Potato and Chorizo Tacos: a quick, easy weeknight meal

Earlier this week I was perusing my Pinterest boards for some dinner inspiration when I came across this recipe for potato and chorizo tacos.

With very few ingredients, this dish is big on flavor and texture. I will definitely be making it again.

Here's how I prepared it:

Potato and Chorizo Tacos
Adapted from Project Foodie
Serves 4-6

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pound yukon gold potatoes (the original recipe says to peel the potatoes, but I'm lazy and don't like to peel potatoes, so I didn't)
• 1 pound bulk Mexican chorizo (or casings removed)
• 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
• 1/2 cup queso fresco
• 1/2 cup guacamole (I used already prepared guacamole from Whole Foods)
• Corn tortillas

Cut potatoes into 1/2 inch dice and boil until tender, about 5 minutes. Drain.

In a saute or cast iron  pan, heat olive oil and then add chorizo. Once chorizo is mostly cooked, add potatoes and let flavors meld. Once chorizo and potatoes are crispy, serve on softened corn tortillas and top with cilantro, queso fresco and guacamole.

Oh how your food does enchant me Rick Bayless

This past weekend my husband and I, along with two of our friends, drove to Chicago for the day to visit the Christkindlmarket. We also decided that our short jaunt to The Windy City had to include a meal at a Rick Bayless establishment. Last November,  when NCTE was held in Chicago, I experienced my first Rick Bayless meal at his informal lunch-counter-style restaurant, Xoco (pictures in the link currently don't work. I'm in the process of contacting Flickr to find out what the problem is!) Over one year later and I am still craving that meal.

This time, instead of Xoco, we had brunch at Frontera Grill and I don't even know where to begin to describe what a delightful meal it was. Rick's food is sophisticated, yet rustic and unpretentious at the same time. He seeks to go beyond just the typical vision most people have of Mexican food that it's just tacos, burritos, and fajitas. In his travels through Mexico, he really sought to find all of the flavors and traditions, not just the typical ones most Americans are used to.

Our meal started innocently enough with guacamole. I would like to say for the record that I do not even like guacamole, but our friends ordered it and were over the moon that it was guacamole they've ever had. Since I'm not one to turn down an opportunity to prove myself wrong about a previous aversion, I decided to give it a try. And guess what? It wasn't just good, it was delicious. It was creamy and buttery and had just the right amount of garlic. The person who said she didn't like guacamole was proven wrong. Not only that but I am now craving it. I will drive to Chicago just for some of that guacamole.

In addition to guacamole, my husband ordered an appetizer of Mexico City-style quesadillas stuffed with molten cheese. And look what a cute, cozy package they're served in:

For my brunch I ordered the red chile meatballs cooked in a guajillo chile sauce, served with braised kale and crispy onions. And while it may look simple and rather bland, the side of black beans and rice I ordered to go with my meatballs was to die for. The flavor and texture of the black beans was perfection, something that many places often get wrong, making bland, mealy beans instead of the smooth and creamy and full of flavor beans Frontera makes.

Pork meatballs with braised kale and crispy onions

Simple yet perfect: black beans and rice

A pleasant surprise from our experience at Frontera was that Rick Bayless was making an appearance that day to sign copies of his new cookbook. So not only did we have a fabulous meal, but we got to meet a chef that I greatly admire. It was the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon in Chicago.

My husband and me with Rick Bayless

I still preferred the lunch I had a year ago at Xoco to the brunch I had last week at Frontera, but that is me being extremely nit-picky. Rick Bayless's food, no matter which restaurant you choose, is the perfect way to abolish any misconceptions you might have about what Mexican cuisine and flavors truly consist of.

A pair of Marcela Valladolid cookbooks: Fresh Mexico and Mexian Made Easy

Marcela Valladolid began her career in the public eye wanting to share with people the fresh, vibrant flavors of her native Mexico. Tired of people thinking that Mexican food consisted merely of tacos, burritos, and fajitas, and frustrated with the misconception Mexican food is anything with tortillas drowned in bright yellow cheese,  Marcela has set out to show Americans what fresh Mexican food really looks and tastes like.

In Fresh Mexico, Marcela takes much inspiration from her home region of Baja, with a large number of fresh seafood dishes adorning its vibrant pages. Though the book is not exclusively seafood, you can definitely tell that the salty sea of Baja was her main inspiration for many of its dishes.

Mexican Made Easy has a wider range of regional/fusion dishes but maintains the mantra of using fresh, authentic ingredients. At the same time, she understands that not everyone is going to be able to find authentic Mexican ingredients at their local market and often gives equivalent substitutions (sour cream for Mexican crema for instance).

