Diary and Notes
As the tumbleweed rolled gently across the New Mexican desert, blown by the cool wind, The Enchilada Kid turned his steely gaze towards the five banditos, their knives glisteneing in the crisp morning sunlight. "I'm taking you in boys, you can ride in kinda peaceful like, or you can come with your dead bodies draped over those stolen paints." The Mexicans laughed in unison and in an instant the knives had been replaced by rifles and guns.
"You got a beeg mouth for such a leettle chilli." More laughter.
"It aint the size of the chilli Jose..." A crack echoed off the mesas followed by another and another, five bodies slumped forwards and hit the ground, "...it's the power in the pepper." The Enchilada kid rode forwards to take the reigns of the horses, before turning back towards Albuquerque, where Maria would be waiting, ready with a glass of warm milk and a steaming hot beef enchilada casserole.
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"I swear he's losing the plot..." You say - but no my fellow travellers on this culinary super highway, yesterday captured all the grit and low down dirty dog fire of a hot New Mexican gunfight, "Pow!"
Regular readers will know that my American friend Carrie cooks for me now and again. Today she made something from her old days in New Mexico. Now I don't know if this is modern (or new) New Mexican cooking or traditional (old) New Mexican cooking, but I have been assured it is definitely not new Mexican or old Mexican cooking and the difference is very big (I'm glad we got that cleared up). Now Carrie, being from the part of the world where people know about these things, knows a great deal about Mexican and American chillis. She can smell the difference between a Habanero and a Jalapeno at fifteen paces. I think she may have learned this skill during her period in hiding with the fledgling resistance after that evil robot went on a rampage in LA, perhaps thinking it may come in useful for detecting the difference between humans and replicants (who, as we all know, like things dangerously spicy). Anyway onto a brief description:
Imagine a spicy Mexican style lasagne with corn tortillas instead of pasta (I suggested renaming the dish lasagnalada but was was told off and ordered to never use the phrase again). It's a brilliant dish and would be a great thing to make if your having a large group of hungry people over. A slightly less spicy version would probably appeal to the little ones, in training as they are for a lifetime of eating fine world cuisine. I checked a few recipes for this on the internet (and there were loads) but Carrie's differed from all, in that it had condensed mushroom soup as an added flavouring. My cook said that the offering wasn't up to her usual standard and that the dish required much more red sauce (it's supposed to be dripping with the stuff) and much more cheese. I however, having never eaten it before, was not put off by the disgusting failure and could only manage three large platefuls. Serve with salad and some good home made red chilli sauce (and make it HOT).
You can find a recipe for this (no soup version) and other New Mexican delights on Viva New Mexico and I think that some of this fine food will be featuring on my blog later in the year. Cheers Carrie and I hope the authorities don't catch up with you quite yet.
A note from Carrie Herself:
The red chile comes from a small place in New Mexico called Chimayo. There's a great restaurant there called Rancho de Chimayo and I highly recommend it to anyone who's in the Albuquerque/Sante Fe area. (It's about a 45 minute drive from Sante Fe into the middle of nowhere.) Also, the recipe should have used cream of chicken soup, but I wasn't able to find that in Goettingen.
Cake Blog
The cake that I had today looked very delicious and had an exotic name. It was in fact just a very good apple turnover with icing on top.
Menu
Beef enchilada casserole,
Salad,
Hot chilli sauce.
Hungarian red wine.
JCBorresen@gmail.com