"Cook, Eat, Cha Cha Cha" & "Cafe Pasqual's Cookbook " & "Elena's Secrets of Mexican Cooking" - Tomatillo Salsa, Meatball Soup, Chicken in Orange Juice

Date I made these recipes: March 29, 2009

Cook, Eat, Cha Cha Cha – Festive New World Recipes by Philip Bellber
Published by: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 0-8118-1146-8 © 1997
(Note: this book is named for a restaurant in San Francisco. You should try it out if you go there! http://www.cha3.com/
Recipe: Tomatillo Salsa – p. 90

Café Pasqual’s Cookbook – Spirited Recipes from Santa Fe by Katharine Kagel
Published by: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 0-8118-0293-0 © 1993
(Note: this book is also named for a restaurant in Santa Fe. You should try it out if you go there! Perhaps you already have and are like me—cannot remember!) http://www.pasquals.com/. The book is larger than the photo displayed as the book wouldn’t fit on my scanner screen.
Recipe: Meatball Soup (Sopa de Albondigas) - p. 82

Elena’s Secrets of Mexican Cooking by Elena Zelayeta
Published by: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
© 1958
Recipe: Chicken in Orange Juice (Pollo en Jugo de Naranja) – p. 59

So here’s how today’s recipe selections went down: I was cleaning out my refrigerator and I noticed I had leftover (canned) tomatillos from a recipe I made a couple of weeks ago. Being my mother’s daughter, I can’t bear to throw out food so I decided to find a recipe using tomatillos. The recipe I selected was for salsa and it was darned good. But I couldn’t just serve salsa and call it a day so I investigated further and there, on the tippy-top shelf of my collection were two more Mexican/southwestern cookbooks.

Now I’ve been to Santa Fe, home of Café Pasqual’s but sad to say, I can’t recall eating there (In my defense, I was there over 10 years ago and hey, some days I can’t remember where I put my car keys!). There were several recipes in the book that sounded good, such that had I eaten there, I likely would have remembered them, but I was most drawn to the meatball soup recipe (sopa de albondigas). So now I was up to one appetizer and one soup recipe but I still felt I needed just one more item to complete the meal so I pulled Elena’s Secrets of Mexican Cooking from the shelf and made her recipe for chicken in orange juice.

Each dish was relatively easy to make but I spent about 4 hours total in my kitchen either prepping or roasting or blending for one of the three dishes all the while watching Michigan State beat Louisville in basketball to advance to the Final Four. It was probably a good thing my husband wasn’t in the kitchen with me as I found myself waving my kitchen knife several times over in response to a play the team made. After that I switched to golf and would have seen Tiger Woods win on the last hole except I realized I was short two quarts of chicken broth and had to run to the store. I hate it when that happens! (I am now fully re-stocked.)

As to taste, the salsa was fantastic, such that I didn’t bother to add the red onion or red pepper as I worried that it would ruin the flavor. If left to my own devices, I could have seriously eaten my way through the entire batch it was that yummy! The meatball soup was also tasty, probably because I used a quart of my own broth that I had in the freezer although I must say that the taste of cilantro in this was a little strong (read: soapy) and so that took getting used to. Cilantro is a funny thing; when blended in something like salsa, it’s fine but as a star ingredient in the meatballs, it’s another story.

As to the chicken, it was fine but a little weak on flavor. I’m hoping that this type of recipe benefits from overnight refrigeration as all I could taste was the chicken—not the orange juice, wine or even the spices. And might I just comment on the ginormous chicken breasts included in my chicken packet? My god, they took up three-quarters of the pan! Those poor little wings and drummies almost didn’t stand a chance!

These were all good dishes to make on a somewhat gray day where spring is almost here but is teasing the heck out of us. Snow is forecast for later this week—can you stand it? (I can’t!).

Tomatillo Salsa – Makes 2 ½ cups
2 pounds tomatillos, husked (I used half canned, half fresh)
¾ onion, coarsely chopped
6 garlic cloves
1/3 cup olive oil
2 jalapeno chilies, seeded
1 bunch fresh cilantro, stemmed
5 scallions, finely chopped, including some green tops
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
¼ cp fresh lemon juice
¼ cup molasses
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 red bell pepper, seeded, deveined, and cut into ¼-inch dice (Note: I didn’t add this)
3 tablespoons finely diced red onion (Note: I didn’t add this)

Preheat the oven to 375. Put the tomatillos, onion and garlic in a baking pan. Drizzle the olive oil over and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the tomatillos are slightly brown and soft.

Put the tomatillos mixture in a blender or food processor. Add the jalapenos, cilantro, scallions, vinegar, lemon juice, tamarind juice and molasses, and puree.

Add salt and pepper. Stir in the red bell pepper and red onion.

