It’s been a very strange week. A very, very, very strange week, to be honest. I’ve been distracted by world events, and by events a little closer to home. Of course, as usual, my solution to that has been to cook things to distract myself from my distractions. This has not been entirely successful (as evidenced by the smoking pile of burnt fried onions currently cooling in the kitchen trash bin).
Also, I’ve washed So. Many. Dishes.
Fifty years from now, when I’m but a wizened memory of a smartphone photograph stored on a memory card no one knows how to access, people are still going to talk about the 2020-2022 whateverthisis in terms of dishes. Dishes and eggs. So. Very. Many. Eggs.
Anyway, with the stress of a very very very very strange week and a very very very strange world pressing down on me, I went for comfort food. Not meatloaf and mash, but my very own version of comfort food. I could call it Friday Night Flavor. See, if you’re a regular reader, you’ve already heard this, but if you’re not – here’s the story.
My dad grew up in the desert of southern Arizona. When he moved east to go to school, he sought out the foods he was familiar with from his youth – something that wasn’t that difficult in Chicago or even Boston. It was somewhat harder in Cincinnati or in a small town 30 minutes outside of Columbus. The end result, my Scottish-Canadian-Cleveland-raised mom learned to cook Sonoran style Mexican food and every Friday night we had a big mexican meal.
I’ve done a few different Mexican and Mexican inspired menus and items in the past – some more authentic and traditional than others. This isn’t one – in that these aren’t the dishes of my father’s childhood, and really are only held close to that tradition by a thread of common flavors. I wanted that flavor, that familiar feeling of a Friday night, but without making all the those things I would have those nights so long ago. This is what I came up with. It’s not Friday night. It’s not mom’s cooking, and it’s not the mad dash from practice to the table to movies of football games. It is a comfortable end to a very very, very very very, very strange week.
Charred Corn, Shrimp and Avocado Salad
This salad … or maybe it’s a salsa … is sort of a refugee from the ‘90s. I say refugee because it, unlike some other food trends from that era, deserves to be rescued. Look, it’s in an avocado shell! It’s fun fancy easy.
When I decided to make these this week, I have visions of a really sophisticated plating. Then I realized I was piling what amounts to 5/7ths of a seven layer dip into an avocado and sort of shrugged and gave up. Stick these in a pile of chips, whip up a batch of margaritas, and everyone at your table can have their own happy hour.
Or not. That’s up to you.
2 ripe, but firm, whole avocados
8 large raw shrimp
2 large tomatoes
1 cup sweet corn kernels
2 medium jalapeno peppers
1 tsp minced cilantro
2 tbsp minced red onion
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp olive oil
½ tsp ground cumin
juice of two limes
Peel, devein, and remove the tails from the shrimp.
Add the shrimp to a heat proof bowl, and cover with water just off the boil.
Allow them to poach in hot water until firm and pink.
Remove from the hot water, pat dry, and cut into ¼ inch pieces, and chill.
If using canned corn, drain the kernels well.
Prepare a dry pan over high heat.
Add the corn kernels in one layer (working in batches if necessary) and cook undisturbed until one side is well charred.
Remove from the heat, allow to cool completely, and refrigerate in a covered container until chilled.
Trim, seed, and finely dice the jalapenos.
Trim, seed, and cut the tomatoes into ¼ inch dice.
Combine the lime juice, cumin, oil, and salt in a large non-reactive bowl.
Add the tomato, onion, cilantro, corn kernels and shrimp, and toss well to coat/combine.
Carefully half the avocados and remove the seeds.
Scoop the flesh out of the avocado halves, and cut into ¼ inch dice.
Carefully fold the avocado pieces into the remaining ingredients.
To serve, mound into the spent avocado shells and garnish with cilantro leaves.
Smoked NY Strip with Maple Chipotle Butter
It might seem strange to smoke a steak, but it’s got a couple of advantages over some other methods: it’s smokey and you don’t really have to pay close attention. Because of the long slow cooking it also allows you to use less expensive grades of meat. Don’t get me wrong, the “long slow” in the case of a brace of strip steaks is more on the order of 30-40 minutes than the hours and hours of other smoked meats – but it’s not that kissed-by-the-searing-fire-of-mordor or more likely your backyard grill that you’re accustomed to.
Smoke ‘em, slap a pat of soft, flavorful chipotle spiked matre’d butter, let it melt a bit, and you’ve got a smokey, spicy, tasty bit of meat for your meal. It’s … well, sort of cavemanish and shockingly satisfying.
4 14-16 oz New York Strip steaks
3 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
½ tsp chipotle pepper powder
½ tsp ground cumin
Combine salt, pepper, chili powder and cumin in bowl, and mix using a fork or small whisk.
Season the steaks son both sides with the spice mixture.
Smoke over hardwood at low temperature (185° F) until the internal temperature of the steak reaches your preferred doneness:
Rare 120°F
Medium Rare 125°F
Medium 135°F
Medium Well 145°F
Burnt 20,000°F
Remove from the smoker and hold at temp until ready to serve.
