It's About Me

Archive for July, 2009

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 1 Tbls curry powder
• 1 small can of Limeaid
• 1 Tbls chili powder
• 2/3 cup soy sauce
• 1 Tbls black pepper
• 1 small onion chopped fine
• 3 Tbls honey
• 2 Tbls minced garlic
• 12 Duck breast halves cut into 1″ strips (can leave teal halves whole)

Cooking Instructions

Saute chopped onions and garlic in 1/3 cup olive oil until translucent.  Add all other ingredients and simmer for 4-6 minutes.  Remove from heat and wait until the marinade has cooled and place the duck breast strips and marinade in a ziploc bag and marinade overnight or at least 6 hours.

You can either skewer the duck breast strips or place them in a grilling basket and grill until medium rare. Do not overcook!  For best flavor, soak some hickory or mesquite chips in water, and add to gas or charcoal grill while cooking.

Deersicle Recipe

Same as above except you might want to tenderize the venison with mallet before marinade.

This recipe would work for any meat, but really takes the ‘game’ out of wild meat. It would also make a fantastic marinade for jerky. We’ve used it for steaks, chicken and pork chops. It’s great.

If there’s one thing that the women in this family can do, it’s cook. My dad is from San Antonio. My mom is was from Beaumont. I grew up on Cajun and Mexican food intermingled with some ‘momma meals’ my grandma served my whole life.

During high school I followed up a full life of Mexican food with 3 years of working at Taco Bueno. I worked there 7 days a week. I ate lunch there every day during school. I ate supper there every night. I learned a little bit about slinging some great Mexican. When I worked at Taco Bueno, we had very few menu items. It kept costs to a minimum, and the quality at a premium. Not so true these days. I will confess though, that Taco Bueno’s hot sauce is still so good, I drink it right from the little cup it’s served in like a shot of tequila. Slurp. Eat. Slurp. Eat. It’s some damn good stuff.

What follows is the basic TB recipe for guacamole. I always modified it to suit my own tastes, and when I did…we sold out. Again, and again, and again.

I hope you love it as much as I do.

Gather some avocados that are firm, but ripe. I bought these and they were hard as bricks. Waiting about 3 or 4 days and they were perfect softness. Not too hard, not too mushy. They should feel firm to a gentle squeeze, but if you squeezed hard they should give to the pressure.

I had five for this batch.

At Bueno we used a pie server, or a triangular spatula to pierce and remove the seed. Any sharp object will do. I used my knife…however, it’s not a smart idea. If you miss the seed, you’ll find your finger or hand. Sometimes they’ll pop right out. If not use the side of a pie server or butter knife and ‘slam’ the side of it into the seed. Twist. Fling the seed.

Next, use a rubber spatula to scoop out all the green goodness. If they’re ripe they’ll pop right out of the skin.

I’m slobbering already.

Next we’ll cut an onion. These were pretty big size, so I’m going to use half of a half.

Cut it in two. (Sterling Evil Eye with white topaz bracelet courtesy of Bhati Beads.)

Then cut the top fuzzy part off leaving the root. That root area is where the crying starts. Leave it on, and no more tears.

Peel off the outer skins until you see the shiny white layer. Or yellow, or red, depending on the onion. Any kind or flavor of onion will work.

Then begin cutting it long ways across the grain. The closer your cuts, the finer your dice will be. I was lazy and cut about 1/4 inch apart. My dice will be chunky.

Then turn it and cut across the cuts you just made.

I cut about half the half of onion, or about 3/4 to a cup. Your mileage may vary. It’s all about taste.

Next important ingredient is garlic. Fresh if you have it. I didn’t, but I had this lovely jar of ground garlic. Not as good as fresh but 100 times better than powder. Some potent stuff.

Unless you’re planning a blind date later, don’t be shy with it. If you plan on doing some smooching be sure your partner gets a good gob of the guacamole too. It’s heavenly, don’t skimp.

I don’t measure much. The spoon above is your standard cutlery teaspoon right out of the drawer. Not a measuring spoon. I wouldn’t go much more than that until you taste it at the end. The garlic will infuse and grow stronger the longer it sits in the guac. That’s where the dry powder is easier in a commercial environment. It’ll sit for days and taste pretty much the same. I always used more garlic and more onion at Taco Bueno than the recipe called for. Everyone always came back for more.

Everything should be layering up nicely in your bowl. I like this stainless steel version. It’s nice and wide with a relatively stable bottom. Deep enough to contain everything but not deep like a mixing bowl.

