Creamy Jalapeño Salsa: Krazy Good Green Sauce

This is a creamy jalapeño salsa.

El Regio and El Pollo Rico in Austin, Texas are two Monterrey (that's Nuevo León, México Monterrey) style rotisserie chicken places. They serve this krazy good green sauce there. Theirs is just boiled jalapeños blended with oil and some salt, but mine has a couple of extra ingredients.

Here is my version: (makes a little over 1 cup):

8-9 jalapeños
1 clove garlic
1 tbs or so lime juice
1/2 cup or so oil (light tasting oil*)
1/2 tsp salt or to taste

Put jalapeños in a pot of water and boil for about 20 minutes until they are soft. Remove them from the water. Stick the clove of garlic in the hot water for a few minutes, then remove it. This is a trick to take the sharp edge off of the garlic by cooking it very slightly. Allow your jalapeños to cool completely, then using gloves, remove the stems and seeds with your hands.

Add all off the ingredients except oil to a blender. Turn on blender and grind jalapeños for a moment, then slowly drizzle in the oil till you have a beautiful green emulsification.

This sauce thickens a bit once you refrigerate it, so don't make it too thick to start out with. It should still be a bit liquidy when you take it out of the fridge, not a solid.

OPTION: Alternatively, roast your jalapaños under a broiler/on the stove/on the grill. Allow to cool and remove the stems, seeds, and most of the skin. Use the charred jalapeños and proceed with the rest of the recipe. This yields a slightly smoky green sauce flecked with black charred bits for color. It's very delicious.

*I like sunflower oil for this. I am sure El Regio and El Pollo Rico use soybean oil. For heart healthy oils, a light olive oil works, too. But avoid a strongly flavored olive oil or it will be overpowering in the salsa and give it a strange undertaste. 

Salsa de chile de árbol (Árbol chile salsa)

This is a very spicy salsa that goes well with chicken, goat, or beef. Recipe makes about 2 cups.

Ingredients:

7 roma tomatoes cut in half.
2 cloves of garlic. Wrap these in a pouch made of foil
1 bag of chile de árbol (80 gram bag, better for you if you can find a bag of already "limpios" or cleaned chiles, but if not, the will have the stems and seeds which you must clean)
1/2 tsp Knorr Suiza powder (caldo de pollo), 1/4 of a stock cube, or 1/2 tsp Chicken Better than Bouillon
1 tsp of salt or to taste
1 tbs lime juice
1/2 tsp sugar
2-3 tbs light tasting oil for roasting the tomatoes and frying the chiles

Take your halved tomatoes and rub them in oil, place them with your garlic wrapped in a foil pouch on a roasting sheet and roast at 350 degrees fahrenheit for 20 minutes.

While your tomatoes and garlic are roasting, clean your chiles by removing the stems and seeds. That's if you didn't get a bag of chile de árbol "limpios" (already stemmed and seeded).

In a deep pan, heat 1-2 tbs oil. When hot, stir your dried chiles around until the start to puff up and change color. Take care not to burn. You can turn off the flame after a minute, and keep stirring, and they will fry nicely to the perfect color. Pour them onto a plate and keep aside. If you keep them in the hot pan, they will continue to cook for a few moments and can blacken and burn. So, it is better to transfer them to a plate. Keep aside to cool.

When your tomatoes are nicely soft and roasted, set aside to cool.

Dump the tomatoes, garlic, your chicken flavoring, and chiles in a blender. You may need to add 1/4 cup or so of water. Pulse gently so as to leave the chile ground but in visible chile flakes. Stir in the salt, lime juice, and sugar, and pulse again gently. Taste and adjust salt, sugar, or lime juice if necessary. Keep in a jar for up to 2 weeks.

Capirotada de Cuernitos or Croissant Bread Pudding

Capirotada de cuernitos

This is a Mexican bread pudding. Traditionally a lenten dish, it exists with many variations, and here is my recipe using mini-croissants. I give it a little desi twist in a couple of ways. First, I use golden raisins or sultanas instead of dark colored raisins.  Paneer is used instead of salty cheese, but you can use queso fresco if that is what you have around. 


3/4 cup fresh paneer or queso fresco mixed with 2-3 tbs sugar, crumbled.

