Tacos de Pavo y Tacos de Papa
No argument, Thanksgiving is the quintessential soul-feeding, heart-warming, pant-button-unfastening meal of the year. This year, like all others before it, I enjoyed the potluck of too much turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, perfectly salted and buttered mashed potatoes, collard greens, butternut squash gratin and a fall salad.
The meal was comforting and delicious, but as soon as I finished my first helping I knew that I didn’t want to simply reheat it and eat it again. I was musing over what I would do with the leftovers!
Tacos filled with either leftover mashed potatoes or turkey
If I had my way the entire meal would have been Mexican, but my guests and boyfriend had the right to an almost* traditional All-American meal. I saved the Mexican meal in me for the next day and made both turkey and mashed potato tacos!
*Of course, I laced one of the two stuffed birds with oregano, cilantro and green chile powder and stuffed her with cornbread, pepitas and green chile dressing.
Ingredients:
Make as many or as few as you like according to how much leftover food you have.
leftover mashed potatoes
leftover turkey deboned and shredded
corn tortillas
tomatoes
cilantro or lettuce
queso blanco or monterrey jack cheese
hot sauce
vegetable oil
sour cream (optional)
Pre-heat a comal or griddle on the stove top on high for five minutes. Once hot, place corn tortillas one at a time on the comal. Heat each tortilla for 30 seconds on each side, flipping with a metal spatula. Place hot tortillas in a clean dish towel so they stay warm and soft while you heat the desired amount of tortillas.
Now, pour approximately a quarter inch of vegetable oil into a cast-iron or heavy-duty frying pan. Heat the oil on medium for about five minutes until it’s hot enough for frying.
Meanwhile, spread about 2 tablespoons of potato or the equivalent amount of turkey in each tortilla. This may seem like a small amount, but really it is not! Over-filling the tacos makes them difficult to fry. Gently fold the tortilla in half like a shell and CAREFULLY place in the hot oil using tongs. Fry each taco for about five minutes, two and a half minutes on each side until a crisp golden brown. Remove from oil and drain excess grease.
Place on a plate with paper towels to remove even more oil. Remove paper towels and garnish tacos with cheese, chopped tomatoes, cilantro, hot sauce and sour cream.
Biscochitos
I’m counting down the days until Alex, Boli and I hop on a plane and make the full-day journey back West. We couldn’t have chose a better time to visit since Christmas in New Mexico is the most enchanting and belly-satisfying time of year.
No Christmas Turkey here! We’ll enjoy meals of Tamales, Christmas Tacos, Posole, Menudo, Red and Green Chile and we’ll top-off each meal with a few Biscochitos (beez-coh-chee-tohs) dunked in a cup of coffee or served alongside a glass of wine. Every year my grandmother would bake dozens upon dozens of these sparkling cookies in the shape of diamonds, stars, angels, bells and simple circles. A plate of Biscochitos would be waiting for visitors who’d stop for good conversation and hot coffee.
Biscochitos are a melt-in-your-mouth-can’t-have-just-one shortbread sort of cookie. They are flavored with cinnamon-sugar sweetness and aromatic anise seed. But vegetarians be warned (yes, I said vegetarians, not vegans) these cookies contain lard.
During college my mom and my nina would each send me bubble-wrapped boxes of biscochitos. Now that I have a kitchen it’s time I bake my own. Below is my grandmother’s recipe in my mother’s handwriting. Like all grandmother recipes this one calls for ingredients in approximations and variations. The one I share with you is a combination of my grandmother’s, my mother’s and my nina’s recipes. You may substitute vegetable shortening for lard and water for wine but I guarantee that the cookies will not be nearly as delicious*.
*This has been confirmed by some of the Chez Pannise trained chefs at a school I attended.
Makes 9-10 dozen small cookies.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups lard (1 pound box)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
3 teaspoons anise seed
6 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sweet white wine (plus a 1/4 extra if needed)
1/2 cup sugar + 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
Cream together the lard and 1 1/2 cups sugar. In a separate bowl beat the eggs and anise, add to the lard/sugar mixture. Mix well.
In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add this dry mixture to the wet mixture. Knead well with your hands until dough sticks together, it should be slightly sticky but able to form a firm dough ball. If the dough is too dry add more wine a teaspoon at a time, if it is too sticky add more flour a teaspoon at a time.
