Never Fail Flour Tortillas

Time marches on through August, my self-appointed "Southwestern" month of recipes and I feel I haven't given this delicous trove of recipe inspiration enough attention. I'll be doing my best to post this last week and a half of August and inundate my lovely readers with the best of the best from my hometown and its culture.

On to the post, eh?

Tortillas.

I never ever, ever, eeevvveeer buy flour tortillas. I would rather eat the box from the Chinese takeout joint than stuff one of those tasteless blobs of flour down my gullet.

I will buy corn tortillas, no problem. You can always give them a dip in the ol' hot oil hot tub and beat them back to life from their stale, dried out states. But not flour tortillas. There's no substitute for the real, handmade thing.

I should say upfront that I am not the greatest at making these. I don't pay attention or give due process to the rolling out stage and I tend to get really thick (though delicious) hunks of tortilla tasting bread-stuff that crack in half if you try to fold them for taco-related purposes.

But I had a neighbor once who made the BEST tortillas I've ever eaten in my LIFE. And this is her recipe.

Never Fail Tortillas

2 - cups all purpose flour
1 - teaspoon baking powder
1/2 - teaspoon salt
5 - tablespoons vegetable shortening or lard
3/4 - cup hot water

In a large bowl add the flour, salt, baking powder and shortening. Cut in the shortening until the mixture constitutes marble-sized pieces. Add hot water and mix using your hands or a wooden spoon until the dough starts to form. Knead on a floured surface for 5 - 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Form dough into a ball. Place the dough into a covered bowl and let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

Pinch 12 equal sized balls (golf ball sized)  and heat your skillet (or comal) to medium, medium high. Roll out the individual balls into flat discs. Place on skillet. Cook until bubbly...flip and repeat.

Roasted Green Chile and Avocado Guacamole

My mama came to town to deliver my prized Boy Wonder after a long summer in Florida. Lucky kid to to swing by El Paso in the middle of chile season and my folks were kind enough to send up POUNDS of green chiles, fresh of the roaster.

It's a smell that's hard to describe if you've never experienced it yourself. Part spicy, part earthy. But all delicious. Last summer I lugged my own chiles all the way back from the Southwest and deposted them directly into my freezer. Epic fail. Tragic error!

When I got around to needing them, they were massively lumped and froze together and nothing short of a chainsaw could break away a chunk the right size for my use. And when they did thaw, well, I'd neglected to de-skin them or prep them in any way for their long freezer nap. Mushy, destroyed chiles that really nearly brought me to tears.

This year, however, I spent the two hours and de-seeded, de-crowned, and de-skinned the little beauties. For bonus points, I even separated them into small snack-sized portions and froze those individually. I can be taught!

The great chile migration has quite made it to Anchorage yet, but it should be here in the next few weeks. Last year at the local Fred Meyer's, they sold for about $2.49 a pound. Much cheaper than the $900 flight down to New Mexico! I posted a quick tutorial on how to roast and prep the little beauties here, in case you missed it.Or forgot. Or just felt like browsing through my archives.)

So when my friend Stacey (an Arizonian who also appreciates a good chile) told me about her own green chile salsa recipe, I was on a mission to find something equally delicious and easy. My tortilla chips were crying out for something other than La Mex salsa (though, don't get me wrong...we LOVE La Mex salsa in this house!!)

Ingredients can vary, along with your heat level (more jalapeno, more heat, naturally). My double-score bonus was that, not only did I get my first born AND green chiles in one trip, she also brought up roasted jalapenos courtesy of my quick-thinking Dad. Thanks, Gary! I'm subbing roasted jalapeno for the "heat" pepper in this, but you can dice a serrano, jalapeno, or habanero depending on your preference.

