Fat-Free Whole-Wheat Tortillas, aka Chapati Bread

JG made lentils for dinner this weekend and decided to try his hand at chapati bread, which are thin round flatbreads usually made with at least some whole-wheat flour.  He'd planned to have it all done when I got home from work (my hero) but the cookbook he used just isn't a good one (the flavors are great but the liquid ratios or the cooking times are _always_ way off, but never the same way twice) and the lentils weren't ready when they were supposed to be, so I helped with chapati while he finished up the dal. [Plus I wanted to tinker with the recipe, using all whole-wheat and some salt... I think the salt was an omission.]  It's a super simple process and they turned out great for scooping up the lentils, but they inspired JG in another way.

"These taste like flour tortillas"
"Well, they kinda are, but without the lard. They won't keep."
"But these right now are flour tortillas.  It makes me want to make fajitas."

I had to agree.  I've always shunned flour tortillas because they're made with lard or butter and refined flour, whereas corn tortillas are made from whole grains with no fat.  You can get whole-wheat versions now, but they've still got some kind of fat to keep them soft... but classic Tex-Mex fajitas really do require some type of flour tortilla.  I don't know why, but they're my only exception to the corn tortilla rule... but I've never been really okay with that until now.

A few days later we made more hot, fresh chapati tortillas and cooked up some flank steak (no skirt up here), onions, and peppers on the cast iron.  We still need to perfect the cast iron recipe before it goes public, but the tortillas were spot on.

Recipe: Fat-Free Whole-Wheat Tortillas or Chapati Bread

Simple Guacamole [and other goodies for the 4th of July]

 Below are a few ideas for your 4th, plus a simple guacamole recipe after the jump:


Smokey Melon Balls
Roasted Corn
Roasted Squash
Carrot Slaw
Delicate Gazpacho


Pesto Pipian
Scallop tacos
Summer Squash Pizza [on the grill]

Burger Buns
Whole-Wheat Pita [My first recipe post!]


Mint Tea
Agua Fresca
Cerveza Preparada/Michelada

Silken Chocolate Pie
Tres Leches Cake
Sunflower Cookies 
Green Chile Cookies 
Whiskey Marshmallows 
for the perfect s'more

Recipe: Simple Guacamole

Simple Temaki [a.k.a. Japanese Tacos]

I've had some amazing Japanese food in my day.  I discovered sushi late in college and was fortunate to get an expense-paid visit to Tokyo when JG was working over there for a bit... though I think I was still too new to the cuisine at the time to make the most of my trip.  After moving to Austin, I fell in love with a modern Japanese place and even developed an unfortunate habit of of putting any raw thing in my mouth based on the things they [carefully and safely] served.  It was exquisite.

I learned the importance of toasting nori at this lovely place -- and that's the key to a tasty handroll.   The greatest thing about a hand roll is that it doesn't require skill as there is no rice shaping involved.  I also learned that the hand roll [temaki] is the Japanese equivalent of a sandwich with a similar origin story: a noble -- too obsessed with the gaming table to come away for a meal -- ordered his servant make him something he could eat with one hand.  It seems a little too close to the Earl of Sandwich story, but maybe it's a case of culinary convergence.

Temaki is the only sushi I'll make at home because doesn't require skill.  I don't want to spend the money for sashimi-grade fish for a weeknight meal, but there are times when I want that refreshing satisfaction of a sushi meal mid-week, and the hand roll hits that spot... plus they're fun to make:  All it takes are toasted seaweed sheets [nori], a bowl of vinegar rice and an array of sliced veggies, sauteed mushrooms for a meaty texture, and occasionally kani [fake crab sticks make from pollock that I find disturbingly delicious in a distinctly non-crab way].  You fill one corner, roll it up into a cone, and eat it quick before the nori goes soft. It's a casual week-night food at its best.

It takes a lot of practice to make true sushi rice look and taste right and involves lots of fanning and folding.  I've seen it done many times and I'm not even close to mastering it... but with a little tweaking I've created a brown rice version with the right flavor and a close enough texture for the at-home hand roll.


