Monthly Archives: April 2010
Today’s day is only marginally going better than yesterday’s, but I prepared a decent meal anyways. I was not sure what the fish I thawed yesterday was, as I have the bad habit of putting stuff in zipper bags and then freezing them and trying to rely on my memory to know what it is. It does not work and I really need to make an effort to start systematically labeling things with content and freeze date as opposed to only occasionally do it.
It turned out to be one of the last pieces of local “dorado” (mahi-mahi) from the over 1 meter fish we bought some months ago. At the same time we also bought a few large “huachinango” (red snapper). We are now down to our last few packs, so we need to plan another trip to the central fish market. The two pieces in the pack were from the tail tip of the filet and not well cut to cook as a whole.
Yesterday I had though of baking them in a tomato sauce, but today I was pressed for time and I wanted something quicker to prepare and something that gives a satisfying crunch when eating, as everybody knows that crunchy food is fun food. I decided to cut the pieces in small chunks, then bread them quickly with some savory breading.
I prepared a quick bound breading with first some flour mixed with garlic salt, herbes de Provence, citric chile powder and white pepper to lightly flour the pieces. I them passed them through a wash with eggs mixed with a bit of sesame oil, salsa “Maggi”, and heavy cream. Then I completed the bound breading with some hand-crushed Corn Flakes.
Dorado breaded in Corn Flakes
I pan-fried the fish in a few tablespoons of soy oil and it yielded incredibly crunchy pieces of fish with a moist juicy interior. I served it with the leftover sweet potato purée from 2 days ago. It turned out to be an very quick and easy meal to prepare that was very satisfying and very tasty.
The plated Dorado ready to serve
Lucito
Today was a hectic and bad day for us in the office as a lot of things happened that put a lot of projects behind schedule or canceled completely. It was “One of those days” as they say… To make things even funnier I had taken out of the freezer some nice fish to prepare for lunch today and by the time I should have started cooking the fish was still mostly frozen. I guess we will have that tomorrow.
In any case due to our moods we were not very hungry anyways, so we decided around 6pm to finally have lunch and we just made a few plain grilled cheese sandwiched. The easy kind with simply two slices of bread and a slice of cheese in between. Very boring and half an hour later I am starting to get hungry again, but it will have to do for now. We will see later if we decide to eat something in the evening.
Tomorrow will be another day, and hopefully a better one…
Lucito
As mentioned earlier I decided to prepare some thinly sliced pork chops that we bought on sale last weekend. We also bought half a small pineapple and I was planning to use that too. Here is a look at those very thin chops. Thinly sliced meat is very popular here in Mexico.
Here are those thinly sliced pork chops we ate
I ended up removing the flesh from the pineapple husk and chopping it roughly. I mixed it with some quartered mushrooms, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic glaze, cumin, salt and pepper. I oven-baked the chops in the pineapple mix on a bed made with pieces of pineapple husk. Here is a picture of the dish as it came out of the oven.
The dish coming out of the oven
The dish turned out fantastic and I will post the recipe in the coming weeks. I prepared some sweet potatoes purée to go with it as it had been ages that we had some. All in all a great meal! Now I need to go take a nap…
Here is the plated dish ready to eat
Lucito
I am about to go to the kitchen to prepare the meal and I am starving. I have been working in the office preparing various proposals since early this morning and I have yet to take a 5 minute break, so I feel understandably lightheaded.
When I got up I thawed some of those thinly sliced pork chops we bought on sale last weekend. I plan to bake them with some fresh pineapple we bought at the same time. I am not sure exactly yet how I will do that, and I will let whatever inspiration that hits me when I actually start cooking take over.
If it turns out well I will post the results later this week. Wish me luck…
Lucito
¡Para nuestros lectores en el área de la Ciudad de México! Además del curso de "Introducción al vino" anunciado AQUÍ en nuestro sitio principal, también tendremos otro curso en el área de Naucalpan, al norte de la ciudad, este sábado 17 de abril. Aún tenemos algunos espacios así que contáctame directamente si estás interesado.
Lucito
For our readers in the Mexico City area! Besides the Introduction to wine course advertised on our main site HERE we are also having another course in the Naucalpan area in the north of the city this Saturday April 17th. We still have a few places remaining so contact me directly if you are interested.
Lucito
We have been doing house chores since around 7am today and it is now 4pm. We do not have time or the inclination to do anything in the kitchen so it wil be the leftover pizza from Saturday, at least the few slices that the Boyz did not steal from us. We'll see about preparing something interesting tomorrow.
Lucito
As mentioned in yesterday's Daily Express, I prepared some ribs with an oriental-influenced marinade. They turned out incredibly good so I will post the recipe later this week as they are worth sharing. Here is a picture to wet you appetite.
Lucito
As mentioned yesterday we found some great pork meat on sale and bought various cuts enough to make 7-8 meals. What we will have today is deboned pork rib halves that looked very tasty.
Deboned Pork Rib Halves
We only paid around MN$55 a Kg for them (~US$1.90 a pound) and they look and feel very juicy. I am not sure how I will cook them, as I would love cooking them on the barbecue, but around here it is very difficult to plan this ahead of time as it might be raining by the time we are ready to eat, or it might be too windy. We’ll see what happens and depending on the weather or my mood I will either do them outside as planned or in the oven.
The ribs in the marinade.
As it is somewhat hot these days I wanted to prepare them in a lighter way so I prepared a marinade inspired by the high temperature. It is based on tangerine juice, with some “piloncillo” (raw cane sugar cones reconstituted in boiling water to form a heavy syrup reminiscent of molasses), Sambal Olek (oriental chili paste), soy sauce, sesame oil, a roughly pealed piece of fresh ginger, powdered “chile ancho” and citric zests, salt and pepper with lime zest. The result as a somewhat sweetish marinade with a bit of bite to it. Perfect for the weather. The meat is currently marinating in the refrigerator and in a few hours I will just turnover the meat in it so it is well marinated and whenever it is time I will decide how to cook it and what garnishes I will make.
If the results are great I will post the full recipe in the coming weeks…
Lucito
We have a lot of fruit trees around the house including 4-5 peach trees, 4-5 pear trees, a few orange trees, a few lime trees, a ‘lima” tree which is a citrus tree that gives small yellow orange-like fruits that are lightly sweet, a pomegranate tree, a mandarin tree, a few prune trees, a few “capulines” tree that gives small tart berries, and a bush that produce some type of raspberry. Normally from late April to December we do not need to buy any fruits as the trees are producing a huge crop.
The first crop of the year are the peaches. Our trees produce a few varieties of very small peaches (~1-2 inches in diameter) with just a bit of fuzz and with a very hard flesh. When we moved here we thought they were not edible as they were very hard, but we rapidly found out that their hard flesh is very sweet and juicy.
The small peaches on the tree by the kitchen door.
This morning while we were passing the broom outside the house on the front patio and doing other chores like watering the trees, I found in the peach tree next to the kitchen door a small peach that looked ripe as it was larger than the other and bright red in color. I jumped up to take it and we tried it. Though it would have improved with another week or two on the branch, it was nice and sweet with just a bit of tartness. It looks promising for this season as all the trees are full with new fruits and in the coming weeks we will start our harvest.
Another view of the same tree.
I know someone who will be very happy about this as Bacchus, my Bouvier, loves to eat all the fallen fruits he can find and the peaches, stones and all, are his favorite. There is even a very small peach tree in the back that he can harvest himself and he takes good care of it and “waters” it daily…
Lucito