Sopaipillas

Going out for Mexican food is one of the best things about living here, in this funky old town that never changes fast.
Bet you didn't know that a city of close to a million could exist in the US without having a Williams Sonoma, or a Pottery Barn, a Whole Foods, or even a Trader Joe's anywhere near it, didjya?  "Keep El Paso Backward," as the man says.
But, boy-howdy,  do we have our Mexican restaurants!  And we love them.  
And of course, we have our own little whang on Mexican food; it's kinda New Mexico, kinda Northern Mexico, kinda Tex-Mex.  But it's all good.  And we have sopaipillas.

The correct pronunciation by gringos is something spanish-speakers have given up on completely.  You used to hear the waitress politely but pointedly saying "so-piy-piyas" but hardly ever, now.   And you can forget all about Ruidoso EVER being said right.

But even if we don't say it right, we do love sopaipillas and honey.  And they are easy to make.  Yes, I said easy.  All you need is some ready-made flour tortilla mix, some baking powder, and some water.  Oh, and some oil to fry them in.  That's all.

First mix a teaspoon of baking powder in with a cup of tortilla mix.  Use a whisk, and get it  mixed up good.

Then add 1/2 cup of hot water, plus 2T. more.  Mix this up and the dough should look like this, reminiscent of play-doh.

Let it rest. Rest, little dough ball.

Then roll it out as thin as you can.  That should be about 1/8 of an inch.

Cut it into large triangles.  It's important that they be large, if you want inflation to be successful.
Let it rest a little more.  You can do this while you heat up your oil.  I used canola this time.

Get it hot.  Really hot.  Bubbling hot.

Then put your triangles in, one at a time.  They should blow up like little pillows.  Little, fried, greasy, delicious, pillows.

Take them out and let them rest again, this time on a sheet of brown paper. (or several)

Whether you dredge them in sugar and cinnamon is up to you.  I find that to be overkill.

Serve them with honey, and the idea is to make a little hole, pour the honey into the hole, and turn it around until the insides are coated.  Then eat.

Yes!  Exactly what you needed after the tostadas, chile con queso, enchiladas, refried beans and sopa de arroz.  

Chile Con Queso

Well, there's some football watching going on over here, and my guys want some Queso.  It's a tradition.

Chile con Queso is chile with cheese, and there are some really rank canned imitations being served out there in fast/junk food land.

And I'm not claiming that the kind I make is the authentic, original way to make it, but it is certainly a step above the pasty orange grease that is being ladled out over salt-laden fake tostadas at snack food stands.  Not a giant step, but a step.

So, okay, you start with green chile. You should use a lot, after all, the dish is chile with cheese, not cheese with chile.   I am lucky enough to have green chile available all through the year here,  but if it's just impossible for you to get fresh chile you could use canned, but rinse them well. (Or, you could just throw up your hands and use Rotel, no shame in that.)

I could tell as I coughed cleaning it that it was going to be HOT, so this was enough.

Chop some onion and saute it with the chile for a few minutes, until the onion is cooked or transparent.  I am using a steel bowl to saute so I can just move the whole thing over a pan of water for a double boiler.  You really need a double boiler to make this, it's too easy to ruin over direct heat.

Add the tomatoes. I used canned diced that I had rinsed and drained.

To that add evaporated milk, 1 large can to start, and you might decide you need more if it's too thick.

Then add Velveeta.  I know.
Velveeta?

Velveeta is a kind of processed cheese.   Velveeta is used as a base to melt in the rest of the cheese.  If you don't use Velveeta or can't find it,  it is possible to just use the evaporated milk as a base.

Then throw in the real cheese. I used Monterrey Jack for this but you can experiment with Cheddar, Colby or Longhorn and decide what combination you like the best.  Colby/Jack works well, too.

Then it's just a matter of letting the water boil underneath and stirring until the cheese is all melted.  And you're done.

Enjoy the game!

Tlalpeno Soup at Cafe Corona

A long, long time ago, I remember...

There was no better way to enjoy a blustery cold winter day than to go to over the bridge to Juárez for lunch. The market was so much fun! Beautiful things to see at Decor and El Patio, then a late lunch at Julio's Cafe Corona. Pitchers of margaritas! And we're talking tequila, triple sec, and lime, none of that phoney mix, nuh-uh.   They were fuerte... but sooo delicious.
And we were young, then.

