Pescado con Rajas y Crema - A simply delicious Rick Bayless recipe

Even though I can't eat at his restaurants very often, Chef Rick Bayless is quickly becoming one of my favorite chefs.  It's enjoyable reading his tweets everyday and seeing him on various Food Network shows.  I also enjoy breaking out one of his cookbooks, and trying some of the incredible sounding and looking dishes which also allow me to try techniques and flavors that are definitely different than what I typically work with.  The only thing is that usually the recipes are pretty involved and take a while, well at least for the amateur cook.  When I made a mole for the first time (which turned out fantastic), it ended up taking me something like four hours.  So, I usually don't take on a Rick Bayless recipe during the week.  But, in flipping through the cookbook, I found something I figured I could pull off; Pescado con Rajas y Crema.  Not only does it feature halibut, which happens to be fresh and in season right now (one of the perks of living in Seattle), but it looked like it would only take me an hour and a half which just fits into my after work cooking schedule.

Pescado con Rajas y Crema is a pretty simple dish.  It features a quick fried fish with a poblano pepper cream sauce.  To start, I seasoned the halibut with a little bit of salt and the juice of one lime.  I left it to marinate for about an hour.  From there, I turned to the sauce.  Ok, I actually went and watched baseball for half an hour, then turned to the sauce.  I roasted the poblano to remove the skin and bring out a bit of flavor.  While it was roasting, I sliced some Vidalia onion using my new mandoline, which is far and away one of the greatest little tools that I never knew I needed!!  I put the onion in a small sauce pan with a little bit of olive oil, and cooked until it was lightly browned.  Then I added the poblano (after removing the skin and slicing thinly), and some garlic.  After a couple minutes, I poured in the heavy cream and brought it to a simmer to allow it to thicken.

While the sauce was thickening, I pulled the halibut back out, took it out of the lime juice marinade, and patted it dry.  Then I started getting some green beans ready as a nice side vegetable.  The thing is I wasn't paying that much attention to the sauce when I suddenly heard some sizzling coming from the stove.  I looked and it had boiled over.  So I quickly ran over, pulled it off the heat, cleaned it up and returned it to the heat.  This would be an ongoing battle for the next 10 minutes...

Finally, after conceding the battle to the sauce, and turning down the heat, I got the fish ready.  I added a little butter and oil to a skillet, and let that heat until the butter started to brown.  At that point, I quickly dredged the fish in flour, and put it in the oil/butter mixture.  After a minute and a half, I flipped it over, cooked for another minute and a half, then added the sauce.  The whole thing then simmered for a couple more minutes, before I took it off the heat and added it to a plate with some rice.  Then I added a bit of parmesan cheese (that was a total ad lib, but it seemed like it needed it) and some scallions, and it was ready to go!

The flavors were great.  It was a little mild which is what I usually like when cooking for the two of us (if it was just me, I might have gone for a bit spicier pepper like a jalepeno or serrano with some bell pepper).  The cream sauce was rich, but accompanied the fish very well.  I made quick work of mine, and had to fight to urge to polish off Jennifer's leftovers (one of the trick's to staying in shape while eating well is to stop eating).

I can't wait until my next trip to Chicago when I can hit up Topolobampo or Frontera Grill or Xoco, but in the meantime, I'll keep making the delicious dishes in Rick Bayless' cookbook, hoping to do them the justice that they deserve.

For the actual recipe, check out Rick Bayless' cookbook Authentic Mexican.

Deck on Maximo Cocina Mexicana - Dallas Restaurant Review

This week I find myself in Dallas for work.  Ok, not quite in Dallas, but out in the 'burbs in Addison.  When we met up with our work colleagues for dinner, we suggested Mexican or Barbeque since these are things that aren't as common in Seattle.  After a little discussion we decided on Mexican and headed over to Maximo Cocina Mexicana which happened to be conveniently located near the Hilton where we are staying.

As we walked up, the first thing I noticed was that it was a little fancier than I had anticipated (maybe it was my preconceived notion of "Mexican" and "Texas").  I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans and felt that I was a little underdressed.  The door was a very large, very heavy wooden door that opened into a little foyer.  On the right was a nice, swanky looking bar, and on the left was a very open dining room.  For some reason, the outdoor seating was not available at this time.  We took our seat and started looking through the menu.

