Cooking a Good Everything Else

ok, they look hideous

An aside.

Years ago GF and I were checking out at a grocery store
A very young kid (assumed high school age male)
Must have still been relatively new to the job
We had some beets on the conveyor belt
Checker: picks them up and asked what are these?
GF: beets
Checker: beets? Definitely not by Dr. Dre
We both got a good chuckle and I remember thinking this kid is going places
😆

The cold hard lands,
they bites our hands,
they gnaws our feet.
The rocks and stones
are like old bones
all bare of meat.

But garden soil
is worth the toil:
so nice for feet!
And now we wish

Alive in the ground;
as red as a wound;
never thirsting, ever drinking;
clothed in dirt, never blinking.

Bleeds on the hand,
thinks the sand
is a blanket;
thinks a bucket
is a puff of air.

So round, so fair!
What a joy to eat!
We only wish
to crunch a beet,
so juicy-sweet!

Did the Kenji pizza last week and forgot to pic/post, but it was a great success and will do it again. Super easy and exactly what I was looking for in a homemade simple, foolproof pizza.

I'm seriously considering buying a beef tongue to make lengua tacos. I've been spending $18 for a six pack at my local taco stand.

Looked it up, seems pretty simple; just boil the tongue with aromatics for a couple hours until tender.

However, the taco tent I go to doesn't go the extra step that the seriouseats recipes has, which is frying the lengua after boiling it.

I find that the boiled lengua + creamy jalapeno sauce + carmelized onions is my newest favorite thing in the world.

It turns out making the creamy green sauce is easy: boil peppers and onions, blend them up and emulsify with oil. Only lasts a week in the fridge though

Don’t you need to peel the outer skin, think after cooking? I remember my dad preparing tongue a few times and I’ll occasionally eat lengua but not a huge fan.

Beets are great and the greens are underrated. I remember reading Grapes Of Wrath when they had for maybe the last meal before heading to California beet greens, salted pork.

When obsession meets addiction. I've been churning out the pies pretty consistently recently, but tonights was the roundest. I think it due to rotating the dough on my knuckles much more quickly than I had previously, which led to more uniform stretching.

The pepperoni cupped nicely, and had some extra basil as I made Kenji's sauce this time around.

Tried my local grocer's mozzerella. I like their peccorino, but Whole Foods mozz and parm is better I think.

Left the sauce a little chunkier this time around. Couldn't really tell the difference.

I need to get unlazy and start experimenting with different flours, and sourdough - but haven't got around to it yet.

vvg

can't wait for the restaurant to open

I have two future projects in mind:

- lengua tacos w/creamy green jalapeno sauce
- peruvian style chicken with green sauce. requires 3 different Inca's Food sauces

I have a couple recipes for the lengua, but it's super simple: boil with aromatics and seasonings. Creamy green sauce is also super simple, recipe from reddit.

The difficulty is in sourcing the ingredients. For both, I have to leave my house and drive to the asian/mexican markets.

Lengua shouldn't be difficult; we me luck in finding the peruvian sauces. I'll be shopping in white center.

The peruvian chicken is b/c one of my favorite cooking youtubers, sip and feast, released a video on it and I've had peruvian chicken in the past and enjoyed it.

I'll try leaving my house tomorrow. Priority will be finding that tongue!

The most expensive piece of meat I've ever bought!

Went to the bad part of town. Looked at 3 different asian markets, nothing.

The carniceria with steel bars on the wall had a bunch. I saw the price but didn't do the math. By then I was committed.

Also, the lengua tacos from the taco stand are probably pork. They were tiny in comparison to this one. I have no idea where one gets pork tongue, I bet it's way cheaper

attention on swivel for whats up with adjacent most daily modestly snoopy uncanny how always two car and canine neighborhood homes and lucildly establish feces lines otherwise turn toward soiled internetially cash ambigious gorified footfall garbage including peanut insurance claim hounds will start forming cells compounding succes impediments toward future goals

final yield after cooking and trimming: 26oz

that yields 13 tacos @ 2oz each

13 lengua tacos = $6 each or more

value = $78
meat cost = $43.78

smells and tastes like roast beef cold. overall, not a hard process.

