Fine! Mexican potato cakes then. I don't know what to name these things that I invent, what do I look like, a toponomastic nomenclator over here? Call my Mexican latkes whatever you wish, but I do urge you to at least try them.
Rib eye, Mexican latkes
Whooa, wai.. what? Yes! Mexican latkes. Here you see the bringing together of Eastern European Jewish and Mexican elements. These things I do for the unification of the world, for improvement in cultural understanding, and for the betterment of all mankind.
You might think it odd, and if so I would suggest to think some more. Consider, the potato is a New World vegetable unknown to Europe prior to Columbus. If the potato, then why not chile and masa harina too, and Oaxaca cheese for that matter? It's not that great a leap.
You will notice the directions for latkes all pretty much agree to use raw grated potato as with hash browns. Most instruct to squeeze out excess water. Other directions toss raw potato into a blender and add water to blend, and produce a mush. The excess liquid then is absorbed by wheat flour to produce a thick wet mixture similar to pancake batter. The distinguishing feature is egg. Some recipes include lime (the green fruit, not the chemical). Some recipes include baking powder. This approach is different because it uses precooked potato. You might decide to dismiss them as latkes and call them potato cakes instead. I don't care. The inspiration is latkes.
The steak is one of two small rib eyes packaged together.
All the ingredients except masa harina are in the bowl but they are covered by riced potatoes.
* 2 medium Yukon gold potatoes, cooked and riced
* 2 scallions chopped finely
* 3/4 level teaspoon garlic powder
* 1 teaspoon Mexican oregano. You might prefer dill or parsley.
* 1 small hot chile like a jalapeño or serrano diced finely.
* 1 egg, beaten
* 1 oz grated Oaxaca cheese
* 2 tablespoons masa harina
The masa harina is added at the end in careful increments to bring the mixture together. How much masa harina will depend on the wetness of potato and the size of the egg.
Pour enough oil to cover the bottom of a frying pan.
Masa cooks quickly. So does cheese. These pancakes brown more rapidly than if you decide to go with raw grated potato and flour and remain cheeseless, which of course must then stay in the pan long enough to cook the potato through.
Served with daubs of sour cream.
These latkes are fantastic, far more delicious than ordinary plain latkes, surely they will sweep the continents. Go ahead and have the recipe. It's yours. Enter contests with it and win large sums. I promise I will not sue, but rather cheer your success.
Fried chicken
This is an ordinary American dinner.
A whole chicken is cut into 10 pieces. The two breasts are cut into two pieces each, and the thigh is separated from the leg. The wings are kept whole because, what?, do you think it is hot wings operation over here? The back and the neck are frozen for chicken stock later, along with all the bones as the pieces are consumed.
Two cups of flour and generous seasoning are added to paper grocery bag, salt, white pepper, red cayenne pepper, Mexican oregano which is stronger than Greek oregano. The chicken pieces are tossed in the flour, drenched in plain milk, then returned to the flour for a second toss. There was very little flour wasted. I didn't measure it, but if I did, it would have been about half a cup. The chicken pieces are deep-fried in vegetable oil at 300℉ / 175 ℃ in two batches, dark pieces first. I am reusing 1 quart of oil, and for storage I do not want to go over that amount. The temperature is a bit on the low side for deep-frying purposes because time is needed for the internal temperature of the meat to reach 165℉ / 74 ℃. The temperature of the oil will drop by at least 20℉ / 12 ℃ so to anticipate that drop, if you happen to have a reliable thermometer, start out at 320℉ / 160 ℃ then cut the heat down when the oil temperature stabilizes.
The chicken is rather large for an ordinary grocery store chicken.
I've become more skillful at cutting these whole chickens. I learned to cut through the tendons at the major joint bones instead of hacking through bone like a Medieval brute. The trick is to locate the sweet spot where the blade can pass through with ease. It's fun!
A single potato was cooked in the microwave, partly cooled and then peeled. The whole potato was pushed through a ricer into a bowl. Heated butter and milk was added to the riced potato then mixed.
A pat of butter with a tablespoon of cooking oil used for the chicken was heated with a rounded tablespoon of flour along with my favorite seasoning including 1/2 teaspoon Masala curry to form a flavorful roux. Cold commercial chicken broth and milk was whisked into the roux to desired thickness.
