Doug’s Southwestern Salad

My newest creation, aptly named Doug’s Southwestern Salad — though I don’t really know if it qualifies as a salad. I found a recipe in a Kroger booklet called Southwestern Salad, but there was nothing Southwest about it.. it called for bell peppers, beans, corn and hominy — and tasted about as flat and boring as you’d expect. But I was intrigued by the idea and turned it into a genuine and highly versatile southwestern dish. 

I like to eat it as it garnished with sour cream and cilantro. It would also make an excellent dip or the basis of a great alternative “taco” salad. You could also add it chicken, beef or pork seasoned with chili or fajita seasoning and wrap it in a burrito… or you could use it as a southwestern vegetable side dish for any Mexican entree.

I doubled the recipe and used 15 jalapenos (seeds and all). If you want it milder, remove the seeds and pulp. If you want it even milder, cut the jalapenos in half and mix it 1/2 a green bell pepper. If you want it a northwestern dish instead of a southwestern dish, skip the jalapenos altogether and just use bell pepper (but please don’t tell me you did that).  I also used California Red (Anaheim) chiles instead of red bell pepper, but both are sweet and mild so either will work equally well.

Let me know what creative variations or serving suggestions you try and how they turned out.

The recipe is here:  Doug’s Southwest Salad Recipe

Doug’s Pork & Tomatillo Stew (aka Chile Verde)

I should preface the article by saying that while this recipe is pretty authentic, my goal is never to make authentic foods, but to make delicious foods. Therefore, I sometimes make modifications to recipes that are not culturally authentic simply because I like the result. That said, feel free to “butcher” my recipe if you find something that you like or that you think improves it for you.

Finally, I have a 16 qt stock pot and make a full pot of stew whenever I make this (approx 3 gallons).  If you have a smaller pot or wish to make a smaller batch, you will need to reduce the recipe proportionately.

Oh, and this is very low carb and low fat, which is the only way I cook.  So, with preliminaries out of the way, here goes:

Ingredients
1 large pork loin or 2 half loins (approx 8 lbs – the more the better)
Chili seasoning mix (I make my own. You can find that recipe here.)
3 or 4 large yellow onions or 5 to 6 medium
6 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 tablespoon ground coriander
fresh ground pepper, to taste
10 chicken bouillon cubes
6 to 8 large bell peppers (red, yellow, green, for authenticity use Poblanos instead of green bells)
8 to 10 dried Guajillo chiles
5 to 6 lbs fresh tomatillos
2 bunches fresh cilantro (from produce section, not bagged or boxed)
Optional: Jalapeno or Serrano peppers to taste if you want it spicy

Directions

Add your dried Guajillo chiles to a sauce pan about 1/2 filled with water and place on the stove. Once the water begins to simmer turn to low heat. You don’t want to boil the chiles, just rehyrdate them. Let them sit covered in the hot water and steam for about 20 to 30 minutes while you are prepping the pork.

Slice your pork loin into ½ square stew size cubes. I do this by slicing the loin cross-ways in ½ inch thick slices. Then slice the chops into strips, then the strip into cubes. Be sure to trim as much fat off as possible as you go.

Once it’s all cubed up, dredge it in a little flour and let it sit until the flour absorbs the moisture of the pork and loses it’s “dry” look — about 30 minutes or so.  To reduce carb count even further, I do not dredge in flour. I sprinkle my pork with chili seasoning until it is well coated and let in “marinate” in the chili seasoning about 30 minutes. While you are waiting on this you can be dicing your veggies.

I get a large salad size bowl to collect my veggie dicings.  Dice your onions and all your chiles and peppers. Now, if you want a mild stew you may want to go with about 5 or 6 jalapenos.. if you like it hotter you may want to go with serranos instead and use about 10 of them. You’ll need to experiment to your taste. This recipe is a mild-medium heat, so 10-12 jalapenos in 3 gallons of stew isn’t going to add much heat at all. If you want it super mild like a vegetable beef stew, omit the hot peppers altogether. Your call.

Some of my veggie goodies

Your meat should be ready now, so heat a thin layer of oil in the bottom of your stock pot. Once it starts to smoke add your meat. We don’t need to cook it, just completely brown it. You will need to stir it occasionally. It will probably take 15-20 minutes to get it all nicely browned.

While the meat is browning and chiles rehydrating, we can go ahead and peel the 6 garlic cloves. Coarsely chop your 2 bunches of cilantro, keeping as many stems as possible out of the mix. Wash and husk your tomatillos. Running them under warm water will loosen the husks and they peel right off.

Throw the garlic in the bottom of your blender. Add some of the cilantro and a couple of the tomatillos and start pulsing the blender. Continue with this process until all your garlic, cilantro, and tomatillos have been processed to a smooth puree. Continue this process until you have pureed all the tomatillos. On your last batch of tomatillos, remove the stems from the rehydrated chiles and add them into the blender and puree them in with the tomatillos.

