I talk about food, you read it.
Salsa
Pico de Gallo
1Cinco De Mayo is on the 5th of May every year and I am sure most people don’t have a clue as to why this day is important other then the fact that they get to celebrate by eating Mexican. In a nut shell its is a holiday held on May 5 that commemorates the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. To be honest, I don’t really know why it’s celebrated the way it is, especially when they’re independence day is September 16th. That is the day we really should be eating Mexican and drinking margaritas. Oh well, a Mexican celebration twice a year is okay in my books!
Earlier this week I made chicken enchiladas, the same recipe I made a while back. Since J loved it so much I didn’t make any changes. Whatever type of Mexican you make this year, a must, is Pico de Gallo. It’s basically a fresh made salsa and can go on pretty much anything! I absolutely LOVE it. Its also extremely easy which is a bonus!
I don’t have a recipe but I will do my best to write out what I did
Ingredients
- 3-4 Roma Tomatoes Chopped
- 1/2 small white onion Chopped
- 1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro
- 1/2 lime juiced
- 1-2 cloves of garlic minced
- 1-2 Serrano chillies seeded and minced
- salt
Add all ingredients to a bowl and stir together.
This is your super basic recipe so you can add or adjust the ingredients to your liking. Sometimes I add avocado or mango for a different twist. I did actually add about a half of green pepper to this as well but I left it out of the basic recipe. This will also taste better and better the longer it sits so ideally you’ll want to make this the day before your Mexican fiesta! ENJOY!
Mango Black pepper glazed pork chops with a mango black bean salsa and yucca fries.
0J and picked up giant pork chops the other day and by giant I mean they were almost 2 inches thick! Most grocery stores slice them pretty thin so it was a nice surprise when we picked these up. I don’t make pork chops very often and if I do buy them I usually cut them up and make stir fry’s or noodle bowls with them. We’ve had a lot of Asian inspired meals lately so I searched the web for something new. I came across Bobby Flay’s Mango/black pepper glazed pork chops with a mango black bean salsa and yucca fries. It sounded so yummy I decided that I wanted to try this out as close to the original recipe as I could.
The salsa was super easy to make but I did add less honey to my version as Mango is a pretty sweet fruit on its own.
MANGO-BLACK BEAN-GREEN ONION SALSA:
- 2 mangoes, peeled and coarsely chopped
- 1 cup cooked black beans, or canned beans, rinsed and drained
- 2 green onions, finely sliced
- 1 tablespoon serrano pepper, seeded and finely diced
- 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
- Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
Combine all ingredients in medium bowl and season with salt and pepper. Let sit for 30 minutes before serving.
This salsa was probably my favorite part of the entire meal. I love it when sweet and spicy come together and piled over meat makes this even better. I kept scooping this into my mouth before the meal was complete.
The yucca fries were something new to me. I have never seen or heard of Yucca before and sent J on a wild goose chase to find it. He managed to locate some at the Superstore in the Asian food section. I totally forgot to take a photo before chopping it all up, I guess I was getting hungry.
YUCCA STEAK FRIES:
- 1 1/2 pounds yucca, peeled and cut into 3-inch sections
- 3 tablespoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
- 1 cup fine yellow cornmeal
- 1 tablespoon ancho chile powder
- 1 1/2 quarts peanut oil
Place yucca in pot filled with 1 quart water and 2 tablespoons of salt. Simmer for 20 to 25 minutes or until soft through the center. Remove from heat with slotted spoon to bowl of ice water. Drain on paper towels. Cut yucca into fries, 3 inches long by 3/4 inches wide. Place cornmeal in medium bowl and add 1 tablespoon salt and ancho chile powder. Roll fries in cornmeal mixture. Preheat oil to 370 degrees F. Fry yucca in batches until golden brown. Drain on plate lined with paper towels and salt immediately.
Now, I know I said I was going to try and follow this recipe as closely as possible but when it came to the fries I didn’t. I boiled them as per the above directions but I didn’t throw them in ice water. I just drained them and put them in a bowl to cool down. I then poured olive oil over them, some chilli powder, salt and pepper, stirred and laid them on a parchment lined baking sheet. I cooked mine in the oven on 400 for about 15 minutes instead of frying them. I don’t have a deep fryer, and this method is a bit healthier as well.If you want to try it his way with all the salt and cornmeal, let me know how it goes!
Yucca is super starchy so boiling them I think is key to get some of that starch out. It also softens them up so the oven only needs to crisp them a bit. There sort of reminded us of flavorless yam fries. I think I prefer the potato variety of fries but this was a nice change and who doesn’t love trying something new?
The pork chops on the other hand tasted great but I think my vision of a thick meaty chop was slightly let down.
GLAZED PORK CHOPS
- 1 cup red wine vinegar
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
- 1 large mango, peeled and pureed
- 4 pork chops, about 5 ounces each
- Olive oil
- Salt, to taste
Place vinegar, sugar and peppercorns in saucepan and reduce until thickened. Whisk in mango puree and cook 1 minute. Strain into bowl. Preheat grill. Brush pork chops with olive oil on both sides and season with salt. Grill for 5 minutes on each side for medium doneness. Remove and brush liberally with the glaze.
I feel like everything came together great and the flavors were all there but the pork chops were a little tough and that’s no fault of Bobby Flays. Since our chops were so think it took soooo much longer to cook. I wish I had baked them in the oven on a lower temperature to slowly cook thoroughly without toughening the meat. I made the mistake of frying them, which could be good but I over did it. I think overcooking is the biggest problem with pork chops and has given them a bad name.
If you don’t want to try the chops, the salsa is definitely worth making! It could be amazing on so many other dishes!
Restaurant Style Salsa
2Every time I make Mexican for dinner I always end up buying salsa, using my mom’s homemade salsa or whipping up some pico de gallo. I have never actually attempted to make my own restaurant style salsa before. The concept seemed easy enough but I think I had the idea in my head that it was going to be time consuming and require cooking. After searching the internet I found a few recipes that sounded easy, didn’t require cooking and had ingredients that I would have also added to a salsa. It only took maybe ½ hour from start to finish but for homemade salsa I think it was definitely worth it!
Ingredients:
- 1 can (28 oz.) Crushed or diced Tomatoes
- 1 can (4 oz.) green chillies.
- 1/4 cup hand diced sweet yellow onion
- 1 fresh jalapeno, seeded
- 1-2 garlic cloves
- 1 tsp of ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp. salt or to taste.
- 1 tsp cayenne
- 1/4 tsp. sugar
- 1/3 cup cilantro or to taste, chopped, no stems or flat leave Italian parsley or both
- Juice of one lime
Dice onion to the size you like. Cut off the stem end of the jalapeno and then cut the jalapeno in half length wise and take out all the seeds. Cut each halve in half again. If you like your salsas hot then add more of the membrane that surrounds the seeds. Put all ingredients except the onions into a food processor and pulse until everything in incorporated. Add onions last.
When I was finished making the salsa I decided that I didn’t like the chunks of onion mixed in with blended salsa so I used my hand blender and chopped it up a bit more so the onions weren’t chunky. It tasted pretty good that this point, but I didn’t want to mess with it too much because I knew it was going to taste different tomorrow when the ingredients all meld together.
I was right, the next morning it did taste different and soooo much better. Next time I will try and make salsa the day before I have Mexican food for dinner. The only think I might do different is less cilantro. It’s still really good and not overpowering with cilantro but I think it would taste just a bit better with half the cilantro and add the flat leaf parsley, to maybe a total of 1/4 cup instead of 1/3. Everything else in the recipe is a must and I think it would be bland if you didn’t add everything on the list.