You know what? Yesterday I looked closely at photo of a KFC meal with a bucket of chicken in the background and paper cups of side slaw and mashed potatoes, and paper cups with caps and straws sticking through, and a plasticized paper plate with pieces of chicken in the foreground. It was a poor photograph to begin with, grainy riddled with JPG artifacts. The photograph had obviously been carelessly handed. I studied the photograph. It made me sad. It forced a recall of the taste, and the taste is salt. Contrary to popular belief, the first ten of their 11 secret herbs and spices are not salt. For the heck of it, and out of sheer meanness and ridicule, here are the KFC secret special mix of herbs and spices which you can safely avoid:
2 tablespoons Accent (mostly MSG)
2 tablespoons paprika
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon onion salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground sage
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
Notice two types of salt, three if you count the MSG in Accent. Two types of chile powders, one they call chili, who knows what that is exactly, probably cayenne, the other paprika which is the Hungarian, Croatian, Serbian word for 'pepper' referring to capsicum. So chili powder and paprika are two versions of the same thing. Dried basil is virtually worthless. Basil is spectacular when it is fresh but it looses everything of value when it is dried. Similarly, marjoram is mild and sweet. I wouldn't give 2¢ for this list of herbs and spices. <French accent> Go away, or I shall mock it a second time. </French accent>
Scrambled eggs on sourdough
Creamy moist scrambled eggs prepared as a thick sauce. The technique is already discussed at length here with a link to a Gordon Ramsay video. You've never had anything like this, well, maybe you have, but I urge you to try this at home if you haven't already. It will change your perspective on scrambled eggs permanently, and henceforth all future scrambled eggs will be compared with these and found seriously wanting. You will wonder to yourself, "What took me so long to catch on?"
Cook the eggs in a small pot instead of a pan starting at room temperature. Crack the eggs into the pot along with a generous nob of cold butter. Whisk on moderate heat continuously without letting up. You will notice the butter begin to melt. That means the pot is warm enough to begin cooking the egg. Lift the pot off the heat source the moment you notice anything at all happening with the egg. It will begin to thicken and cook at the bottom. Whisk the cooked portion into the liquid portion off the heat and then return to the heat to continue.
On the heat.
Off the heat.
On the heat.
Off the heat.
On the heat.
Off the heat.
On the heat.
Off the heat.
On the heat.
Off the heat.
Like a crazy person, watch the mixture like a hawk while whisking continuously both on and off the heat, and remove from heat as soon as the first molecule cooks so to avoid the formation of curd, or to whisk them in if they do form. In this manner the mixture thickens and cooks through within just a few minutes. Now, use your judgement to determine how stiff and thoroughly cooked you want your eggs. There is a broad margin here. You can stop at a thin sauce or you can continue to a firm fully coagulated rubbery mixture. This cold butter whisked into egg over gentle to moderate heat is the same technique used for Hollandaise sauce but in that case, usually much more melted butter is whisked into egg over a double boiler and the process halted before the egg completely coagulates.
Finish with crème fraiche, sour cream, or Mexican crema, all three have a touch of acid that performs the same function as lemon juice in Hollandaise sauce, and this is the touch that distinguishes these eggs from standard café fare (along with the completely smooth texture, of course, but that is understood.)
Again, hold off from the salt until the end because it tends to keep the egg liquid.
The bread is my own sourdough dense as any bagel, stronger than anything available commercially because it was fermented longer than practical for commercial bakeries, a full three days. Imagine having three days of dough stored in rotation and kept cold for a product with limited and inconsistent demand, it doesn't happen. So you must make it yourself if you want eye-popping kick-butt sourdough bread.
Here is an idea to have the process go more quickly than the process I described in the previous post. Prepare a thick slurry of flour and water, say 1 cup, in a closed mason jar. Set the jar aside and forget about it for 3 days. Check for activity on the 4th day. Look for tiny bubbles to appear. No bubbles? Give it another day. When tiny bubbles appear, your starter is activated and you can begin feeding your starter in increments of equal parts flour and water by weight, that would be approximately double the flour to water by volume, say, one cup total the first feeding.
This first cultivation step can be speeded considerably by introducing a steady heat source of 95℉ / 35℃ , as a proofing box, for the first 24 hours. This is the ideal temperature for yeast cells. After that, subsequent feedings are at room temperature which is generally 20℉ / 13℃ less than the ideal temperature for yeast so all subsequent feedings will take longer to reach peak activity.
Observe the bubble activity for its peak. Keep an eye on the dough at 8 hours. See the dough-foam creep up the bowl. When the foam falls back from the peak you will notice a line around the bowl left by the receding culture, like a bath tub ring, and then you will have the natural timing of your yeast/bacteria culture's feeding cycles. Or else you can force the timing by feeding regularly at 8 hour or 10 hour or 12 hour intervals, whatever works best for you. Increase the amounts of feeding with each increment as if you were trying to fool the entire yeast/bacteria culture that new food resources are infinite.
