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Pathetically easy guacamole

Easy guacamoleI am almost ashamed to be calling this a recipe, given that it’ll take you about three minutes to make. All the same, it’s very tasty, and it’s a great partner to the other Mexican recipes I’ve been making this week.

I have an interesting piece of avocado trivia for you today: the word guacamole comes from the Nahuatl word ahuacamolli – literally ahuacatl mole, or sauce. Ahuacatl is the Nahuatl language word for avocado…and it also means ‘testicle’. Be gentle as you chop your avocados.

Some people assert that tomatoes have no place in guacamole. I think it’s much, much nicer with tomatoes, which offer sweetness and a little acid to the mixture – if you use tomatoes, you can get away with a little less lime. Experiment at home and see what you think.

To make guacamole for four, you’ll need:

4 avocados (I used the Hass variety)
6 cherry-sized tomatoes
1 medium onion
1 handful coriander (cilantro for Americans)
2 jalapeño chillies
1 lime
Salt and pepper

Cut the tomatoes into eighths, and cut the onion into small dice. Chop the coriander finely. Remove the seeds and ribs from inside the chillies and dice their flesh finely. Finally, chop the flesh of the avocados roughly and mix vigorously with the other chopped ingredients, squashing things around a bit in the bowl. Squeeze over lime juice to taste and season with salt and pepper.

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Mexgrocer – Salsa Verde recipe

Mexican ingredientsThose of you who read this blog regularly might remember that about a year ago, I mentioned in passing that I couldn’t find any tomatillos in the UK. There were a few Mexican ideas I wanted to try out with some of the little green beasties, but besides growing my own, it looked as if there was no way I’d be able to find any.

Eventually, I gave up on tomatillos. Then, about two weeks ago, I had an email from Sol, half of the husband and wife team that runs Mexgrocer.co.uk. After we’d chatted for a bit, Sol sent me a lovely box of Mexican ingredients to play with, and nestling at the top of the box, I found a bag full of beautiful fresh, ripe tomatillos, wrapped up in their papery husks. Other things in that box went to make a big meal for a group of friends (you’ll read more about that meal later on this week). Sol and his Mexican wife have made sure that you will be able to find ingredients which have been unavailable in the UK for years. There are chocolatey moles (a thick, savoury sauce which I used to smother some sticky sauteed chicken pieces), tamales, nopales (prickly pear cactus – a very delicious vegetable), a breathtaking selection of fresh, dried, smoked and bottled chillies, and some herbs and spices I’ve never seen on this side of the Atlantic.

TomatillosSo then, you ask. What are these tomatillo things? It’s probably simplest if I explain what they aren’t. They’re not cape gooseberries, even though they have a papery, Chinese-lantern-type husk protecting the fruit (cape gooseberries and tomatillos both come from the physalis family). They’re not unripe tomatoes, even though a tomatillo without a husk looks precisely like a green tomato. They have a fresh, lightly acidic, juicy taste, lots of tiny seeds, and are firm and gloriously green when ripe. They feature very heavily in green sauces in Mexican cooking, and if you’ve not tried them before, you’re in for a treat.

TomatillosTomatillos keep very well in their husks – pop them in the fridge and they’ll last for a couple of weeks. You can also freeze them successfully if you’re going to be using them in a sauce.

An uncooked, emerald-coloured salsa is the ideal way to show these little fruits off. This salsa couldn’t be easier to prepare, and it’s fantastic with rich foods, its fresh zing cutting through fatty, creamy sauces. To make salsa verde for six, you’ll need:

400g tomatillos
2 mild green chillies
6 spring onions
1 large handful coriander
100 ml water
1 teaspoon salt

Tomatillo salsaRemove the husks from the tomatillos and wash them to remove their natural sticky coating. Halve them, removing the woody bit where the stem met the fruit. Remove the seeds from the chillies, and wash the spring onions and coriander carefully to remove any grit.

