kirinraj's Profile
Pasteles and Tamales--the difference??
Pasteles are puerto rican "tamales" made with a masa of green banana (NOT plantain) and root vegetables. The filling is generally a pork picadillo. They're delicious!
Tamales are much more varied and usually use masa de maiz, but I've seen them with masa de yuca o platano.
Oaxaca City recommendations needed
Here's what you're gonna do. Get in a collectivo on a Thursday. Go to Zaachila. At the right side of the market (facing there from the cathedral). Eat at one of the empanada stands (they are large corn tortillas doubled over a filling of flor de calabaza, tinga, amarillo, verde, or champinones). Gorge yourself on empanadas and memelitas. Now go to Nieves Siboney in the middle of the market. Get a cup of leche quemada con tuna. Enjoy :D
And in Oaxaca City (alla en la ciudad hay mucha gente mala jaja) be sure to go to the Mercado 20 de Noviembre. There are a lot of food stalls with cheap and delicious eats.
And remember, Oaxaca isn't just mole. There is so much more. You just gotta go out and explore
Your favorite origin story of a dish? My example: Cantonese dry fried beef chow fun and E-fu noodles
it looks to me like the guy was speaking pidgin, not english
Olive Oil Name Your Favourite
I use Bom Dia brand olive oil from Portuga. You can find it at Portuguese grocieries
What foods have you introduced your parents to?
real Mexican (all kinds), Lao, Indonesian, Sichuan, all kinds of Latin American, and a lot of other stuff i'm forgetting
My family is Indian, Filipino, and Puerto Rican so all these flavors were familiar and not hard for them to get used to.
Yucatecan Mondongo / Yucatan city pizza update
I ate there a couple months ago. The food is still great as always. Try the Chilmole
Mexican Food - wheat vs corn tortillas
Blanditas are great. In oaxaca (the sierra near zaachila at least) they're eaten with almost every meal. People make the nixtamal fresh and grind it at a molino almost every morning. They use giant tortilla presses to make the tortillas. Its one of the things that i miss most. They also ate clayudas as accompaniments to meals
Dipping and Dunking: Making Comfort Food More Comforting
pan y chocolate- Bread and oaxacan chocolate
Pictures From Chowland!
I'm not actually in Oaxaca right now. I returned a couple weeks ago. I didn't really buy any chapulines, but if you ask the little old chapulines ladies for a sample they'll let you. Not sure how I feel about them...they're a little bit tart.
Here's some more pictures:
1.
Pictures From Chowland!
oaxaca pics
1. cooking amaranth with people in santa ines (im the dude sitting down)
2. me and a couple other people peeling cacao in santa ines
3. eating elotes at the zaachila guelaguetza
4. empanada de verde in zaachila
Oaxacan village food?
yeah, sometimes for comida, all there would be was arroz entomatado and queso fresco.
Oaxacan village food?
-MEZCAL! its popularity knows no bounds in oaxaca
-chocoleatole: sweetened plain corn atole with a delicious foam on top made from pinolillo and water. The pinolillo has cacao, cacao blanco, flor de cacao, and some other stuff to make the foam stand.
-sopa de calabacitas: diced calabazas in a broth of cumin, onion, tomato, cilantro and garlic. One time, it was flavored with some dill-looking herb. I have no idea what it was, but it was great. One of my favorite meals.
Oaxacan village food?
Regional specialties:
-Pollo Enchilado: Chicken, cut into large pieces and marinated with a paste of chiles guajillos, black pepper, roasted onion and garlic, and cumin. The chicken pieces are wrapped in avocado leaves and then steamed in a large pot over the wood fire. It's set on a rack, over a caldo bubbling with diced carrots, potatoes, and ejotes (along with more chile paste). This is served like a soup on the side. It's eaten with an avocado salsa, tortillas, lime wedges and thin, avocado leaf scented black bean paste. Can also be made with pork
-Barbacoa de chivo: Same seasoning as pollo enchilado, but baked in an underground pit, surrounded by maguey and avocado leaves. The caldo additionally includes chickpeas and chopped goat organs.
The preceding two are made at almost all clausura (end of school) parties and some bday parties
-Sopa de calabacita con guías: This is a great soup. Calabacitas chopped into large chunks, guias (squash vine ends), chipilin (a local herb), elotes are cooked together with some other ingredients. It's slightly thickened by "masa de elote", fresh corn ground on a metate and added back into the soup. It's served with roasted chile de agua or chile canario and lime wedges
-Mole de metate: This is the town's mole. It's not the as complex as other moles, but its still rich and satisfying. It's brown colored. From what I've asked people, its made with bread, tortillas, chiles secos, almonds, cloves, chocolate and some other ingredients. This is THE town fiesta dish. Its also made for birthday parties and when family from out of town visits.