-To make the jarabe:
1 stick cinnamon
2 cloves
1 cone of piloncillo
1 star anise
2-3 cups water to cover
1 tsp lime juice to add when boiling
1 tbs orange marmalade to add when done
1/2 cup white sugar to add when done

Boil cinnamon, cloves, water with piloncillo for about 20 mins till
all the piloncillo is melted and the jarabe is a little thick but
still pretty liquidy.
Add in 1/2 cup sugar and orange marmalade and allow to cool.

-The bread:
8-10 mini croissants, cut in half to open up.


1 stick butter, melted

Paint croissants with butter, bake for 10 mins at 400 degrees to dry out.

-To make the pudding:
For the layering: 1/4 cups sultanas, 3/4 cups mixed nuts (pecans, pine
nuts, walnuts) 1/4 cup sweetened coconut shreds, the cheese mentioned above

In a 8/10 baking dish, place first layer of baked croissant halves. Cover
completely with half of the syrup. Add a layer of raisins, coconut,
nuts, then cheese. Add second layer of croissants. Cover with syrup. Push down 
the croissants to flatten them into the dish and make sure everything is soaking in syrup. Add second layer of garnishes. Bake uncovered at 350 for about 15 mins, taking care not to burn.

Pastel de Tres Leches or Tres Leches Cake (Halal)

In Spanish, tres means three, leches means milks. Tres leches is a cake moistened with three types of milk.

This is a common party cake in my home state of Texas, especially among Mexican-American families. I read that the origins of this cake are that it is based on traditional Latin American syrup soaked sponge cakes, but the tres leches concept was created by a canned milk company to promote their products during the 1950s. Versions of it exist all over Latin America, and some include coconut milk or alcohol. My recipe is a simple Tex-Mex version, and the tres leches or three types of milks are sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and half-and-half.

To begin, you need to bake a yellow cake from a box mix. I use Betty Crocker's Supermoist Yellow cake. Bake this according to the instructions on the box in a 9 by 13 inch glass baking pan, but add a dash of alcohol free vanilla. I use Frontier brand, and I find that it is very delicious. Allow the cake to cool completely for several hours. Then, using a fork, poke holes all over the cake.

Take note of the holes poked in the cake. Feeling stabby?

For the leches, mix together:
3 tbs plain sugar
1/8 teaspoon (pinch) cinnamon
few drops of alcohol free vanilla
1 14 oz can of evaporated milk (I use Carnation)
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk (I use Eagle)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup whole milk
(or use 2 cups half and half, which is half cream and half milk)

Ladle this milk mixture over your sponge, ensuring that you moisten all parts of the cake. Cover cake and allow to absorb the milks overnight in the refrigerator.

The whipped cream frosting topping:
2 cups organic* heavy whipping cream
4 tbs powdered sugar
few drops alcohol free vanilla
1/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut
3 tbs chopped pecans

Blend ingredients and using an electric beater, beat your whipping cream with the powdered sugar and vanilla until it forms stiff peaks. Spread this on top of your milk-soaked sponge. Garnish with the coconut and nuts. You can experiment with garnishes of fruit, cajeta, caramel, chocolate shavings, or whatever suits you.

I wish I had a picture of the finished product, but on the day I was taking these demo pics, my kids came and smashed the cake with the cake server before I had a chance to snap a picture. Mine is a very home-made, non-fancy look, though. The end result is a sweet, super moist but not soggy, delicious cake!

*I use regular heavy whipping cream in the tres leches mixture but I go for a superior tasting organic heavy whipping cream for the whipped cream frosting to achieve the best taste. Organic cream is more expensive.