Researching green sauces, I found the recipe below in a YT short. I was going to go with one that boiled the peppers and onions, thankfully I'm not doing that now!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Igrs_zGHY...
1 Avocado (ripe)
1 Small bunch of soap (Cilantro)
2 Jalapeños
4Tbsp lime juice
1/4C mayo
1/4C sour cream
3 garlic cloves (raw or fried)(350F until golden)
1 packet Chicken bouillon
1/4tsp black pepper
1/4tsp paprika
1/4tsp salt (adjust to your liking after blending)
2-3Tbsp WATER

Pretty good! Would I do I again? F*** no, because I can just pay the popup taco stand $10 for 3 of them, with free sauces.

It was fun to try though!

OK, MUCH BETTER the next day. Actually better than the taco truck IMO, I just need to remove the gristle.

Ok, with the benefit of a day to process, went back to the drawing board and did the boiled pepper technique.

The green sauce I made y'day is fine, but I don't know anything about mexican cooking and added too much cilantro.

Also, I'm now sure the sauce they make at the taco tent is tomatillo-based. The boiled recipe is close, but too spicy. I'm going to try this one:

8 tomatillos
1 Jalapeño
1/4 Onion
5-6 sprigs cilantro
1Tbsp lime juice
salt to taste
1tsp chicken bouillon (optional)

lessons learned:

- go easy on the lime, you can always add more later
- boiling peppers = noxious gas, turn on fan

Thanks for watching!

edit: making sauce is fun! used me food processor

so freakin' ambitious!

I'm drawing the line at making tres salsa verde:

clockwise from the top:

Roasted tomatillo emulsified with oil
Boiled jalapeno emulsified with oil
Avocado cilantio mayo sour cream concoction from youtube

After a night to settle down, the boiled jalapeno is the winner. I'll add a couple tomatillos to it next time

edit: I'd like to try this with pork tongue, just have to call around and find it. This thing was $14.95/lb!

Good job! I feel confident in my declaration that I will never buy a tongue, pork or beef.
You have inspired me take up a quest I gave up on long long ago. A small taco stand with tacos made of brisket smoked right outside the door has the most incredible creamy avocado salsa I've ever eaten. I've tried for years to copycat it and while I've made some pretty passable salsas, I've never come close to theirs. I'm older and wiser now, maybe I can figure it out this time. To be continued...

Come on boss, you bought restaurant container things, but don't cotton to appeasing 2+2ers?

Had some guests for dinner last night. Made italian wedding soup with spinach, kale, beef and pork meatballs, and orzo, fresh schiacciata bread, and a new dish of rigatoni with a cauliflower + italian sausage sauce. The sauce is deeply caramelized onions, cauliflower florets, and garlic, all blended together with chicken stock and seasoned with oregano and red chili flakes. Browned and drained some loose italian sausage and added the blended sauce back to the sausage before tossing with pasta and pasta water. Very tasty and I expected to add cream but the sauce was already very creamy once complete.

Also made a chimichurri sauce of sorts to top the rigatoni and the bread (parsley, mint, scallion, garlic, red chili, lemon zest, lemon juice, parmesean, olive oil).

I really look forward to the day Jack cooks for me!

That looks top tier Jack

Awesome! I'd checkout youtube and reddit for inspiration. The sauce the taco stand is quite mild

Regarding the lengua, all it takes is to get nicely toasted and have a taco stand within walking distance

I'll make an effort to do so! I'm just into recycling, those are used takeout containers

edit:

To prepare, I slice the lengua into long thin strips, like a gyro. Add cooked onion strips* to a nonstick pan and fry on med+.

Heat up two little tortillas in a pan. Make them by hand if necessary. Assemble the taco!

* precooked an onion by quartering it, separate the petals, add dabs of lard. Cook in an aluminum foil pouch on medium heat, cook to desired doneness (I like them with a bit of bite) cool and store.