Recipes

An American hamburger in Mexico

July 27, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Ever since our new grill finally started working — did I tell you? Our grill WORKS! — we’ve been testing it out, with dumb grins on our faces. Last week we grilled pork ribs and mango slices. Yesterday we invited friends over and decided to make hamburgers. Thick ones. With (hold your breath)… homemade hamburger buns.

In my cooking control-freak mind, we could not attempt the perfect burger (that’s what our new grill was meant for, right?) without having the perfect bun. And so my body woke itself up on Sunday at 7 a.m., because even though I’d gone to bed at midnight the night before, and drank several glasses of wine that day, and therefore needed more sleep dammit — well, my internal clock was set to buns. Sprinkled on top with sesame seeds.

Yesterday morning, with light barely coming through the window, I whisked and kneaded and slapped the dough. I used a dough scraper to create eight little mounds, and then arranged them on a baking sheet. By 9:45 a.m., just in time for me to take a cab to Condesa to eat carnitas breakfast tacos (yes, this is the life I lead), the rolls had just come out of the oven. I cut one in half and tasted it just before walking out the door. Fabulous.

Crayton was in charge of the meat. He bought some ground beef at the tianguis, and used The New York Times’ recent burger recipe. It’s pretty simple: form the burgers into four-by-one inch rounds, refrigerate them, season them, then plop them on the grill. We’d bought a block of extra sharp cheddar at City Market, so when the burgers were just about ready, we covered ’em in cheese. And toasted those buns.

A few slathers of lime-flavored mayonnaise later, and some sliced beefsteak tomato and a few sheathes of iceberg lettuce, and we had a big ol’, very American burger. (Slightly lopsided, but that’s okay. We’re novices.)

We served the burgers with cold chayote salad in a roasted garlic vinaigrette, and spicy sweet potato fries. Dessert was leftover peach ice cream and tuna roja ice, which was just about the prettiest color nieve I’ve ever seen:

Recipes below, if you want to attempt at home. I’m calling it “An American Cookout in Mexico.” And I’m already thinking of how to make the burgers better. Next time we’re doing homemade mayo, y’all. Oooh, or maybe a choice of homemade mayos. Chipotle mayo. Chile morita mayo. Cilantro mayo…
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Roasted peach ice cream with manzano-chile infused caramel sauce

July 24, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

A few weeks ago, I was strolling around Mercado San Juan when I spied some white, donut-shaped peaches at a back stall.

“Can I have a taste of these?” I asked the woman.

She grabbed one and cut off a thick slice. One bite — one juicy, sweet, summery bite — and I was sold. I bought a kilo.

I had a vague idea to make ice cream, but when I got home and started googling, I realized I’d just barely hit the tip of the iceberg. I could make roasted peach ice cream. With caramel sauce. But not just any caramel sauce. Chili-infused caramel sauce.

[Pause for “Ooooooooh” moment.]

The spicy caramel sauce idea wasn’t mine. Food, She Thought, an LA-based food blogger, had gushed recently about a habanero-caramel sauce sundae she’d tried at a fair, and then successfully made at home. Roasted peaches would go perfectly with that. Right?

And so. A few weeks ago, I cut up my peaches and doused them in agave honey. Then I arranged them like fat little snails on a baking sheet….

And then I roasted ’em….

And I snuck in a few bites of peaches, and they were so fabulous, I almost wanted to cry. But no. Must not eat more. Must put them in the ice cream.

Into the cream they went. By then I’d done so much work, I was ready to eat the damn thing already. Forgot to mention, my recipe called for peach preserves, but my local Mexican supermarket doesn’t carry them. So I whipped up a quick batch by hand. Yes, I’m insane.

After pouring my ice cream into an old yogurt container, which I keep for just these types of purposes, I got up the next morning and tasted it.

And it was… okay. Not spectacular. But good for a weeknight. (If I was the type of girl who ate ice cream on a weeknight — usually I prefer dark chocolate.)

The deal was, the ice cream needed more depth. I didn’t use any eggs — I was “experimenting” — and it was just too milky and creamy. Plus, despite me roasting the peaches, it lacked in-your-face peach flavor. Maybe I should have used more. Or maybe I should have added more homemade peach preserves. In any case, next time I’m going to use Dorie Greenspan’s recipe, which calls for pureeing peaches and adding it directly to the custard. And I’m going to try out peach liqueur. Wish they sold fifths of that… I can’t see myself drinking peach liqueur, ever.

