!Feliz (Belated) Cinco de Mayo!

To all who were able to attend last light - WELL DONE!!! The final tally is just short of 2 liters of tequila drank. I'm proud to be a part of this dinner club! :)

Recipes below! We prob. improvised more than I was able to document, but we started from these recipes....

Sorry for the lack of people picts. There are a few, but we were too preoccupied with just completing the dishes to also document them and the party!

Menu
Aperitif: Pineapple Infused Tequila (or vice versa)
Appetizer: Mexican Street Corn & Tortilla Soup
1st Course: Albondigas (Mexican Meatballs)
2nd Course: Slow Fried Pork Tacos (Carnitas)
Dessert: Mexican Wedding Cookies & Dulce de Leche Ice Cream
Salsas: Tomatillo Avocado, Fresh Tomatllio, Pico de Gallo, Guacamole

RECIPES:

Mexican Street Corn (modified from the recipe in The Best International Recipe Book by Cook’s Illustrated)
“In Mexico, street vendors sell corn on the cob from carts like vendors in the U.S. sell hot dogs.” Often “the corn is served with melted butter, chili powder, and lime juice.” Here’s our modified version:

Serves 6
6 large ears of corn, husks & silks removed
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ cup mayonnaise (we used butter)
2 tablespoon minced fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon lime juice from 1 lime
1 medium garlic clove, mince or pressed
1 teaspoon chili powder
Salt
Pepper

DIRECTIONS
Boil corn till tender
Brush corn on all sides with olive oil. Grill corn until well browned on one side. Flip corn, brown other side.
Let corn cool till you can handle it comfortably. Cut off kernels from the cobs into a large bowl.
Mix the butter, cilantro, lime juice, garlic, chili powder in with the kernels.
Add salt & pepper to flavor.
Aliquot into small cups for fancy dinner club service :).


























Tortilla Soup (modified from the recipe in The Best International Recipe Book by Cook’s Illustrated)
Serves 6
2 bone in, skin on chicken breasts (about 1 ½ lbs) or 4 bone in, skin on chicken thighs (about 1 ¼ lbs),skinned and trimmed
8 cups of low-sodium chicken broth
1 large white onion (about 1 lb), root end trimmed, quartered, and peeled
4 medium garlic cloves, peeled
8-10 sprigs of fresh cilantro plus one sprig of fresh oregano
8 (6 in) corn tortillas cut into ½ in-wide strips
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 medium tomatoes, cored and quartered
½ medium jalapeno chili, sees and ribs removed if desired (keep in the seeds and ribs will add more heat)
1 ½ - ¼ teaspoons minced chipotle chili in adobo sauce

Garnishes
1 lime, cut into wedges
1 ripe Haas avocado, halves, pitted, and diced fine
8 oz. crumbled queso anejado, queso fresco, or shredded Monterrey jack
Fresh cilantro leaves
Minced jalapeno chili
Sour cream

DIRECTIONS
Bring chicken, broth, 2 onion quarters, 2 garlic cloves, cilantro, and ½ teaspoon of salt to a boil over medium high heat in a large pot. Reduce heat to low, cover; simmer until the chicken is just cooked trough (about 20 min). using tongs transfer chicken to a plate. Strain broth, discard solids. When chicken is cool enough to handle, shred it into bite sized pieces discarding bones.

Heat oven to 425 F. Toss tortilla stips with 1 tablespoon of oil. Spread them out on a baking sheet and bake until crisp and dark golden (about 14 min). Season with salt and transfer to a paper towel lined plate.

Puree the tomatoes, 2 remaining onion quarters, 2 remaining garlic cloves, jalapeno, 11/2 teaspoons of chipotle, and 1/8 teaspoon of salt in a food processor until smooth. Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in a large Dutch oven over high heat until shimmering. Add the pureed mix and cook, stirring frequently until the mixture darkens in color (about 10 min). Stir in the strained broth and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer to blend the flavors (about 15 min).

Stir in remaining chipotle to taste. Add the shredded chicken and simmer until heated through. Place some tortilla strips in the bottom of the bowls, ladle the soup over the strips, garnish and serve!



Albondigas (Mexican Meatballs)
I combined three recipes to come up with the dinner club version and did a lot of seasoning to taste so here is my best attempt to document what I did.

Serves a lot
3 lbs ground beef
1 ½ raw eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup of cooked white rice
Oil for frying

Sauce:
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 onion finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 small can of beef broth
28 oz can of tomato sauce
1 tablespoon of adobo sauce from chipotle chili can (note you can also just throw in a pepper from the can, but I was afraid this would make them too spicy to have mass appeal!)