Recipe: Simple Temaki, Japanese Tacos

Scallop Tacos, Two Ways

 Local scallops were on sale here in Yankee Land, so I picked up more than I needed for dinner [but not nearly as many as I wanted].  The first night I made a ceviche with lime/serrano/shallot and garnished with fresh corn and cilantro from my herb garden.  The next night I seared the scallops [one side only] and served them with sliced avocado, toasted pepitas, and roasted corn on the side.

The ceviche was so deliciously delicate in flavor that it might've been better if I'd used some of my lettuce as a wrapper instead of the hearty, store-bought tortillas... the seared scallops held their own and were phenomenal.

Recipe: Scallops for Tacos

Oops!... plus Chorizo and Egg Tacos

If any of you stopped by the end of last week/ beginning of this week, I was playing around with moving the site to its own domain and inadvertently lost it for a little while... Let's just pretend I handled it really well and didn't freak out at all, okay?
[I know almost nothing about web design but I feel like I should be able to figure out the basics... which hasn't worked so far.]

Let's focus on the positive.  Here's a little demo of the chorizo cubes in action:

The frozen [raw] cube in the pan over low heat

Break it apart as it cooks

Increase the heat to medium-high and pour in the egg

Swirl it around a bit

Dump it in a bowl

Serve on warm tortillas with optional garnishes

[I leave 'em plain for breakfast and jazz 'em up with avocado and pickled jalapeños for dinner.]

Lean Mexican-Style Chorizo

The first time I cooked Mexican chorizo at home, I was horrified. I opened up the casing, the contents glugged into the hot pan and started bubbling away, and I thought -- since it was sausage and sausage is generally a fattier food -- that it was at least 30% oil or some weird fat that rendered instantaneously. All of the chorizo and egg tacos I'd consumed in my past suddenly seemed... unseemly.

I now know that Mexican chorizo has a substantial amount of vinegar in it, which both flavors it and acts as a bacteria-killing preservative. Unlike Spanish chorizo, which is smoke-cured and sold at room temperature for slicing and serving as-is; Mexican chorizo is sold uncooked, refrigerated, and must be pan-fried into little crumbles before joining a given dish. Any place you might add bacon, you can add chorizo -- eggs, cooked greens, soups, salads, beans, etc. -- and because it's so heavily seasoned with garlic and onion and chiles and vinegar, you can even substitute a lean meat combination without diminishing its fantastic flavor.

Here JG pan-fried it with left-over rice and stirred in an egg at the end for chorizo-fried rice. It was tasty.

Recipe: Lean Mexican-Style Chorizo

Pesto Pipián

This recipe was born of an excess of cilantro. Like many people -- and despite growing up with lots of Mexican food -- I had an aversion to cilantro until I discovered late-night Vietnamese food in college. [Houston has the second largest and most diverse immigrant population after New York, did you know that?]

I now love cilantro, but really doesn't keep well and I got a _lot_ of it at an outdoor stall in Boston's "Haymarket," a place known for cheap produce with a very short (2nd?) shelf life. I used some cilantro for salsa and meant to put on some tacos but forgot, and the rest -- the vast majority-- sat unused and unloved, taking up valuable real estate in the refrigerator.

So, JG and I were discussing what to do with the excess cilantro over a dinner of homemade green-chile pork burgers* [on homemade buns, of course] that also happened to leave excess ground meat.

JG: "I wonder what cilantro pesto would taste like."
WGT: "We should find out."
JG: "Agreed."
WGT: "Ooh! You know what I think we should make for our leftover meat?"
JG: "Cilantro pesto?"
WGT: "Pipián! -- but pesto would be good too..."
Then we nodded at one another for an inappropriate length of time before finishing the burgers.