Put all the ingredients in the food processor, and whizz until you have a slightly chunky mixture. Chill before serving. This salsa is great used as a dip, and it’s also delicious as a topping for rice, or as an ingredient to lift the flavour of a lovely meaty taco.

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Smoky tomato salsa

Another recipe for a tomato glut. Foolishly, I planted out five Tumbler tomato plants earlier in the year, a little worried that five would be insufficient for the family’s tomato needs. It appears, however, that Tumbler is a prolific plant – kilos and kilos of tomatoes are coming ripe all at once.

The sweet and flavourful little tomatoes are excellent in this cooked salsa, a version of a salsa served at the Border Grill in Las Vegas and Santa Monica. The Border Grill (and its sister restaurant, Ciudad, also in LA) is owned and run by Mary-Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, who have a TV show in America called Too Hot Tamales. I’ve never seen it, but whenever we’re in Vegas or LA, Dr Weasel and I make a point of stuffing ourselves silly at one of their restaurants, where the Mexican food is about as good as it gets.

The Border Grill serves three salsas with chips before the meal – something like this one, a zingy green tomatillo salsa (anybody know where I can get young tomatillo plants in the UK next year?) and a raw pico de gallo. It’s hard not to say ‘Yes please!’ to the nice server when he offers to get you more salsa and another bowl of chips. Don’t. You won’t have any room left for the rest of the meal.

This salsa keeps for five days in the fridge, so if you have a lot of tomatoes make plenty. Don’t worry about the large amount of garlic; cooking it like this makes it very mellow and removes any harshness. You’ll find yourself eating this salsa on baked potatoes, with tortilla chips, with crudites…I defy you to make it last five days. You’ll need:

2 lb raw tomatoes, freshly picked if possible
1 large onion, sliced roughly
1 bulb of garlic, peeled
3 tablespoons chipotles in adobo (you can buy these chillis in Sainsbury’s in the UK – use less for a less fierce salsa)
1 small handful fresh oregano (or a teaspoon dried)
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt and pepper
Water

If your tomatoes, like mine, are cherry-sized, you don’t need to chop them. If you have large ones, quarter them and remove the pithy cores.

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring slowly to a simmer with the lid off, and simmer gently for 20 minutes. Set aside to cool. Add the oregano and blitz in a food processor or liquidiser, taste for seasoning and add more salt if necessary.

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Hummus with whole spices

This one’s a real favourite for those days when I’m working at home. Homemade hummus only takes about five minutes to make, tastes great, and is cheaper and better than anything you’ll get from the cold aisle in the supermarket.

When my brother and I were kids, hummus and pitta bread was a favourite breakfast, up until the day I got called garlic-breath at ten-o-clock by a girl in gym at school. I swore off it for a few sensitive teenaged years. Since then, I’ve learned not to care about upsetting those around me by eating garlic. (Life’s too short; I once had a boyfriend whose mother worked as a teacher and wouldn’t eat garlic until she had retired, lest the children smelled it on her breath. For God’s sake; it’s Chicken Kiev, not twenty whiskies and soda. Nowadays I just ensure that the people I feel like doing gym with are also eating plenty of what I eat. Poor, reeking Mr Weasel.)

Hummus is one of those dishes that has been around for so long that its origins are now uncertain. It’s from somewhere in the Middle East, and variations on it pop up all over the place; there’s even an Indian version. Hummus bi tahina is made from pureed chickpeas (called garbanzo beans in America) and tahini, a paste made from crushed sesame seeds. The cumin in this is typical of Egyptian hummus – the other spices are in there because I like them.

Work by volume. For every volume of cooked, cold chick peas you use, you’ll need half that volume of tahini, so if you’re using canned chick peas (as, I’m afraid, I do, because to soak, cook and cool them would ruin the whole five-minute lunch-ness of this), you’ll need half a can’s-worth of tahini. If you’re going for the long haul and are organised enough to remember to soak them the night before, you’ll find home-cooked chick peas even nicer, and you can spend a few minutes dry-frying the spices too.