Meatball Soup (Sopa de Albondigas) – serves 8
4 quarts chicken stock or broth
2 pounds lean ground beef
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 bunch fresh cilantro (coriander), stemmed and roughly chopped
½ large white onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh cilantro sprigs for garnish (optional)

Put the chicken stock into a large pot and bring slowly to a boil. Meanwhile, combine the beef, cumin, chopped cilantro, onion, flour, and salt in a large bowl. Mix together well. Form into walnut-sized balls.

Gently slip the meatballs into the boiling stock, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until cooked through, about 25 minutes. Cut the meatball open to test for doneness before serving.

Ladle into individual bowls and serve garnished with cilantro sprigs, if desired.

Note: well, duh, people. I was reading over the instructions to combine the beef and spices and realized I completely forgot to add the ground cumin. That probably explains why the cilantro was so dominant. Oops! But let me just say that the meatballs were yummy anyway! (As my dad would say: If all else fails, read the instructions!).

Chicken in Orange Juice (Pollo en Jugo de Naranja) – Serves 3 or 4
1 frying chicken, disjoined
Seasoned flour
Oil for frying
1 cup orange juice
1 cup white table wine
½ cup raisins
½ cup blanched ground almonds (Note: I bought whole blanched almonds and ground them in my coffee grinder)
½ cup crushed pineapple
2 tablespoons sugar
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves

Dredge the chicken with seasoned flour and brown in oil. Place the chicken in a shallow glass baking dish. Combine all other ingredients and pour over chicken. Bake at 325, basting often, for 30 minutes. Raise temperature to 350 and bake 15 minutes longer.

Note: oh my god! I must have been overly absorbed in my basketball game because people, I just realized I left out the sugar! (And no, I didn’t drink any of the wine before adding it to the mix!) I’ve accidentally omitted an ingredient before but never two in one cooking session. Oh the horror, the horror….. (Don’t you think the least Michigan State could do is to offer me courtside seats for next week’s game? So a little road trip to Michigan is in order, so what?!)

"Three Rivers Renaissance Cookbook IV" & "Three Rivers Cookbook - 'The Good Taste of Pittsburgh'" - Tortilla Rice Soup and Tamale Ring

Date I made this recipe: February 1, 2009 (Super Bowl Sunday)

Three Rivers Renaissance Cookbook IV by the Child Health Association of Sewickley (PA)
Published by: Child Health Association of Sewickley
© 1980
Recipe: Tortilla Rice Soup submitted by Leslie S. Kelly – p. 39

Three Rivers Cookbook -“The Good Taste of Pittsburgh” by the Child Health Association of Sewickley, Inc.
© 1973
Recipe: Tamale Ring submitted by Mrs. Robinson F. Barker – p. 121

Well, today is Super Bowl Sunday and even though I didn’t really give a diddley boo as to who won (because it’s all about the commercials, right?), I wanted to acknowledge the day and like the Super Bowl, there was a clear winner in the dish department. But before I get to that, please indulge me in a teeny rant against the machine that is known as Top Chef.

For those of you who don’t know, Top Chef is a TV show on Bravo in which chefs compete on a weekly basis to be the last one standing and therefore, Top Chef. Every week they are presented a new challenge with one person emerging as the winner and advancing on, and another, the loser who is told to pack his/her knives and go.

And so it came to pass that last Wednesday, the producers (that would be you, Tom Colicchio!) decided to focus the show around the upcoming Super Bowl and brought in cheftestants from previous seasons to compete against this year’s contestants to make a signature dish representing the food of one of the NFL teams selected for this challenge.

And so it also came to pass that the Miami Dolphin contestants got seafood, the New Orleans team got crawfish, Seattle had salmon and so on and so forth, and then came Green Bay (the greatest team of all times) and my dear, darling Italian stud-muffin, Fabio, this season’s hottie contestant got….drum roll….venison.

Whaaaa?????????? Tom Colicchio, are you out of your mind? The word we are looking for, dear Thomas, is “bratwurst” (or brats). I mean, sure, venison is popular in that region but I can guarantee you, Thomas, as a lifelong member of Packer Nation, we do not run to the concession stands during a break in the action for venison. We do not tailgate, dear Thomas, for venison. We live for brats and beer…or brats soaked in beer…or beer (who the hell needs a brat, anyway?) but never, ever, ever for venison. Sheesh. Any Wisconsonite knows that.

And so it eventually came to pass that Fabio was on the chopping block for overcooking his venison and for misusing cheddar cheese in his salad although I hardly know how it is possible to misuse Wisconsin cheddar; really, these judges have antlers stuck up their…. At least he was spared for another week (and good thing, too, because je t’adore his Italian accent…and yes, I realize that phrase is French) but so is the evil, egotistical (“I love me, who do you love?”) Stefan who, sad to say, seems poised to take the contest this year (but so help me, if he wins Fan Favorite, I am outta here).