Both of these books are visually stunning with bright, vivid color schemes and equally bright and vibrant photographs of a large number of the recipes inlcuded. As you flip through the pages, you are hungry from the moment you open the book until long after you close it. The saying "you eat with your eyes first" was definitely on the minds of the graphic designers and photographers of these books.

Something else I loved about both of these books was how personal all of these dishes were to Marcela, often using family and friends for inspiration and giving such heartfelt background to why and how the recipes were important to her. If she had a ghostwriter for these cookbooks (an issue recently brought to the attention of many New York Times readers with this controversial article by Julia Moskin) they were darn good at their job and translating Marcela's voice and heart onto these pages.

So far I have tried one dish from each of the books and one was so good that I made it for dinner two nights in a row. The other dish I tried was actually a beverage and a complete miss for me. However, one miss is not going to stop me from continuing to try  more dishes from both of these beautiful books.

The first dish I made was from Fresh Mexico and it was the Ancho, Pecan, and Honey-Glazed Chicken Drumettes. I used chicken thighs instead of legs because I had a ton of thighs in the freezer and wanted to use them up. Honestly, whatever part of the chicken you use makes no difference. This is the best barbeque chicken glaze I have ever had: homemade or bottled. It was so good that I went back and licked the dish I cooked it in. Very classy of me I know.

Ancho, Pecan, and Honey-Glazed Chicken
Adapted from Fresh Mexico by Marcela Valladolid

1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup chopped pecans
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon ground ancho chile (or regular chili powder will work in a pinch)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 & 1/2 pound chicken drumettes (or whatever kind of chicken you like)

1. Preheat the oven to 350.

2. Stir the honey, pecans, and butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat for 3 minutes or until the mixture bubbles.

Best barbeque sauce I've ever had. I made it 2 nights in a row!

3. Remove from heat and stir in vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, ancho chile, and garlic powder. Season the glaze to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Place chicken on a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Brush all over with glaze

5. Bake chicken for 25 minutes or until cooked through.

6. Be prepared to lick your fingers and any other dish or body part still containing this mouthwatering glaze when there is no longer any chicken left on your plate.




The beverage I tried was from Mexican Made Easy and it was Oatmeal Horchata. Normally I love regular horchata which is a very refreshing Mexican rice drink. I've made it and posted about it here on my blog. Oatmeal horchata just didn't do it for me. It tasted like wallpaper paste. But maybe someone else other than me will like the flavor of it (If you like almond milk, which I do not, it has a similar flavor).

Oatmeal Horchata
From Mexican Made Easy by Marcela Valladolid

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick, broken into tiny pieces
4 cups cold water
Sugar or agave nectar
Ice cubes

1. In a large pitcher, soak the oats and cinnamon in the cold water for 30 minutes.

2. Blend the mixture (including the cinnamon) in a blender until smooth.

3. Strain and sweeten with sugar or agave to taste. Serve well chilled over ice.

 
If I managed to do either of these books justice and you're now hungry for fresh Mexican food, give these books a try.

Refreshing Summer Drink: Horchata

It's been quite a while since I've written anything food-related on my blog. The long winter coupled with a cold and rainy spring has left me incredibly uninspired in the kitchen. But a couple weeks ago, my husband and I went to a Mexican restaurant that we'd never been to before and I noticed something on the menu that I'd never seen at a Mexican restaurant: horchata. I had heard of this beverage before, and even seen it made by a few people on Food Network, but I had never had the inclination to make it myself. That is, until I tried it at Los Amigos in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

If you've never heard of horchata before, it is essentially rice pudding in beverage form. It sounds really strange and unappetizing, but it is nothing short of refreshing, and unusually thirst-quenching. Upon returning home from our trip to Los Amigos, I realized that one of the cookbooks in my collection had a recipe for horchata. So I made it on Thursday, and just finished off the pitcher as I am writing this blog post.

Horchata (from Jamie's America by Jamie Oliver)

3/4 cup long-grain rice
1 quart whole milk
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 or 2 cinnamon sticks

Boil the rice following the package instructions, then drain and run under cold water so it cools down quickly. Pop into the blender with the milk, ground cinnamon, and sugar. Blend until smooth, then taste and add more sugar until it's sweet enough for you.

Strain into a jug with a load of ice and discard the rice. Snap cinnamon sticks in half and place into pitcher with the horchata. Sprinkle over a little more ground cinnamon and serve.