Divide the dough into three large balls and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight so the dough becomes firm and manegable.
The next day preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Roll out the dough with a liberally floured rolling pin on a liberally floured surface 1/8 inch thick. Cut into desired shapes. Dip one side of each cookie into cinnamon-sugar mixture and place on cookie sheet sugar side up. To ensure all cookies bake evenly, bake each shape cookie in batches of alike shapes and sizes. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the bottom of the cookies are brown and the tops are golden.
Remove from oven, and immediately dip in cinnamon-sugar again, dipping them while they are warm is key to getting the cinnamon sugar to stick. Store in a cool-dry place or freeze for up to six months.
If you’ve enjoyed this recipe, beginning Monday, November 16, 2009 please VOTE for me at Bon Appétit! YOU will be eligible to win a fabulous prize and I would win a dinner with Bon Appétit Editor-in-Chief Barbara Fairchild. xogabriela
Flan de Calabaza
I’ve found that flan is one of those desserts that people either absolutely relish or absolutely despise. Those of you who love it need no convincing. But those of you who gag at the idea of sticky-sweet caramelized sugar atop a rich eggy custard, I swear that your distaste for flan will vanish with one bite of this recipe. Adding pumpkin puree to an already a creamy Flan Napolitano recipe resulted in this delicious autumnal dessert… better than pumpkin pie (yes, even without a crust).
This recipe was inspired by Barbara Hansen’s Flan Napolitano. The original recipe is a rich and silky-smooth custard that, unlike most other flan recipes, is not egg yolk heavy. Adding pumpkin and brown sugar to the recipe resulted in what tasted like the offspring of pumpkin pie and custard. For as fancy as it seems flan only requires 20 minutes of preparation, however, it requires that one plan ahead as it takes 2 hours to bake and 6-8 hours to chill. This very rich dessert serves 16-20 people.
…and “invert” of course means that, while holding both plates tightly against each other, you quickly flip the flan onto the presentation plate in one smooth motion. the first time gabriela told me to “just flip it over” i slowly rotated the two plates thinking the flan would maintain its form while vertical. it doesn’t. -au
Pan de Muerto
“The Mexican . . . is familiar with death, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it; it is one of his favorite toys and his most steadfast love.” –Octavio Paz
The dead need their daily bread too. It’s November 1st and like many Mexican households I am remembering and celebrating my dearly departed. As it is believed that today and tomorrow are the easiest days for mis muertos queridos to visit and take pleasure in earthly delights, I have lit candles and set out fragrant Marigolds to guide their way, baked delicious Pan de Muerto to satisfy their stomachs and set out a glass of water to quench their thirst.
I hope all of the saints and all of the souls enjoy this Pan de Muerto. (I baked few extra loaves to enjoy with a cup of coffee or tea and plan on slicing a loaf or two for French Toast.)
Pan de Muerto is a sweet egg bread (think a crumbly brioche) that can be flavored with fragrant anise,orange zest and cinnamon and is decorated with bone shaped pieces of dough and sprinkled with sparkling sugar.
Ingredients
4 c. flour (3 3/4 c. flour +1/4 c. flour)
3/4 c. sugar + 1 Tbs. Sugar
1/2 c. unsalted butter’1/2 Tbs. yeast
3/4 c. milk
3 large eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon (optional)
zest of one orange (optional)
1/2 tsp. anise seed (optional)
plus 1 egg for a wash, and extra sugar for dusting
In a large bowl combine milk, yeast, orange zest, 1/4 c. flour and 1 Tbs. sugar. Let stand for 30 minutes, then add the three gently beaten eggs.
In a separate bowl combine 3 3/4 c. flour, 3/4 c. sugar, salt, cinnamon and anise. Add this flour mixture to the wet mixture, kneading with you hands (at this point the dough will feel very sticky, kned until it is only slightly sticky. You may add an extra teaspoon of flour at a time if needed.)
Allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes. Add the butter to the dough working it until fully incorporated. Shape into a ball, grease and lightly flour. Place in bowl and cover with a damp towl to rise for 2 hours.
Separate doug into 6 parts. Shape 5 into balls and place on a greased baking sheet. Decorate the tops of the rolls with the remaining dough by rolling the dough into coils and strips that look like bones.
Allow the bread to rise for an additional hour in a warm place. brush tops of bread with egg white and dust with sugar. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
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