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bobag87

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Everything posted by bobag87

  1. Masa prep -- we use roasted blue corn meal. It is mixed in a 50/50 ratio with white masa de harina and then water is added to form the masa base. We also use a little Native American culinary ash in the mixture. It greatly increases the blue color of the corn meal. Definitely not needed and has no effect on the flavor, but it does make a dramatic difference in the color. This base is refrigerated to hydrate over night. Then it is mixed with roasted pork lard, red chile powder, stock from the boiling of the meat, salt and baking powder. This is beaten until fluffy. We made 14 batches in the little stand mixer. I really want an industrial size mixer to make this go a lot faster -- oh well.
  2. We cut up three pork shoulders and boiled them with Mexican oregano, red chile powder, salt, garlic and cilantro. The meat is boiled until tender and the mashed to shred it. The red chile sauce is added to make a loose meat filling. Here is the boiling meat, the meat before shredding and the bucket of red chile sauce.
  3. Ingredients for the red chile sauce for the tamale filing. New Mexico red chile pods roasted in the oven, coriander seed, Mexican oregano, salt, garlic and roasted blue corn meal. This is blended with hot water. This is the traditional New Mexico raw red chile sauce. This can be strained and then cooked with a roux and garlic to make the traditional cooked red chile sauce or used raw in a more rustic fashion. We actually froze a couple of cans of it and used a PacoJet to process it super fine for a mop for the ribs we put on the smoker.
  4. All right, we are a week away from our annual Chile Roast. As always, we made tamales again a week ahead of time. I posted some photos last year, but thought I would document the process a little more. Yesterday was not only Tamale making but a big game for the Aggies so we fed those that made tamales and then those that came in the evening to watch the game. We made BBQ and Green Chile and Beef Short Rib Posole. Here is the Friday night prep pile for both Chile Roast and Tamales.
  5. Shelby, not sure folks want another rehash, but I will post some updates. Tamale making is this coming Saturday with Chile Roast on the 12th. Not sure I am quite ready for it, but we are starting to get geared up. Happy Chile Season to everyone!
  6. Well good to see everyone is getting their chiles. We are getting geared up for another annual chile roast in the next few weeks.
  7. cyalexa, I bought the BBQ guru set up for the viking gravity fed smoker and it worked incredibly well. The smoker has a soft heat resistant seal that is soft and allows for the wires to be there with the door closed.
  8. Thanks for indulging my chile roast posts! it has been fun to actually try to record our family's tradition.
  9. And here are the stews. We did red chile, blue and white posole and pork tenderloin. Green chile, chicos and green chile. And pinto beans with green chile. We also made everyone's favorite, carne adovada. All I have is the prep picture of the pork shoulders and chile sauce. The pork is cubed, mixed with salt, red chile sauce and blue corn meal. It is marinated overnight and slowly cooked in the oven until falling apart tender.
  10. Well we finished. Chiles are roasted and in the freezer. Unfortunately, we did not get many photos, but there are a few. Here are some photos of the BBQ prep for the briskest and pork shoulder.
  11. Smithy, I just sprinkle a little in until the sauce thickens to my liking. Since I am unscientific on the base of the sauce, I don't ever have a ratio, but it is probably a teaspoon per 4 cups of sauce or even a little less. Shelby, have at it, no real recipe other than the ingredients. I have made it for years so it is all on feel, but I don't think it is possible to mess it up. The key, believe it or not is a decent amount of soy sauce.
  12. Finally, we also make infused tequila with Sangrita. The tequila is infused using an isi canister. We do repossado with habenero and silver with Serrano. The Sangrita is the perfect pairing, slightly sweet, slightly salty and spicy. We also have homemade sangria, but that is on the list for tomorrow night.
  13. Enough with food, it will be Saturday and a big game for my Texas Aggies. We need New Mexico Red Chile Bloody Mary's. We made the mix tonight. Too bad we were good and did not mix one.
  14. We will smoke three pork shoulders (16lbs each) and two briskest (19lbs each) starting tomorrow evening. While I agree that good BBQ should not need sauce, this is Chile Roast and we need a chile forward BBQ sauce. Years ago I found a Grady Spears recipe for BBQ sauce using chipotles and other chiles. I have modified it over the years and use only the New Mexico red chile sauce as the chile component. It is a tangy, earthy sauce that is perfect for smoked meat. The sauce is simmered until the onions break down and then blended with a stick blender until smooth. The first picture shows the sauce before blended.
