Although Matt and I certainly don’t need an excuse to make a Mexican-themed meal, the fact that yesterday was Cinco de Mayo inspired us to choose two new recipes from our Mexican Everyday cookbook. Mexican Everyday was written by Rick Bayless (the chef behind Frontera Foods) and I love that Rick included a whole intro section that describes the use and preparation of various Mexican ingredients including chipotles en adobo, jicama, tomatillos, and queso fresco (all ingredients that I had never worked with before buying this book!).
For our Cinco de Mayo feast we snacked on chips and Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa as we prepared dinner and then enjoyed Smoky Pork Tinga Tacos with Avocado and Quesco Fresco as our main dish. We also shook up a batch of delicious Margaritas on the Rocks using lime juice, tequila, triple sec, and simple syrup. This post will cover our salsa… more on the tacos coming up next! 🙂
Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa (from Mexican Everyday)
You will need…
2 Jalapeño Peppers
3 cloves Garlic, unpeeled
1 – 15oz. can Fire-Roasted Diced Tomatoes, undrained
1/3 cup While Onion, finely chopped, rinsed, and drained
1/3 cup loosely packed Cilantro, chopped
1 teaspoon Fresh Lime Juice
Salt, to taste
Directions:
Place the jalapeño peppers on a grill over direct medium-high heat. Allow the peppers to roast for approximately 10 minutes, turning occasionally, until the skin becomes dark and splotchy in spots. At the same time, heat a small skillet over medium heat and lay the unpeeled garlic cloves in the skillet. Allow the garlic to roast for approximately 15 minutes until dark and splotchy in spots.
Dry-roast the Jalapeños until the skin becomes blotchy and blackened.
Pull the stems out of the roasted peppers and remove the garlic cloves from their skin. Place the roasted ingredients in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add the tomatoes with their juice and pulse a few more times until the mixture reaches your desired consistency. Pour the tomato mixture into a medium bowl. Add the onion and cilantro and mix well. Taste and season with lime juice and salt. Enjoy with corn tortilla chips and a nice cold margarita. 🙂
The Little GSP 
Excellent! Rick Bayless is the man! I love his restaurants Frontera Grill and Topolobampo.
And, coincidentally, I just did Chicken Tinga tacos/tostadas for friends on, umm, Seises de Mayo, so we will have complimentary posts coming up! I’m looking forward to seeing how you did yours.
That’s cool that you actually get to go to Rick’s restaurants! Someday when we’re in Chicago we’ll have to go to one.
That’s a funny coincidence about the Tinga tacos. I pretty much just followed the exact recipe since it was my first time making them (Matt says that I shouldn’t start improvising with a recipe until I know what it’s supposed to taste like if made according to the instructions… sometimes I improvise anyway though). I’ll be interested to see your take on chicken tinga tacos. 🙂
If you haven’t seen this site that I discovered last week, I think you might like it too:
http://www.remixto.com/
That’s where I found the recipe I started with:
http://www.remixto.com/recipes/chicken-tinga/
There’s also a video linked at the bottom all about masa, and tortillas, and Chicken Tinga variations.
Re: innovation, in cooking or elsewhere, one can be a practitioner or an innovator (a.k.a., researcher); both are noble and they’re not mutually exclusive, but the former has the goal to well practiced at a skill that you do expertly, time after time. The latter has the goal to do something novel… time after time. In practice, something not done well is a failure. In research, something that isn’t novel is a failure. Since my goal is not to cook professionally, I lean lightly toward innovation, but I’ll admit I spend plenty of time being able to reproduce things that I love, especially if I’m serving it to guests since it’s a pleasure to at least meet their expectations. 🙂
I guess this is a better link to that site’s recipes:
http://www.remixto.com/cook/
Thanks! I just skimmed through remixto very quickly (trying to do a garden update tonight and it’s already after 8!) and it looks intriguing. I’ll have to spend some more time checking out the recipes tomorrow!
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