Feeling kind of lukewarm about the peaches, I made the caramel sauce a few days later. And for my very first caramel sauce, it was great. Luscious and pretty and creamy. (The secret: Don’t stir it. EVER.) Per Food She Thought’s instructions, I sliced up some manzano chilies (couldn’t find habanero) and added them to boiling water. Then I added that water to the sugar, which eventually became caramel.

The sauce was spicy, but in a strange way. Like, three minutes after you started eating, a slow burn developed, somewhere in the back of your throat. I wanted more fire up front — something to contrast immediately with the sweetness of the peaches.

I’m still researching this — maybe I should try adding chili oil at the end, instead of spicy water at the beginning? Because my next stop is chili-infused cajeta. Morita-chili infused cajeta.

Meanwhile, my jar of spicy caramel is still sitting in the fridge. I’m thinking about drizzling it on apples. The ice cream just isn’t good enough.

Recipes below, if you’re interested.
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Blueberry oat scones

July 20, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

In an unexpectedly Mexican turn of events, I’ve become addicted to having something sweet and bready with my coffee in the morning. Mamey muffins, which might be the world’s most perfect coffee food, pushed me over the edge. Since then I’ve dabbled in walnut-raisin bread, cornbread smeared with butter, unleavened cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting, carrot spice muffins and, the most boring of them all, whole-wheat toast with honey. (Mamey, don’t worry, I’m coming back for you.)

Last week — finally succumbing to my addiction, and telling myself, “It’s okay if I just have a little bit, and then run for 45 minutes at the gym” — I made scones for the first time. These babies are dangerous: heavy cream in the batter. Little cold cubes of butter in there, too. And a sprinkling of turbinado and oats on top.

After licking every tidbit of batter of my mixing spoon, and immediately washing the bowl as to not tempt myself further, I stuck the little mounds of dough in the oven and waited. They emerged buttery and warm, and crisp on the outside, with just a hint of sugar. I ate a whole one and was moving onto a second before I literally had to tell myself: Lesley. No. Put the scones away.

In my Breakfast Bread Hall of Fame, these scones are in the top three. Threatening mamey muffins with a bullet.

Here’s the recipe, in case you’re hungry for a sweet thing in the morning, too.
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Mexico City summer food: Chili and cornbread

July 14, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

Mexico City summer weather is strange. It’s sunny, but only sometimes. The other half of the time it’s chilly and rainy. If you forget your umbrella around 2 p.m., you’re screwed. Unless you enjoy sheets of water falling on your head.

If I were still living in Dallas — where it is supposed to hit 104 today — I would currently have the oven under lock and key. I’d be whipping up a panzanella salad with heirloom tomatoes, or quinoa with baked tofu, roasted red peppers and feta. (Quinoa fairy, please send me some in Mexico City. Kthankxbai.) Here, though, the whole “light summer meal” thing is kinda not applicable. I want stews. Soups. Hot, hearty things.

So this weekend I whipped up a batch of chili, which used to be one of my go-to winter meals, because it took like 30 minutes.

This time it was not so easy. I had to buy and soak my own beans, since the supermarket doesn’t carry canned pinto or kidney. Ground turkey doesn’t exist, either, so I randomly selected a package of ground beef, wondering whether it was lean or not. (What does “angus” mean? Twenty percent fat? Thirty?) I added onion and chipotle, and my favorite brand of canned tomatoes in Mexico. Then I simmered the darn thing on the stovetop for nearly three hours. THREE HOURS.

The result was fantastic, though. At the last minute I decided to make some skillet cornbread, too, using cornmeal I brought from the States. This now means I’m out of cornmeal, but hopefully I can figure out how to buy some from a tortilla press. (“Maiz de grano”? “Elote de grano”? “Maiz molido”? Anyone?) My local supermarket doesn’t carry it.

Anyway, if you also happened to be looking for cool-weather food ideas, the recipe is below.

