How I spent my summer vacation

So despite not having posted much in the last three or four months, my pageviews have rocketed up from 6,000 to over 8,000!

¡Muchas gracias!

But though I haven't been writing, I have actually been cooking. In fact, I cooked so much I'm worried I'm going to forget some of it before I have a chance to post.

Over the next several weeks I plan to post as much of this "backlog" as possible. Most of it involves cooking with my mom, who visited in July to see the new baby.

You may remember she was meant to bring my (Mexican) great grandmother's recipe for mole rojo for us to cook. I even bought some real Mexican chocolate from Lupe Pintos for the occasion.

Well, she didn't bring it.

Her excuse was that the recipe was hand-written and Grandma Eva is no longer with us, so she didn't want to risk bringing it in a plane.

Fair enough.

So we cooked my recipes instead.

The other thing going on is that we've entered mes de la patria, "patriotic month", which is September, the month of Mexico's Independence Day.

(September is also my birthday month.)

On 15 September the streets of Mexico will ring out with people shouting el grito ("the cry") of "Viva Mexico!"

This commemorates the priest Hidalgo's grito, which kicked off the war of independence.

Twelve months ago I had some serious cooking plans for this month, but parenthood comes before cooking, so I'm officially running late on the chiles en nogada, but that, and possibly pozole verde, will happen at some point, along with cochinita pibil.

And I'm considering pato en pipián (duck in pumpkinseed sauce) before the year is out, because I've always wanted to cook this elegant dish.

And finally I have a restaurant review to publish.

So between catching up and doing new things, the next few months will be quite busy. Honestly, I'll be lucky if I can finish all this before el día de los muertos.

Clearly, I am still insane. I won't even talk about my plans to make Oaxacan black mole at Christmas.

Now, because this is an info/update post it has no food. But I have been receiving a lot of food from my various Mexican Food Heroes out there, including some incredible salsas from Kan-Kun.

These came with some clothing, so I thought I'd put them on and take my first ever selfie.

If this doesn't "unleash your inner luchador", nothing will!

Chiles rellenos!

Mexican Food guru Rick Bayless writes that many people have been "smitten" the Mexican snack known as chiles rellenos (stuffed chiles), "which is unfortunate for them, because they do take a little time to prepare."

Actually, they take a lot of time to prepare. I've read recipes for this dish in every book I could get my hands on, plus all of the many Mexican food blogs I follow (September is the traditional season for chiles rellenos, so everyone was writing about them. I'm late!).

They are all pretty much identical, and there are no short cuts.

Ordinarily I'd file this under Don't Try At Home (unless you're a hardcore MexiGeek). But these are so delicious I think everyone should try them, and until Edinburgh restaurants start serving them, you'll have to make your own.

(Chiles rellenos are common in Mexican restaurants in the US, and you can get them from the London Mexican restaurant Mestizo.)

So: chiles rellenos or "stuffed chiles". Basically, these are exactly what they sound like, only better.

For me, the classic chiles rellenos are stuffed chiles poblanos (literally "chiles from Puebla"). The poblanos' large size, medium-thick flesh and mild heat makes them ideal for this. In fact, many Mexicans call them chiles para rellenar ("chiles for stuffing").

I've read that Mexicans also stuff smaller, hotter chiles, as well as reconstituted ancho chiles. And in the US you can get deep, fried jalapeños stuffed with cream cheese, which are addictive, but I'm not sure they're very Mexican.

To prep the chiles, first you have to roast them. Ordinarily this is where I've talk about asar-roasting on a dry pan. You can do that, but in this case it's not the best choice.

Poblanos have a though transparent outer skin which must be removed or your fork will have trouble cutting through it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to char the skin off without overcooking the rest of the chile.

If you roast the poblano on a dry pan, you'll probably burn through the skin in places before you get all the outer layer charred. Then you can't stuff the chile. FAIL!

If you do the Diana Kennedy thing and stick the poblano under a grill, turning it until it blackens on all sides, the outer skin will slip off easily, but the remaining flesh may be a bit to soft to hold its shape. You want it to be flexible, but not on the verge of turning to mush.

So what works best is to hold the poblano over an open flame until all the skin blisters and loosens. I find you need a gas hob for this.

