Bacon Hueva-/Quesadilla

Remember the 'huevadilla' ?

I must admit I forgot about it for a while myself, but now it's back.

And how! ..in the shape of a hearty breakfast: bacon, eggs, cheese, beans and all.

Ingredients:
- 50-60 g (2 oz) thinly sliced bacon
- 4 wheat tortillas, ~ 22 cm (8-9 inches) diameter
- 4 eggs
- cheddar, grated
- 1 avocado
- pico de gallo
- refried pinto beans



The pinto beans were refried and left over low heat while preparing the rest.

Thinly sliced bacon was fried crisp, then removed from the pan and cut in smaller pieces. The fat was poured off (and saved for other cooking purposes).

Over medium heat a tortilla was placed in the pan. Grated cheddar was put in wide ring along the rim leaving a spot for 2 eggs and half of the bacon bits in the middle. This was topped with another tortilla and left on medium heat for a few minutes - it was flipped over when the eggs were sufficiently set to do so without making a mess of it.


When suitably done on both sides, it was removed from the pan and cut in slices to be served with avocado wedges and crude salsa on top and refried pinto beans on the side.

This I'll do again for sure.

Green Enchiladas with Prawns and Chèvre

I admit it: when I was living in California, I neglected enchiladas. Why? I'm not sure, I was vaguely aware that they existed, but for some reason I underestimated their potential. Last year I realised this had been a mistake when I went to dinner at a friend's place and had some enchiladas there. Then I kinda forgot about it for a while, until I saw a recipe for green enchiladas in bon appetit, but thought I couldn't do anything about it as I hadn't seen tomatillos anywhere since leaving California. But recently I found some at a market right here in Stockholm, and here follows the result.

Ingredients:
- 12 tortillas (medium sized)
salsa verde:
- 4 tomatillos
- 7 jalapeño peppers
- 2 cloves garlic
- juice of 1 lime
- salt
filling:
- 400-500 g (1 lb) tiger prawns
- 1-2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 large red onion
- small bunch fresh oregano
- 2 jalapeño peppers
- 8 scallions, chopped
- 150 g (¹/₃ lb) chèvre
topping:
- 1 bunch cilantro
- 1 avocado

I started with the salsa verde:
The tomatillos were de-husked, rinsed and boiled for 15 minutes, then blended with crushed garlic, jalapeño peppers, lime juice and a little salt.

The prawns were fried with ground cumin, then added onion boats, oregano, and finely chopped jalapeño peppers.

The bottom of an oven-proof tray was coated with a little less than half the salsa verde.
Working one at the time, the tortillas were added a line of prawn-onion mixture down the middle, then added chopped scallion and a little chèvre. The tortilla was then rolled and placed in the tray. The tray was nicely filled up once all the tortillas were rolled and the rest of the salsa verde was spread over them. They were baked at 200 C (400 F) for 20 minutes.

The enchiladas were served with freshly chopped cilantro and avocado wedges.

Delicious! Now I really want to make more enchiladas...

Chicken Spinach Quesadilla

Heavily inspired by real simple, this variation on the quesadilla was tried.

Ingredients:
- oil
- 1 chicken breast fillet
- salt & pepper
- juice of 1 lime
- 70 g (2.5 oz) fresh baby spinach
- 200 g (7 oz) white cheddar, grated
- 6 flour tortillas, 22 cm (8-9 inches) diameter
served with:
- sour cream
- guacamole
- black beans

The chicken breast was seasoned with salt and pepper and browned on both sides before adding the lime juice and covering. While the chicken breast was cooking, the beans and the guacamole was prepared.

When done the chicken breast was sliced and then mixed in a bowl with freshly grated white cheddar and rinsed spinach leaves. A tortilla was placed in a pan over high heat, loaded with ¹/₃ of the cheddar-spinach-chicken mix and another tortilla on top. After a few minutes the cheese had melted enough to allow flipping the whole thing over on the other side without things falling out (with a little luck and/or experience). Care should be taken not to leave them for too long as they char quickly after being done. The finished quesadilla was removed from the pan and parted before continuing making the rest.

The spinach actually worked quite nicely.

Guacamole Herring

In my quest for new ways to serve pickled herring I came up with this combination of Danish and Mexican foods. Two pickled herring filets were cut in smaller pieces and mixed with guacamole (half portion of recipe given here - with fresh green chillies added) and the mixture was covered and left in the fridge overnight.


