Content about Cuisine of the Western United States
June 24, 2011
A Chicago Backyard and Many Happy People
Mexican food is made for parties. The construction of tortillas, fillings, salsas, and toppings; the spicy, rich flavors; and above all, the fact that it tastes so darn good. This was our guiding principle on a recent Saturday when, with the help of a handful of talented friends, we threw a Baja Fish Taco party under warm string lights in a Chicago backyard.
We were celebrating one of the early recipes published on this blog for beer-...
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June 13, 2011
Nick finally takes a look back at the chili of his youth.
Cockaigne: an imaginary land of great luxury and ease.
—Merriam-Webster Dictionary
"Cockaigne was the name of the family home...Any time there's a recipe with this in the title, it means it's an old family favorite."
— 'Joy Of Cooking': 75 Years Young, CBS
When the words "imaginary land of great luxury" and "chili" collide, usually that means we're set for some...
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I don't really care for big burgers.
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one railing against the big burger tide. While nearly every new restaurant opening in Chicago features a big, fat burger on its menu, I’m that guy that prefers thin little griddled burgers. Usually I can only find them at old school joints, but even these are frequently harder to find these days. It’s getting to the point where I haven’t eaten a burger at a restaurant in months. I...
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January 26, 2011
Some pasilla chiles and avocado leaves make all the difference.
If you happened to stumble across the recipe for “Seasoned Black Beans” in Diana Kennedy’s Oaxaca al Gusto there wouldn’t be much to immediately keep you from turning the page. Dont get me wrong, it is housed in a beautiful book, it is just that besides the boring name and lack of picture, this is all Kennedy says in the headnote: “This fried bean paste is used for filling tamales, for tetelas, or to...
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September 1, 2010
2 weeks in Oaxaca
The Al Pastor was way better...
We travel to be surprised, right? While picking my favorite five dishes took some deliberation, coming up with five different foods or dishes that surprised me on a trip to Mexico should have taken me all of five minutes. But for some reason I wasn't expecting this. I have a vertiable library of Mexican cuisine in my condo courtesy of Rick Bayless, Diana Kennedy, and Susana Trilling, and have researched...
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August 25, 2010
These are the five things I can't stop thinking about
I went to Mexico to eat, and I handpicked the region of Oaxaca specifically because I figured I could eat there best. It’s a place where chiles, chocolate, and tomatoes have been growing for thousands of years, and where the holy trinity of corn, beans, and squash make up the local diet. Forget Italy, France, or Spain. Oaxaca is where my favorite food in the world comes from.
I spent two weeks walking its old colonial streets while...
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May 5, 2010
Smoked paprika transforms a Spanish garlic soup
In today's Dinner Tonight column (the post will be up later this afternoon) I walk through a very simple garlic soup recipe from Mario Batali's Spain: A Culinary Road Trip. It's the kind of a soup I adore, being nothing more than a few cloves of garlic, good chicken stock, and a few pieces of stale bread. The one wild card is hot pimentón, which is a Spanish smoked paprika.
I didn't have any on the shelf, and in my...
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September 22, 2009
We take a walk around the legendary market.
Nick and I arrived at the Maxwell Street Market to a line of colorful tents stretching out into the distance along Desplaines Street longer than we could see: men playing blues on the sidewalk, piles of tchotkes and used power tools, used DVDs, discount bras and panties, and endless stands full of tube socks. In fact, it wasn't immediately clear what we were doing there. If it weren't for the smell of cooking meat, we would have...
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August 31, 2009
This Mexican classic deserves a little love.
Around hour five, I became terribly exhausted from what felt like continuous marathon of chopping, sautéing, blending, grinding, broiling, stuffing, whisking, dipping, and frying. It was the most complex and curious chile relleno I'd ever laid eyes on and the flavor nearly bawled me over. Every bite revealed layers of flavor, from the salsa, pork stuffing, to the batter. Nothing was an afterthought. Though it doesn't exactly...
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June 9, 2009
How to make great beans in less time.
It seems that in the past few years there have been a few monumental revelations of the "everything you thought you knew about cooking was wrong" variety.
- Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy", Executive Director, eGullet Society
When the timer sounded, I was caught off guard. I reached for a kitchen towel, carefully folded it around the hot handles of my dutch oven, and transfered the hulking pot to the top of the...
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January 29, 2009
The best chili starts with the best chili powder.
That meant forgoing the blend I had in my spice rack and picking up a load of dried chilies from the local Mexican market. I needed to create my own blend, something that was completely unique to me, but where do I start? There honestly aren't that many recipes for chili powder out there. My only real resources were Homesick Texan (great site) and Alton Brown.
Thanks to the large Mexican population in...
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September 18, 2008
How to make the staple Mexican sausage.
The recipe comes from Diana Kennedy's "From My Mexican Kitchen". This particular version comes from the Michoacán region. She does give direction on how to stuff the mixture into casings, but I bailed out early. Some day.
As first sausage making experiences go, I'd have to say this was pretty remarkable. I got about 2 pounds of fresh sausage and spent about $12 dollars. ...
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November 17, 2007
Killer tacos and no-corn-syrup Mexican Coke
With the time change and a long flight ahead of us, we have to leave by 4pm just to arrive home in New York at midnight (Correction: arrive in Newark. I'm never doing that again). With a morning left and having had scarce time to explore Olympia itself, we asked Scott exactly what to do with the remaining hours. “Well, there’s this Mexican taco truck,” he said casually. And it was decided.
We...
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December 11, 2006
If that means eating 5 lunches in one day, so be it.
Honestly, there's a real need for these signs. When we were venturing around the mercado square in San Antonio, a land of slightly schlocky and catchpenny Mexican crafts, every third vendor warned against this practice, where gringo, giggling tourists pretended to experience Mexican culture by putting on outrageous hats and saying "Arriba, Arriba" like Speedy Gonzalez. How to avoid this tomfoolery?
With a...
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June 9, 2006
The best fried fish tacos we've ever had.
Our own version culled from a few different recipes, an emulation of the classic recipe of homemade tortillas, lightly fried tempura-style fish, a dairy-based white sauce, and fresh, crunchy, gently spicy cabbage.
Real Baja fish tacos are nothing like what you're used to eating when it comes to Mexican food. In fact, true Mexican cuisine might be our biggest missed chance. Satisfied by the (admittedly tasty) Tex-Mex-style...
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A chorizo-laden recipe deglazed with champagne
When’s the last time you went to a butcher or fish guy and ordered six pounds of anything? “Hey, I was wondering if you can give me six pounds of salmon.” “Sure thing, bub. That’ll be a hundred and eight dollars.” “Um, thanks.” With mussels, you can. They're like $2.50 a pound. Three of us devoured (and I mean devoured: mussels are a sensual, hands-on...
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All content copyright Nick Kindelsperger and Blake Royer.