While we were deciding on our drinks, a tray with three different salsas and a batch of tortilla chips arrived.  Before diving in, we pretty much unanimously decided on margaritas, especially after we were told that it was a homemade recipe that simply included lime, alcohol free triple sec and one other ingredient that shamefully I cannot remember.  After the waiter left, we dove into the chips.  They were very nice and crispy, more in the form of strips, and appeared to be tortillas that were placed into a fryer and then lightly salted which made them quite crispy and tasty.  The salsas ended up being a bit of a surprise.  On the right, was a sauce that I had thought would be more of a salsa verde, but ended up being very sweet; made with pineapple, ginger and tomatillo.  The middle salsa was more expected, an ancho chile based traditional salsa.  And on the left was one that I thought was an avocado crema type sauce, but ended up being jalapeno with a little kick.  It was unexpected and a very good start to the meal.

After snacking on chips and salsa, our drinks arrived.  Mine ended up being a hot margarita (apparently things got mixed up) meaning that it had some jalapeno pieces in it to add heat.  The thing is that they weren't muddled in any way, and were just finely diced peppers with no seeds or veins, so really didn't add any flavor, and was a little annoying.  My second one later I made sure was just a regular margarita which was much better.  For dinner, after much deliberation, I decided to go with what they called the Pollo Al Mole.  I was a little nervous because the only mole I've had to date was at Rick Bayless' Frontera Grill in Chicago and when I asked if it was a traditional mole poblano, I didn't really get a yes/no answer that I was expecting.

To satiate us while waiting for the food (which took like 20-30 minutes to arrive) we also got some guacamole.  It was made tableside for us with just some avocado, lime, tomatoes and jalapenos.  It was ok, but I'm also not a huge guacamole fan, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.  It definitely wasn't something that was going to convert me to a guacamole fan.  When the meals finally arrived, I was ready to dive in.  It looked and smelled good with the mole served over the top of some rice and the corn tortillas on the side.  The mole was actually pretty good and pretty flavorful.  There wasn't one flavor that really jumped out at me, but the whole thing work together to have sort of a mild but rich flavor.  Unfortunately I was a little let down by the chicken which was very dry and couldn't even be saved by the mole.  Also, I couldn't really tell if the tortillas were handmade, but the flavor was reminicent of those that I've purchased before.

The restaurant was definitely more along the lines of traditional Mexican (or at least what I understand to be traditional Mexican) which was different than I had expected.  And the food was good, but considering that my baseline is the Frontera Grill, Maximo started the night behind the 8-ball, and just wasn't able to push past.  Next time in Texas, I think I'd like to go more in the direction of Tex-Mex rather than traditional Mexican; looking for a little more spice and heat.  Overall, I wasn't underwhelmed, but neither was I overwhelmed.  Just kind of middle of the road.

Final Verdict - 3.5 Stars

An Attempt at Enchiladas de Coloraditos

It seems like it has been quite a long time since I have written a post about my cooking adventures.  With a week of vacation followed by work travel and guests, it was a whole lot of eating out; which was good for my food reviews.  But part of this blog is also about cooking for myself, learning techniques and all that jazz, so today I was finally able to get back at it.  And I figured I would dive back in by going big with the Rick Bayless Enchiladas de Coloradito.  

The thing about cooking from the Rick Bayless cookbook is that for me, the beginner chef, there are only two days I can tackle a recipe; Saturday and Sunday.  His recipes have many different steps that take a bit of time, and two or three hours can fly by before you even know it.  But, that's what makes it fun as well, to spend the entire time working on different components, seeing how things come together, and really expanding my cooking ability.  When I was deciding on the recipe to make this evening, this one jumped out at me for a couple reasons.  First, it was enchiladas, and who doesn't love enchiladas?  Second, it did not contain a lot of exotic ingredients so I knew I would be able to find them in Seattle without having to go to a specialty store.  And Third, while there were multiple steps, and it would take some time, nothing seemed too complex for me to handle at my current level of ability. 