Roasted Green Chile and Avocado Guacamole

2-4 roasted green chiles, seeded and chopped
3 large avocados, peeled and ready for mushing
1/2 white onion
1 roasted jalapeno, seeded and chopped finely
2 T lemon juice
1/2 cup cilantro
1 tsp. salt

Combine all ingredients in bowl. I prefer to use a potato masher over a food processor, but that's only because I am lazy. And I really don't remember how to put the damn thing back together (I always have an extra piece and it just worries me.) Feel free to use yours if you studied your manual!

Serve with lots of chips. Or pie. Hell, it's your guacamole. Serve it with spaghetti if the mood strikes!

Happy eating!

Chile Colorado con Puerco

Whenever I return to El Paso at the end of the summer, I always  load up on green chiles. To the point of insanity when it comes to getting those bad boys home on the 12 hour flight back to Alaska. But they are so worth it. Know what else is worth it? Learning what to do with those readily available bags of dried RED chiles you find in the Mexican food section of any local grocery store.

I recently pulled out a pretty large bag I'd kept in the freezer and found myself inspired to whip up a batch of that earthy, impossible to resist red sauce (chile colorado). Amazingly easy and very impressive to friends who appreciate good Mexican food.

The red sauce is easy enough, and we can start there.

Chile Colorado (Red Chile Sauce)

• 5 Dried Red Chiles or 5 Tablespoons Pulverized Red Chiles
• 2 Cups of Hot Water

Remove the stems and seeds from the chiles and crumble them into a medium sized bowl. Add 2 cups of hot, hot, hot water. Cover. I like to leave it at least a couple hours, preferably overnight if you can,. When you're ready, put the chiles and the soaking water in a blender and add one half to one tablespoons of salt (to taste), a bit of chile powder, some cumin and dried oregano, I also add a few shakes of garlic powder for good measure. You never know when those pesky vampires will show up.

Go ahead and blend (in a real, live blender) until it's smooth. You've got yourself some chile colorado, amigo!

With this sauce, we like to make tacos with  diced pork (rump roast.)

Tacos with Chile Colorado con Puerco 
(adapted from The Tex-Mex Cookbook by Robb Walsh)

Buy a decent sized pork rump roast (boneless) and dice it into small pieces. Marinate it with a cup or two of your red sauce for a few hours. When you're ready, add it to a hot skillet sprinkled with vegetable oil.

Add to it:

• a diced onion
• 3 minced garlic cloves
• salt
• ground pepper
• 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano

Add more red sauce as you cook if you need it, water if it gets too thick.

Take the time to fry corn tortillas in a bit of oil until hard and crispy (and golden and delicious and freakin' AWESOME) and you have pork tacos with Chile Colorado. If the taco part isn't your thing, Chile Colorado is often served as is, with a side of rice and beans. Perfecto!

You can also use your red sauce on huevos rancheros or with enchiladas. Or anything you have a mind to use it on, really...it's your sauce, afterall. :)

Opportunity Alert: NM Green Chiles spotted in Anchorage produce aisles

Hailing from the Southwest, September has very special meaning for me.

The temperatures slowly begin to migrate toward the balmy side of life, usually after an incredibly hot “100+ for 30 days straight” type of summer. Fairs and Carnivals come out of hiding and begin popping up everywhere. Kids get ready to go back to school. It’s Fall.

September also evokes images of chile fields in Southern New Mexico. Fields upon fields of red and greens, celebrated in festivals, smoked and boiled into salsas. The heady, earthy smell of roasting chiles in those large rotating drums outside the neighborhood grocery stores, packed and ready to take home within minutes.

I stocked up on fresh, canned, dried, and roasted green and chiles while I was visiting El Paso this summer, and to my surprise, Hatch (NM) Green Chiles have made it to Anchorage grocery stores last week, running about $1.99 at Fred Meyer’s and a steal at Carr’s for $1.49. (Though I could have spared myself the OUTRAGEOUS baggage fees, I got the chance to meet two chile farmers at a Saturday market in New Mexico in August. Priceless.)

