800 million years ago when we started this blog, we posted about cajeta and the dessert we made with it. As a footnote we mentioned that we made "Pickled Chicken" with little more than a blurry photo. Now that the blog has fallen into a routine of witty comments and slightly better photography, it's time to revisit that dish.
It still lives on page 204 in Fiesta at Ricks, and that page is amazingly still attached to the rest of the book. I also banged out some roasted tomato salsa, home made black turtle beans, and fresh corn tortillas. Attach the drool guard to your keyboard and make the jump!
Where's beano? This is the most important step: spread all of your beans out on a cookie sheet and sort through them. Pick out all of the shrivelled beans, rocks, dirt, beetles, peas, marbles, thumb tacks, coins, and beans. Discard.
Standard bean operating procedure. Into the water with a white onion and some lard. This cooked away for a good part of the day. Once dinner approached, I corralled some beans and cooking liquid into a frying pan along with some MORE LARD to simmer for a while. Once again, I gave them a stern talking to with the potato masher. They didn't listen.
Just blow it up. Do it. That's the sexiest pan of fried turtle beans you'll ever see. Period.
It was mystery chile weekend. I picked a few of our F1 super chiles, there was something in there that my friend gave me from his garden, and there may have been another one in there of dubious origin. I checked them all for strength and these are the ones that passed muster; they were standing in for a habanero. They got spread out on a baking sheet with more chopped white onion and some tomatoes. Then introduced to the broiler.
There is something about boiling eggs in a glass pot that seems right. I'm not sure I'd want to cook anything else in there. Who wants to see their food being cooked from the sides and bottom? That's gross. But eggs - they just sort of bounce around and the clear vessel makes it look like a science experiment.
So, I have a method for hard boiling eggs. Heat water. Once it is boiling, put in your eggs, time ten minutes (water still boiling) and then cool and peel. Rick has a whole different list of time ingredients and something called a bare simmer. Aside from not knowing what the hell a bare simmer is, I think they turned out pretty good.
That's right. That measuring spoon is a pinch. There is also a spoon for dash, and smidge. Gone are the days of getting filthy fingers involves in the actual pinching of spices. Maybe you're suppose to get your filthy hands in there to add flavour, I don't know. The recipe does actually say pinch though. I can barely remember how many ounces are in a pound (16), so those measuring spoons are life savers.
You know how I know that it's "Mexican" oregano? The label says so. Here is most of the pickle hanging out in a measuring cup before the show.
If you ever wanted to know what twelve cloves are garlic being dry roasted looks like, there you have it. Make sure you blow that up. Before and after. I also included my beverage of choice, CC on ice, just so you can pin point the moment the preparation took a turn for the worse. Peggy, more ice!
There it is, Escabeche. It has garlic, olive oil, cider vinegar, chicken broth, ground cloves, sugar, pepper, cinnamon and oregano. It's complex, but so worth it. And here is my solution to the 'onion problem' in this recipe. The problem is that you never really get told what to do with the onions. The instructions are a little ambiguous so we've always cooked them. Now what you don't see is that is a huge frying pan, full of 16 chicken thighs, the escabeche and the onions, so it wasn't getting too much in the way of stirring. Cooking chicken always freaks me out. Rick says cook it up for 18 minutes. I let it hang out in there for about 22, just so I could sleep a little easier.
Here is the spread: store bought tostadas, fried beans, Pollo en Escabeche, some hard boiled eggs, tomatoes and what was left of the salsa. Not pictured: fresh corn tortillas. Protip: If you put out chips and salsa, even if the salsa fills something the size of a small wash basin, don't expect that there is going to be enough left for dinner.
Tell me that serving bowl is not amazing. A more apropos dish could not be found in the entire upper mid-east...part of the cottage. You shred the chicken when it's done and it pretty much looks like you're having pulled chicken. I think we bounced back and forth between using bacon tongs and a slotted spoon to serve this up.
There you have it. Tostada with a dollup of beans, slices of hard boiled eggs, pickled chicken, salsa and some cilantro to top it off. Don't let the 'pickled' part scare you off. This is absolutely amazing stuff. And the full circle? Come on, serving chicken, on top of hard boiled eggs, with a marinade that has chicken broth in it; I think we've covered our bases on this one.
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