Americanized Mexico City Chili

1/2 c. dried black-and-white “vaca” beans, soaked overnight in cold water
1/2 c. dried small pink beans, soaked overnight in cold water
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 c. tomato/chipotle puree (basically boxed tomato puree mixed with chipotle chiles — it’s concentrated and super hot)
1/2 lb. ground beef
1 480g can of Cirio Whole Tomatoes (This is my favorite Mexican tomato brand. Hunt’s blows.)
1 teaspoon sweet smoked paprika
1 to 2 tablespoons ground cumin
pinch of cayenne
sprinkle of chili powder
salt and pepper to taste

Garnish:
Chopped jalapeño
Cilantro

For chili:
Heat 1 tablespoon of canola oil in a dutch oven. Add your onion and cook for five minutes or so, until soft. Add the garlic and stir, cooking until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Then add ground beef and cook until browned, about 10 minutes. If you bought “angus,” like me, you will have a lot of fat. Drain it off and continue. Your meat now drained, add the tomato puree, beans and tomatoes, and enough water to cover everything by three inches.

Bring to a boil, then simmer until beans are tender, skimming off fat from the top and adding more water if the mixture gets too thick. This will be about three hours if you live in DF. About twenty minutes before the chili is done, add your spices. Serve with chopped jalapeño and cilantro. And, if you’re lucky enough to find cheddar cheese at your local market, add a sprinkle of that too.

Skillet Cornbread
(Adapted from Joy of Cooking’s “Northern Cornbread” recipe)

Position a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat to 450F. Grease your iron skillet with vegetable or canola oil. Then whisk together in a large bowl:

1 1/4 c. stone ground cornmeal
3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 to 4 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Whisk together in another bowl:

2 large eggs
2/3 c. milk
2/3 c. buttermilk (I make my own buttermilk, since I can’t find it here.)

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir until just moistened. Fold in two to three tablespoons of warm, melted unsalted butter.

Batter will be really wet. Pour it into the pan, and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

Mexican chocolate tofu pudding with homemade churros

June 10, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

I’ve been dreaming about Mexican chocolate tofu pudding since Crayton forwarded me the New York Times recipe a few weeks ago. It was my turn on our recipe exchange, so I ditched my Mexican chocolate ice cream idea and told everyone I was making dairy-free pudding. A few people were like, “Wait…. what?” None of us are vegan.

Last night, we feasted before the pudding-making even started. Alice whipped up a batch of pot stickers. Julie brought sweet bread from a Japanese bakery. Tricia brought mini-weenies in barbecue sauce, Joy H. brought spicy guac, and Jesica and Joy V. brought wine. (Which later resulted in extremely blurry churro pictures.)

Jesica graciously offered to let us use two chocolate bars she’d bought in Tabasco. She crushed them on my molcajete….

… and then we melted them in the microwave. They smelled like fresh-baked brownies.

Everything went into the blender, with a box-and-a-half of tofu and some spices.

The result was luscious. It was a creamy, thick, perfect pudding, that required all of five minutes on the stove.

This means a lot to me, because a few months ago I experienced the great Chocolate Pudding Disaster of 2009. I spent hours melting chocolate and worrying about the scalding the milk, only to end up with chocolate soup. I almost swore off chocolate pudding forever after that. But tofu, that wonderful, square-headed, plain block of soy, has saved me.

The churros weren’t as easy. I used a recipe from my 1944 copy of Elena’s Famous Mexican and Spanish Recipes, which called for a simple flour-and-water dough. Unfortunately, the tip on my cheap pastry bag came off as we were piping the dough into the oil. (Eeee!) We rigged up a Ziploc bag with duct tape, which worked marvelously. But piping dough got old after awhile. I was hot and sweaty. My house has no air conditioning.

Next time I might just buy churros from the dude on the corner.

The combination, when it was all done, was to die for, so it’s really worth having them both together.

Recipes and cooking notes after the jump.
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Homemade mamey frozen yogurt

May 20, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

A lot of my culinary adventures lately have started with a rotting mamey. This one I’d been suckered into buying on Sunday at the tianguis. (Where, it must be remembered, I was hungry.)