As always, herring was eaten on dark whole grain rye bread. To drink: dark beer, and - since I don't have any Danish snaps in the house right now - a shot of tequila. The guacamole goes quite nicely with the pickled herring: it has an appropriate freshness. If anything, I would maybe use more herring for the same amount of guacamole some other time as the guacamole was almost too dominating in the overall taste.

White Corn Tortillas

Not too long ago I made my first home-made flour tortillas, but of course I also had to try to make corn tortillas. Fortunately I found a store that sells corn flour suitable for this purpose.

Ingredients:
- 2.5 dL (1 cup) water
- 2-2.5 dL (ca. 1 cup) white corn flour
- pinch of salt

The water was placed in a bowl together with the salt. The corn flour was added little by little while stirring with a spoon. The recipe on the pack recommended a 2.5:2 ratio of water:flour but I found that it needed a little more flour in order not to be too sticky. In the end the dough was kneaded by hand for 1-2 minutes and shaped into 8 little balls.

The recipe called for a tortilla press, but since I'm against the owning of too many unitaskers I do not have a tortilla press. I do however have two wooden cutting boards and kitchen wrap. The dough balls were placed one at the time between the cutting boards (each protected with a piece of wrap) and flattened by pressing. When the top board was removed the pressed dough would stick to one of the pieces of wrap, and it could be carefully transferred to a hand by lifting and turning the wrap over the hand so the dough lets go of the wrap by the assistance of gravity (trying to lift the dough off of the wrap still lying on the table was very unsuccessful). The dough was flipped onto a hot (maximum setting on my stove), non-greased pan and turned over a couple of times until the tortilla puffed up (indicating the right amount of water had evaporated). The tortillas were stacked (which kept them nicely warm until eating time) while cooking them one at the time.

They were perhaps a little thick, but I think they turned out quite well anyway.
Served with red beans and guacamole.

Update: Now that I've made them several times, I should add here that they do not always puff up, so one should keep an eye on how 'done' they look as well.

Also, as mentioned above they are relatively thick, which I think goes at least part of the way towards explaining why they are somewhat stiffer (tending to break if one tries to roll them too tightly). The stiffness gets a little worse upon storing and re-heating, but other than that storing and re-heating works fine.

A Different Avocado (Guacamole Update)

One day while shopping at a small local store I noticed these avocados, which were somewhat bigger than those I normally get (shown next to a standard sized lime in the picture)... of course I had to get some. At first I assumed I needed to put them in a paper bag together with a banana while waiting for the skin to darken and the flesh to soften, but then I noticed that they were already quite soft with the skin green. Apparently it is a variety where the skin doesn't darken upon ripening.


Once I cut one open I noticed that the pit was also quite big, and the flesh was more yellowish than what I'm used to - it still made for a very nice bowl of guacamole..


The only significant adjustment from the previous recipe is the inclusion of fresh, hot chilli.

Tuna Taco Tower

This idea is blatantly stolen from the restaurant The Bell Tower on Polk St in San Francisco - I dined there about 3 years ago and shared something similar as an appetizer.

Ingredients:
- 1 bowl guacamole
- 2 tuna steaks
- 6 tostadas

First I made the guacamole, then I pan seared the tuna steaks (in the original only the outer rim of the tuna was seared, but I wasn't sure I had sashimi grade tuna so I went for a more 'done' version). The tostadas were heated in the oven, and the towers were built after slicing the tuna steaks.

B.L.A.S.T.

...that is the Bacon Lettuce Avocado Sprouts & Tomato sandwich. The idea for this one came about as we ate a BLT with alfalfa sprouts at the local eatery Silvergreens and I thought: "Just add avocado and it would be a blast...". Mrs. Erator suggested substituting prosciutto for the bacon, but that would then become a SPLAT sandwich. Maybe some other time.

Ingredients:
- bacon [1]
- 1 tomato
- leaves of romaine lettuce [2]
- clover sprouts
- 1 avocado
- ciabatta bread

Fry bacon, slice the tomato and the avocado, rinse the lettuce and toast the bread. Assemble the sandwich: Bread, bacon, tomato, lettuce, sprouts, avocado[3], and bread again. Enjoy immediately!

[1] No, I'm not going to tell you how much bacon to use - you know how much bacon you want in your bacon sandwich.
[2] Same as for bacon.
[3] The order is not really important, but it works nicely to put the avocodo and the sprouts next to each other because the avocado help keep the sprouts in place.

