Tag: chipotle

Categories
Sandwiches & Pizzas The Book

119. Turkey Wraps with Chipotle Mayonnaise p.189

I can’t find an online version of this recipe, but it was good enough to earn a 5 mushroom ratings so I’ll give it to you here.

FOR PICKLED ONION
1 red onion (6 ounces), sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick
1/2 cup cider vinegar
3/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
FOR CHIPOTLE MAYONNAISE
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped canned chipotle chiles in adobo, including some adobo sauce
1/4 cup mayonnaise
FOR ASSEMBLING WRAPS
4 (8-inch) flour tortillas, preferably whole wheat
1/4 pound sliced or shredded roast turkey or chicken
3/4 cup tender pea shoots or shredded lettuce leaves
salt and freshly ground pepper

MAKE THE PICKLED ONION:
blanch onion in a 1 1/2 quart saucepan of boiling water for 1 minute: drain. Return onion to pan, add vinegar, water, and salt, and bring back to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 1 minute. Transfer mixture to a heatproof bowl. Cool, uncovered, then refrigerate until cold, covered, about 2 hours.
MAKE THE CHIPOTLE MAYONNAISE:
blend chipotle and mayonnaise in a blender of food processor until smooth.
MAKE THE WRAPS:
Toast tortillas directly on (gas or electric) burners over moderate heat, turning over and rotating until slightly puffed and browned in spots, 40 to 60 seconds.
Spread 1 tablespoon chipotle mayonnaise on each tortilla. Arrange one quarter of turkey and pea shoots across middle of each tortilla and top with some drained pickled onion. Season with salt and pepper and roll up wraps.

I cooked this a while ago, and by happenstance I’m getting to writing it up just before the Americans have their turkey day. If any of you are planning a big turkey feast for thanksgiving this is a wonderful way to use up some of the leftovers. My post Thanksgiving sandwich is a fairly ritualized affair, it must have a mix of white and dark meat, mayo, cranberry sauce, rice and sausage stuffing, and a bit of lettuce, preferably on fresh sliced multi-grain bread, or baguette. But for a post-post thanksgiving sandwich, I think this wrap is the way to go.

Its components are just a little different, and very versatile. The pickled onions were shockingly good. It didn’t seem like they’d be anything special, just some blanched onions with vinegar and salt, but the onions are transformed. The harsh raw onion flavor is mellowed and replaced with the sweet-tart cider vinegar. They lose that mouth-stinging halitosis-causing raw onion edge, but retain their raw flavour, and even have it enhanced by the salt. These picked onions are beautiful too, the red pigment dissolves in the vinegar and dyes them pink. We loved them on these sandwiches, and then we put them on everything else we could think of ’till we ran out. Just writing this makes me want to go whip up another batch.

The chipotle mayonnaise was also a winner. There’s nothing to it, just chipotles in adobo and mayo, but it’s a super versatile topping for pretty much any sandwich. This mayo is so simple, and so good, that I’ve elevated it to the status of fridge staple.

While these wraps are an ideal way to use up a whole roast turkey, you don’t have to limit them to the day after major feasts. I can find turkey breasts at the grocery store pretty frequently these days, and I love them. They’re lean, inexpensive, and more flavorful than chicken breasts. I seasoned the breast with salt and pepper and then grilled it using the same indirect heat technique I used for the Cornish hens. When cooking a whole turkey the breast tends to dry out by the time the thigh is done, but if you’re just grilling a breast you can take it off as soon as it hits 170 F. I did a much better job on this breast than on the Cornish hens. The skin was golden, crisp, and packed with flavour, and the meat was wonderfully moist.

The elements of this sandwich are really strong, and they compliment each other well when combined. Sandwiches are about as humble as food gets, but when some real though it put into their composition they can be a treat. My only real criticism of this sandwich is the recommendation to grill the tortilla over a gas or electric burner. I was pretty skeptical about this working on my electric stove, and guess what? it didn’t. 119_turkey_wraps_with_chipotle_mayonnaise_p189_burned_tortilla.jpgI wonder if they tested this on a gas stove and figured it would work out for electric too? or perhaps I’m missing something. My dining companion just shook her head and sighed while she watched me fill our kitchen with smoke.

This was a very simple wrap, but everything about it was delicious. I saw this recipe coming up in my backlog, and decided I had to have it again. So, last night made a variation with grilled chicken, and I added bacon. I didn’t recreate the wonderful pickled onions and I regret that. This wrap is nothing fancy, but it earned its five mushroom rating.

Categories
Grains and Beans The Book

91. Smoky Black Beans p.267

The recipe

I was happy to find this recipe in The Book. I make my own version often enough because it requires no though, hardly any effort, and costs pennies per serving. I am not a great planner, and I rarely have the wherewithal to think through tomorrow’s dinner and get beans soaking the night before. The Book is full of overnight soaks, chills, freezes, and rises, which is one of the challenges of this project for me. Thankfully this recipe involves absolutely none of that. It uses canned beans, which are probably my favorite kitchen shortcut of all time. Sure they’re 15 times more expensive than soaking your own, but they still only cost 89 cents a can.