Once your chiles look like the above, stick them in a plastic bag to "sweat" for ten minutes. This makes them easier to peel, but beware "easier" is a relative term here. The skin will come off in maddeningly small bits and you will have to "shave" some of it with a sharp knife because the flame won't reach into the "valleys" of the chile.

You will get your hands dirty, but they won't sting, because the chiles are mild.

When the chile is peeled, take a small, sharp knife and make a slit down one side of it. This is the hole you're going to put the stuffing in, so don't slice down the entire length of the chile. You want it to stay closed after you're stuffed it.

Now, put the tap on and gently wash the chile inside and out. I'm not kidding. Also, stick your finger in the hole and gently brush the seeds out, and carefully pull out as much of the white veins as will come free easily.

It is vital that you don't rip, tear, or poke through the chile or it becomes unstuffable (though you can still slice it into rajas). Must recipes recommend roasting extras in case you rip a couple.

Now for the stuffing. What do you stuff them with?

One the popular Autumnal versions of this dish is chiles en nogada, "nogada" being a creamy walnut sauce. These chiles rellenos are stuffed with a Oaxacan-style picadillo, which is fried pork mince and dried fruit (think of old-school mince pie, which actually contained mince).

The stuffed green chiles are then covered in the white nogada, and sprinkled with red(-ish) pomegranate seeds: the three colours of the Mexican flag.

Because of that and because the walnut harvest usually comes around Mexican Independence Day (16th of September), it is a traditional Independence Day celebration food. To preserve the Mexican Flag colour scheme, chiles en nogada are usually not battered, though I have seen photos of an exception.

I didn't manage to get fresh walnuts for the sauce this September. But it's just as well, because the light, fluffy batter is one of the best parts, and in any case my favourite filling is cheese!

The main cheese in Mexico is queso fresco (literally "fresh cheese"),  a homemade cheese which is like a goat's milk version of cottage cheese, with a firmer, more crumbly texture. If you really want to rock the house, you can make your own, like Tiffany from Kitchen Conversations did.

I nearly always use feta in place of queso fresco because I love feta and the saltiness really works with this dish. However, Rick Bayless writes that real queso fresco isn't as salty as feta, so if you're not a feta fan try plain cottage cheese, ricotta, or even some mozzarella (there's a Oaxacan queso fresco that "hace hebras" or "makes strings" like mozzarella).

Chile relleno, stuffed and resealed, ready for frying

Now, I did the roasting, peeling and stuffing the night before to save some time on the day. I wrapped my stuffed chiles in foil and put them in the fridge. This is a common practice, but the chiles must be at room temperature before you fry them, so take them out of the fridge at least an hour before you start to cook.

Then comes the batter. This is what really scared the living hell out of me. I'm not a strong baker and making a batter - even if it's just for shallow frying - feels like baking to me.

Add to that it's a fairly unusual batter and my nerves were really through the roof. It felt like I was trying to walk before I could run and I was sure I was going to screw it up.

Once again, I read every recipe for this I could find and they all said the same thing. There are no short cuts. So here goes.

The easy part is dusting your room temperature chiles with pain white flour. They look like this:

The toothpick is because one wouldn't close on its own. Bad chile!

But then it gets tricky.

Chiles rellenos have a distinctively fluffy-textured batter. It is apparently quite similar to tempura batter, but I don't know how to make tempura, so that's no help to me.

What you do is get one egg for every two chiles and separate them. Whisk the whites until they just hold a peak (no stiff peaks; this is not a meringue).

Then whisk in the yolks one at a time. Don't be too vigorous or you'll lose all the air you so painstakingly whipped into the whites.

Lastly, fold about a tablespoon of flour into the batter for a bit more bulk.

Finished batter. MexiGeek ALWAYS whisks egg whites by hand.

Now have to do some frying. And despite living in Scotland, I'm not a big fan of frying, beyond shallow-frying with a tablespoon or two of olive oil. However, deep(er)-frying does have its places, and this is one of them.

Pour some flavourless oil (not olive oil) into a wide, deep pan until it reaches about 3/4 of an inch up the sides of the pan. Then heat it until it is quite hot (medium-high, almost to high, but don't set the oil on fire).

Now take a chile by the stem, dip it into the batter and quickly pull it out. It should be evenly coated in the batter, but if not don't stress. Just pour some more batter around the chile with a dessert spoon.