  15. We also always make green chile sauce. While this is more of a staple for other times where we have enchiladas or burritos, I always feel like we need a pot of traditional sauce. Of course it typical gets eaten like salsa by most of our Texan guests using chips. Oh well. You will see our version is less refined than the beautiful sauce Shelby posted. I do not remove the seeds and roughly chop the chiles. We also add a few tomatoes and cilantro. In recent years, I have found xantham gum to be the perfect thickener and that is what us in the plastic dish. Ingredients. Final product.
  16. Next was another staple dip, New Mexico Green Chile Dip. Again, a before and after photo. Ingredients. Final product.
  17. Next up, we made New Mexico Modernist Queso. The recipe is based on the Modernist Cuisine recipe with Mexican white cheeses and New Mexico chile. Here are the ingredients. And here is the final product in the crock pot for easy reheating on Saturday.
  18. Our final preparations have begun. Tomorrow night we will make the stews and fire up the smoker. Tonight was getting all of the sauces ready and a number of other items including items more geared towards cocktails for Saturday. First, as with the tamale prep, we had to make red chile sauce from New Mexico red chiles that are dried. We used almost an entire trash bag of chiles tonight. The dried chiles are roasted in the oven for a few minutes, washed, stemmed, placed in a blender with salt, blue corn meal, coriander seed, Mexican oregano, garlic and hot water and then blended. .
  19. Well it must be time for Chile Roast as I have my annual burning chile hands and forehead. I cleaned a whole trash bag of dried red chile and peeled about five pounds of green and there is no way around it. It is an annual ailment that will get worse as we bag chiles on Saturday for the freezer. The good news is most of the chiles arrived today. One more box tomorrow.
  20. As for keeping the tortillas from dying out, they were covered with towels (just uncovered to photograph) while cooling and then placed in zip lock bags once cooled.
  21. Smithy, White Lilly is a break from tradition. I used it basically as an experiment a few years back and find it creates a dough that is easier to roll. There is not a ton of difference in the finished product vs. regular all purpose flour. In fact, I only had enough White Lilly for three batches and made the fourth with all purpose. As for the fat, you can use lard. I do not like using the commercial lard products, instead using rendered lard bought at Mexican markets. Since this product tends to be thinner than commercial lard or shortening, I do not think it would work well for tortillas (it is critical in the tamales though). As such, I use Crisco which works fine. As for making your own, they are always the best, but here in Texas, and in New Mexico, there are any number of options for great tortillas that save you the time and effort. They are fairly easy, but there is a learning curve. The hardest part is finding a recipe that you are happy with and that all depends on what your preference is. New Mexico flour tortillas tend to be a little heavier and have a bite to them. This is what I grew up with and prefer, so the recipe that I have worked on is slanted that way.
  22. No comments allowed on the lack of symmetry in the tortillas! I am always fascinated by those that can always make them perfectly round. At least this way you know they were home made. Hopefully, this is of some interest. Shopping night is tomorrow and then I will pick back up with some of the process Thursday night when we actually get cooking.
  23. Catching up, we are now at Tuesday night of chile roast week. On Saturday, it will be a team effort to get the nearly 300 lbs of chile roasted and bagged. While we have a ton of people come to the roast, very few have the patience and desire to man grills roasting chile for any length of time. Those that do need to be rewarded. While certain beverages will be awarded, the best rewards are homemade tortillas wrapped around a freshly roasted chile with a dab of butter and salt. I am not crazy enough to hand make enough tortillas for the whole party. I am crazy enough to make a bunch for those that actually lend a helping hand roasting chiles. Tonight was flour tortilla making night. Here are the ingredients (absent shortening which is definitely needed). The dough in the mixer. Dough resting. Dough ready to be rolled. Finished product.
  24. That finished off Sunday. Monday night was spent sorting corn and pinto beans. We make a green chile stew with a rare product native to Northern New Mexico called chicos. It is a dried corn that is roasted in the outdoor bread ovens and very few producers are left that make it the traditional way. The stew is made with green chile and beef short rib. We also make traditional New Mexico style posole. This year we are using a mixture of blue and white posole in the stew which will have pork and red chile. Finally we make a traditional pot of pinto beans with lots of green chile in it. We get all of these ingredients from a Native American farm at Ohkay'Owingeh Pueblo in New Mexico. The owner is in her late 80s and produces her products traditionally. It is called Cassados Farms and she will ship, but reluctantly and you have to send a check in advance. I was lucky to get by there in August and took an extra suitcase to fill with her products. I had to pay extra to check it as it was over the 50 lb limit! This is also where the roasted blue corn meal for the tamales originated. Here is a photo of the chicos, posole and pintos.
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