Turkey Chili

Cooking desi has affected the way I cook many other cuisines. Particularly the desi concept of bhunofying---that is Hinglish or Urdu-lish for cooking down ingredients until all of the moisture has evaporated out of them and the cooking oil floats to the top of the contents of the pan---has influenced me. Take the American dish, chili. Chili is an appropriation of the Northern Mexican and South Western US chile con carne (or carne con chile :p). Traditional chile con carne is a sauce of ground rehydrated dried red chiles and cubed beef, slow cooked. It actually looks vaguely like a Pakistani saalan ("curry"). No ground beef. No beans. Certainly no turkey or tofu granules. Chile con carne is very much and American dish, as it belongs to the land of the South Western US states which were erstwhile a part of Mexico. But the dish has taken on a life of its own in the hands of the gringos and gabachos in those states and in the the rest of the US, with regional variations all across the country. And it has gone from chile con carne to chili con carne...you have to say chile as chili and carne as carni in true estilo gabacho. We have divergent chilis from New Mexico to Texas and even Wisconsin, bean-less ground beef chiles, bean only chilis, black bean chili, and tofu chili. Among die-hard connoisseurs, there are great debates on whether or not good chili contains tomatoes. There are artisanal chilis and chili cook offs. Then we have chili in a can, chili dogs, and chili cheese fries, and so on. Tried and true American appropriation and adaptation (I dare not say bastardization) is seen in so many foods from around the world, and the treatment of chile con carne is the same, making it uniquely estadounidense and regionalized. Here, I share with you my personal recipe for spicy hot low fat turkey chili. Preparation involves a few steps, but the results are excellent. I credit the delicious taste to the desi technique of bhunofying the base of the chili gravy. This recipe is non-traditional and there are a few surprise seasonings in it.

1 pound lean ground turkey
1/4 cup oil

Brown turkey well in the oil, mashing and breaking it into little granules as you fry it golden brown. When it is well browned, throw it in a colander. Strain the oil and wash the excess fat off with water. Don't worry, the browning will leave it flavorful and you won't miss the fat. Set this aside. I brown the turkey separately for a couple of reasons. Firstly, so that I may rinse off the fat. Second, I find that ground turkey throws off a lot of water and simply boils in its own juices and ruins the other ingredients if I cook it with the onions and other ingredients.

1/4 cup oil
1 yellow onion finely chopped
8 cloves garlic, crushed
(I put my onion and garlic together in a food chopper and blitz them together)
3 tablespoons Goya Sofrito
1 7 oz can of chipotle in adobo sauce, (puree full can in food chopper)
2 12 oz cans Rotel Tomato and Green Chiles, pour into a strainer and strain off liquid
3 tbs chili powder (Tex-Mex style, do not use Indian red chile powder)
1 tbs chipotle chile powder
1 tbs Mexican oregano
1 tbs roasted cumin powder
1 tbs salt
1 12 oz bottle of non-alcoholic beer
1 can red kidney beans
1 can pinto beans
1/8 teaspoon liquid smoke
1.5 cups water
3 tbs masa harina or finely ground cornmeal

Heat oil in a deep pot. Add in garlic and onions and fry until golden. Add in Goya sofrito. Stir for a few moments to cook through. Sofrito is associated with Latin-Caribbean cuisines (originally it is Spanish), not Tex-Mex, but I like the savory flavor that it adds to many dishes and I use it in many other non-traditional ways. Add in chipotles in adobo sauce and stir for a few moments. Add in strained Rotel tomatoes and chiles. Stir on high heat until all the water has evaporated from the tomatoes and you have a thick paste. This is the desi style bhunofying step. I said this was a low fat recipe. Now you will turn off the heat. Cover the pot for a few minutes to allow all of the oil to come out of the paste. Now pour off all of the excess oil. You have defatted your chile base! You will have low fat, high flavor chili.

Return pan to stove, turn on medium heat and the salt, the roasted cumin, chili powder, and chipotle powder, and the Mexican oregano. Fry this for a few moments to release the flavor of the dried spices a bit.

At this point, add your browned turkey. Mix well, and add in the non-alcoholic beer. Next, add in your two cans of beans. I use pinto and kidney but you may use any beans you like. Stir in the liquid smoke, the masa harina, and the water. You may add more or less water depending on how you like the consistency of your chili, liquid or dry or in between. Adjust salt if necessary. Allow to boil, then lower heat and simmer covered for 20 minutes.

You may serve this as you like, but I like to have it with corn chips, garnished with pico de gallo, or  instead chopped raw onions, cilantro, chopped tomatoes, and some shredded cheddar or Monterrey Jack cheese. You can also add a spoon of guacamole, chopped avocado, or a dash of sour cream. Very Tex-Mex, spicy, and yummy. This dish also goes great with corn bread.