After I returned home from my Sunday shopping trip, I pulled out all of the ingredients I would need and got to work.  The first step is to cook the pork shoulder by adding it to boiling water, and then lowering the temperature and letting it simmer with some aromatics like onion, marjoram and thyme.  While that's cooking, I started working on the ingredients for the sauce.  Boiling water was poured over some dried ancho chiles to help them reconstitute (after the seeds were removed).  I then added chopped onion, a little cinnamon, clove and black pepper, some canned tomatoes and bread to a blender.  When the chiles had soaked for half an hour, I put them in as well, and blended everything until smooth.  At this point I took a little taste of the sauce, and wasn't too excited.  The flavor was a little bitter, and I wasn't sure how it would come together.  But, there were still more steps to go, so I kept going, and added the sauce to some heated oil in a saute pan.  The goal is to fry and condense the sauce, another technique that I've never tried and one that I can't imagine attempting unless it is in a recipe like this.  After a few minutes, I added the saved water that the pork had cooked in, and set it to simmer for 45 minutes.  Right at the end of the time, I added a little bit of sugar and a dash of salt.

While the sauce was simmering, I went to work on the enchilada filling.  I started by taking the pork that had cooked earlier and shredded it.  I added that to a pan, along with some potato, onion and plantain.  I browned this for about ten minutes, and then added in a mixture of more tomatoes and one chile that I had left aside, and cooked this down to thicken.  All of this took right around 45 minutes, so I was finishing up just as the timer for the sauce went off.  

From there it was simple.  Put the filling into steamed tortillas (I ended up going half corn/half flour), then pour the sauce all over them.  I stuck in the oven for a couple of minutes, pulled them back out long enough to cover with some crumbled queso fresco, and put them back in for the cheese to begin to melt. After about five minutes, the enchiladas were good to go.  I put two on each plate, added a simple salad of spinach, peanuts, mandarin oranges and blue cheese with a Balsamic Vinaigrette, and dinner was complete.  

The final result was definitely good.  The flavors really came together nicely, providing a very flavorful meal that wasn't overly spicy and was actually surprisingly a little sweet.  I think this comes from the sugars being cooked out of the tomatoes, as well as the final dash of sugar at the end.  While the sauce was a lot of work, but was definitely worth it in the long run.  It is something that I think I can make again, and put over tortillas with different types of fillings for different meals throughout the day.  

This meal is one that I will definitely attempt again, though next time it will be better.  One mistake that I made was with the pork.  I didn't lower the temperature on the water soon enough, and cut the pieces a little too small so some of it was tough, and I ended up boiling off too much of the water.  Also, I forgot to get white bread, so had to settle for nine-grain sandwich loaf bread as a fill in.  And, I didn't get enough ancho chiles, so added a california chile to try and get enough.  Not to mention I don't have an appropriate colander yet (it's on the way).  But, through it all, I improvised and everything worked out.  Oh, and next time, I'll make sure the battery is charged in the camera so I can document the various steps along the way...

For this recipe, please refer to Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico, by Rick Bayless, or visit his website at www.rickbayless.com

Hot Tamale! - A new southwest dish and flavor

Today I decided to take advantage of the rainy weather to spend the day inside cooking.  With an entire day to cook, I figured there were a lot of different things that I could try, which meant there were a lot of things to write about.  Everything from sauces, to vegetables to actually cooking lamb which I don't do often.  But, I decided instead to write about the starch item of our dinner because it was more interesting.  Today, I attempted to make tamales!

When I had that first meal at Mesa Grill, I found the tamale just as interesting and delicious as the pork itself.  It was one of the southwest flavors that was brand new to me.  Then when I had the opportunity to dine at Frontera Grill, I again had a tamale, and again was blown away.  Now, I figured it was time to give it a try myself.  So, I pulled out the Mesa Grill cookbook and flipped to the tamale section.  Out of the various options available, I thought I would go with the sweet potato tamales with pecan butter.  