But I digress. This week is about the actual Super Bowl where men do not have to cook venison in the shape of a bratwurst (now that would have been something, huh?!) to show their mettle.

This year’s contest pitted the Pittsburg Steelers (no pun intended on the “pitted”) and the Arizona Cardinals. It was a very close game and it looked like the Cardinals just might pull it off when the Steelers scored a touchdown with 35 seconds to go to take a 4-point lead. Nuts. Although I intended to root for the Steelers, the fact that Arizona was such an underdog got to me and so I started pulling for them and they came oh-so-close; maybe next year?

So speaking of hits and misses, winners and losers, and Pittsburg and Arizona, I think I was very creative in finding foods from both camps to serve for Super Bowl Sunday. And here’s how: I have two Pittsburg cookbooks but not one specifically for Arizona, and so was momentarily stumped until I found a recipe for Tortilla Rice Soup in the Pittsburg cookbook. Ah ha! Tortilla + Rice = Southwest = Arizona = touchdown! (You see how easy that was?) And the dish was, in fact, a winner.

But then the challenge was to find another Southwest dish to go with the soup in the other Pittsburg cookbook I had and I almost threw in the towel until I came across the Tamale Ring recipe. And while it tasted okay, it didn’t turn out like I thought it would and so that dish, dear reader, was a loser.

Methinks the reason that the Tamale Ring was a loser was because it was supposed to set up more like a bread pudding or a spoon bread, especially since it was baked in a water bath, but instead didn’t have enough liquid and so ended up being more like savory bread in texture. That didn’t seem right. The other thing that didn’t seem right was the look as it was much too red from the chili powder for my satisfaction.

Part of the problem with recipes submitted by the home cook is that the instructions are sometimes lacking. With the tamale ring, I was instructed to put one can of corn through a grinder but as I did so I wondered if I was supposed to include the can liquid or not; I decided “not.” And then the tomatoes were supposed to be drained and so what this left was a glop of “dough” without any liquid and I don’t think this was supposed to happen. But seeing as how I couldn’t just call up Mrs. Robinson F. Barker who submitted the recipe, I went with what I thought was best and like the Cardinals’ efforts, it just wasn’t good enough.

The soup, on the other hand, was really good although I almost ruined it by forgetting to turn off the burner resulting in most of the liquid evaporating off the top. No doubt this happened during a commercial break seeing as how that’s the real reason I tuned in to the game in the first place. (But let’s contemplate for a minute what’s wrong with this picture: you skip watching the game so you can be in your seat for the commercials?).

So…is it too early to start chanting “Go Pack Go!” for next year’s Super Bowl?? If so, I promise you, dear reader, there will be no such silliness as venison. Stay tuned.


Tortilla Rice Soup – serves 4
Cooking spray
1/3 cup green oinion, sliced
4 cups chicken broth
1 14 ½-ounce can diced tomatoes with green chiles, undrained
1 cup cooked chicken breast, cubed
2 4-oz cans chopped green chiles
Salt and pepper
1 T fresh lime juice
2 cups cooked rice
Tortilla chips for garnish
½ cup chopped tomato for garnish
½ cup cubed avocado for garnish
4 lime slices and chopped cilantro, for garnish

Coat a Dutch oven or large saucepan with cooking pray. Saute onions over m,edium high heat until tender. Add broth, tomatoes, chicken and chiles. Reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir in salt, pepper and lime juice. Just before serving, add rice.

Pour into soup bowls and top with tortilla chips, chopped tomatoes and avocado. Garnish with lime slices and cilantro.

Tamale Ring – serves 6
½ large can of tomatoes, strained
1 can of corn put through a grinder
1 green pepper, chopped
1 pint ripe olives, chopped
1 clove garlic
1 cup white corn meal
1 large T chili powder
Salt
2 eggs beaten separately

Mix the first five ingredients; add remaining ingredients and mix well. Bake 1 hour in a buttered ring mold set in a pan of water at 350. (The author says to serve with creamed chicken or shrimp but I’m sorry, that texture combination didn’t work for me so instead I served it with my soup.).

"The Dinah Shore Cook Book" & "Cafe - A Cookbook of Bisbee's Owner/Chef Restaurants" - Pork with Green Chili Sauce and Perfect Spanish Rice

Date I made these recipes: January 7, 2007

The Dinah Shore Cook Book by Dinah Shore
Published by: Doubleday & Company, Inc.
© 1983
Recipe: Pork with Green Chili Sauce – p. 209

Café – A Cookbook of Bisbee’s Owner/Chef Restaurants
© 1995 by Richard Byrd
Recipe: Perfect Spanish Rice from the Mexican Express restaurant – p. 6

People, were you like me? Did you start singing the song Buttons and Bows when you saw the name Dinah Shore? Thought so.