-Frijoles con patitas: Black beans cooked with pig feet. The feet are cooked to a perfect "unctuous" (though I hate that word) texture.
-Empanadas de frijol y queso: Large tortillas blandas folded over and filled with black bean paste, epazote, and quesillo. They also make it with crumbled queso del rancho.
-Frijoles blancos con camarones secos: I had actually cooked this before from Susana Trillings book, but It's made a little differently. White beans, cilantro, tomatoes, onions, and dried shrimp. Its seafoody and delicious.
-Caldo de cangrejo y camaron: Small, almost meatless river crabs (from a small river at the base of the mountain) and dried shrimp in a chile-tomato broth. Its pretty good, as long as you dont try to eat the crabs. They're just for flavor.
-Carne en salsa: Strips of tasajo (salted beef) in a thickened mole amarillo-esque sauce with sliced potatoes.
-Carne Asada: This was one of my absolute favorite meals. Its usually eaten on thursdays, after they go to zaachila to buy groceries (no fresh meat is sold in Santa Ines). The tasajo is grilled directly on the wood fire (at my host-cuñado's house it was done in a broken wheelbarrow), along with cebollitas and chile de agua. The cebollitas and chile de agua are peeled, dowsed with lime juice, and served with the meat. Grilled chorizo (in links) is often there as well. Its eaten with clayudas most times.
-CHILES CON QUESO-
chiles poblanos, cut into lengthwise strips (lots)
onion, thinly sliced
queso del ranco or queso fresco, loosely crumbled
epazote (a couple ramitas)
poquito de leche
sal al gusto
Fry chiles in oil until they become cooked. Then add the cebolla and epazote until onion is soft. Put in queso, and a tiny bit of milt, and stir until the cheese melts. Really good eaten with tortillas, and a soup (fideo or papita) on the side.
-Mole Amarillo: oxtail or chicken in a chile/tomato/onion/garlic/miltomate sauce thickened with masa and flavored with hoja santa.
-Memelitas (at the telesecundaria): Oval tortillas with pinched up edges cooked on a comal. Covered with asiento, bean paste, quesillo, and a wonderful spicy green cilantro chutney-tasting salsa.
-Atole de Maize Tostado: Atole made with ground, toasted corn. Sweetened.
Notes about the food:
-A lot of the times, they dont bother with making a salsa. They roast chiles, peel them, and cut them into strips instead. Sometimes they add lime juice.
-They love salsa valentina
-I didn't find a lot of pork here...when people can afford it, its usually beef, chicken, or chorizo
-Out of all of the sodas there are here (big soda drinkers in this town), the only good ones are Gugar Piña soda and the coke in a glass bottle
-Aguas frescas are pretty bomb when they make them from scratch (not powder). I was served the flavors of pineapple, mango, guava, and tuna verde at different points.
That's all I got for now. If I remember anything else, I'll add another post
Pic 1- Tortillas being cooked
2- Pollo Enchilado at a clausura party
3-Sopa de calabacita con guias
4-shelling cacao
Farmers Market Street Food
Alemany Farmers market:
El Huarache Loco: DF style street food (huaraches, tlacoyos, gorditas etc)
Sabores del Sur: Chilean empanadas and alfajores
there's also a very good pupusa stand
Oaxacan village food?
Well, I'm back. I've been putting off writing all of this for a few weeks, but I had such a great experience.
I lived in a town called Santa Ines del Monte, in the mountains about an hour west from Zaachila. Its pretty small, about 1200 people split up between 4 or 5 communities spread out over the mountain. Its a pretty typical rural mexican town. No "real" jobs, but most people work in their milpa (for consumption), harvest duraznos and cut leña to sell in zaachila. It's pretty poor, but the people are so generous with everything. Many emigrate to work in the US, because it's the only way to make enough money for a house.
The day begins with "cafe" which can be anything from chocolate, to coffee, to atole. It's confusing, because you arent sure when you're getting crappy Nescafe or something good. But most often, its chocolate. Almost everyone makes their own special chocolate blend. It usually has a mixture of toasted peeled cacao, sugar, almonds, and canela. The people with bigger families put more sugar. It was always delicious. With it, there comes bread. Pan amarillo (a nonsweet round bread with ajonjoli on top), Pan de Yema, tostadas (rusks) and different kinds of pan dulce. All of it is well made (by bakers in Zaachila) and delicous. Its so much better than in the US.