Carne Asada I

Carne Asada is basically just thin cuts of beef grilled (or fried - if like me you can't be bothered with setting up a grill). While I've enjoyed it in the past when others have made it, I'm relatively new to preparing it. My first attempt at it turned out somewhat disappointing and I reckoned that marinating the beef would be essential. This turned out much better.

Ingredients:
- 2 pieces thin cut beef
- 2 limes
- 3 cloves garlic
- crushed dried red chillies
- ground coriander, ground cumin

Mix a marinade of lime juice, mashed garlic and spices - put in the beef and let sit in the fridge for about 24 hours. Fry or grill. Cut in strips and serve, e.g. on tacos with grated cheddar, lettuce, sour cream, avocado, salsa of onion and orange cherry tomatoes. Rice and pinto beans on the side.

Avocados

Recently I was out on a small bicycle ride in my area and I noticed this lovely sign. I especially like the implication that other kinds of theft are not so bad (?)...

Fortunately I had the fortune of living in a house with an avocado tree in the back yard for a couple of years. This way I didn't have to resort to thieving to secure myself quite a number of avocados. I ate them in salads, in sandwiches, just plain (possibly with balsemico vinegar), in mexican fare in general or as guacamole in particular. I never really did hear of any dishes that incorporated heated avocado, but maybe they just get too soft.

I didn't know much (any at all) about avocado trees until I suddenly lived right next to one, so I'll take this time to tell you a little about it in case you never had the opportunity.

The one in my yard flowered only every other year, in June, and only for a relatively short time - which is why I only have pictures of the buds and the new fruits but not the flowers themselves. The tree brings forth new fruits continually throughout the 2 year period between flowering. At times there can be quite a number of avocados, but as they don't ripen until picked one can pretty much control the harvesting by picking them at a suitable rate.
Although as my pictures show I sometimes went and got quite a number of them.

When picked the fruits are green and quite hard. They need to sit for a number of days to ripen. When they are ripe then skin turns dark and they soften considerably. This requires patience - and/or planning: pick the fruits a couple of weeks before you want to eat them. The ripening is, as for some other fruits - including apples and bananas - regulated by ethylene. As ethylene is quite volatile, the ripening is helped by placing the avocados in a tightly shut paperbag. A common trick is to put a well ripened banana in the same bag because ripe bananas contain/release higher levels of ethylene than do avocados, thereby accelerating the ripening procedure. You should still expect the process to take some 9 days or so.

I remember hearing years ago that one should be careful with storing apples and bananas together since apples have higher levels of ethylene than do bananas - the possible result being a super-ripening of your bananas. With this in mind I thought maybe it was worth a shot to put an apple in a brown paper bag with some avocados, but I have to report that this did not seem to be appreciably different from using bananas (with the possible exception that afterwards the apple hasn't gone nearly as soft as the bananas tend to).

Bean & Cheese Burrito

Burrito is one of those words from Mexico which makes fairly little sense to people from Spain (Burrito directly translated is small donkey). A bean and cheese burrito obviously doesn't need much more than what the name implies, but here is my suggestion.

Ingredients:
- white kidney beans
- pico de gallo
- tortilla (so-called burrito size)
- cheddar cheese
- avocado
- sour cream

While the beans are simmering, prepare the pico de gallo, cut the avocado in slices, and grate the cheddar.

The burritos are easiest to make if the tortilla has been warmed a little bit - but not too much as they get rather crisp and tend to break as water evaporates on continued heating. Place a line of grated cheddar on the tortilla, warm it up for 30-45 seconds, then add everything else and fold it by first flipping over one side, then closing up the ends and finally the other side - I promise I'll have more detailed pictures next time I make burritos!

Guacamole

It wasn't until I found myself living in a house in southern California with an avocado tree in the backyard (more posts on this later) that I really started appreciating the joys of avocados. Here follows my favorite guacamole.

Ingredients:
- 1 ripe, medium avocado
- 1/2 lime
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 roma tomato
- 1/4 red onion
- fresh cilantro
- salt & pepper

Mash the avocado, mix in the juice of the lime, pressed garlic, finely diced tomato and onion, lastly salt, pepper and freshly chopped cilantro to taste.
The next post will illustrate one of the many uses for this delicious mixture.