The ingredient list is all pantry staples, and the instructions pretty much come down to “simmer all the stuff together”. First you soften an onion in a bit of olive oil, then add some chopped chipotle, two cans of beans, water, orange juice, and a bit of salt. Break down the beans a bit with a potato masher, and let it simmer ’till everything thickens up nicely.

This is pretty much exactly my version of the dish, I usually add beer instead of water, and I hadn’t used the orange juice before. I like the dish mostly because I like the chipotles (I’ve written quite enough chipotle love poetry in the last few weeks, I’ll spare you any more), the beans are an ideal vehicle for chipotle flavours, and pretty much every savory dish starts with sautéed onion, so why not this one? The orange juice was a really good addition the sweetness and mild acidity complimented the chipotles perfectly.

I used these beans as a burrito filling, but they’d be equally good as a stand alone supper if you mixed in some left over pork, maybe topped with a bit of cheese and popped under the broiler. This dish was easy, versatile, forgiving, economical, and delicious. It satisfies a craving for Mexican without spending hours in the kitchen. If you happen to live in a part of the world with a taqueria on every corner, by all means go there. But, for me finding decent Mexican is a challenge. On nights when that’s just not a challenge I’m up for, this recipe is there for me.

Categories
Soups The Book

87. Tortilla Soup with Crisp Tortillas and Avocado Relish p.95

The recipe

This soup was a revelation for me. A few days ago I mentioned that I was falling for dried chiles this year. This dish was phase one of the seduction. In this recipe a pretty standard soup base (stock water, onion, tomato, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper) is transfigured into one of the more delicious things I’ve ever tasted with the addition of two ancho chiles, and two guajillos. The soup becomes rich and thick when corn toritllas are fried crisp, and crumbled into the soup. This dish would be delicious if you stopped here, but it gets so much better with the addition of the avocado relish. This relish is a much better guacamole than The Book’s official guacamole recipe, and it compliments the soup perfectly. Everything that is deep sultry and comforting and warm in the soup is bright, clean, shining and crisp in the relish. The soup has a satisfyingly hearty texture, which is mirrored in the relish. A few fried tortilla strips added just before serving give a nice crunchy counterpoint.

The recipe suggests that you fry your own corn tortillas, but as the tortilla place in my neighborhood does this on site I just bought a bag of their fresh made tortilla strips, and saved myself the trouble.

This recipe came together easily, and was completely delicious. I thought the final presentation was very attractive, and the dish just made me happy. This soup absolutely earned its five mushroom rating.

Categories
The Book Vegetables

82. Whipped Chipotle Sweet Potatoes p.583

The recipe

Chipotles were the taste sensation of 2006 for me. In fact they were a taste sensation that took the fast food world by storm, from Doritos to Subway you could hardy avoid these often mispronounced smoked jalapeños in adobo sauce. Bobby Flay (restaurateur, Iron Chef, and lover of limelight) is generally cited as patient 0 in the spreading chile epidemic. I’m happy to say that I’ve been infected, and that the taste sensation of 2007 are some of Bobby’s other favourites, Anchos, Gualliros, and Pasillas. I’m still deeply fond of the chipotle, it’s unbelievable depth of flavour, and layers of smoke add a mysterious smouldering quality to any dish. As it turns out this is one of Bobby Flay’s own recipes.

It’s a very straightforward preparation, sweet potatoes are roasted in their skins, then scooped out and beaten together with chipotles, butter, and salt. The mixture is spread into a baking dish and baked for another 20 minutes. The flavours are spot on in this recipe, the sugar soaked earthiness of the sweet potatoes is a perfect compliment to the chipotles. Heat and sweet go together so very well, and these two ingredients bring out the best in each other. The recipe also resists the temptation to make things complex, there are only four ingredients here, and that simplicity is its greatest strength.

Texture unfortunately is a weakness of the dish. The sweet potatoes are whipped, but not whipped in the sense of light and airy, more dense, wet, heavy, and textureless. There’s nothing in here that would give it the structure necessary to become light. I suppose you could fold in stiffly beaten egg whites before the final baking, but I’d rather go the other direction. I wouldn’t whip them at all. This would be much better as smashed chipotle sweet potatoes. Leaving some nice chunks of firm but yielding sweet potato in there would be a major improvement.

I’ve made these a couple of times, and once I had problems with my potatoes splitting and drying out in the oven. Be careful to use undamaged potatoes, and to prick them well. If they split all is lost.

I really really liked the flavours of this dish, and it’s texture could easily be improved. It’s designed as a prepare ahead casserole that can be warmed up when the Thanksgiving hoards arrive. If you’re making it a la minute you can probably skip the final baking step. It gives the dish a crust, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. If you felt like it adding cheese before baking would turn this into a nice gratinée, and a substantial main course. This recipe is easy, cheap, and delicious. I never get tired of the sweet potato chipotle interplay, and its become a standby for me.