The women here still make their masa out of homegrown maize almost every morning. The corn molinos are located at different spots in town. They make big (like 12 inch diameter) tortillas blanditas on huge clay comales over a woodburning stove. They are so good when freshly made...slightly crispy on the outside, but still soft and pliable. When they dont have masa, people eat clayudas, which are (equally as huge) chewy and kind of hard tortillas. But they are still good. They are an accompaniment to food, as a pose to the tlayudas in Oaxaca. The blue corn kind is the best
What people eat every day is often very simple, but hearty and delicious. These are eaten for either almuerzo (breakfast #2) or comida:
-Frijoles de olla: Just plain old BLACK BEANS boiled with epazote, onion, and sometimes whole garlic cloves. These are grown nearby, and people are very proud of their quality. They also sometimes cook a type of lima-sized black/purple beans called frijolon with ejotes (green beans).
-Sopa de fideos: Again, something you could find in any mexican pueblo. Different small shapes of pasta (but most often vermicelli) cooked in a broth of water, tomato, onion, garlic, and parsley. Its eaten with tortillas, canned jalapenos en escabeche and queso del rancho (a crumbly tangy cheese) on the side.Its good, but you get tired of it after getting it 50 billion times.
-Sopa de papitas: the same as sopa de fideos, but with diced potatoes.
-Arroz: rice cooked with the requisite tomatoes, onion, parsely, and garlic. It's either dry (seco) or wet (caldoso). Comes with tortillas.
-Eggs: You get eggs at almost every meal. Fried sunny side up, into crispy "egg nuggets", or scrambled (sometimes with other ingredients like chiles). Its usually tasty enough, but sometimes too salty.
-CHILE CON HUEVO-
any color Chiles Canarios (aka manzanos), roughly chopped (a good amount)
chop some white onion
tomatoes, chopped medium (same amount as the chiles)
eggs
sal al gusto
Fry the chile in oil until cooked. Add the onion and tomato and fry until onion is cooked. Add the eggs and stir until all is well cooked.
-HUEVO CON CHILITO-
chiles serranos rojos, sliced in half
epazote, roughly chopped (a lot)
eggs, lightly beaten
sal al gusto
manteca or oil
Fry the chiles in oil until they begin to get soft over medium high. Add epazote, huevos, and sal. Cook until eggs are set, like scrambled eggs.
All right, I'm getting tired of writing for now. I'll fill you guys in about the regional specialties (the interesting part) tomorrow.
OBSESSED with chicken adobo
yep, my grandma's parents were from ilocos norte. i think it had to do with food preservation, because dryer, more vinegary foods keep longer
OBSESSED with chicken adobo
thats my preferred way of making adobo. i love the crispiness of the chicken, and the browned flavor (especially since i dont brown it beforehand). I dont find the saucey version as appealing. And a wet side dish(es) such as pinakbet takes care of the problem of it being too dry with rice.
Getting a feel for Mexico DF
this post is amazing. i must make it over to DF sometime.
Mendoza Taqueria, San Jose Report
I don't think so...the only thing similar that they have is the birria de chivo. You can order it "seco" which is just the meat, served with tortillas and salsa. But I have not seen barbacoa on the menu.
Any rustic "caveman tech" gadgets in your kitchen?
I love the thai granite mortar. its great for grinding spices, garlic and pastes. The pilon is also good, but i only use it for mofongo.
Any rustic "caveman tech" gadgets in your kitchen?
I have a big thai granite mortar and a puerto rican pilón de madera (to make mofongo!). i also have a small clay olla to make chocolate and cafe de olla if that qualifies (i dont know if that might be considered neolithic tech)
Mendoza Taqueria, San Jose Report
You can eat the smaller bones, which are nice and cruncy, but mostly you just pick the meat off the bones with your teeth. Its a bit messy, but worth every bit.
Mendoza Taqueria, San Jose Report
Bustling with large families, roving musicians, some dude selling cd's outside, and platters of great homestyle michoacano cooking, Mendoza Taqueria epitomizes what a good neigborhood Mexican restaurant should be. On my many visits here i have had the following items:
Enchiladas con Güilotes: corn tortillas dipped in a chile sauce and folded in half, served with finely shredded cabbage, a pickled jalapeño, fried potato rounds, a romaine lettuce leaf, avocado, and two whole fried quails, and topped with cotija cheese. This is one of my favorite things i've had here, and by the looks of it, one of the most popular with customers. The quail is tender with browned crispy skin. The combination of the soft, flavorful enchiladas, the crunchy vegetables, and the savory potatoes and quail make for a satisfying meal.
Birria de Chivo: Another one of the more popular dishes there, it is a steaming bowl of tender boneless goat in an herbal chile-flavored broth. It comes with homemade corn tortillas, lime, cilantro, and onions. The tortillas here are very good, soft and pillowy. The combination is pretty good overall. My only complaint is that the bowl is a little small.
