señor taco’s travels

But damn, does that look tasty as all hell:

Bacon on a stick with fries on the back

(via riceplate)

For a long time I’ve been making southern style cooked greens. I learned how to make these when I was in school back in Nacogdoches, Texas¹ from a friend’s mom. I never wrote down a recipe and I just kind of keep making it with little changes here or there. This is the recipe as I’m currently cooking it.²

• 2-3 large bunches of chard (red or yellow chard are my favorite) or kale or any big leafy green.
• around ¹/₄ lb. of ham hock, smoked ham, or smoked pork neck pieces (optional)
• hot sauce (Frank’s Red Hot, other than Tabasco if you can)
• salt
• pepper
• cayenne powder (optional)

1. In a large pot place the pork in large chunks and about 4 cups of water. To the water add between 2-4 tbsp. of hot sauce (add more if you like, to taste, don’t go nuts at first). Add about 4 tsp. salt (maybe start with half that and bring it up to taste) and 2 tsp. of pepper. Add about ¹/₂ to 1 tsp. of cayenne powder if you like. Start to heat on medium heat while you do the rest of the work.
2. Wash and clean the greens. Cut the tips of the stems off. Take 3-5 leaves and stack them up. Start at one edge of the leaf stack and roll the leaves lengthwise into a tight bundle. Cut the leaf bundle across every half inch or so. This will form little circular bundles of leaves (when unfurled the pieces will have leaf, stem, leaf).
3. Put all the cut leaves into the pot. Add more water to fill the pot to just below the level of the leaves (make sure not to fill the pot up too far, the leaves will cook down).
4. Turn up the heat to medium-high and bring the pot to a boil, then turn it down to medium-low and keep it at a simmer for at least an hour. Let them cook for two hours if you can.
5. Strain from the pot and serve with or without the ham if you put it in.

1. Yes, it really is in the middle of nowhere.↩
2. I’ve cooked it at least three times this year, it’s popular↩

I am an unabashed fan of peanut butter. You can just ask my mom. Best food for a snack? Peanut butter. Best food to have stranded on a dessert island? Peanut butter. Best oil to use in frying foods? Peanut oil. See, even not in butter form the peanut is awesome! But I digress, for this is a post to point you to another titled The Best Peanut Butter in the World:

I love peanut butter. But more importantly for the statement you are about to read here, I know peanut butter. I know peanut butter the way Da Vinci knew fluid mechanics, the way Einstein knew physics, the way Grand Master Flash knows a turntable, the way Tom Brady knows how to perfectly balance throwing touchdowns and humping supermodels. I have eaten it. I have coddled it. I inhaled. What can I say? That’s how I spread.

Now I have to go and find this “Parkers Family Farms Peanut Butter” of which he speaks.

Steve Albini Talks of Food and includes a simple recipe for mayonnaise at the end. He’s a bit of a grouch, but a talented grouch for sure.

(Via jwz.)

There is a restaurant in Sausalito, California called Fish. It is a fabulous place to go and sit in the afternoon, have some great food, enjoy the harbor, and chill with friends. Speaking of the food, it’s all caught using sustainable practices. Today I had the Saigon Salmon Sandwich, a spicy feast that comes with a chili-lime cole slaw. Yummo.

One other thing that I love about Fish.¹ is that the menu has all prices with tax-included so if something is marked as five dollars you throw a fiver down and you’re done. All places should goto that, stupid $0.99 endings on prices. I hate you.

1. Yes, it is spelled with a period on the end↩

Last night was our third href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2005/03/08">Thai cooking class.
I didn’t write about class last week, but href="http://rotomonkey.org/archives/000348.html">Chris did.

We talked a lot about sticky, or glutenous, rice. Generally used by
the working class because it fills you up is it also used in snacks
and desserts. We were also introduced to a black variety of sticky
rice that when soaked (you have to soak sticky rice before cooking it)
the water turns almost the color of wine. There was also a brown rice
that needs to be soaked for 22 hours before cooking and had the most
amazing flavor with nothing added to it.

This week had the following menu:

• Garlic Peppered Shrimp (and Pork) - This is one of those dishes that
  you just love. Basically you take shrip (shells on) and toss them
  with ground white pepper, tapioca starch, and chopped garlic. Once
  the oil in your wok is hot you toss them in and let them cook for a
  few minutes. All you do is make sure they aren’t touching after a
  minute. The deep frying makes the shells edible (and you can even do
  the shrimp with the heads on if you want). Served on a bed of lettuce
  with some tomatoes around it this was an appetizer for our class and
  disappeared fast. We also made it with pork cut into thin strips
  (across the grain of the meat). Same great effect but with pork.
• Hot and Sour Calamari Salad - I like squid a lot, but the
  preparation can take a while. Thankfully there were many people in
  the class and it went fine. Mixing the squid with cuttlefish we
  blanched them for 30 seconds and then tossed them into a bowl with
  mint, cilantro, lemongrass and galanga. Once the herbs had wilted we
  covered it with the hot and sour sauce made of pulverized garlic and
  thai chilis, lime juice, fish sauce, and some sugar as a balancing
  agent. Just the sauce was awesome. Perfect hotness and a great sour.
  Easy to fix and not tough at all this is one of those “oh wow” dishes
  you can do.
• Stir fried long beans with basil and garlic - taking long beans,
  making them between 1.5″ and 2″ long and then stir frying them with
  garlic and chili paste. I’ve always loved that dish and I never knew
  how easy it was to prepare. Because of the roasted chili paste it had
  a sweet flavor that wasn’t too hot and would be good in many
  settings.
• Coconut-Flavored Sticky Rice with Mangoes - cook up the soaked
  sticky rice. In another pan mix coconut milk, a little sugar, and a
  tiny bit of salt. Add in pandanus leaves for flavor. When the rice is
  done pour a small amount of the coconut milk over the rice, but not
  too much, just enough to coat the rice fully. When you serve it you
  can put more of the coconut milk on top. With the pandanus leaves
  there is a distinctive flavor to the dish. An excellent dessert.
• Black Sticky Rice Pudding - using the black sticky rice you cook
  it and then form it with a bowl. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds and
  shredded coconut over top. Another great dessert and very unique.

