Flan

Well let’s end this blog on sweet note. This recipe is something that I’ve never eaten before but  it seems to be offered in every Mexican food restaurant I’ve ever visited…Flan.  In my research, I found that Flan is the popular name for the original recipe “Creme Caramel” made in Mexico, Spain, and Portugal. 

So for this recipe you will need: 

1 can sweet condensed milk (14oz)
1 can evaporated milk (12 oz)
4 eggs 

Put all the ingredients in the blender

1 brick of cream cheese (8oz)  – this is optional, but Carmen suggests it.

Pretty simple. 

So you will take all your ingredients and put them in a blender.
Blend on high until the mixture is smooth, with no lumps from the cream cheese. 

While you are mixing that in the blender you will want to get a big pot, fill it about 1/3 of the way with tap water, and set it on high to boil on the stove. 

Pour the entire mixture into the pan

Once your mixture is ready you will want to pour it into the pan. Now Carmen says that her pan is the secret to making flan. It is specially designed with a lid that latches down so it stays tightly closed while it is cooking in a bain maire, or hot water. As I’ve never made flan before I will just have to take her word for it. 

Unfortunately, she bought her pan in Hermosillo, Mexico. But I found where you can buy your own for not very much.    

With the lid latched shut, put the pan in the pot of water. This is the trickier part because you will only want enough water in the pot to allow the pan to sit on the bottom of the pot without being submerged. I would recommend that when you start heating the water you put more than you think might be necessary, because it will easier to remove the excess water later with a cup. 

Leave the flan to cook in the boiling water for 1 hour and 45 minutes. 

A bain-marie

Once the flan is done, you will want to let the pan cool and then you will be able to invert the pan over a plate and the flan will slide out on the plate. This is in theory of course, so if it doesn’t work try tracing the inside of the pan with a knife to loosen up the flan from the pan. 

The traditional Mexican way to serve flan is to cut it into slices and top with carmel. Carmen said it is really difficult to make the carmel from scratch so she recommended buying carmel syrup at the grocery store. 

Well readers, its been fun. I hope you enjoy trying this last recipe and refer back to the others when needed! 

Buen Provecho!

Jamoncillo

This week I was presented with a challenge. My journalism professor wanted me to try and make his favorite Mexican candy, Jamoncillo. It  also called Jamoncillo de Leche.

After speaking with my mentor, Carmen, I received these simple instructions. Take one cup of whole milk for each cup of white sugar, bring to a boil in a pot then set to low and let simmer until it has thickened.

With these guiding words I returned to my aunt’s house to use her kitchen and set to work solo.

I combined the two ingredients in a pot and set it on the stove on high. Once it came to a bowl I set it to 1 and left it to cook.

At first it was a creamy white color, but as it continued to cook it started to become darker.

I left it for about 5 minutes at a time and only stirred it occasionally.  

After 30 minutes on the stove the color resembled the color of the candy Jay had brought me from Mexico. The liquid mixture wasn’t too thick but it was similar to syrup.

I dropped balls of sugar just a little bigger than a quarter on the wax paper covering the cookie sheet. The mixture was still really hot so once I had done about 6 I went back and added more to the tops of the already cooled drops so they could build up into balls.

As I worked the mixture continued to cool, though it was still really hot and I made the mistake of putting my finger in some which burned it. But the last drops that I made with cooled mixture resembled the sample candies the most.

Once they had cooled sufficiently I taste tested them. Though they had the same flavor I found the samples to be more like a fudge texture whereas my candies seem to crumble in your mouth.

My aunt suggested that I stir the mixture more next time as I let it simmer on low and that might’ve helped the texture. 

But for a first try I don’t think they turned out too bad. Now go be adventurous and try this simple recipe yourself. Maybe it’s too simple for you too!

Buen Provecho!

If you like Jamoncillo, I found a website where you can order all different varieties…just in case your homemade ones don’t work out.

Cooking from Scratch

You may have noticed I didn’t title this post with a recipe name. That’s because I’m taking you with me on an adventure in Carmen’s Kitchen. As I may have mentioned before, there is sometimes a language barrier between myself and Carmen resulting in miscommunication.  Thats where the adventure begins.

When I walked into the kitchen I expected to find tortillas and chicken for our chicken enchiladas we were scheduled to make today. Instead, Carmen had about 12 dried red chilis on the counter in front of her. She turned to me with a smile and started discussing my day with me as I watched her cut off the tops of the chilis and hollow them out.  She explained to me that the chilis are too hot for her so she removes all the seeds.  