Once the meat is browned, remove it with a slotted spoon to another pan leaving all the drippings in the stock pot. Dump your entire bowl of diced veggies into the stock pot (if you need to add a bit more oil feel free) and sweat them on medium heat (stirring frequently) just until the onions begin to get tender and translucent.

Add your meat back into the pan. Add your tomatillo puree mixture.  Add 4 quarts (16 cups) of water and 16 chicken bouillon cubes (or 4 quarts of chicken stock if you prefer using stock).  I find the 4 quarts of stock makes the recipe far to watery and soupy. I add 10 to 12 bouillon cubes and just enough water to give it a thick gravy-like stew consistency. Usually for me it’s only a couple cups of water at most. Add in your salt, pepper and coriander. Bring everything to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for  1½ to 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Just like chili, its delicious right off the stove, but its even better the next day.

There’s no wrong way to eat it, but my preference is to eat it like soup or stew in a bowl. You can also garnish it with sour cream and a fresh sprinkle of cilantro. It’s also commonly served over Mexican rice (though that will blow your low-carb plan). It’s easily one of our favorite winter dishes in our house. I can never get enough of this dish.

If you try it let me know how you like it, and if you make any modifications you like I would love to hear about those two. I added a puree of Ancho (guajillo) chiles in my last batch and liked that result very well (even though its not “authentic”).  I’ve edited this recipe to make the Guajillos a part of my recipe. Omit them if you like. So don’t be afraid to try something.  If it sounds good, go for it.

The Habanero – my Favorite Pepper – Gets an Undeserving Bad Rep

The Habanero, in my opinion, is the most delicious and flavorful of all peppers; but too many people never get the pleasure of enjoying it because of it’s undeserving reputation for being “too hot to handle.”

For example, missvickie.com says “For the uninitiated even a tiny piece of Habanero would cause intense and prolonged oral suffering.”  What?  I have a boat load of friends and family that wouldn’t be in the same room with an Habanero after reading that.  Now, I’ll grant that if you grab up one of these babies and take a big bite out of it, you may get more than you bargain for; but I often eat a “tiny piece” while dicing them to test their flavor and heat and have never once experienced oral suffering, let alone prolonged oral suffering — and mixed in food (the intended way to use these) they are exquisitely delicious.

Try this one next time you want a “not so boring” breakfast.

Chorizo & Eggs (w/ Habanero)

Dice up one of these habaneros.  Remove the stem and all seeds, then slice into small 1/8th inch strips… then cut crossways and dice them into very small 1/8th inch square pieces.  This will create a mild-medium dish.  If you like your foods a little on the hotter side you can use 2 habaneros.

[NOTE: you may want to wear latex gloves.  I don’t, but if you don’t be careful not to rub your eyes or you will experience prolonged suffering. Rinsing your hands with milk, buttermilk, or other alkaline substance will help with removing the acidic residue… then wash well with soap and hot water.]

Dice up about 3 TBSP each of onions and green peppers.

Add 1 TBSP oil to your skillet and about ¼ lb Pork Chorizo and all your veggie dicings.  Stirring frequently on medium-high heat, cook until chorizo is cooked and onions are starting to look translucent.  Scramble 2 or 3 eggs in a bowl and dump into the skillet, stirring constantly until eggs are cooked but not dried out.

Remove from skillet immediately.  Warm your tortillas briefly in the skillet you just removed your hash from.   Place about 1/2 cup of the chorizo & eggs to the center of your tortilla, add sour cream, salsa and Chipotle Cheddar cheese.

Eat & enjoy … and leave me a comment whether you did or didn’t like the result.

If you want to save a couple carbs you can skip the tortilla and just add sour cream, salsa and cheese to the plate and eat it like an omelet or scramble egg ensemble.   Either way is great.

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NOTE:  In some markets you may find the Scotch Bonnet, but not the Habanero or vice-versa.  These can be used interchangeably.  They are almost indistinguishable. In a blind taste test you couldn’t tell them apart, and even unblinded they are very difficult to distinguish. The Scotch Bonnet is slightly smaller/shorter in size, but they are nearly identical in taste, texture and heat.

Doug’s Buffalo Nuggets

These are a favorite around our house and I never make them the same way twice, so the recipe isn’t set in stone.  You can do scores of delicious variations.  Experiment until you find something you like, then remember how you did it.  This “recipe” will get you started though.

Ingredients
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Flour
Cajun Seasoned Salt
Buttermilk
Cooking Oil
Uncle Franks or Louisiana Hot Sauce
Butter
Candy or Deep Fry Thermometer

Directions
Start with a package of boneless skinless chicken breasts.   Pat them dry with a paper towel and trim off any excess fat or skin.  Slice them into nugget size (about 1½ inch cubes).  