Julio's still exists in El Paso, and is still wonderful.

But this is how I remember that Tlalpeño Soup. (Pronounced talpenyo). Like a swig of tequila, it warmed your mouth and chest. The heat and smokiness of the chipótle with the fresh sharp onion, tomato and cilantro, mellowed by the rich broth and succulent chicken were perfect compliments. What a dish!

First, cook your chicken and make the caldo (broth). I'm cooking a whole chicken because it makes the broth divine.
I use a pressure cooker, but it really doesn't matter. A soup pot and a long simmer is just fine.

To the whole chicken add celery and onion and garlic, salt and pepper and water. Cook until it is falling off the bone. In a pressure cooker this is about 40 minutes.

When it is cooked, strain the broth from the meat into a colander lined with paper towels, and let the meat cool. This takes most of the fat from the broth without having to chill it.

While the meat is cooling enough to pull off the bones, you can chop up the other ingredients:

Tomato

Green onion top and a little thin sliced white onion.

Green jalapeño, seeded and finely diced.                                       
Cilantro (or Parsley, if you are averse to Cilantro)
Avocado

When your chicken meat is removed from the skin and bones and chopped, you can compose your soup.
Put your broth in a saucepan and turn up the heat.

In a soup bowl, put 1 chipotle chile and some adobo (sauce).
Follow that with chicken meat (and be generous, this is a meal!)

A heaping tablespoon each of onion, tomato, and cilantro.  A little bit of the jalapeño.

A half of an avocado, cut into bite sized pieces.

When your broth is SCALDING HOT, pour it over the contents of the bowl.
Serve with limes,  the best bolillos (french rolls) you can find, and butter.  And maybe a margarita!

And there it is.  If only we could go back in time.
If only Juárez could be like it was then.

We are horrified,  daily, at the continuing nightmare of carnage and tragedy in that city.
Please pray for the good people of Juárez, and all of México.

Cracker Jack's Skinny Cousin

This recipe was the result of necessity and invention and the munchies.  And trying to stay away from candy.

What to do?  Here I was with some free time, a book to read, and needed....yes I really needed,  something sweet but not high-calorie-sweet.
I had some popcorn. Hmmm.

What would happen if I melted some of this natural cane sugar with a little pancake syrup? (Which contains corn syrup, useful when cooking sugar.)




Let the sugar cook until it was liquid and clear-ish?  About 5 minutes on medium heat.  (Don't let it burn!)

Sprayed the popcorn with butter flavor oil and salted it...

Threw in some slivered almonds?

Poured on the melted sugar and stirred like mad?

Wow.  All I'd need is a prize!

Cake Flour

I like to make cakes. Everyday, not fancy, spur-of-the moment kind of cakes.  And it's easy, if you know proportions.

Decide first how big a cake you want to make.  2 c. of flour is regular, 3 is extra big.

You will use almost as much sugar as you do flour.   2 cups flour, slightly less sugar.

Fat and oil should make up about 1/3 c. per cup of flour.  2 cups flour, 2/3 cup of butter or oil and butter combined.  Beat this in with the sugar for the first step.  Whip it until it's "fluffy" or some semblance thereof.

1 egg per cup of flour, plus 1 extra.  Add to sugar/fat mixture one at a time.
Measure out your flour and add salt, 1/4 tsp. per cup of flour.

One teaspoon of baking powder per cup of flour.  Whisk this in with the dry ingredients.

Alternate adding flour and liquid to the sugar/butter/egg mix.

Use liquid enough to make your batter thick and not soupy.  This "liquid" can include fruit, and  I would start with a quarter cup per each cup of flour used.

Use your imagination.  Add whatever seems right.

But use cake flour.

And I have a problem with store-bought cake flour.  For one thing, it's in a box.  And I'm pretty bad about searching out expiration dates--who has time for that?  So I see a box of flour and I wonder how long that's been sitting there, and if it will infest my other boxes of stuff with weevils.  I'm not looking to get protein that way, thank you very much.


