Recipes

The bedrock of Mexican cuisine has to be the taco…

You’d be hard pressed to walk a few blocks in any Mexican town or city without coming across a stand, large or small, offering some sort of meat or fish placed on top of a tortilla.  The time of day doesn’t matter, these irresistible treats deftly manoeuvre their way into breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So when it came to Thai-y-fying the iconic taco we knew we had to go big or go home.  And that meant fiddling with the base: the tortilla.  And that meant a multitude of abuelas rolling over in their graves.

To the abuelas we ask forgiveness.  To the rest of you: buen apetito.

Warning: this recipe has some wait times so read it through long before you start.

Makes six appetizer sized tacos.

Ingredients:

1 Jicama (A large cucumber will do)

3 Limes

1/2 cup Chopped Cilantro

1 Pork Loin

125 g Pulled and Chopped Fresh Ginger

7 Serrano Chillies

7 Spring onions

1 Medium Cucumber

3 Radishes

1 Avocado

4 Oranges

Salt and Pepper

How to do it!

The marinade:  orange you glad I said orange!

Take a large pan and squeeze the juice from the oranges into it.  Make sure there are no seeds.  Use a strainer if you need to.

Peel the ginger and cut some slices and add them to the pan.

Put the pan on a low heat and cook until it reduces to a thick caramel texture.  About 10 minutes max.

Put aside to cool.

The meat:  you need some precision here!

Cut the pork into perfect one and a half inch squares — and I mean perfect!

Mix the meat with the now cool marinade.  Add a little salt and pepper.

Marinade in the fridge for 2 hours – 24 hours.  The longer the better.

The tortilla:  these are not your abuela’s tortillas so hang on to your hat.

Put some water and lime juice in a large bowl.  Peel the Jicama and slice in half length-wise.

Cut very thin round discs from the Jicama and put them in a large bowl with water and a little lime juice.   These are your tortillas and should be put aside for the final phase.

The rest of the jicama is not needed but can be munched on with a little chilli powder while you cook.

The garnish: I hope you like chopping.

It’s a good idea to put all the garnish on little plates or in little bowls.

Chop the cilantro and put in a small bowl.

Thinly slice one of the seven serrano chillies.  (You’re going to deep fry the other six — you can do this later when you fry the meat.).

With a peeler make thin lengthwise slices of the cucumber.  They should look like ribbons.

Roll these thin slices and stand them up together in a little bowl so they maintain their shape.

Slice the end off the radish and toss it.  Continue slicing the same way creating very thin slices of radish. Put them in water and a little lime juice.

Measure 6 inches from the white end of the spring onion and cut.  Discard the green end, retain the part with the white onion.

With the remaining orange cut some supremes (these are segments with no peel or white skin).

Peel the avocado and remove the seed.  Mash it together with salt, pepper and lime juice.

Final steps:  this is where the artist in you comes out!

Put a large pan with frying oil on high heat.

Place the meat cubes in the pan.

Fry on each side while brushing with leftover marinade.

Do this until fully cooked.

Take them out of the pan and put them on a plate.

(fry your remaining six serrano chilies in this same pan)

Take 6 plates out.

Take the Jicama tortillas out of the water and dry them with a paper towel and put one on each plate.

With a spoon make a thin swipe of the avocado mixture across the jicama tortilla.

Grab one piece of pork and place it off centre on the tortilla. Place one radish slice on the pork and on top of that one orange supreme and a fried Serrano chilli.

Place a spring onion across the tortilla and add radish and chilli slices and cucumber rolls around it.  This presentation is up to you.

Repeat this process for the other 5 tacos.

Serve these little babies immediately.

 

 

Margaritas are…

pretty much the iconic drink of Mexico so it took the power of a tiger (and some fresh ginger) to turn this staple drink on it’s ass for our fusion experiment.

To make four:

Ingredients:

4 shots of Tequila

4 Limes

2 tbsp Agave syrup

Fresh ginger 2 square inches

Ice

Salt

Chilli powder

Optional garnish:

4 Lime leaves

Frying oil

Sugar

Deep fry the lime leaves and then pat them on a plate of sugar.  Place them on a paper towel.  Let cool.

Squeeze the juice from 4 limes into a blender.  Peel the ginger and add to the blender.  Blend for about a minute.  Then pass the mixture through a strainer.

In a small saucer mix the salt and the chilli powder.  Rim the four glasses with lime juice and then place, one at a time, upside down in the salt.

In a cocktail shaker add ice, tequila, agave and the lime ginger mixture.  Shake vigorously.

Pour the mixture into the four rimmed glasses.  Garnish with a lime leaves.

Mexican horchata water…

We took this cool, classic drink that can be found all over the Spanish speaking Americas and gave it a splash of coconut.

Warning:  you got to have some time to let it sit.

Ingredients:

Water

1 c Large grain rice

1/2 c Coconut milk

1/2 c Evaporated Milk

Cinnamon stick

1/2 c Agave syrup

1 tsp. Vanilla extract

Ice

1/2 c Sweet Dry Coconut

Put the rice in a medium sized bowl and pour water over the rice until it covers it by about one inch.  Add a the cinnamon stick and put it all aside for a while — between 2 and 24 hours.  The longer the better!

After the long wait transfer rice, cinnamon stick and water to a blender and add the the rest of the ingredients except the ice.  Give it a whizz until it’s smooth.  Next pass it through a strainer or cheese cloth and into a jug.  Add about one L of water and taste.  Add more agave if you want it sweeter.  Chill in the fridge and then serve on ice.