Slice, and top with Maple Chipotle Butter
Maple Chipotle Butter
8 tbsp softened unsalted butter
2 tsp chipotle chili powder
1 tsp maple syrup
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp tomato paste
1 tsp crushed or microplaned garlic
Combine all ingredients and use a silicone spatula to mix until fluffy and homogenous.
Turn out onto a sheet of plastic wrap, and roll into a log, twisting the ends to seal and help shape the butter.
Refrigerate until needed.
To serve, cut into ¼ inch thick rounds and use to top steaks or other grilled or roasted meat.
Green Rice
This green rice isn’t made green with food coloring or with that green bamboo rice – though you could try it – but instead is cooked like a risotto and tinted green by a last-minute addition of herbs and green chilis. It’s the slightly more sophisticated, a lot more spoon friendly version of the green rice you might find in your burrito or burrito bowl. While in this week’s menu, I’m serving it as a side, you could make it the base of a more completely plate – topping it with shrimp, sliced roasted meat, or a pile of sauteed vegetables. I mean, really it’s still a side in those cases – but maybe being underneath them … yeah, it’s not a side anymore.
You can use almost any starchy short grain rice to make this dish. I most frequently use sushi rice – unrinsed- because that’s what I’ve got around the house. I’ve also made it with real arborio rice. The results are slightly creamier, but you don’t really need to go to that extreme.
2 cups short grained rice such as sushi rice or arborio
7 cups chicken stock
½ cup lose cilantro leaves and stems
2 medium jalapeno peppers
1 green onion
1 clove garlic
1 ½ tsp kosher salt
½ tsp ground cumin
4 tbsp butter
Peel, trim, and mince or microplane the garlic.
Remove the stem and seeds from the jalapenos.
Trim the green onion, discarding the root end and any dried or discolored greens.
Add 6 cups of the chicken stock to a pan and bring to a low simmer.
Add 1 tbsp of the butter to another pan over medium low heat.
Once the butter is melted and has stopped foaming, add the rice.
Stir to coat well with the butter and cook - stirring constantly - until the rice is no longer translucent, but instead is an opaque white.
Add the garlic, salt, and cumin and cook for 1 minute.
Add 1 cup of the hot chicken stock, and cook over low heat stirring constantly, until the stock is fully absorbed.
Repeat with the remaining 4 cups of hot stock, stirring until fully absorbed each time.
Lower the temperature to low.
Add the remaining 1 cup of chicken stock, the green onion, the cilantro, and the seeded and chopped pepper to the container of a high-speed blender.
Process until smooth.
Add the green mixture to the rice and stir well.
Serve hot, topped with sliced jalapeno and cilantro leaves as garnish.
Churros with Chili Spiked Chocolate Sauce
You know, given the amount of time I spent in Tucson – where my dad grew up – and in California, you’d think I had some great story about churros. I don’t. I don’t remember encountering them as a kid, and the first memory I have of them from my time in California is a perhaps well lubricated apres-ski foraging expedition that involved a snow-bound gas station somewhere near Donner Pass. They were only a part of a wide ranging and not particularly well curated collection of snacks that made it back to the truck (I assure you, someone else was driving.)
The thing is, I wish I had known them as a kid because Churros are fabulous. Like pretty much the very best form of fried dough. And trust me, that’s saying a lot. I am a connoisseur of fried dough products of all sorts. Spongey and yeasty and wheaty? Fry that stuff up, coat it or fill it with sugar and I’m like a bear rolling in … well donut crumbs.
These churros are simple to make, and use a dough that’s very similar to Choux pastry – though with a lot less egg. They yield crisp sticks of fried dough with an almost creamy middle – and are a fabulous vehicle for delivering endless delicious showers of cinnamon sugar to your mouth. Also your shirt, lap, probably some other parts of you where you didn’t intend to get cinnamon sugar.
2 cups whole milk
2 cups AP flour
4 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp granulated sugar
pinch of salt
oil for frying
Cut the butter into small cubes.
Add the milk, sugar, and butter to a thick bottomed pan over medium heat.
Bring the mixture to a low simmer.
As soon as the butter is melted, add the flour to the simmering mixture.
Continue cooking and stir/beat vigorously, with a wooden spoon, until the mixture forms a shiny ball and pulls away from the pan.
Allow the mixture to cool until still warm, but cool enough to handle.
Lightly beat the egg, and beat into the dough mixtures until smooth.
Set up your fryer or Dutch oven, and bring the oil to 350°F.
Transfer the dough to a piping bag fitted with a large star tip.
Working in batches, pipe 6-8 inch long strips into the oil and fry, turning as needed, until they’re crisp and browned.
Remove from the oil, allow to drain, then roll/toss in cinnamon sugar to coat well.
Serve warm with chili spiked chocolate sauce (below).
Cinnamon Sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
Combine ingredients and mix with a whisk.
Chili Spiked Chocolate Sauce
1 cup chopped dark chocolate
½ cup heavy cream
¼ tsp chipotle powder
Warm the cream in the microwave.
Add the chocolate and chipotle powder to the cream and whisk until fully melted and smooth.
Serve warm.