Lay the battered chile in the hot oil until it gets all golden-brown, then turn it over to fry the other side.

Repeat until all the chiles are fried.

These do not keep well; apparently they'll go soggy and stale if you leave them sitting around too long (I always eat them right away, so I wouldn't know). Therefore serve as soon as all the chiles are fried. If you're doing a lot at once, keep the done ones in a warm oven. But they don't take long to fry: maybe ten minutes tops for both sides.

Here's a finished one, with some pollo adobado and what turned out to be inedibly underdone potatoes.

Could be prettier, but could hardly be tastier!

 Now, despite all the faff involved, I managed to get these right my first try! I'll admit mine could have been a bit neater, but they tasted fantastic. In fact, they were Mrs MexiGeek's favourite part of the meal.

I want to stress again that poblanos are mild chiles. Whereas jalapeños have a Scoville Heat Unit count of 2,500 to 5,000, poblanos have like 1,000. So if you or your near and dear aren't into hot stuff, don't be afraid to try these.

Also, the batter and the cheese both help to tone down the heat (capsaicin, the substance that makes chiles hot, is not water soluble but it IS fat soluble, so pairing chiles with cheese, cream, or other dairy products is a reliable way to moderate the chile burn).

Once again, Mestizo in London serves these (stuffed with cheese or picadillo, which I notice they do with beef mince instead of pork). Possibly some other UK Mexican restaurants of similar calibre (if any) also have rellenos on the menu. Otherwise, if you want to taste these (and I highly recommend you do), you've got to make them yourself. Do it at the weekend.

Cumpleaños feliz, México (and me)

One awesome about being MexiGeek is that my birthday falls in the same month as Mexico's. Last Sunday (16 September) was el Día de la Independencia, Mexico's national holiday and anniversary of the beginning of their war for independence from Spain
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While Mexico celebrated their special day in the usual way (with fiestas, traditional food, "el Grito", and a day off work) I celebrated mine in Northumberland. My haul this year was pretty good. Mrs MexiGeek got me a big book about chiles and some special "Chili Beer".

I first saw this beer in the window of the Brauhaus pub in Edinburgh and I had to try it. I was not disappointed.

First, there was the visual element of an actual chile floating in the beer (a green chile serrano, the first chile I correctly identified using my chile book).When I opened the bottle, the chile started to fizz up, adding a bit of theatre.

But what really impressed me was that the beer actually smelled of chile. I waited until it stopped fizzing to drink it, and when I did I found it not only tasted of chile, but it was even hot! I had never had a spicy beer before, but I definitely enjoyed it.

Chili Beer is made by a company called Cave Creek, an Arizona-based micro-brewery, now basically defunct except as a brand name. If you google "chili beer", you'll find some rather amateurish animation and a fun, if probably embellished story about how the brewer, Crazy Ed Chilleen first came up with the idea.

You'll also learn the brewery is now closed and the beer is brewed by the Mexicali brewery in Tecate, Mexico (home of another famous Mexican beer, named after the town itself).

While I'm sorry that Crazy Ed had to close the Cave Creek brewery, as MexiGeek I can't help but be pleased that this now technically qualifies as a Mexican beer.

Initially I thought I would be able to save the chiles and use them in some kind of beer-flavoured salsa. However, when I tasted one, I realised that all the chile goodness had seeped out into the beer itself. Even the capsaicin was gone.

I would definitely recommend this beer to anyone who loves both lager and chiles (remember, this beer is pretty hot). However, the combination of the carbonated lager and the chile-acid (capsaicin) means you probably shouldn't drink too much of this in one go. If I were serving it at a dinner party I would let everyone have one or two during the hor d'oeurves and then move onto something less "busy", like wine, a blonde ale, or even a dark beer like Negra Modelo.

I also got some super-high-quality chocolate for cooking (the famous Willy's Cacao 100% coco solid) from mi suegra (my mother-in-law), but apart from making more Oaxacan chocolate I haven't used it yet. I may make mole rojo soon, though I was thinking of doing the black mole or the other red mole (mole coloradito) next, and I don't think either of those have chocolate in them.

Also from mi suegra, I got a new, amazing Mexican cookbook: Chilli and Chocolate by Isabel Hood. I will be adding it to my reviews soon, but if I were you, I'd go buy it right away.