For a one-can lunch for two, you’ll need:

1 can chickpeas
1/2 jar tahini
Zest and juice of one lemon
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
2 teaspoons whole coriander seeds
1 teaspoon whole fennel seeds
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon salt
Olive oil to drizzle
Paprika to sprinkle

Put the chick peas, tahini, lemon zest (not the juice), whole spices, garlic and salt in a blender, and whizz until everything is smooth. (You’ll still have some spice pieces in there; this is a good thing. When you bite one unexpectedly, you’ll thank me.) Add the lemon juice and stir it in by hand, tasting frequently until you’ve got the desired tartness. (Add a bit more if you like, or put lemon wedges on the plates when you serve.) Drizzle with olive oil, and powder the whole thing with paprika.

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Buffalo wings

Another item from the Great American Suitcase Load of Food I brought back last February was a large bottle of Frank’s Hot Sauce. Frank’s is the traditional sauce used for gorgeous, buttery, spicy Buffalo wings; unfortunately it’s hard to find the dish or the sauce readily in the UK, so you’ll have to resort to importing sauce and making your own wings.

We’re in luck; chicken wings, being bony and a little unprepossessing, are not something the English, who seem to prefer meat that comes in boneless, skinless chunks, buy very often. While they’re usually available in the shops, they’re not expensive. This is great news for me; there are plenty of excellent Chinese chicken wing recipes (when I was little we’d fight over the wings, which my Dad always assured us were where the very tastiest, most succulent meat was), and I have an artery-clagging love for Buffalo wings with blue cheese dip and celery. I decided to break into my bottle of Frank’s, and pay no attention to the calories.

You’ll need to joint your chicken wings. It’s extremely easy; you just need a sharp knife. This wing is whole – spread it out and look for the two joints. Mr Weasel, taller, stronger and kinder than me, suggested that his extra height would make the jointing easier. Shamefully, I stood back, beaming, and let him do it. I really don’t enjoy handling raw chicken very much; I’m usually fine with raw meats, but for some reason I find chicken a bit difficult. There’s something about the way it smells raw which makes me enjoy the cooked product less. Poor thing; he does work for his supper. The joints themselves are softer than the bone itself, so your knife should penetrate cleanly and neatly.

Chop through both joints like this, and discard the wing tip. You’ll end up with a little drumstick-looking bit, and one with two little bones (much like your forearm, if you, like me, can only remember which bits of meat are where on an animal by comparing the animal with yourself).

Heat deep oil for frying to 190c (375f). I use a wok and a jam thermometer for deep frying; the wok means you use less oil, and having a wide container means you can fry more wings at once. Fry the winglets in batches ( I did six at a time) until they are golden brown.

When one batch of wings is ready (they should be about this colour), put them to drain on some kitchen paper in a very low oven, where they can keep warm until all their friends are ready. I cooked fifteen wings (so thirty chopped up wing bits), which should serve three people.

Meanwhile, you can get to work on the blue cheese dip while your sous chef gets on with cutting celery into strips. I used a recipe given to me by an American friend, which I’ve further messed about with and added to a bit; I think it’s pretty much perfect:

1 cup sour cream
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese (use the strongest cheese you can find; for me, this time round it was Gorgonzola, but Roquefort’s great in this too)
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 grated shallot
1 clove grated garlic
1 handful fresh herbs, chopped finely (I used parsley and chives)
2 teaspoons Chipotle Tabasco sauce (use regular Tabasco if you can’t get the lovely smokey Chipotle version)
Salt and pepper to taste.

Easy as pie; just mix the lot up together.

Now warm half a bottle of that Frank’s hot sauce, transported across continents wrapped in your knickers like precious jewellery, with half a pat of butter. When the butter is melted, whisk it all together. Pour the lot over the crispy little winglets in a deep bowl, and toss like a divine salad.

Serve with the blue cheese dip and the sticks of celery. You’ll make a terrible mess; have lots of napkins on the table.

I really must find out who the hell this Frank fellow with the sauce is, find him and shake his hand.