DIRECTIONS
Hard boil 2-3 eggs, if desired

In a large bowl, mix the meat with the oregano, cumin, salt and pepper. Then mix in the egg. Then mix in the cooked rice.

Roll meat into 1 ½ in balls. If you want hardboiled egg inside the meatball, cut the hard boiled eggs into 8ths or so and form the meatball around the piece of egg. Make sure to seal the seam well otherwise meatballs with fall apart in the sauce.

Heat oil for sauce in a large pot and sauté the garlic and onion until softened. Then stir in the beef stock and tomato sauce. Bring to a boil. Season with salt, black pepper and adobo sauce to taste. Let sauce simmer while you fry the meatballs.

Meanwhile, heat about 2 tablespoons of oil in a frying pan and fry the meatballs until browned (about 5 min). You may need to do several batches. Drain off the oil from the meatballs and transfer the meatballs to the sauce pot. All meatballs should be covered with sauce. Let meatballs simmer for 20-30 min, stirring gently from time to time. Add more salt, black pepper or adobo sauce if need be.

Serve meatballs with a warm corn tortilla.


Slow Fried Pork tacos (carnitas) (modified from the recipe in The Best International Recipe Book by Cook’s Illustrated)
Spanish for “little meats” carnitas are popular street fare in Mexico. The meat – typically pork – is slow fried in a large pot filled with vegetable oil until it’s meltingly tender with crispy caramelized edges. The meat is then shredded and can be eaten on its own or stuffed into tacos.

Serves 4-6
1 (3 lbs) boneless pork shoulder roast (Boston butt), trimmed and cut into 2 inch chunks.
1 teaspoon ground cumin
4 cups of peanut oil
¼ cup of Coca-Cola
2 cinnamon sticks
2 bay leaves
1 lime, halved
Salt
Ground black pepper

Tortillas and Garnishes
12 (6 in) corn tortillas, warmed
Fresh cilantro sprigs
Sour cream
Minced white or red onion (we used shredded red cabbage instead)
Lime wedges

DIRECTIONS
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat over to 375 F. Pat the pork dry with paper towels and season with the cumin and 1 teaspoon of salt and transfer to a large Dutch oven. Add the oil, water, cinnamon, and bay leaves. Juice the lime directly into the pot, then ass the spent lime halves.

Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat, then transfer to the oven and cook, uncovered, until the edges of the pork are well browned and he meat falls apart when prodded with a fork (about 2 ½ hours)

Remove the pot from the oven and using a slotted spoon transfer the pork to a colander set over a bowl; let drain about 10 min (discard oil). Shred the pork and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with warn corn tortillas, fresh cilantro, sour cream, onion, lime wedges, shredded red cabbage, salsa, YUM!


Pineapple Infused Tequila (or vice versa)
Ok so you’re supposed to let this infuse at room temp. over a period of a week but we didn’t read that detail far enough in advance so we just did it overnight and I’m writing it here the way we did it :). I think it turned out ok because we used vanilla extract instead of a vanilla bean, but you can experiment and let us know!

1 large ripe pineapple
2 oz dark brown sugar
1 liter blanco tequila
1 vanilla bean (we used vanilla extract cuz vanilla beans were $15!)

DIRECTIONS
Rinse a large glass bottle and sterilize it in the oven for 20 min at 225 F. Let cool. Put in freezer. (sterilization isn’t really necessary for chilled, overnight infusion recipe)

Slice the pineapple into small chunks

Add the pineapple to the bottle. Combine the sugar and tequila in a separate vessel until the sugar dissolves. Pour the tequila mix into the bottle. Flavor the mix to taste with vanilla extract. Store overnight in freezer till ready to serve.

If doing hard core infusion method:
Instead of using vanilla extract, split a vanilla bean and add it to the bottle.
Let stand for at least a week before drinking and agitate contents daily.


Mexican Wedding Cookies
1 cup of softened butter
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 cups of flour
1-2 cups of finely chopped or ground pecans or walnuts (how much you add depends on your tastes, I used 1 cup of pecans)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 cup of powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS
Mix butter, sugar and flour together in a bowl. Mix in vanilla extract. Mix in pecans. Shape dough into 1 in balls and press down on them lightly when placing them on a non-stick or greased cookie sheet. Bake 20 -25 min at 350 F. Let cool, but while still slightly warm, roll in powdered sugar (not too warn though or sugar will melt and you will have a mess. This part is sticky-messy regardless though). Eat - but take care not to inhale powdered sugar!


Salsas
The salsas are so ad-libbed every time I make them that I just can’t write up a recipe. Sorry! If you’re interested in learning, let me know and I can have you watch some time....















Happy Dinner Clubbers

Happy Hosts