As I watched her I wondered if we were making a different recipe because I had never seen chilis needed for enchiladas. So my white brain tried to run through the Hispanic recipes that I’d seen with big red chilis. The best I could come up with was stuffed chilis.

Carmen boiled the chicken last week with garlic and onion

As I mentally tried to catch-up, Carmen was already onto the next step of rinsing the chilis and then putting them in a pot, just covered with water, on the stove on high. She covered the pot and moved on to a bag of shredded chicken, that she’d made when we  made the beef chimichangas, and frozen.

Periodically, while  seperating out the frozen chicken and defrosting it in the microwave, she would check the chilis. Once the chilis had reached a boil she turned them down to medium, to simmer.

At this point I am thinking my guess was right, we were going to take the chilis once they were soft and stuff them with the 3-4 cups of chicken she’d just defrosted.  But then another twist came in the adventure as Carmen turned on her fryer and started cleaning the oil.  Were we going to fry the chilis after we stuffed them?

At any point during this I could’ve just stopped her and asked what we were making, but I didn’t want to seem foolish and I was kind of enjoying the mystery.

Once the chilis had been cooked for 30 minutes, Carmen asked me to strain the chilis from the water and then using tongs to put them in a blender that she’d added 1 cup chicken broth to. Once I’d put all the chilis to set the blender to high, pureeing the chilis.

Well there went that recipe, I thought as I watched the chilis become a deep red sauce.  And that’s when it hit me! We were making chicken enchiladas, but from a kind of scratch that I’d never thought of. As a typical white girl, whenever I had made chicken enchiladas it off a Food Network recipe. Though they were good, the recipe had directed me to a shelf at the grocery store for a can of red sauce.  But here Carmen was teaching me the real deal.

This revelation launched a whole new excitement for the food we were about to make. Meanwhile, completely oblivious to my being lost and now found, Carmen was dipping corn tortillas in the fryer.

She explained that you just want to put the tortillas in real quick, to heat them. This will keep them from cracking when you roll them into enchiladas, just like we heated the flour tortillas for the chimichangas. She told me that people can use flour if they prefer too. After dipping the tortillas, she laid them out flat on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels. 

Once the chilis were at a good constitency Carmen emptied them into a pan with just enough oil to cover the bottom. She heated the sauce through, routinely taste testing and adding more chicken broth as needed. She uses the chicken broth as salt to add flavor and reduce some of the spicyness of the chili sauce. Even with all the seeds removed, the sauce was still pretty hot.

Next she pulled out a baking dish and told me to get started rolling. She showed me how to dip the corn tortilla in the sauce to coat both sides, then lay it flat in the pan, put a line of chicken and roll. Carmen left me to my rolling, with instructions to cover the enchiladas with more sauce once I had filled the pan and then to top it all with cheese.

We set the oven to 350 and then baked the enchiladas for 20 minutes. Once they were done we sliced up some lettuce and tomatoes to put on top and then we sat down to eat. These were definitely better enchiladas then I’d ever made before.

I hope you enjoyed my mystery and get started on your own in your kitchen.

Buen Provecho!

Beef Chimichangas

This week Carmen and I made beef chimichangas. We actually used this opportunity to multi-task since we made the beef chimichangas mini, a perfect snack for the upcoming family party. So Carmen got the help she needed making 200 mini chimis for the party, and I got more cooking knowledge and a blog topic.

Interestingly enough the chimichanga has a story of originating from right here in Tucson, Arizona. As the story goes a woman affiliated with the oldest mexican food restaurant, El Charro, accidentally dropped a burrito in the fryer. In her frustration she started to yell “chingado,” a spanish curse word, but mid-sentence she changed to chimichanga. Hence was born the deep-fried burrito.

Though this story seems a little far-fetched, it is a popular fable linked to the chimichanga that is popular in mexican food restaurants across Southwest Arizona.  

So now lets start making our own deep-fried mistakes.

Carmen starts by browning the beef

You will need to cook the ground beef in a skillet with hot oil. Once the beef is browned, you will add the chopped onion and and minced garlic to the beef.

While the beef is cooking with the vegetables, you will heat 3 potatoes seperately in the microwave for 3 minutes each. You can leave the skins on the potatoes and once they are cooked the skin should peel off easily and the potatoes should pretty much crumble apart.

Once you have peeled them you will mash them with your fingers as you add them to the beef mixture. Mix and smash the potatoes into the beef until there are no big chunks and it is evenly mixed.

Cut whole jalapenos into pieces, remove the seeds, and add to the beef. The best option for this is just to find whatever is the cheapest brand of canned whole jalapenos.