So before we get to the recipe, let’s review a few facts. Dinah Shore started her career as a big band singer. Buttons and Bows was on an album my parents had and I loved singing that song. I also love Shoofly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy (the recipe and the song) that graces several compilation CD’s I own of famous female torch song singers.

Dinah went from being a big band singer to having her own radio shows to having her own TV show. I remember watching her show on TV when I was a kid (which was just yesterday!).

In addition to cooking (Dinah wrote a couple other cookbooks in her day), she hosted several tennis and golf tournaments. Where she found time to do all this, I’ll never know.

Dinah notes that she tested each and every recipe in the book which I find admirable. She also covered a range of recipes from Mexican to Asian to Italian which were all popular in Los Angeles where she lived before spreading out to the rest of the country.

Dinah’s recipe for Pork with Green Chili Sauce caught my eye and it was a good choice. Of course, I just had to sing along with Dinah on Buttons and Bows as I made the dish. Both the recipe and the song are catchy little numbers. Try them – you’ll like them!

Pork with Green Chili Sauce – serves 4-6
2 pounds lean pork, cut into bite-sized cubes
½ cup water
2 cloves garlic, peeled and cut in half
Salt and pepper to taste
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 cup solid-pack tomatoes, drained
2 teaspoons chopped fresh cilantro (coriander)
7-ounce can peeled green chilies, chopped or cut into strips (NOTE: Dinah said if you use canned, include the juice. If you use fresh tomatillas, remove the protective leaf surrounding the tomatilla, but don’t peel. Add ¼ water.)
2 hot jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped

Before we go on, let me just say that I scratched my head over “solid-pack tomatoes.” If she mean whole tomatoes, which I used, then I suggest breaking the tomatoes up before adding them to the recipe or you’ll just have big tomato blobs on your hands. If she meant something else, I have no idea. I think you’re okay as long as you use some form of “chunky” tomato as opposed to tomato sauce.

Put meat into heavy-bottomed stewpot, cover with water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat, add garlic and salt and pepper. Cook, covered, until all water is absorbed, about 25-30 minutes.

Let’s stop right here and parse this paragraph. “Reduce heat” to me means to bring it to a simmer, as opposed to a boil, but people, by doing this, that water was never, ever going to reduce. I finally banked the heat back up (after 25 minutes or no reduction) to just below boiling and man oh man, did that water evaporate, or what? I say keep the heat somewhat high from the beginning and you’ll easily come in at 25-50 minutes.

Once the water is absorbed, discard the garlic. Let the meat fry in its own fat until it starts to turn brown, turning occasionally to brown on all sides. Note: by the time I got done, there was nary a fat globule in sight so I added a little bit of olive oil back into the pan.

Add the onions, cook a few minutes longer to soften. Then add tomatoes, cilantro, chilies, peppers and additional salt if desired. Cook, covered, 30 minutes longer or until pork is tender. Serve over rice.

Speaking of “serve over rice,” I thought plain white rice would be rather boring so I made Perfect Spanish Rice from another cookbook in my collection – Café – A Cookbook of Bisbee’s Owner/Chef Restaurants

What the heck is a Bisbee, you ask? Well, Bisbee, Arizona is an artist community tucked away in the Castle Rock area near Tombstone, Arizona. (Which brings to mind lyrics from The Eagle’s Take it Easy – but we won’t go there and besides, they mentioned Winslow, Arizona…). My parents were vacationing in the area a couple of years ago and my husband and I went down there to visit them. We loved Bisbee as it’s very similar to a couple of “artist” community towns in Minnesota and wouldn’t you know there was a cookbook of recipes just waiting for me.

Now, I can’t say that I was enamored with the Spanish Rice recipe because I wanted it to have more of a tomato flavor than it did but it was a better accompaniment to the pork with green chili sauce than regular white rice. If I had to do it over again, I think I would add more tomato sauce (4 ounces seems a little stingy) and cut back on the water by just a bit. I’m not sure if that would yield the right results but you may want to try it and then let me know how it worked.

And then there’s the onion conundrum. The recipe says to add ½ white onion. I didn’t have a white onion so I used a yellow onion but it didn’t say whether I should add the half as is or cut it up. I followed the directions but the rice may have been more flavorful with chopped onion.

I will say that this made the fluffiest rice I have ever tasted so on that basis, I give it a thumb’s up.

Perfect Spanish Rice (no serving size indicated although 2 cups of rice makes for a lot of rice!)
¼ cup oil
2 cups rice
4 cups hot water
4 ounces tomato sauce
1 tablespoon chicken bouillon
½ white onion

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add rice and slightly toast rice, stirring constantly, not allowing it to burn. Combine hot water, tomato sauce, and chicken bouillon and add to rice. Add onion. Bring to a boil, stir and turn heat to a simmer. Cover and allow to cook for 20-25 minutes. Fluff with a fork when liquid is absorbed by the rice.