It may take a few days to develop a fully active culture. Along the way your culture might get out of hand due to the increased feedings. In that case, pour off some of the excess to keep the culture a manageable size as you develop its bubbling ferocity. I've noticed that cultures derived from the organisms already on milled flour tend to be more powerful than cultures derived from airborne organisms specific to location. I think that is because flour is milled grain combined from various sources in order to achieve specific protein levels and to attain a relatively consistent product.
At the peak of the peakity-peak of bubbling activity, add enough flour to the final feeding to create a dough and not just a loose foam. Add salt. Allow to proof partially, that is, an incomplete cycle. Chill the dough for at least 2 days, 3 days is better. Remove from cold storage, allow to attain room temperature and resume its wonton profligate ways. Form a loaf if it isn't already formed, and then bake. I like using some kind of cloche and high temperature, but everybody has their own preferences.
If you are anything like me, then you must be prepared to make every mistake known to baking and then some that only you would make, without becoming discouraged. It's how we learn -- by failing. At least, that's how I learn. I cannot tell you how many times I forgot to add salt.
It might help to watch the 'NYT no-knead bread' video widely hailed as the big game changer among amateur bakers, judging by the comments to it. It's all over YouTube and the internets. (The video neglects a brief proofing period immediately preceding baking. I have no idea why they edited that out.)
Popcorn
Those bags of microwave popcorn that are available all over the place sure are convenient, but one time I opened a bag to see what was inside and smelled the contents. The oil smelled rancid and decidedly non-buttery and awful with chemicals. Put me off microwave popcorn permanently and I don't care how great it smells when it's cooked. It must be some kind of dark chemistry magic.
This corn comes from the bulk bins at whole foods and kept in a jar in the pantry. I can mill the popcorn to powder and make homemade polenta. I can use the milled corn for addition to bread, cornbread, biscuits, to mix with steamed rice, as a corn-flavored thickener, to supplement masa for tortillas, coat fried chicken and fish along with wheat flour, crackers, all kinds of odd and adventurous things. Try doing any of that with microwave popcorn -- truly a one trick pony
Kosher salt or sea salt is crushed to fine powder. It can also be processed in a coffee mill. The idea is to have the smallest possible crystals.
Parmigiano Reggiano, undisputed king of all cheeses, celery salt on impulse, garlic powder, a very fine powder also from the bulk bins at Whole Foods and unlike the granular form available in tiny jars in the grocery store spice section. Some kind of curry probably Masala, it seems to have a good deal of turmeric in it, cayenne sold in tins.
Ordinarily I would treat the spices and the cheese separately. Unsalted butter melted in the same pot that popped the corn off the heat but while it is still hot. This way the seasoning can cook briefly in the hot melted butter before being drizzled over the popcorn without melting the cheese. But this time I mixed it all together and sprinkled it over the finished popcorn that was drizzled with butter. The wet butter gives the finely grated cheese and the powdered spices a way to stick to the popcorn. The cohesion can be assisted with a few seconds in the microwave which will then melt the cheese to the surface of the popcorn so it doesn't all end up at the bottom of the bowl, although that can be sort of fun too.
Exactly 1/2 cup popcorn seeds works perfectly with this 3-quart pot. I think it's 3-quart, I didn't check.
The butter is cut and ready to go, like the grated cheese and the salt and other spices, mise en place, if you like. The popcorn cooks very quickly and there will be no time to root around for various additions.
Vegetable oil, one tablespoon approximately, just enough to coat the kernels, So two types of fat; vegetable for higher cooking heat, butter to finish, to flavor the corn, and to provide a damp surface for grated cheese, salt, and spices to adhere.
This pot has a lid but it fits too tightly. The lid must vent steam or else the popcorn will not be crunchy. Therefore, this splatter guard screen is substituted for the lid.
The popcorn is dumped into a waiting bowl as soon as it rises to the top of the pot. The heat is cut off. Butter (and usually spices) are added to the hot pot. The spices cook and the butter is drizzled over the popcorn. Cheese is drizzled over the top of the popcorn while gently tossing.
Cheese and spices. Salt and pepper. Vegetable oil to cook and butter to flavor. This popcorn is unlike anything you've ever tried. It is available nowhere but your own kitchen. Because the spices and their amounts are all impulse, it is never precisely the same any two times, so the variations are infinite.
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