Buy canned whole jalapenos

You can customize how spicy your recipe is by adding more jalapenos to the recipe or leaving some seeds on the chile.

You will also want to add salt, pepper, and oregano to the beef for the final touch. As much or as little of each as you like. This recipe will be salty on its own without much help from the salt, so be sure to add in small increments, tasting after each time.

Okay now the meat is ready and you can start the chimi-making process. You will need some room for this part. Carmen and I cleared off her kitchen table and needed all of the space to set up the production line for the chimis.

Besides the skillet of beef on the table, you will need a small bowl with one scrambled egg and some milk mixed together. This is what you will brush on the end of the tortilla to keep the chimi rolled.

Obviously you will also need flour tortillas. Carmen and I used large tortillas, they are also sometimes called burrito tortillas.

Fold a tortilla in half and then in half again, forming a triangle. Using a pair of kitchen scissors, cut the triangle down the center. Then use the scissors to cut the folds to make them all single smaller triangles.

Fold in 1/2, 1/2 and then cut in 1/2

Heat the triangles in groups of about 8 in the microwave for 30 seconds. It is important to warm the tortillas first to keep them from cracking when you roll the chimichangas. 

Carmen warns to make sure the tortilla doesn’t crack and that the beef mixture isn’t exposed, because it will make a mess in your fryer if the beef can get out.

If you don’t get good quality tortillas they will crack no matter how much you warm them.  It is sometimes hard to tell which tortillas are good quality so I recommend trying to roll the tortillas in the bag at the grocery store to see if they crack. You might look strange in the store, but it is better than having to go back to the grocery store after you roll your first chimichanga.

Okay back to rolling the mini chimichangas.

The first thing you want to do is to put some of the egg mixture on the point of the triangle. Carmen uses her fingers, dipping them in the bowl and then brushing her fingers across the end. I preferred to just dip the end of the triangle in the mixture and keep my fingers out of it. But no matter how you decide to do it, you will need to get the tip adequately moist so that it will stick to the chimi and stay rolled.

Start at the wide end and roll towards the point

Starting at the wide end, put about an inch of the beef mixture centered an inch in from the end of the tortilla. You will want to fold the end over the beef, and once you have covered the beef, fold over the ends on either side. Continue rolling the tortilla until you get to the tip, sealing the chimi closed.

Repeat these steps until all the beef mixture has been used. As you are doing this, it might be a good idea to set up your deep fryer and let the oil get hot. If you don’t have a deep fryer, well then I don’t think you can make this recipe. Sorry.

Once you have rolled all of your chimis and the oil in your fryer has gotten hot, you will want to lay them flat in the bottom of your frying basket and submerge the basket in the oil. Watch the chimis and check them occasionally to keep them from getting too fried, but it should be for about 2-3 minutes. Once the chimis are light brown, pull out the basket and after straining out the oil put them in a container or on a plate.

This is probably the most important part…wait for the chimis to cool before you eat them! I know you will be excited and I promise they will smell really good, but let them cool. Remember that not only the outside needs to cool, but the inside as well.

Buen Provecho!

So if all of this made sense, and you’re interested in trying them yourself, then buy the ingredients listed below and good luck! I promise it’s not as hard it sounds.

Beef Chimichangas:

ground beef (as much as you want – we used about 4 lbs to make the first 100 chimichangas)

potatoes (I would say one small potato for each pound of beef)

1/4 onion for each lb of beef

1 clove of garlic minced for each lb of beef

jalapenos – really as much or as little as you want, or even none at all

*You will also need one egg and about 2 tablespoons of milk

Carmen’s tips:

• You don’t have to use beef for chimichangas. You can also use beans, cheese, chicken, etc.
• It is just as easy to make regular size chimis using the same technique, but a full-size tortilla instead.

Beans & Rice

Now we are moving on to the staples of a Mexican meal, beans and rice. Neither one of these is too complicated to make so I have combined them in this post.

We will start with the beans, because they are more time consuming to make. You will need 4 cups of dried pinto beans. You can find these beans in a bin in the produce section of any local grocery store. But Carmen warns that you will want to make sure you sift through the beans because sometimes there will be little pebbles that make it in the bin too.

The beans will need to be soaked overnight in room temperature water. The following morning, strain and rinse the beans. You have the option of cooking your beans in a slow-cooker or in a pot on the stove. I didn’t have a slow-cooker so I opted for the pot.

Pour the rinsed beans into the pot and then cover with water, nearly to the top of the pot. Set the pot to high heat and bring to a boil. While you are waiting for it to boil, add 3 whole cloves of garlic, 1/3 yellow onion sliced into chunks, and 3-4 strips of bacon. You can also use a pork bone, which Carmen just happened to have a frozen one, instead of bacon. These ingredients will add flavor to the beans.