I should explain that pipián is a pumpkin seed [pepita] sauce loosely related --and sometimes identical-- to mole verde and can be made a million different ways. There's usually garlic/ cilantro/jalepeno/chicken stock and some combination of onion/almond/tomatillo/romaine/cornmeal/sour cream/cumin all pureed together and cooked in oil, but the only universal requirement is ground pumpkin seeds.

A pesto sauce, on the other hand, usually uses an herb, garlic, nuts, cheese, and olive oil. The ratios are a little different from a pipián sauce, but pipián's a pretty loose recipe, so why not use pesto ratios (to use up my cilantro) and replace both nuts and cheese with pumpkin seeds?

So...  I started to rethink my idea as I watched my bountiful greens shrank to tiny specks with half of the called-for oil... but I ostensibly had another 1/4 of oil to add.  A pesto uses roughly equal parts nuts/cheese to olive oil because it, unlike pipián, is not meant to be generously slathered on things; it clings with its oily goodness. I didn't want a coating; I wanted a meatball sauce. I opted to use water for the balance of the volume. It made a lovely green sauce the consistency of a sour cream dip(!). It took quite a bit more water put me in perfect meatball sauce territory [and those meatballs were very, very tasty*].

A few days later -- and hopelessly addicted -- I made more pesto pipián using canola [rapeseed] in lieu of olive oil. This time, without the assertive EVOO, the surprisingly delicate flavor of the cilantro brightened the earthy pepitas and it was even better. We tested it over chicken tacos, and that's was when JG and I agreed that this sauce may very well be my greatest culinary achievement to date.

Recipe: Pesto Pipián
I included recipes for tacos and meatballs below, but this sauce has lots of possibilities, like topping poached fish, seared scallops, or enchiladas, or roasted veggies... or the most amazing dip or crostini [topped with seared onions?] your friends ever had. I've now tried it with both pepper options, and I think I prefer the serrano for a little more bite, but to each his own.  If you only have a small chopper/food processor, just add the cilantro in batches; it shrinks quickly.

2 packed cups cilantro (1 large bunch), thicker stems removed
1/2 cup pepitas (shelled pumpkin seeds)
1/4 cup canola oil [or other neutral oil]
3 cloves garlic, roasted or nuked
1 green chile or serrano, roasted and seeded
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cumin
3/4 cup water or chicken stock 
Combine all ingredients except water in a food processor and puree until almost smooth, occasionally stopping the machine to scrape down the sides. ~3 minutes. Add water and pulse to combine. [It'll splash.] Store in a airtight container for up to 5 days, or freeze.

Chicken Tacos with Pesto Pipián:
serves 4

1/2 recipe pesto pipián
1 1/2 lbs chicken, cooked and shredded
1/2 onion, slice thin pole-to-pole
12 corn tortillas
1/4 cup crumbled fresh cheese [queso fresco, feta, etc.]
hot sauce

In a sauce pot, sear onions over high heat until just translucent with charred spots. Transfer to a small serving bowl. Using same pot (no need to wipe it out), heat sauce until it starts to sputter. Stir in cooked chicken and turn off heat. Serve on warm corn tortillas with onions, cheese, and hot sauce.

Basic Meatball Recipe with Pesto Pipián:
serves 4

1/2 recipe pesto pipián
2 lbs ground meat (any, really: pork, beef, lamb, or poultry)
1 pureed onion
1/3 cup milk
2 cloves garlic, minced to a paste
1/2 tsp salt

Beat everything together in a mixer until it gets almost pasty. Pan fry a tablespoon of the meat to test for seasoning, then let the remainder sit at least 30 minutes and up to 2 days before cooking(in a refrigerated, airtight container).
Cook meat over medium heat, turning to brown all sides, until cooked through, ~10 minutes. Transfer balls to a bowl, add 1/2 cup water to pan and scrape up all the browned bits to deglaze. Add pesto pipián stir to combine with deglazing water, and return meatballs to pan. Cook until sauce comes to the boil and thickens to its original state. It's excellent over brown rice or polenta.

*no pictures, sorry.