Turns out that tamales are pretty labor intensive and time consuming.  Just looking at the recipe I realized that it would take a minimum of 3 hours.  For starters, you have to take corn husks clean them and soak for at least two hours.  Then there is the roasting of the sweet potato and plantains, two ingredients that I don't work with a lot.  The sweet potato roasts for about an hour, and you throw the plantain in for the last fifteen minutes.  Then throw the sweet potato, plantain, some maple syrup, cinnamon, butter and cream in a food processor (sounds delicious already doesn't it)?  I could stop here, put the puree into a pan, cook it, and have incredibly delicious sweet potatoes...in fact, I might have to break this out for Thanksgiving.  

But, it keeps going.  After creating the puree, you put it in a blender with corn, onion, more maple syrup, and more cinnamon, and then blend until it is nice a smooth.  Then you add a bit of corn meal and create a nice, sweet potato flavored masa.  Up to this point, everything has actually been pretty easy.  A lot of roasting, blending and pureeing.  Now, the tamale prep gets a little tricky.  According to the recipe, I'm supposed to put a bunch of the tamale mixture into two corn husks that are overlapping.  Then you fold the tamales over and tie the ends.  Sounds easy, right?  It wasn't.  The first time I tried, I tied them, and then went to pick it up, and they slid apart spilling the filling.  And it's not like I can start over because the husks have to soak for over 2 hours.  So I cleaned everything up and tried again, trying to make sure that when I tied the tamales, they wouldn't slide apart.  It took about a half dozen tries and about 15 minutes, I managed to get three tamales pseudo-tied.  

After that, it's a matter of cooking them.  You put them in a steamer, and steam for over an hour.  In theory they stay together and then you take them out and open them.  In actuality, at about an hour, they had kind of opened themselves, and weren't fully cooked, so I left them on longer while I finished everything else.  The one problem is that I forgot to check the water.  I started to notice a faint burning smell and realized that there was no water left in the pot.  Note to readers, when steaming something, especially for a longer period of time, be sure to check the water level every now and then so you don't burn the bottom of the pot.

Anyway, I pulled the tamales out, added a little bit of the pecan butter that I had made earlier in the day, and served them with lamb chops with an orange/passion fruit sauce, chicken (I didn't but enough lamb...) and a roasted asparagus.  The flavor profiles were a little all over the place reaching from Italian vegetables to a Southwestern tamale, to a protein with a flavor that was pretty unique. But, in a way it all worked and came together as a delicious.  The flavor of the tamales was quite excellent.  They stayed moist, thanks to cooking by steaming.  And, I got the ok to try them again.

This was a fun dish because it allowed me to cook something that I've never done before, and present a flavor that I hadn't done before.  It was a lot of work, and there were a few mistakes along the way, but all in all, isn't that what learning to cook is all about.  Next time I'm going to figure out the trick to wrapping tamales.  I think I'll have to break out the Rick Bayless cookbook because I seem to remember an instructional guide...

A Grocery Shopping Routine

When I'm not out on the ski slopes, or traveling for work, Sundays are my lazy days at home.  This usually consists of sleeping in, having a cup (ok, a pot) of coffee and grocery shopping!  Since today was one of those Sundays, I figured it was the perfect topic for a blog post.

The grocery shopping process has started to take on a little bit of a ritual for me.  In the morning, I start planning out the menu for the week.  I grab my four cookbooks and a cup of coffee and sit down on the couch.  My current collection consists of 2 Bobby Flay, 1 Rick Bayless, and 1 Michael Chiarello cookbooks.  It's a little limited at this point, but it's a nice variety that is helping me learn a little bit more about flavors and techniques.

Before I can start planning, I have to figure out what the weekly schedule looks like for us.  Some nights we have sports or meetings or happy hours that can alter dinner decisions.  Once I get that figured out, I start flipping through the cookbooks.  I usually like to pick one or two things that are completely new that I haven't tried before, and see what ingredients are needed.  Then I jot down a few of the other things I need to make sure I remember, and head to Whole Foods.

Once I get to Whole Foods, I start in the produce section.  I get fruit, typically oranges and pineapples, vegetables, and herbs.  I then look for some of the new ingredients based on the recipes.  This is how I've discovered tomatillos, a variety of peppers outside the bell family, and fresh herbs.  After a couple more laps, just to see what else is around (found passion fruit tonight!!), I head over to the meat section.  This is where I spend the most time.  I start by looking at the fresh fish, then to the pre-seasoned meats, just to get some ideas, and then work my way down the counter from beef to pork to poultry.  In my mind, I'm trying to balance out the proteins, as I don't like to serve the same thing two nights in a row.  Finally, I'll step up to the counter and make my decision.  Tonight I opted for halibut, lamb chops, bone-in/skin-on chicken and a beef rib roast for slow-cooking.  And of course some bacon.

