Mexican Food

I like Mexican food. It's fun and much of it is surprisingly healthy. Plus, as it turns out, it's much easier to make than I'd anticipated. I got to try out a couple Mexican recipes from Tyler Florance's new book, From the Test Kitchen, for work.

 

I made roasted tomato salsa, tomatillo salsa verde, and fresh guacamole. (At work I also made fresh corn tortilla chips and pork carnitas served with cojita. Cojita is a Mexican cheese that, according to the very knowledgable people at my local Wegmans--if you know Wegmans, you'll know why I trust my grocery store's cheese shop--it is actually quite similar to Parmesan. Most Mexican cheeses, apparently, resemble Italian cheeses in process and flavor. I wouldn't recommend substituting parm for cojita if it's just a matter of convience--cojita is a bit lighter and damper--but if you can't find cojita or you are really in a pinch, Parmesan would definitely work.)

Anyway, the roasted tomato salsa was delicious and so simple. Basically you put large tomatoes, white onion, and poblano peppers on a baking sheet, season with a bit of salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil, and broil until lovely and a bit charred. Then blitz them and some fresh cilantro in a food processor and voila, salsa!

If you can imagine, the tomatillo salsa (the photo at the top of the post) was actually easier! It's just fresh tomatillos, onion, jalapeño peppers, cilantro, and olive oil. (Actually I've made it since with Serrano peppers instead of the jalapeños and boy it's good.) Tomatillos are actually more closely related to the gooseberry than to tomatoes, although they are all the same family. They resemble a tomato, but their seeds are much smaller, the flesh is a bit less watery, and they grow with a parchment-y husk that can be a bit of a pain to remove. Also they are sweeter than tomatoes, which offsets the spicy jalapeño (or Serrano) pepper nicely. So fresh and so delicious.

Finally I made guacamole. I usually put tomatoes or salsa in my guacamole, but this recipe didn't call for that. It's just avocados, onion, cilantro, and hot peppers. Interestingly the recipe calls for slices of radish on top. I'd never have thought to do that, but it was really nice--and pretty! 

I admit I'm not likely to make the roasted tomato salsa or the guacamole again soon (both were nice and I could see roasting the veg and using it whole) but I just don't have the patience for the roasted pepper one and the guacamole was a bit onion-y for my taste and I miss the tomatoes in it. I do think I'll put some radish slices on my usual guacamole recipe, though. And I'll certainly make the tomatillo one again!