Carne de res con sol

One day I was flipping through my copy of Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico looking for inspiration, when I noticed the recipe for Carne de res con sol - ground beef with cabbage. After trying it out, I decided I would like it better by adding a little ground cumin and allspice to the recipe.

And so, with slight modification from Diana Kennedy, it goes...

Ingredients:
- 360 g (~ 13 oz) ground beef
- 2 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- ¹/₄ tsp allspice
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 2 tomatoes, diced
- 1 jalapeño (w/ seeds), diced finely
- 800-900 ml (~ 3.5 cups) cabbage, chopped finely^[1]
- fresh coriander, chopped
- oil
- ~ 1 dL (~ ¹/₂ cup) water
served in:
- hard taco shells

Crushed garlic, salt, black pepper, cumin and allspice was mixed into the ground beef (using the hands), which was then allowed to stand while chopping the other ingredients.

In a pan, the onion and chilli was cooked in a little oil for 1-2 minutes before adding the tomatoes. When most of the juices from the tomatoes were absorbed the spiced meat was added to the pan. When the meat as browned, the cabbage, fresh coriander and water was added. After about 15-20 minutes of cooking over medium heat with occasional stirring, the amount of liquid was reduced significantly (but not completely gone).

I like serving it in hard taco shells.

^[1] Personally I like it equally well with white or red cabbage, but Mrs. Throat-Erator finds the dish visually unappealing with red cabbage.

Eggplant Pasta Salad

Another quick delicious pasta dish.

Ingredients:
- 2 eggplants
- balsamic vinegar
- 300 g (²/₃ lb) pasta
- salt
- 70 g (2.5 oz) rocket
- 2-3 tbsp sun-dried tomato pesto

The eggplants were cut into square rods (¹/₂ inch to the side, half the length of the eggplant), placed on a foil lined baking sheet, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and baked in the oven at 250 C ( F) for 10-15 minutes.

The pasta was boiled in lightly salted water.

Boiled pasta, baked eggplant, rocket and sun-dried tomato pesto was tossed in a bowl and served immediately.

Pickled Tomatoes (1)

Last fall I tried my hand at pickling to-ma-toes.

By now all I have left is one jar of my jalapeño pickled yellow cherry tomatoes. These were the least popular with the various guests I served them for. The basic principle worked as intended: the tomatoes really took up the hotness of the jalapeño. Personally I like them, but I am not surprised the other two went faster. If I try to to pickle yellow cherry tomatoes again I shall be careful to boil them less.

The cinnamon pickled red cherry tomatoes were quite popular with some of my guests. The cinnamon flavour, acidity and sweetness made for a delicious whole. When I do this again, I shall a larger batch - and also for these try less boiling than the first time around.

As previously mentioned the vanilla pickled green tomatoes turned out pretty nicely. Unlike the other two kinds these were certainly not overcooked - rather the opposite (if anything). I think I might try using vanilla bean instead of vanilla sugar, just to see if it makes a difference.

Frikadeller - Updated recipe

I have a confession to make: I generally chop quite coarsely. And for the most part I am quite happy with the result.

But when making meat balls too coarsely chopped onions tend to towards undesirable effects when shaping and frying the meat balls. So, lately I've started chopping the onions for my meat balls not by hand as I've always done in the past but in the cutter that came with our new electric hand-held mixer/whipper/cutter unit (a purchase of debate in the household - while the need for a new one was indisputable, the type I bought met with some critique).

I've also recently discovered that making meat balls with bread crumbs and milk tends towards juicier meat balls (as opposed to flour and milk - or neither of the two). Here follows an updated recipe for frikadeller (a type of Danish meat ball).

Ingredients:
- 850 g (1 lb 14 oz) minced pork/beef^[1]
- 4 small onions, very finely chopped
- 3 eggs
- ~5 dL (~2 cups) bread crumbs^[2]
- 5 dl (2 cups) milk
- salt and pepper
for frying:
- margarine
to serve:
- rye bread
- red cabbage sauerkraut

The onions were chopped very finely using an electric cutter, then mixed with minced meat, eggs, salt and pepper. Milk was stirred in in portions until the texture was as desired (for frikadeller I usually aim for a little more on the liquidy side than I would for most other types of meat balls).

The meat balls were shaped using a teaspoon (see the original post on frikadeller for pictures of the shaping procedure) and fried in a large pan (medium heat) with some margarine, working mostly in batches.

As you can see I made a heap of them. We ate some right away on rye bread with red cabbage sauerkraut - a perfect combination. I put a lot of the rest in the freezer.


^[1] I used a 50:50 mix available from the local store. This kind of meat balls could also be made mixed pork/veal or even pure pork - but pure beef wouldn't be 'right' for frikadeller.

^[2] I don't buy bread crumbs. I simply grate some old dried out white bread. Whenever I buy fresh bread and don't manage to eat it all before it goes dry, I just leave the bread in a dry place for a couple of weeks (or even longer - it usually doesn't go mouldy if stored in a dry place) to make sure it is really dry - then it is easy to grate to bread crumbs.