Morisqueta: Pork ribs hacked into small cubes stewed in a tomato and chile sauce until and served over peruano beans and white rice. The stew is tangy, and not very piquant, but had a great flavor. The rice is just regular white rice (morisqueta means plain boiled rice in mexico). The combination of the layers of pork, beans, and rice was wonderful.
Uchepos: The popular fresh corn tamal from Michoacan. Here it is superb. The first time that i went here there was a big pickup unloading crates of field corn for the uchepos. Slighly sweet and tender, it goes well with the squeeze bottles of crema and salsa roja y verde on the table.
Huarache regular: a sandal shaped tortilla with the edges pinched up, topped with refried peruano beans, cotija cheese, onion, and cilantro, it is different from the central mexican style huaraches found in most other places. it is different, but just as good. there is also a meat option. The sope, which is a different shape is much the same
Gorditas: This is not on the printed menu, but on poster board on a wall at the back. The fillings include aporradilla (dried beef stew), chicharron, pollo, chorizo, and many others. I had the gordita con pollo and it was very satisfying. It is the same as most gorditas, with a fat corn tortilla split open and fried filled with chicken seasoned with chile.
Horchata: Homemade, not too starchy or sweet, and with specks of canela floating around, this was the best horchata that i've had for a while
At the table there is an assortment of salsas and condiments including salsa verde, salsa roja, salsa de aguacate, crema, salsa macha (dried chile ground with oil), oregano, onion, and cilantro to have with your meal. It is usually very crowded on saturdays and sundays. around 1 or 2 when families go out for their weekend comida
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Mendoza Taqueria
2100 Story Rd, San Jose, CA 95122
OBSESSED with chicken adobo
i dont think that shoyu was a japanese influence, because my family immigrated to hawaii in 1918 from ilocos norte, and their adobo recipecontains it (but only a small quantity). i think its an older chinese influence
Produce: What do you love that's easy to get where you live now?
I'm not sure about O'ahu, but on Kaua'i at local farmers markets you can get locally grown filipino eggplants, okra, long beans, apple bananas and other different types, many kinds of mangoes, guavas, jackfruit, pineapples, taro, sweet potatoes, liliko'i, chirimoya, and lots of other less common produce for a very cheap price.
OBSESSED with chicken adobo
Your recipe is authentic, because there are many styles of adobo. I always make it from my grandma's recipe (she is an ilokano born in hawaii):
1 good size free range (or other good quality) chicken, hacked into small pieces (16) with a cleaver
1/4 cup or to taste apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup or to taste shoyu
4 chopped garlic cloves
3 quarter-sized slices ginger, smashed
a few bay leaves
black pepper
A little water
1. Marinate the the chicken with the vinegar, shoyu, garlic, ginger, bay leaves, and black pepper in a medium pot for 1-2 hours.
2. BARELY cover with water and bring to a boil (this is important because you want the water to evaporate without overcooking the chicken)
3. Bring down to a medium-low, then partially cover and cook at a strong simmer until most of the liquid is gone and the chicken is cooked or almost cooked
4. Raise the heat to medium-high to quickly evaporate the rest of the water. Afterwards, let the chicken brown in its own fat until dark brown and crispy.
5. Enjoy with rice and pinakbet or an assortment of other ilokano/filipino dishes. The crispy bits left at the bottom of the pot are especially good.
need help cooking yuca
my advice is to just buy frozen yuca, like most latinos do in the US. Also, make sure to cook it thoroughly, making sure that a knife can easily pierce and slide out of it.
Question re Chile Rellenos
definitely poblano
char and peel them. make a slit. flour lightly and salt them
fill with quesillo de oaxaca (my favorite, becaus i can get real quesillo)
whip eggs to semi-stiff peaks and then carefully fold in whites
heat an inch of oil over medium-high until very hot
dip chiles into egg and put into oil. flip oil onto them to keep the shape.
fry until golden brown, drain, and serve on top of caldillo de tomate, which keeps it from tasting too greasy
What are the foods you grew up with?
My dad's indian and my mom's filipino (from hawaii) and puerto rican so i ate some interesting foods when i was little, unti i took over the cooking. these were some favorites:
Sambhar/rasam with vegetables and rice
chicken adobo and rice
"filipino meatballs"
puerto rican chicken stew with rice and tostones
I especially looked forward to when my indian grandma came to visit because she cooked great south indian food. but most of what i ate was mediocre food that my mom got from cooking magazines/cookbooks. which is why i cook for the family now ;) (until i go to college)
Mexican "fruit salad" stands?
i agree. lots of carts are on international ave. in fruitvale near the BART station.