For folks not familiar with them, they can be a bit intimidating, but once you get the hang of roasting (easily done on your grill) and sweating the skins off (any ol’ Ziploc quart bag will do), you’ll have a bounty that can last through the dreariest of Alaskan winters.

Chile peppers have been part of the human diet since at least 7500 BC and its rumored that ol’ Chris Columbus was one of the first Europeans to encounter them. The reds are high in Vitamin C and carotene, and the greens (essentially an unripened red) have a little less. You can buy dried pods of red chile peppers anywhere and with a little soaking, garlic, salt and pepper, you have yourself the basis for many tantalizing Mexican and Tex-Mex dishes (like chile Colorado or adobado. Yum!)

If you happen to take a chance with the greens at the local produce section, stock up. You don’t see them again until next September, and the fresh far outshine the canned variety (which are also delicious and serve their purpose, don’t get me wrong.)

At home, take your fresh chiles and pop them on the grill, usually medium heat. Keep rotating them until they start to blacken uniformly. Once done, bring them in, cool slightly, and lock them away in a quart-sized Ziploc bag to sweat it out. In about ten minutes, the charred skins will be easy to remove. At this point, clean the chiles, chop the stems and de-seed. Presto. Fresh green chile, ready to freeze or top your next cheese burger with.

Green chiles and the red pods you buy (New Mexico varietals) are not hot. They do not burn like habanero or jalapeno, though some do have a stronger kick than others.

Some other ideas I’ve come up with for using your green chiles:

• Top fried eggs with sharp cheddar cheese and sliced green chiles, served with English muffins (happened to be our Sunday morning breakfast at the Blackbird nest)
• Pork and green chile stew (recipes abound for Chile Verde, and can we say, Holy Comforting Winter Food, Batman!)
• Top cube steaks with Monterrey Jack cheese and chopped green chiles
• Chilaquiles: Tortilla chips soaked in green chile and sauce and topped with cheese served with scrambled eggs
• Enchiladas verdes (my version to follow)
• Salsa Verde (made with green chile and tomatillos YUM!)
• Diced, added to homemade mac and cheese (tomatoes, too)

So, please…PLEASE do not miss the unique opportunity to put a little Southwest flair on your Last Frontier table. The risk of trying a new flavor will be worth the rewards, and I’m certain you’ll be a chile fan just like me. And about a million other folks out there who swear by this New Mexican staple.

Happy eating!

Megan’s Unofficial, Non-Authentic Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas

Note: I am not classically trained in Mexican cuisine (hell, I’m not classically trained in anything, really) but I do love this dish, and when I moved to Alaska, I had to impress my husband somehow and create this dish from memory. I don’t have official measurements because I usually just use what I have on hand. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Ingredients:

3 or 4 chicken breasts, boiled, salted and shredded

Green chiles (I use a mix of 1 small can of the Hatch Greens available in the Mexican Food Aisle and about a cup or so of the fresh I have on hand, defrosted)

Cheese (About two or three cups of Jack, Cheddar, Mexican blend or a combo of all three)

Green Enchilada Sauce (one large can. And yes, I’m cheating here. No, I don’t care what you think about that!)

Corn tortillas (I use about a dozen for each batch)

Vegetable oil

Directions:

Preheat to 350 degrees. Have your chicken boiled and shredded. In a large mixing bowl combine your chicken with chile, enchilada sauce and cheese. (Wow, that was easy.)

In a medium frying pan, heat about a half inch of oil on medium high heat (I usually put the knob halfway between medium to medium-high—too hot and your tortillas won’t be pliable.)

Heat tortillas individually for about 10-20 seconds each side and reserve them on a plate. When you’re finished, carefully fill each individual tortilla with a heaping spoon of the filling, wrap closed and place seam-side down in a large 9X13 baking dish. Repeat until all tortillas are finished. Top enchiladas with extra green sauce and cheese. Bake about 30 minutes, until cheese is golden and bubbly on top.

Easy, right? Give it try and let me know how it turns out.