Mexican Pozole…

has been gracing Mexican dinner tables since pre-hispanic times.  It’s a comfort food soup that is dear to many Mexican families and is served for celebrations all over the country.  While there are a few regional differences across Mexico — none are as altering as the Thai injected one we’re suggesting.

The flavour make-over starts with the addition of lemongrass and curry.  Pozole screams for tostadas but finding none in Thailand, we replaced them with flame toasted rice paper.  While in Thailand we went coco for coconut and I think there’s nothing as comforting or as Thai as a big splash of coconut milk.  It will have you dreaming of incense, pagodas and motor scooter rides to distant beaches.

Don’t be alarmed by some of the “special ingredients”.  Most can be found at a Latin supermarket or we’ve included some possible substitutions.  A few omissions won’t kill the soup but make a day of trying to find what you can.

The pig’s head may troubling for some, but it could be worse: the pre-hispanic recipe called for the flesh of fallen warriors.  Enjoy!

Four Step Procedure

This soup is made in four steps.  To keep your sanity, steps one and two can be done earlier in the day or even one day before.  Start steps three and four about 2 hours before serving.

STEP ONE:  THE MEAT  — you need a big pot

• 1/2 pig’s head OR 500 g/1 lb. Pork Skirt Steak
• 4 L or 1 gallon water
• 10 peppercorns
• a dash of salt
• 4-5 lime leaves (if available)
• a head of garlic
• 1/2 white onion

Put the whole lot in a large pot and on top of a full flame.  At boiling turn down the heat and cook for 45 minutes uncovered.  Every 5 minutes or so you’ve got to skim the fat off the top of the water.  (Experienced food-o-philes can start getting ready for STEP 2 —but don’t forget to skim!)

When the 45 minutes are up turn off the heat, take the meat out and let it cool on the counter under a sheet of plastic wrap.  Pass the broth through a colander or strainer and put the clean broth aside.  Don’t throw it out!  It’s the soup!

Once the meat has cooled slip it into the fridge.

STEP TWO – THE CURRY PASTE

— you need a *molcajete

* a mortar and pestle will do fine

• 1tbsp cilantro roots
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds
• 1/2 tbsp cumin
• 1 1/2 tbsp galangal (or ginger)
• 1/4 cup garlic
• 1 lime leaf
• 3 tbsp sliced lemon grass
• 1/2 tbsp peppercorns
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1/2 cup sliced shallots
• 1 tsp shrimp paste
• 1/4 cup chilli leaves (if available)
• 1 – 10 green Thai chillies (1 for wimps and 10 for all-stars)

Put all of the above into your molcajete (or mortar and pestle) and crush the bejesus out of it until you get a paste of uniform texture. Put aside.

STEP THREE:  CORN — you need cheese cloth

•  3 cobs of pozole corn  (or any non-sweet corn)
• The broth from above
• Green curry paste from above
• 1/2 cup of coconut milk

Peel the corn and remove the kernels from the cob.  This should give you about 3 cups of corn kernels.  Put the broth (you kept it right?) and the corn in a pot and heat over a high flame.  When it starts to boil lower the flame and let it simmer for 45 minutes and take a rest.

But just for a minute cause you’ve got two jobs to do.  While the corn is simmering put the curry paste into the shape of a ball and place it in a piece of cheese cloth.  Take the meat out of the fridge and cut it into bite sized pieces.  Oh and get the coconut milk ready.  Okay that’s three jobs.

If you’ve got time to spare you can now start getting the ingredients for PART FOUR ready.

When the 45 minutes are up add the curry ball, the meat and the coconut milk to the pot.   Don’t touch the flame — keep it low.  After 10 minutes remove the curry ball.   Add more salt if you like at this point and let it simmer for 5 more minutes.  Turn off the heat and move on to STEP FOUR.

STEP FOUR:  THE PRESENTATION — you need some bowls and a little panache.

• 6 shallots
• a little vegetable oil
• 6 Serrano chillies
• 1 large cucumber
• 2 radishes
• A pinch of Gusano de Maguey salt — this salt contains worms: think of it as the tequila of salt. (Regular salt will do).
• 6 sheets rice paper (circular)
• 2 limes

Chop the shallots in rings and sauté in a little oil for a couple of minutes.  Slice the cucumber and radishes into approximately 2 mm slices.  Chop the Serrano chilli very fine.  Cut the limes into quarters.

Take one rice wrapper with tongs and pass it over the direct flame of your burner***.  Keep moving back and forth and also flipping it.  You’ve got to keep it moving to avoid burning.  It’s like a shark: if it stops moving it dies.  Keep this up until it’s crispy.  Continue with all 6 rice paper sheets.

***If you haven’t got a gas stove you can blow torch these (they love it!) or deep fry them in a shallow pan with some oil.

HERE WE GO, THE FINAL COUNTDOWN.

So imagine an assembly line.  You’ve got the broth, the corn, the meat and all the things you got ready above.  You also need a ladle and a pair of tongs.

Line your six sexiest bowls along the counter.  Fill each one half way with broth, then place a ladleful of corn in the centre.  Next place the fried shallots and Serrano chilies lightly on top of the corn. Now use the tongs to surround the corn with the bite sized pieces of meat.  Sprinkle this with the dash of gusano de maguey salt.  Now here comes the panache.  Place the slices of radish and cucumber artfully between the pieces of meat — they should sort of stand up.  Once you’ve done that and it looks good break the crisp rice paper in half and stick the two halves in the bowl so they stand almost vertically.  It should be magical, kind of like a Thai Temple at dawn.  The limes, on the other hand, are very low maintenance and can be placed in a cute bowl and set quietly on the table.