I accepted a particularly juicy chunk from a vendor and thought, Well… maybe I can slice this up and have it for dessert. But when I got home, and over the next few days, I noshed instead on some dark chocolate Hershey kisses, a bag of American candy from Alice’s house and leftover banana pudding.

The mamey sat on the bottom shelf of my fridge, in the very back. It began turning brown at the edges.

Not wanting my poor mamey to die, and wanting my jeans to continue to fit me, I tried to think of something light I could whip up with it. Obviously not ice cream. But maybe… fro-yo?

A quick google search turned up a David Lebovitz recipe on 101 Cookbooks. It called for straining yogurt with a cheesecloth. (Ugh. Too lazy.) But that led me to David’s even simpler recipe on his own site, which called for basically dumping yogurt and sugar together, and then churning it in your ice cream maker.

I could do that. I could do that in, like, an hour.

So I cut up my mamey and mashed it with a fork, and added a few healthy squirts of agave nectar. (Did I forget to mention that I didn’t add any processed sugar to this?) I added some Activia yogurt I had in the fridge. I chilled it for an hour, and clumsily poured it into my ice cream maker, getting mamey-agave-yogurt stuff all over the front and sides of my mixer.

Twenty-five minutes later, it was done. And it was good.

Not out-of-this world spectacular — the texture isn’t as smooth and creamy as what you’d get at the store, and next time I think I’d add more yogurt (or lime juice?) to boost the yogurt-y tang. But it’s a fine first start. Definitely something I could snack on after dinner, or outside on our porch on a sunny day.

Plus, this opens up a whole new world of fro-yo. I’ve seen lychees at the market lately…. hmmm…..

Recipe after the jump, if you want it.
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The oh-my-god greatness of flor de jamaica quesadillas

May 13, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

My friend Jesica and I started a recipe exchange a few weeks ago. The idea was to share a little bit of our cooking knowledge — mine: baked desserts; hers, Mexican vegetarian food — and then eat our fabulous creations at each others’ houses. Last week, for the first installation, we made apple brown betty and homemade cinnamon ice cream; this week, it was Jesica’s flor de jamaica quesadillas and pasta al ajillo.

I don’t know if I can accurately convey my love for these quesadillas. They’re crispy. Savory. Tangy. The flowers, boiled in water and tossed in butter and olive oil, have a slightly crunchy, toothsome texture that almost reminds me of calamari. And they’re just so pretty: A deep purpley-pink color, like you’d see splashed on a quinceañera dress in a window here.

I seriously think I could eat them every day for the rest of my life.

And because they are so easy, you must make them. And the pasta too: It’s garlicky and spicy, and not too heavy. The mushrooms are tender and soft. Mmmm.

We made our own pasta because Jesica rolls like that, but store-bought would be just fine. And if you really want to make the most out of this, you could invite a few girlfriends over and share a few bottles of wine. Then, giggly and light-headed, you can take a cab home and fall asleep for two hours, happy to be alive to eat such amazing food and to know such great people.

Recipes after the jump.
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Procrastination, Vol. I: Spicy baked camote fries with creamy cilantro dip

May 8, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

So I’ve been writing this personal essay, and it’s driving me crazy. I don’t know whether I’m being relevatory enough, funny enough, honest enough, or whether the whole thing is just completely narcissistic, and why the hell would anyone care?

By around noon yesterday I wanted to tear my hair out. So I took a break to peel some potatoes.

I’d been eyeing The Tofu Cookbook’s spicy potato wedges or a few days. As a sidenote, I’d forgotten I’d even owned the Tofu Cookbook until last weekend — my mom had given it to as as a semi-joke wedding gift. Crayton hates tofu with the fire of mil demonios.

Even he would like these, though. Potatoes covered in cumin and cayenne pepper, served with a cool, creamy silken-tofu dip. I picked up some Mexican sweet potatoes at the supermarket — they’re white on the inside — and I chopped and marinated them, covered ’em in lime zest, roasted them in the oven. While they were cooking, I zapped the sauce in my food processor and added some cilantro because I thought that would taste good.

About 50 minutes later, I had crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside fries that were heavenly good. The sauce didn’t make me jump up and down. But it made a good, cool foil — a foil with protein! — to the spiciness of the potatoes.