From there, I head up and down each aisle.  There are definitely some things that I always get like milk, yogurt and bread.  Beyond that, I'm taking in the different things, trying to figure out what would be good to have on hand, what would be good to try, and what I need for lunch for the week assuming I'm not going to have leftovers to take with me.

All told, I usually spend anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half in the store.  When I walk out, I only have three or four bags of food, but it is enough to last the two of us a week, and maintain as much fresh food as possible (I end up freezing a few meats for later in the week, but that's all).  Before going home, I will stop by Safeway just to pick up a couple things I can't get at Whole Foods, namely Coke Zero.

All that is left at this point is to put everything away and get to work on a delicious dinner from all of the great ingredients.  Tonight that was a pan-seared pork chop, green chile rice and a simple spinach salad.  It turned out very good, thanks in part to the wonderful ingredients I picked up today.

I can't overlook the local talent

When I travel, going out to eat is becoming more and more fun.  At first, I was more into staying in the room and just getting room service.  I felt a little awkward going out to dinner by myself, or I wouldn't want to take away time from work.  Now, it's a compltely different story.  I go for the food and the experience.  In fact, next week I head to Boston for work, and am already picking out my dining locations.  I scheduled my flight to ensure I would get in early enough for dinner, sleeping be damned!  There will definitely be some posts relating from the trip.

But I'm not writing to preview my trip.  Rather it's something my pending trip made me think about.  I've started a spreadsheet with different restaurants in different cities that I want to try as a travel across this great country (yes, a spreadsheet...I'm still a marketing geek at heart).  I'm thinking about my annual trip to Chicago and where to eat.  I am trying to figure out an excuse to get to NYC or the Bay Area or even South Florida.  There are so many places with renowned chefs and great restaurants and tempting cuisine that I forget what is in my own backyard.  But one city was consipicuously absent...Seattle.  That's right, my home city (though it has now moved to the front of the list).  It's not that I forget that Seattle is a great place for top-notch dining; I've had many amazing meals around the city.  I think it is more a symptom of me enjoying cooking, and I wonder if other home cooks do the same thing.  When I'm out of the city, I'm more or less forced to go out to eat.  But when I'm home, it's time to experiment, try new things, and save a few bucks by cooking at home.  

Last night I was looking at the chefs that will be participating in the upcoming season of Top Chef Masters.  These chefs are the best of the best.  Last year's competition featured the likes of Hubert Keller, Rick Bayless and Michael Chiarello just to name a few.  I watched them put together meals in a dorm room on a bunson burner that I could never imagine making in the finest kitchen with the finest ingredients and all the time in the world.  Anyway, this season there are 21 different chefs competing.  The most represented cities are New York and Los Angeles with 5 each, followed by Chicago and Seattle with 3.  That's right, not Boston or Miami, or the Bay Area, but Seattle.  Chefs Maria Hines (Tilth, Earth & Ocean), Thierry Rautureau (Rover's), and Jerry Traunfeld (Poppy, formerly the Herbfarm) will be representing Seattle.  And sadly, I have to admit, I have not eaten at any of their restaurants.

Going beyond the chefs featured in this season of Top Chef Masters, you can find celebrity chefs (Tom Douglas, John Howie), Iron Chef participatns (Tamara Murphy, Brasa), and so much more.  The Seattle restaurant scene is actually quite impressive, and I think I'm doing myself, and readers of my blog, a disservice if I don't take advantage of these wonderful places right in my own backyard. 

So, be sure to check out the Seattle chefs in this Top Chef Masters (free endorsement for Bravo, maybe next year I can charge when my readership is up), and I'll do my best to get out more often in my local community to provide some feedback on the various Seattle restaurants.  And maybe in the process I'll learn a thing or two that I can take back to my own cooking.