shizzling - (mis)adventures in food

'A Bowl Of Red' - First attempt at a Texas Red Chili recipe

Serves: 6

Preparation: 10 minutes. Cooking: 2 hours (longer in a slow cooker)

A little while ago, an online friend called Joshua Hultberg recommended a book to me called A Bowl Of Red, by Frank X. Tolbert.  

Tolbert wrote the book in the 1960s - it's a kind of culinary history book that talks about the origins of various Texan recipes, including 'original' Texas chili con carne, a dish that doesn't have onions, tomatoes or beans anywhere near it. 

Although A Bowl Of Red isn't strictly a recipe book, it covers a number of Texan recipes in enough detail to recreate them for yourself. 

This is my first attempt and the results were so good that I'll be trying again pretty soon..

Pulled Confit of Lamb Shoulder

Serves: 4 to 6

Preparation: 20 minutes. Slow cook 12 hours. 

This recipe came about through luck and experimentation. I had followed a recipe for confit duck legs that were flavoursome, succulent, and fell off the bone. It got me thinking that rather than slow roasting pork shoulder for use as pulled pork or taco meat, I could maybe try to confit it . I found a joint of what I thought was pork shoulder at the back of the freezer and thought it would be a great candidate for the test. 

I just received a nice surprise from my friends at El Yucateco foods

A few months ago I got talking online with the people at El Yucateco foods, whose ingredients I use in a lot of my Mexican recipes. Actually, to be honest, I find that a splash of El Yucateco Chipotle Sauce gives a wonderful deep flavour note to lots of recipes, not just Mexican.

When I mentioned how difficult it can be to get hold of specialist Mexican ingredients in the UK, El Yucateco asked me if I'd like some samples that I could use in recipes on the Shizzling blog - a perfect barter, as far as I'm concerned. 

Today the first of those samples arrived in the form of two boxes - one full of achiote and the other full of their Kutbil-Ik De Exxxtra Hot Habanero Sauce. 

I'm looking forward to cooking with these ingredients - I think there's probably more than a year's supply!

 

Home Made Pickled Serenade Chilli Taste Test

Back in July 2011 I pickled some Serenade Chillies that I had picked from a plant in my garden. I used a cider vinegar & salt mix as the pickling liquid. 

The idea was to find out whether I could produce pickled chillies that are comparable in quality to the pickled jalapenos that are sold by Discovery Foods, Old El Paso and others. I was also interested in determining the shelf life of the pickled chillies and whether they lost any colour, flavour or texture over time. 

So, here are the fresh Serenade chillies, before I washed them and cut slits in them to allow the pickling liquid to penetrate.  

And here they are immediately after I pickled them:

They looked very vibrant and fresh immediately after pickling. Then, over the course of the first couple of weeks that vibrancy diminished. After a month I opened the jar and tried one - it had a  crispness to it that you don't get with the shop bought pickled chillies.

Then I sealed the jar back up and stuck it in the fridge to see how long they would keep.

I just took one out today, after they have been in the jar for 6 months, and sliced it up to do a taste test.

The colour, taste and texture are all stable compared to how they were when I did my first taste test. 

This makes me confident that I can pickle a load of jalapenos and serrano chillies in the same way this year.

Minced Beef Enchiladas with Red Sauce recipe

Makes 4 large enchiladas. 

Preparation: 20 minutes. Cooking: 40 to 50 minutes. 

Enchiladas generally consist of corn tortillas wrapped around a filling and then topped with a spicy sauce and cheese. There are many variations: in parts of Texas they stack the tortillas, you can have many different fillings, you can have green sauce rather than red sauce..

..and you can knock them up in the UK on a cold winter's evening and cross your fingers that your enchilada recipe is a good one. They were certainly tasty but I'm hoping some of my American friends will comment on this recipe to help me to improve it in future.

İmam bayıldı recipe - 'The priest fainted' stuffed aubergines

Serves: 6

Preparation: 40 minutes. Cooking: 1 hour. 

İmam bayıldı translates as "the Priest fainted". The name derives from Ottoman times when this dish was created and was said to be so delicious that the Imam it was served to fainted with pleasure.  I obviously didn't make it absolutely perfectly as nobody fainted; the best response I got was "this aubergine thing is really nice". 

Acılı Domates Ezmesi - Turkish spicy tomato salsa recipe

Preparation: 40 minutes

This is another classic Turkish meze dish. It has an very fresh flavour and it varies in spice wherever you eat it. There are 2 ingredients in this recipe - paprika paste and pomegranate syrup - that aren't used in British cuisine. You can find the paprika paste in Turkish grocers - there are mild and spicy versions. The pomegranate syrup is stocked in Sainsburys - you can use lemon juice instead if you can't find it.