Afterward, Lola arrived to clean, and we had a long chat about God’s grace, our weeks, swine flu boredom. (Stuff we usually talk about.) I offered her my extra batch of un-risen cinnamon rolls, which she accepted. By the time she left I felt much better about the essay. And by 7 p.m…. I’d actually come up with a draft I was happy with. Which is HUGE.

Maybe these fries will help you solve your writing problems, too. Or whatever else you need a break from. (They’re awesome with beer, by the way.) The recipe’s after the jump.
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Apple brown betty and homemade cinnamon ice cream

May 6, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

So, um, those cinnamon rolls…

They didn’t turn out very well. The flavor was fine. (Well, okay, I could have added more butter.) But they didn’t rise. And they were hard. Even with the cream cheese frosting…. it was like biting into a cinna-frisbee. Bleh. Maybe I boasted too much about kicking the dough’s butt?

So. With a bowl of cream cheeese frosting in the fridge, I probably should have made a quick bread or something and used up the leftovers. But no. I needed dessert redemption. I had to make something else, something that was not a bread. Something that had lots of butter and sugar and required little work. Something with the name “Betty” in the title.

Seriously: How cute is the name Apple Brown Betty? Even before the Cinnamon Roll Disaster of 2009, I’ve been wanting to make some. My friend Jesica was entranced, too, so today she came over, we cued up The Pioneer Woman and got to work.

Apple Brown Betty is basically a gooey, buttery, sweet apple casserole, with bread crumbs holding everything together. Pioneer Woman’s recipe called for cubes of wheat bread, but if I make it again, I’d probably use white breadcrumbs. Something about little chunks of wheat bread didn’t sit well with me.

None of that even matters, though, because the best part was the two scoops of love on top: Homemade cinnamon ice cream, y’all. (Insert swoon.) My mom got me the ice-cream-maker attachment for my KitchenAid mixer before I left for Mexico, and I finally unpacked it and put it to use. It was actually amazingly easy: Cook the batter (and ignore the massive amounts of heavy cream); chill it overnight; then pour it into the frozen mixer bowl and watch it churn. Thirty minutes later, done.

And when we stuck our spoons into the ice cream bowl…. man. Oh man. This was creamy, delicate stuff, whispering of cinnamon. Jesica even admitted that she wasn’t even that excited about cinnamon ice cream in the first place, but this stuff — it kind of socked you upside the head, you know? In a good way.

I promise, my dessert spree is over for the next few days. I’m dreaming of mamey ice cream, but I’m going to log 5 hours at the gym before I do it. The gyms re-open tomorrow, yay!

A cure for your swine flu worries: Orange bread pudding with gooey raisin sauce

April 28, 2009 by Lesley Tellez

With Mexico going to hell in a handbasket — or shall I say a pig-hide canasta — nothing seems more comforting right now than a warm homemade dessert.

I love bread pudding, but it always seems like so much work. And I couldn’t afford another trip to the supermarket with all the flu-hysterical crazies. So yesterday, with three-quarters of a loaf of stale bread and some Clementine oranges, I turned to Elena Zelayeta.

Elena was a blind Mexican immigrant who wrote Elena’s Famous Mexican and Spanish Recipes, a bestselling cookbook that’s now out of print. I found a copy of the first edition, published in 1944, stuffed into a kitchen drawer at my mom’s house. It was my grandmother’s, my mom said. I thumbed through it for a few minutes and fell in love.

Not only is the book full of Mexican basics (chiles en nogada, sopa de fideo, capirotada, etc.), but it was written back when housewives actually spent three hours or more on a single dish, and asked the butcher to do things like “shape their lamb chops.” Her membrillo recipe calls for leaving it out in the sun for two days to prevent mold. How freaking awesome is that?

The dessert section overflows with bread puddings, all of them simple constructions of milk-soaked bread, eggs and sugar. I made the orange version last night and finished the sauce this morning. Tasted a spoonful as it cooled and… mmmmhhhrrrmmm. (Sorry, that was my pleasurable moaning noise.)

With something this good, you gotta bring out the big guns and make homemade whipped cream. And then try not to lick the bowl after.

I swear, this thing really might be able to cure swine flu. Or at least get everyone out from under their porcine cloud.

Recipe after the jump.
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