And, of course, I got myself something as well. Some of you may remember I had been planning on buying fresh tomatillos from The Cool Chile Company as soon as they came into season. That was meant to be July. July came and went with no tomatillos. Instead we had the wettest "Summer" in the UK since records began, which seriously damaged the all British fruit crops.

However, in late August the tomatillos finally ripened. I decided that as long as I was buying some, I might as well get some fresh chiles poblanos (also suffering from the summer). Also, I was nearly out of epazote and Mexican oregano. And I wanted to get some corn tortillas and review them. And I've always wanted to cook with Avocado leaves.

So I went a bit crazy. Anyway, I will be cooking with this stuff very soon and naturally I will tell you all about it. But this was not the first time I bought fresh chiles poblanos.

A few weeks ago I read on Lupe Pinto's Facebook page that they had fresh poblanos in, so I burned rubber to get down there. I made rajas and chiles rellenos. But while I was there, I found they also had fresh naga chillies, the hottest in the world! I've never cooked with these before, so of course I had to get them.

Depending on who you ask, nagas are either the same thing as or a very close relative of the bhut jolokia or "ghost chilli", the official world's hottest chilli. I don't know if these nagas quite reached the 1,000,000 Scoville unit mark, but they were definitely the most extreme chilli I've ever worked with.

Nagas are members of Capsicum chinense , the habanero family, though they have interbred with Capsicum frutescens. They look kind of like elongated habaneros, and have a similar characteristically fruity flavour, though I detected a hint of caramel I don't find in habaneros, even roasted ones.

Now, I'm not stupid enough to eat nagas raw, but I didn't have a recipe to use them in either (I have since discovered The Curry Guy's recipe for Naga Curry). In any case, this being my first experiment with them, I wanted to make their unique flavour the star, rather than diluting them with too many other ingredients. So I decided to make a simple roasted naga relish.

Nagas are a decidedly Indian chilli (which is why I have switched to the c-h-i-l-l-i spelling), but I based my relish loosely on the Yucatecan cebollas en escabeche, possibly my favourite condiment ever.

Naga Chilli Relish  

Ingredients

4 naga chilies (I used two green and two orange)
1 shallot
1 allspice berry, finely ground
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp Mexican oregano
1-2 tbsp cider vinegar (plus a little extra, if needed)  

Preparation 

 WEAR RUBBER GLOVES!

Asar-roast the chillies. Once they have cooled, skin, deseed, and devein them. Chop them finely. The relish looks better if the chilli bits are all about the same size.

Finely dice the shallot. Again, it looks nicer if everything its a uniform size, but it won't affect flavour.

Toss the chillies and shallot into a bowl. Add the allspice, cumin, and oregano and mix well. Add some of the cider vinegar and mix again.

Add a bit more vinegar if needed, but don't let the relish "swim".

Ordinarily this is where I say "taste for seasoning", but remember, this shit is HOT! Having said that, you should still check for seasoning, and if you don't like hot food, why are you making naga chilli relish?

At this point, cover the relish and let the flavours mingle in the fridge overnight.

There isn't enough vinegar in this recipe to pickle the chillies, but they will mellow a bit, not that you'll notice because they're so hot to begin with. The shallots should still have some "bite" when you finally eat the relish.

A spoonful of this hot shit will help the medicine go down!

From the photo, it probably looks like too much shallot, but that's intentional. A little naga goes a long way.

I put this on nearly everything I ate for an entire week. It really is searingly hot, but definitely in a good way.

Despite my seasonings, it tasted more Indian than Mexican, though I don't know if that was psychological, because I know naga chillies are Indian, or perhaps because Mexican and Indian cuisine really do have a lot in common.

But now a word on chile safety. See, I never wear rubber gloves, even though I know I should. I'm usually not daft enough to touch my eyes when I've been handling chiles, and though my hands usually hurt for a while afterwards, I don't find the pain severe or unmanageable. Until now. This really made my skin burn. I was in quite a lot of pain for about twenty-four hours after preparing the relish. Also, I did manage to get some in my eye. If there's no law against using this in police pepper spray, there should be.

I didn't panic, I knew I'd survive, but it did inspire me to get some rubber gloves for next time, and I've advise you to do the same, even if, like me, you can handle habaneros with your bare hands. Nagas are just in another league.