Once the water has come to a boil, turn the heat down, cover, and leave to simmer.

The most important part of making refried beans is that you cook the beans long enough to get soft. Carmen and I cooked our beans for 2 1/2 hours and in the end they weren’t soft enough. So this is definitely a time consuming recipe, and better suited for a slow-cooker. As Carmen says people are just too busy to cook like this and a slow-cooker is easy because you can put it all together in the morning and leave it while you go to work and when you return it’s ready!

While you are waiting for the beans to cook you can start the rice.

One cup of rice will feed 8 people, according to Carmen. Use regular long-grain white rice that you can buy in bags at the grocery store, any brand will do.

For every one cup of rice, you will need 2 cups liquid. In this case we used 2 cups chicken broth. Carmen prefers chicken broth to water because it gives the rice more flavor. She also has a preference to homemade chicken broth which she saves when she makes chicken recipes and freezes for later use. She smiled at me and said it was good to drink her chicken broth when you are sick.

If you are not Betty Homemaker however, and don’t have homemade chicken broth on hand, Carmen suggests adding Knorr’s powder chicken bouillon to the water.

You will put the 2 cups of chicken broth and 1 (8oz) can of tomato sauce in a medium size pot and set on high. Put a pan on the stove on high and add just enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan. This is where you will fry the rice. Once the oil is hot, add the rice and stir consistently to brown the rice to a nice light brown.

When the rice has reached the desired browness, strain the rice from the oil using a serving spoon with holes. Add to the boiling chicken broth and tomato mix.

Now you will need to chop 1/4 green pepper and 1/2 an onion. You will also mince 1 clove of garlic.

Carmen uses a very interesting technique for chopping her onion, when she wants to get it into tiny pieces. She will take half an onion and hold it in palm with the sliced side facing up. She will slice the flat side of the onion in her palm just about 1/4″ deep multiple times. After continuing this motion in a random fashion for a few minutes she can turn the onion back on its side and cut a slice about 1/4″ off the onion. This will result in tiny pieces of onion.

Once you have emptied the pan of the rice, add the chopped vegetables to the oil.

Cook the vegetables in the oil for about 3 mintues and then add to the pot. At this point you will want to put the pot to low and cover it to simmer for about 30 minutes or until all the liquid is gone.

Check the rice after the 30 minutes and it should look moist but without any standing liquid.

Back to the beans, test the softness of the beans by spooning a few out and squeezing them between your fingers. Once the beans are soft, you will want to strain them from the liquid. You can leave the onion and garlic and bacon if you like or remove it.

Carmen put the beans into her KitchenAid mixer, but if you don’t have one of those you will have to put them into a regular mixing bowl and enlist the help of a friend or sibling to mash the beans. With the mixer’s help, Carmen and I watched it mix for about 15 minutes and then we finished mashing the last bit by hand for another 5 minutes.

Once the beans are sufficiently mashed you will add them to a pan of hot oil. This is where the “refried” part of their name comes in. You mix them in with the oil and will cook them for about 5 minutes. Once you are done you can add either cheddar cheese or a mexican blend of cheese to the beans as you like.

And there you have it, refried beans and rice!

Buen Provecho!

Chiltepin Salsa

Chiltepin Salsa –

15 Chiltepins (Tepin Chiles)

20 Cherry Tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic

½ teaspoon dried oregano

¾ teaspoon of salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon white vinegar

¼ cup chopped green onions

¼ cup chopped cilantro

*makes about 2 cups of salsa

I came prepared to make the tastiest salsa. I spent the morning shopping for the freshest ingredients for the salsa I was going to make from scratch that day with Carmen.

You can find all you need for authentic Mexican cooking here at Food City

I went to Food City for my fresh cilantro. For those of you who don’t know Food City, a grocery store chain in Arizona,  it is the mecca for Mexican cooking. As Carmen will tell you, there is no need to shop in Mexico for authentic ingredients if you can go to a Food City. I laughed to myself as I entered the grocery story, a white girl humming along to the banda music.

When I got to Carmen’s house, we unloaded the groceries and she appraised what I’d bought. She laughed at me for buying packets of Chiltepins, because she grows them herself in the front yard. I explained to her it was my journalistic duty to hunt for, which wasn’t easy, and buy the chiles myself so I could adequately explain to my readers.

You will find the chiles in the ethnic food aisle of your local grocery story with the spices. They aren’t so exotic that you shouldn’t be able to easily find them, and I actually bought mine at the Walmart Neighborhood Market by my house.