You can use your favorite fried chicken seasoning, but for the buffalo nuggets I prefer to use a spicy seasoning.   If you don’t have a favorite mix already I recommend starting with about 2 TBSP of Cajun seasoning per cup of flour (Tony Chachare’s is a good choice).   Adjust to taste.  I like to add a little onion and garlic powder, and a little extra cayenne as well.   You’ll probably need 2 to 3 cups of seasoned flour for 5 lbs of chicken nuggets.

Get an extra-large zip-lock baggie and put 10-15 nuggets in at a time.  Sprinkle a little of the flour mixture in the bag and shake it until the chicken pieces are dusted.   We aren’t try to bread them at this point, but just give them a light flour dusting.  Do this with all of the chicken and set aside again.

Now we’re going to dip our chicken in the buttermilk, shake off the excess, then roll it in the seasoned flour until thoroughly coated, and lay them out on cookie sheets in a single layer.  You can do this one piece at a time in a bowl, or do several pieces at a time using the large zip-lock baggie method.  Once all the chicken is breaded you will want to leave it sit for about an hour until the flour mixture soaks up all the buttermilk and chicken juices and goes from floury white to a wet looking creamy pink color.   At this point they are ready for the fryer.

Heat about 1½ inches of oil in a stock pot, fryer or dutch oven (enough to completely cover the nuggets).  Using the candy thermometer make sure the oil is 375° before adding the chicken.  Once the oil is at temperature, add the chicken pieces to the oil in a single layer (don’t stack them or crowd them together), and set your timer for 10 minutes.  They should be crispy and golden brown – you don’t want them going chocolate-brown.  The smaller your nuggets the less the cooking time will need to be.  Larger chicken pieces may require a minute or two more.  I find 10 minutes is perfect for nuggets 1 to 2 inches.

You will probably have to cook your chicken in several batches.  Use your thermometer between each batch to make sure the oil is at temp, as adding cold chicken to the oil lowers the temp.  You may also need to add oil if you’re doing several batches.

As the chicken is frying you can mix your buffalo sauce.  For 5-6 lbs chicken you will need about 1½ cups hot sauce and 1½ sticks butter.  Heat them in a sauce pan until butter is completely melted and mix together well, then turn off the heat and let it sit.  If you’re like me and you like them really hot and spicy, you can mix in about a teaspoon of Dave’s Total Insanity, or a little Tobasco Habanero Sauce, or you can just use some Uncle Franks Xtra Hot Sauce (like ¼ to ½ cup) as a portion of your 1½ cups of sauce.

Once all the chicken is fried add the nuggets to a large Tupperware or plastic salad bowl with a snap on lid.  Pour the Buffalo sauce over them.  Snap the lid on and roll the bowl around for a minute until all of the chicken is thoroughly coated in Buffalo sauce.  In about 10-15 minutes the sauce will get absorbed into all the breading and they will be dry, un-messy and delicious finger food snacks.  Of course, the police won’t arrest you if you eat one right away while it’s still gooey either.

You can also try honey-barbecue sauce, or sweet-n-sour sauces, etc..   If you try any other variations of this recipe, let me know what you did and how you liked it.

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A printable PDF version of this recipe is available here.

Best Bean Burrito EVER

I accidentally stumbled upon the recipe of the year for me. I love Chorizo (the Mexican sausage) — and the breakfast burrito is my usual concoction, but I much prefer the pork variety to the beef. However, my wife had come home from the store with some of each. So I was trying to use up the beef chorizo and trying to think of something that would complement it’s flavor better than the eggs do, when by pure luck (or an educated guess) I found the perfect combo…. so here we go:

For about 3-4 burritos you’ll want to start with about 1/2 package of beef Chorizo (Supremo brand is the best, but Cacique will work too). Have your non-stick skillet on medium heat. You’ll also need 1/2 medium onion. Two medium hot red chiles (such as a Fresno chile or ripened Jalapeno) and 2 serrano chiles. You’ll want to have your onion and chiles finely chopped ahead of time. Add them to the skillet the same time you add the chorizo and let them sweat as the chorizo browns. You want the onions to get a very light golden carmelization, but not a dark chocolate color. They become bitter when they burn. Once the chorizo is browned add in 1 can of black beans and turn the heat down to low. Let it all sit and simmer together, stirring frequently (about 10 minutes — you want the beans absorbing a bit of the sausage/spice flavor).

Lay a thick mound of the mixture in the center of a flour tortilla (low-carb whole wheat tortilla for me), cover with sour cream and a hot chunky salsa, generously sprinkle with coarsely chopped cilantro, then fold and eat. You will never go to Taco Bell again.

If this isn’t the best bean burrito you’ve ever had, I will take a pic with underwear on my head and make my Facebook profile pic…. OK, maybe I won’t .. but you get the idea.

Try it out, and leave your comments — good, bad or ugly — especially if you make tweaks or improvements.