than a drive into town.

While I roasted the zucchini and the asparagus, I made the salsa verde. Then, I simply stuffed a couple of flour tortillas (these were the red chile ones from Central Market) with the veggies, along with some fresh goat cheese, and popped them in the oven for 10 minutes to warm through.

You could also eat this cold the next day, as a wrap. The key is to cut the veggies about the same size, in 2-inch pieces, so there’s less fallout.

Roasted Veggie Enchiladas with Goat Cheese and Salsa Verde

Makes 4-6 enchiladas

INGREDIENTS

2 large zucchini (I used the light green-skinned and a dark one)
1-2 medium yellow squash
1 bunch asparagus, ends trimmed
4 oz. (113 grams) fresh goat cheese
olive oil
sea salt
pepper
4-6 flour tortillas
1 recipe salsa verde

Preheat oven to broil.

Slice the zucchini and squash in 2-inch long fat matchsticks, and lay on a foil or parchment-lined cookie sheet, along with the asparagus (you may need two cookie sheets, depending on how much you have).

Lightly drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. Pop into the oven, and watching closely, roast until browned on both sides. This will take 10-15 minutes, depending on your oven.

Reduce oven temperature to 350 F.

Lay flat one tortilla at a time and stuff with zucchini, squash, and asparagus. Dollop approximately 2 tablespoons of goat cheese on each.

Roll up, and with the open side down, put in a casserole dish. Spoon some salsa verde on top, cover with foil, and pop into the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until the cheese melts.

Serve with chopped avocado, cilantro, and lime.

Crispy Shrimp Tostadas with Adobo Salsa

epierce — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:18:53 +0000

When a group of expats here in Paris asked me recently if I’d teach a class on how to make moles, I knew a couple of things: one, that we’d probably only have time to make one mole, since even the super-speedy ones take 2 hours, minimum, to put together; and two, that I wanted to give them something really useful in addition a mole recipe or two to take home.

Which brings us to adobo salsa.

You’ve probably seen the word, adobo, on the side of the chipotle cans, because those little firecrackers are packed in this sauce. Other than that, you may have eaten enchiladas with adobo; or if you haven’t, you should.

It’s a workhorse of a little sauce, and I thought that it would be just perfect with shrimp tostadas for a first course for my mole class, and I was right. It would work nicely on chicken, or pork, too, or, as I mentioned before, slathered all over your favorite enchiladas.

Adobo is used quite a bit in Mexican cuisine as a marinade, and I plan to make some adobo pork tacos in my trusty slow cooker as soon as I come up for air. Between my “French-Tex” cooking classes, the mole classes, testing and writing recipes for my cookbook, and writing my regular columns for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Cowboys and Indians magazine, I’ve hardly had a moment.

But now I’ve got adobo in the fridge — and mole, too — and possibilities are suddenly opening up.

Crispy Shrimp Tostadas with Adobo Salsa

Makes 6 large tostadas

INGREDIENTS

17 oz (500 g) shrimp, cooked and peeled

9 oz (250 g) mozzarella (or your favorite mild melty cheese)

8 oz Adobo sauce, recipe follows

8 oz creme fraiche or sour cream

handful cilantro, chopped, for garnish

4 green onions, chopped

8 corn tortillas

cilantro, for garnish

WHAT YOU DO

Preheat oven to 450 F.

1. Lay the tortillas on a cookie sheet, lined with parchment, and slide into the oven for 5-10 mins to toast.

2. Now, put a few shrimp, some cheese, adobo sauce and green onions on each tortilla and put it back in the oven until the cheese bubbles, about 5 min.

3. Serve each tostada with a dollop of creme fraiche and cilantro.

Adobo Salsa

Adapted from a recipe by Sylvia Kurcyzn, Culinario Centro Ambrosia, Mexico City

INGREDIENTS

5 chiles guajillos

3 chiles anchos

2 chiles cascabel

3 cloves garlic, skins on

1 teaspoon Mexican oregano, stems removed

1 teaspoon cumin seed

1 teaspoon peppercorns (about 15)

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

sea salt

WHAT YOU DO

1. Split chiles and remove the seeds and veins. With a wooden spoon or spatula, pressing the chiles down, toast chiles on comal over medium heat or fry in corn oil until they begin to change color slightly. This won’t take long — 30 seconds to 1 minute – per side. Put the chiles in a bowl and cover with boiling water, and let sit for 15 minutes, at least, or until they soften. Reserve the chile soaking water for the puree.

Cowgirl Tip: Be careful, and watch the chiles closely, because they’ll easily burn if they cook for too long.

2. Remove the skins from the garlic and toast on the comal.

3. Toast the cumin seed and peppercorns.

4. Now, put the softened chiles, garlic, cumin seed, peppercorns, and Mexican oregano in a blender. Add vinegar, and enough chile water to blend easily. Keep the blender going until the mixture is super-smooth — 5-7 minutes. Have patience. The longer this blends, the more complex the flavors will be.

Now, taste. Add salt.

This sauce will freeze for about 6 months, or keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.