This is definitely the best way to have cake flour ready to use.
Get a nice big canister; I happen to love the large clear ones because I can see what I have.

In a big mixing bowl, put 2 cups of all purpose flour and 1/3 cup of cornstarch.  *The other recipes I have seen are silly, with measuring out cups, and removing some flour, and adding cornstarch then, but this really makes more sense and less mess.









Mix them up with a whisk.

Then put them into a sieve and shake it vigorously over the big bowl.  You can do this multiple times if you wish, but let's not get too crazy here.

                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Place this mixture into your canister.


And you're done.   Now go make yourself a delicious  cake.

Fruit Cocktail Cake

More Plum Pudding, Tiny Tim?

There are two things my little Kiwi mother cooked that I know came from her family tradition; Mint Sauce for lamb, and Plum Pudding.  She was always too scared to flame it and so didn't, and didn't make Hard Sauce, at least I don't remember that, but the Cool Whip was just fine, thank you.
I'm kind of a cream snob these days so that's what I'll top mine with, but finally I got busy ahead of time and made my Plum Pudding.  For Mom.

The most difficult part of the whole thing was finding suet, and that's one thing I made sure I got because I remember that Mom said it just wasn't right without it!
I knew that suet was the hard fat from around the kidneys of beef, and that you grate it up like hard cheese, which it resembles but actually looks and feels more like tiny soap flakes.
So if you are going to make a Plum Pudding, the first thing you need to do is find either an honest-to-goodness butcher shop or, as in my case, a grocery store that cuts up the beef carcasses.

Here in El Paso, I bumbled around until the nice man at the Ruidoso Market downtown (where everyone assured me I would find it) told me to go up the street to Silva's Market.
Silva's is nestled right down at the bottom  the Stanton Street Bridge from Juarez, and you need to ask for "sebo de res".   A great big chunk of this stuff will cost you one whole dollar.
Hot Damn!  What a buy!
For a lovely Plum Pudding sans suet, see  http://makinglifedelicious.com/2010/12/11/english-plum-pudding-aka-christmas-pudding-aka-cake/

Anyway, after you procure your suet, chill it well and grate up however much you need.
Here is the way I have the Plum Pudding figured out:
In a large bowl, combine equal amounts of:
Bread Crumbs
Self-rising flour
Grated Suet

In my case, I used 8oz. of each, but could have used 10 and had enough room in my steamer mould.
Add these spices, generously, and by that I mean at least a teaspoon:
Mace
Clove
Nutmeg

Cardamom
Allspice
Add 1T salt and half as much brown sugar as the amount of flour, that was 4 oz.
Add 4 oz. each (half as much as the flour) of:
candied peel (I used just a bit -- fruitcake phobia, but next time I'm leaving it out altogether)
golden raisins (Sultanas! don't you love that word?)
currants
chopped date
chopped prunes (hence "PLUM pudding")
and a chopped apple.
In another bowl pour125ml. ale ( Stout in English recipes) You would of course increase if you used larger proportions of the rest.
and 4 eggs, or half as many eggs as ounces of flour.
Mix that in with the dry ingredients and pour it into a heavily greased bowl or steaming mould.  Cover with wax paper or cloth and tie securely, or use a covered mould like mine.
Put it into a stockpot with the water coming up halfway the bowl, cover,  and boil softly all day.

Or, put it into a pressure cooker with the pressure gage OFF, put the top on and simmer for 1 hour, then, add more water, put the pressure gage ON and cook about another hour.  This is to give it time to rise before "really" cooking.
NOW, here is where it gets mysterious.  Supposedly, you can just put this away into a cool cabinet and leave it alone until right before serving, when you steam it AGAIN for a while to get it warm and moist.
I cannot abide the idea of something that's to be eaten NOT being in the fridge, so of course that's where mine is.  I think I remember Mom leaving hers in the pantry, but maybe not?

The verdict -- it's good.  It tastes pretty much like my mother's, but doesn't seem as dark as hers was. Possibly because I didn't give it a liquor "bath" as my Auntie recently recommended.   Hard to do when there are non-drinkers to partake.
It makes me think of my sweet mother and all the generations of women before me who did their best  to make  Christmas as special as it could be.  Merry Christmas!