wrote:
On Apr 1, 12:39 pm, "Nunya Bidnits" wrote:

Well you hit that pretty much dead on. I make "pork steaks in red
chile sauce", and that's the base, but it gets some tomatoes,
garlic, ground comino, chipotle powder, onions browned when I brown
the pork steaks, and some chicken broth, and some roasted green
chiles at the end if I feel fancy. Simmer the browned steaks and
onions for a couple hours until falling apart. I have the meat dept
at the grocer cut them for me 1 1/4 thick.

Well sir, I don't know how these recipes migrated that far away from
their home, but you are probably cooking in a more traditional fashion
than most folks are around here! If you post your recipe for green
pepper/tomatillo roasted pork, I'll fall out of my chair!

Still raining down there? g

Problem around here is the tomatillos in the stores are pretty crappy most
of the time. I have grown 'em before but they tend to have some problems.
Ever grow the ones with the purple husks? They are the best I have had.
There is some kind of fly around here that lays eggs in the tomatillo
flower. The fruit grows up around it and the larvae eats its way out. You
don't know its there till you find a tiny hole in the fruit, a sign that the
larvae grew up and ate its way out. But when I have had a good harvest or
crop in the store it usually goes into green salsa. But why don't you post
that recipe because it sounds great!

When I was a kid there was a Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood that,
way out of character, served a traditional Mexican style chili, in soupy
brown broth, with chunks of pork, pieces of roasted green chilis and other
vegetables, light on the beans, and tortillas on the side. Very rare in
South KC in the 60s and early 70s. I would go in there after school, even
when I was in grade school, for an after school treat of their chili. I've
been chasing the dream ever since.

I learned a lot from cookbooks, of which I have tons. I also learned a lot
from gardening books and magazines and specific botanical writings on
chiles. And that Redwood City Seed Company, in spite of being a bit nutty,
had some booklets that really helped me out, in addition to just reading
their in depth descriptions. The heirloom history of chiles is very helpful
when learning how to cook with them. I would have preferred to have learned
by watching the abuelitas cookin in their own kitchens, but I managed to
find my way somewhat.

Here are a few good books that combine good knowledge of the sweet hot fruit
with good cooking:

Peppers The Domesticated Capsicums by Jean Andrews (THE authoritative
botanical guide!)

Jane Butel's Southwestern Grill by Jane Butrel with Gordon McMeen

Great Green Chili Cooking from the Albuquerque Tribune

Chili Lovers Cook Book by Al Fischer and Mildred Fischer

The Whole Chile Pepper Book by Dave DeWitt and Nancy Gerlach

Peppers: Pickled, Sauces, and Salsas by Sue Dremann (from Redwood City Seed)

and for some authoritative tomatillo information:

Ground Cherries, Husk Tomatos, and Tomatillos by Craig Dremann (Redwood
City)

For me, I like to make my puerco out of loin chops (now, $1.98 per
pound at Sam's) that I debone. Cheap, easy to find, and enough fat to
have plenty of flavor. Tried it with pork loin, but it wound up more
like beef roast bits. Like a lot of "traditional" recipes from
different cultures, they are tailored for everyday cooking and
everyday budgets. The cheaper cuts of meat for this work much better
for me than more expensive one.

Pork steaks are just band-saw sliced pork butts, that's about as cheap as it
gets. I wait till they go on sale for somewhere between .99 and 1.20 a pound
and have the butcher cut up a bunch for me extra thick.


Around here, there is a constant struggle to validate whose
grandmother made the best mole. They start with a base which is
usually (but not always) some kind of roasted peppers (not hot) and
some kind of liquid like tomato sauce or chicken broth depending on
whose abuelita they are imitating. Carmelized onions are usually in
the mix. A big item for the families from the interior of Mexico is
to add unsweetened/sweetened dark baker's chocolate. The peanut
butter is from another region, and some like it and some don't. I
have the luxury of liking both. Some add freshly ground espresso
sized coffee (almost powder) to the mix. Good mole recipes are like
good chili recipes. Everyone knows what is in them, but the amounts,
cook times, etc. are pretty well guarded for the best of them.

The moles I am familiar with are anywhere from a mahogany color to the
color of dark chocolate. No two are alike, so sadly, a guy is put in
the position of trying as many as he can to try to get a handle on
what he likes. It is daunting, but I persevere.

You'll find a some restaurants around here offering mole, but it can get
pretty scary. My rule of thumb is that if the folks in the restaurant speak
good English, don't order the mole.


%


I used to start from seed around here, usually with seeds from
Redwood, but to get the bedders in the ground in time you have to
start early with grow lights that can be adjusted for height, repot
them at least once indoors if you want big healthy plants by late
april, and a big old indoor mess that I finally abandoned. I did win
a bunch of ribbons with the peppers I grew from Redwood

Hey... you may be more of a pepper head than I am! Ribbons? What
kind of pepper did you grow to get them?

Well its been a while but there were both sweet and hot peppers and I'll
have to get into the closet and ferret out the list of which ones were
winners but I will find it and post it for you. But I was the only serious
pepper head in the contest, as well as the only serious herb grower, and
sort of took the regulars in the contest by surprise. The contest was the
Flower and Vegetable Show put on by the Loose Park Garden Center every other
year in KC. (A bit out of my element on the hoity-toity side but they have a
wonderful resource center.) The year of my greatest success I got the grand
award for the most blue ribbons, and as fortune would have it, they had
declared that year to be "Year of the Pepper" with a special award for the
best Sweet and best Hot peppers. I got both of those too.

Apparently the most formidable competitor in that event historically was out
of the country that year, and another fellow, who owned a tree nursery, had
in mind that the contest was finally his for the taking. It wasn't. He came
in second. Again, apparently. He later groused at a garden center meeting,
in quite the disparaging tone, "He did it with herbs." As if it was
cheating. But at this contest you could turn in just about anything edible,
or floral, as long as you could give its true botanical latin name.

The other competitors apparently just didn't understand, for example, the
beauty of oregano in full flower, or the imposing presence of a 3 ft tall
bronze fennel specimen, much less anticipate that the judges might just like
something like that. And then there was the pepper thing, which put me over
the top.

And all done organically. No chemical fertilizer, no chemical pest control.
That bugged them too. g

Yeah, us pepper freaks are at it again!

I'm telling you, either you get it or you don't. The pepper/chili/
heat guys are every bit as rabid about what they do and make as any
barbecue guy, coffee aficionado, sports freak, or anybody else that
obsesses over things.

Ole'!

MartyB in KC