Our cooking lesson started with a rule, “Before you enter a Mexican kitchen, you need to wear an apron,” Carmen tells me as she pushes a homemade apron over my head. After I slipped my arms through, Carmen looks me over and tells me, “oh it is very ugly,” and she was right. But no matter what it looks like, you need something to protect your clothes.

To start you will need to clean the tomatoes and peel the garlic cloves. Put the tomatoes and whole cloves into a pot with just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan and set to low heat. Cover the pot and leave to simmer.

Next, you will want to add the salt, oregano, and pepper in the blender. You will also want to crush the Chiltepins. Carmen uses a handy little wood grinder that a friend brought back for her from Mexico but you could easily use the back of a spoon on a cutting board if necessary. As you are crushing the chiltepins be careful to not put your face to close or inhale the powder because it will cause coughing and burning sensation.

Don’t be fooled, these little chiles may be small but they pack a punch. Taste test the salsa once it’s done and if you like it spicier feel free to add more. As I always say, you can add more but you can’t take it back.

Chop up the green onions and cilantro and set them to the side, they will be the last thing you mix in.

Once your tomatoes are soft you will want to drain them from the water, saving some water in case you’d like to dilute the salsa later, and put them in the blender. Just give it a quick pulse to blend them into a sauce. Add the vinegar and the chopped green onions and cilantro. Pulse the sauce one more time just to mix it all together.

And there you have it, fresh salsa. Once you have mixed it all together, season it to your liking with the salt and pepper.

Buen Provecho!

Carmen’s Secrets:

• If you don’t have enough time and want to make something quick, follow the same recipe but use canned ready cut tomatoes instead.
• If you want to make in bulk and save some for later, old salsa jars from the store work great for preserving extra. Just put a pot of water to boil, put the jar in there empty and boil for a few minutes to sterilize. Remove the jar from the water, with tongs because it will be hot, and pour your salsa in. Put the lid on and then set the jar upright in the pot. The water should go up about ¾ of the way on the jar, but not submerge it. Boil for 20 minutes and the jar will be sealed and preserved until you decide to open it.

You can save some for later by following the directions above.

From the beginning…

To start our journey I thought it would be appropriate to describe my cooking mentor. Carmen comes from another era when home economic skills were passed from mother to daughter, not in a high school classroom.

Carmen was born in Granados, Sonora, Mexico, with four sisters and three brothers.

Her house had no running water and so as a child she would get water for the house from the river a block away. Twice, in the morning before school, she would make a trip to the river carrying two pails. Again when she returned home for lunch she would make the trip for a total of four pails of water. Her final two trips would be after school in the late afternoon. Each day she cared a total of 30 gallons of water to her house for cooking, cleaning, and bathing.

Carmen's Mother

In the small town of Granados schooling ended for children at sixth grade. Once Carmen had graudated sixth grade she stayed home with her mother and older sister to help clean the house, while her eldest sister worked in nearby Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Carmen and her sister would rotate the chores of cleaning, laundry and cooking each week. Carmen recalls that her mother made beans, tortillas, enchiladas, and tamales frequently. Her mother’s favorite food was anything with meat, she loved the flavor, said Carmen.

Carmen herself didn’t have any favorite foods. “I ate everything, just not sweets.” But oddly enough, despite her lack of a sweet tooth, she prefers baking to cooking. “I like to bake cookies and cake,” said Carmen.

Maybe if I’m lucky we will get to bake later! Because there has never been a doubt in my mind that I have a sweet tooth.

When Carmen got older she met her future husband and eloped with him. It was very risque because her husband had been previously married and already had two sons, Tony and Mike. So from the beginning Carmen cooked a lot of food.

“When I first married my husband, he ate 12 tacos, rice and beans,” said Carmen.

Fortunately her husband and sons were never picky eaters. “Tony and Mike liked beans and tortillas,” said Carmen. Soon thereafter Carmen had a daughter, Piri, followed by her son (and my boyfriend) Solano ten years later and finally her last child Chacha when Solano was two.  

From left: Carmen, Piri, and Chacha

 

Carmen says that her daughters never really learned how to cook like she did because they grew up in a different world where children were busy with school and activities. Now her eldest daughter has a degree from the University of Arizona, has two sons of her own and works a full-time job. Chacha, the youngest daughter, attends college and works part-time. Neither of them have anytime for cooking, says Carmen.

But I am happy to step in as her apprentice and do my best to share her trade secrets with my readers so they too can enjoy the feel of a warm homemade flour tortilla in their hand and the smell of fresh posole on the stove.

Buen Provecho!

Coming Soon!