Salt. The spice of life. I can’t imagine cooking without it. About five years ago I converted to Kosher salt. I will never go back to cooking with table salt again. I just love the grain and feel of Kosher salt. Tastes better too.

At Bueno, everything on the line was measured by fingers. Two fingers of cheese, three fingers of lettuce, two fingers of tomatoes, and that’s your basic taco topping. And it works. Any more than that, and it just falls out and makes a mess.

Here I’m using three fingers.

Reach in and pinch with three fingers against your thumb.

Sprinkle it over the top.

I’m a salt hog. So I went back for a second three finger pinch. But that’s me. You should probably wait until the end, to see if you need it. Be patience my child. All good things come to those who wait.

At Bueno, tomatoes were plentiful and always diced and ready to use. They had the handiest contraption to dice them in, and I’ve never seen one since. I’d love to have one here at the house and I’ve looked high and low for them at the restaurant supply stores. No can find.

Dice up one medium sized tomato. If you don’t have one, do not fear. A can of stewed tomatoes would work (don’t use the juice!) or a drained can of Rotel would be perfect too.

To keep some of the heat at bay, remove the seeds out of your pepper. Bueno used canned jalapenos, which are ‘pickled’. Fresh jalapenos have a different flavor. I only used one. I like the heat, but guac isn’t supposed to be ‘hot’ so I kept it to just one for a little flavoring.

In my opinion, Taco Bueno has the best hot sauce on the planet. I drink the stuff. Literally. But, since they don’t bottle it up and sell it at the local grocery store, I buy El Fenix. It has the same ingredients as Taco Bueno’s only it’s quite a bit hotter, and it’s a little sweeter. Might be the canning process bringing out the flavor in the tomatoes. I’m not sure, but it’s good stuff. I only had one tomato and I cut it chunky.

I wanted an undertone of that tomato sweetness as well, so opted to use a couple teaspoons of the hot sauce.

Oh baby. El Fenix. Taco Bueno. Yum. I love hot sauce.

It’s not even noon, and I could kill for some Mexican food. Sigh.

What recipe wouldn’t be complete without some pepper? I have this handy little pepper mill. I rotated it about 20 times. I’d say that’s about 1/2 teaspoon of pepper.

Mayo. The icing of guacamole. Too much is not a good thing here. Too little is even worse. Start small. Build up. The last thing you want is avocado mayonnaise. Do not, ever, use Miracle Whip. No really. My mother would rise from the grave and choke the living day lights out of you.

And it would taste nasty.

Really.

I added two small mounds. It turned out to be just right. If I was guessing, probably a 1/2 cup.

The best tool in your arsenal for mashing up guac is a whisk. Especially if the avocados are soft as they should be.

Mash like you would mashed potatoes. Twirl, mash, mix. I almost had too much mayo. That would have been devastating.

As you can see, my guac is chunky. Not the avocados, but the onions and the tomatoes. If you don’t want that much veggie in your mouth, dice it all finer. I’m okay with it like this. And I was being lazy and in a hurry. I sampled it right here, and holy moly it was good. But, I forgot a couple of things.

Two finger pinch of chili powder. And one pinch of cumin.

Mix it all up.

Taste it. Right now. It took me about 5 spoonfuls to really see if the spices and seasonings were good. I didn’t need to add anything.

So I ate another couple of spoonfuls.

To keep your guacamole from turning an ugly booger brown, take some plastic wrap and put it right down on top of the green stuff. No air bubbles. Make sure every piece of guac is touching the plastic wrap. Then if you plan on eating it today, put it in the fridge until it’s time to eat. During that time all those flavors are going to intensify.

If it doesn’t taste garlicky or onioney, or salty enough…wait. Don’t add too much at this point if it’s close. If it’s way off, go ahead, but to be safe, I’d wait. Wait until it’s time to eat it. Then adjust. If you’re going to eat it RIGHT NOW, adjust the seasonings instead of covering it up and dig in. Chips are optional.

They just make you fuller. And add additional calories that could be filled with precious green stuff.

I put mine in two Zip Lock snap lid containers and covered the guac with the plastic wrap very good. I put the lid on the container and stuck it in the freezer.

Yes you can freeze guacamole. Which is good because at this time of year the avocado prices begin to fall. Buy now. Make now. Freeze now. Eat later.

Enjoy.

Keeping it real: BJ is usually hovering to sample and clean up my mess. He’s out of town.