All in all it’s a great class. I’m learning a lot and I can’t wait to
take the intermediate class.

Last night, my friends Chris,
Dado, Martin, and I started our four week href="http://www.thaifoodandtravel.com/classes/series.html">Thai
cooking class. I would say more but I just noticed Chris has href="http://rotomonkey.org/archives/000346.html">said it pretty
much exactly as I was going to. No sense re-posting now, just follow
the link to him.

This last week my roommate started a Thai cooking class. Now, not wanting to
forget his lesson between weeks he decided to cook chicken massaman and
far be it from me to stop him at all if he’s deciding to cook. So, needing
supplies we goto a Thai market and get a lot of stuff, and one thing happened
to be Thai Fish Sauce. Now, for those not familiar with fish sauce href="http://www.thaifoodandtravel.com/features/fishsauce1.html">here is
a little introduction from my roommate’s instructor:

Called “nam bplah” in Thai, or literally “fish water,” genuine fish sauce is
the water, or juice, in the flesh of fish that is extracted in the process of
prolonged salting and fermentation. It is made from small fish that would
otherwise have little value for consumption.

…

For fish sauce to develop a pleasant, fragrant aroma and taste, the fish must
be very fresh. As soon as fishing boats return with their catch, the fish are
rinsed and drained, then mixed with sea salt — two to three parts fish to one
part salt by weight. They are then filled into large earthenware jars, lined
on the bottom with a layer of salt, and topped with a layer of salt. A woven
bamboo mat is placed over the fish and weighted down with heavy rocks to keep
the fish from floating when water inside them are extracted out by the salt
and fermentation process.

The jars are covered and left in a sunny location for nine months to a year.
From time to time, they are uncovered to air out and to let the fish be
exposed to direct, hot sunshine, which helps “digest” the fish and turn them
into fluid. The periodic “sunning” produces a fish sauce of superior quality,
giving it a fragrant aroma and a clear, reddish brown color.

So, fragrant aroma, yes, that about sums it up. The sauce is great for
cooking but is quite pungent. Now, on with the story. My roommate cooks a
great meal and we clean up and put everything away. I go into the office for
a minute as he’s putting away the last of the supplies. All of a sudden I
hear a crash and “Oh crap!” come from the kitchen. Little did I suspect what
I would see when I rounded the corner.

On the floor in front of the lazy susan cabinet was the shattered bottle of
fish sauce and sauce was slowly spreading over the floor. Luckily we have
concrete floors so clean up wasn’t a problem, but remember what it says above,
fragrant aroma. Yeah, that didn’t begin to describe the smell. Both of
us quickly realized that we had to clean it up quickly. I started to mop up
the liquid and Keith got most of the glass. Now, on top of this I’ve got
two cats living here. As I was wiping up the liquid that smells rather
pungent my little cat Polly was pacing behind me wanting to get at the smell.
It was very cute but man did it stink. A couple of cleansing products later
and the smell was gone thankfully. Now we have to go buy another $2 bottle of
fish sauce for later cooking. Next time we won’t put the bottle where it
doesn’t fit in the lazy susan though (it was just a little bit too tall).

Photo by Dan Weeks

Man, I so love fresh food. Tonight our meal was perfectly accented with a
fresh insalata caprese made from tomatoes and basil from our garden. It was
so good and seasoned (olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper) to
perfection. Having a great mozzarella (made locally none the less) helped too.
I so love living in California, the food alone is worth it.

My friend KP
seems to be a href="http://speak.pushmedia.com/archives/2004/05/11/jamba_juice.php"
title="yadda yadda yadda">fiend or a href="http://speak.pushmedia.com/archives/2004/06/18/jamba_mamba.php"
title="blah blah blah">nut for title="come, be one of us">Jamba Juice, I’m not sure which it is. Now, me,
I’ve seen them around but a smoothy is a smoothy, right? I figured it’s time
I found out. I was informed there is a JJ right next to the supermarket we
sometimes go to. You could have fooled me, I never noticed it (but that’s
probably due to the horrid design of the center and the way the bland
architecture does a good job of de-emphasizing the signs of the stores that are
there). So, we went up there for lunch and I started in on my first Jamba
experience.

The first thing I noticed as a I walked in the door is that even though there
was a line I was greeted. It was an odd thing at first and only the first sign
of the unorthodoxy that is Jamba Juice. The staff was helpful and friendly
(while not that unusual out here it was certainly above the normal levels).

I was quite impressed with the freshness and overall flavor of my smoothy. I
think I’m going to have to go back there some more, especially in the mornings
since I don’t drink coffee. Thanks KP, but I think you’re still a nut.