huevos, chile, tortilla

Huevos rancheros, if you like.

Los padres de mi amigo Roberto son de México. He said his mother makes the best tortillas evah. So I invited my friend and his mother (and his two sisters and another person, siempre hacen cosas en groupas) to demonstrate how to make tortillas.

Utilizamos la manteca de cerdo para la autenticidad -- She was totally authentic with lard. Oof. ~~~~~ I hear, and I obey.

Presently I'm cooking for one person. This makes four tortillas, obviously double for eight tortillas:

1/2 cup very hot water (some recipes use milk, pero la madre del Roberto usada aqua caliente)
1 tablespoon lard
3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/3 teaspoon salt
1 Cup A/P flour

Mix, knead, let rest for fifteen minutes. Divide into four segments. Roll the segments into balls. Heat a cast-iron pan or a griddle to medium hot. My friend's mother and his sister patted the dough in their hands to a thick disk. I cannot do that. It's a technique that I have not mastered so I roll them out.

Coooooooooop ooooooouuuuuuuut. I know, but I can't help it.

Fry one at a time (unless your griddle is large enough for more) without spray, the tortillas have sufficient fat of their own. They quickly bubble. Flip. I like to press them flat with another pot but I'm sure that breaks some kind of rule or something. They cook within one minute.

These tortillas are much better straight out of the pan than anything I've ever bought.

Go on, try it, I'm tell'n ya, there's no comparison, and it's easy as eating pie. And fun!

Quick green chile. So-called because of the abundance of green chiles, but the concomitant abundance of tomatoes turns the mixture to mostly red. So there you go, green chile that's actually red. Go figure.

This can be done many ways. They're all good. Do what you wish, it's hard to go wrong.

* 2 LBs or so of pork shoulder, pork butt, pork roast, pork this, or pork that. Whatever. Cut into reasonable chunks. The size of chunks you'd like to lift with a piece of torn tortilla as a spoon. That's torn tortilla, not corn tortilla, although there's nothing at all wrong with corn tortillas, in fact, they're really very good.

Brown the chunks of pork in a stewing pot in batches to cover the bottom. Reserve the cooked pieces of meat in a separate bowl until the all the batches are done. Then brown the onion and garlic in the same pan, then you can start adding back the pork and the rest of the ingredients. Cook until the pork is tender, which is faster than you might think.

* 1 large white onion, diced

* 2 or 3 cloves of crushed garlic

* 1 teaspoon cumin

* 1 teaspoon coriander

* 2 teaspoons Mexican oregano

* 2 teaspoons thyme

* 1/2 teaspoon S/P

* 1 frozen package Hatch green chiles

* 1 small can diced jalapeños

* 1 small can diced chipotle in adobo

Okay, here's the thing. The Hatch chiles were purchased last year from a roadside vendor that roasted them on the spot in one of those gigantic rotating roasting thingies while we waited underneath a tent. I liked that. I chatted it up big time with the ladies under the tent. I surprised them with the range of my chile usage knowledge and the depth of my understanding. They weren't expecting all that from a gringo, especially a male, and said so. They wanted to marry me, I could tell. The chiles have been sitting at the bottom of the freezer this whole time. (I think there's still one package left) They're not in the best shape. They're frozen with the blackened skins still on. That was probably a mistake. While still a little bit frozen, I removed most of the tough blackened skin but not all of it. It would have been better had I done that before they were frozen, but I didn't think of it at the time. So now I must suffer. <--- I kid, I kid.

This is probably the last time I'll use a whole can of chipotle in adobo for this amount of stew. It's not the best batch I've ever made. I could leave it out entirely and not miss it. The deal is, you do want a combination of chile types so it doesn't come out all one-dimensional chile-wise. A variety ranging from mild to hot is nice. You can easily mix types, fresh, canned, dried, powdered and even hot chile sauces. It's entirely up to you, what you have on hand, and your preferences.

If you're using fresh chiles, and there's no good reason why you must, then burn their surfaces first, either stove top, directly on the burner, in the flame, or in the oven at the broiler. An outdoor grill works very well for this. Put them in a paper bag to steam, then peel off most but not all of the blackened skin. It's alright to leave some of the blackened portions on. It's flavorful, and skin thicknesses and loosenesses vary. It's much easier, and just as delicious to use canned chiles that are already roasted and peeled. In fact, you can do this with all canned vegetables with no sacrifice in flavor or texture or overall appeal.

Including tomatillos is best. I didn't have them this time and so that element is absent here. Tomatillos have a paper shell surrounding the flesh that must be removed. The surface of the flesh is strangely sticky. Chop them to the desired size and toss them in. They are not green tomatoes, but rather something else entirely, although both are nightshades. So I guess the entirely part isn't entirely entire. OK FINE! They're different species, ah'ight? These too can be found in cans.

Tomatoes, if fresh, must be peeled. Otherwise, the skin peels off by itself during cooking and curls up into tight very unpleasant red pins. You don't want that. Fresh tomatoes are stewed down to the texture of canned tomatoes so there's little point in avoiding canned tomatoes. Add them near the end of cooking to maintain their texture. The juice from the cans becomes the liquid of the stew.

The eggs are scrambled gently as making an omelette. Very low heat, the curd gently urged toward the center of the pan with a dinner knife. The liquid egg flows to the area of the pan vacated by the pushed curd. A pile is built up in the center of the pan. Removed from heat well before the surface is set so that a thin layer of liquid egg remains on the surface like a sauce. Tap out of the pan onto a plate without folding. Or, go ahead and fold for double thickness of piled up eggy goodness. Or triple!

Cheese, cilantro. Yippie. TAKE YOUR SOMERSAULTS OUTSIDE!