The Breakfast Taco

[theabroma]

Let's not forget Enchiladas Potosinas - where the fresh corn tortillas are filled with cheese and sometimes chiles, then folded, sealed, and fried. They really are quesadillas or empanadas, served sauced and buried under a filamentous avalanche of shredded cabbage and chopped radish.

Theabroma

[ExtraMSG]

Cafe Azul up here in Portland used to do a taco/quesadilla that was a folded corn tortilla sauteed so that the cheese melted out and became a crispy halo around the opening. Makes me want to cry to think they went out of business this year and that I haven't eaten there in 5 months.

(It might interest you to know, Sharon, that Claire Archibald, the chef-owner, worked/studied with both Kennedy and Waters and that the food really showed it).

Edited March 23, 2004 by ExtraMSG (log)

[chefrodrigo]

btw, one thing you find in a lot of his California recipes that was always a common ingredient of Mexican-American food when I was growing up is the black olive. Is it ever used in Tex-Mex?

That is definitely not a Texas thing. Another disagreement I have with the California inlaws. They love the black olives and I can't stand them (with Mexican food that is).

rodney

[fifi]

Inexplicably, I ran into the black olives in a rice dish in Coatzacoalcos (on the Gulf coast, south of Veracruz). It was served as a side dish to this incredible seafood platter that served eight of us. That just struck me as weird. I have read that there was once an effort by the Spanish to establish olives in the region. That makes no sense to me because the climate is not like the Mediterranean. You have to go the the Pacific coast to get that. I also read that the Spanish ended up destroying the olive groves because they competed with imported olive oil and olives from Spain. I am sure I am leaving a lot out here. Maybe theabroma can keep us honest.

I also remember getting black olives on a chalupa many years ago in Taos NM.

[theabroma]

ExtraMSG just made me think of another form of enchilada - corn tortillas dipped in the sauce and folded in quarters, shingled down the plate, with more sauce and queso fresco or cotija crumbled on top. This is typical for Entomatadas (tomato sauce) or Enfrijoladas (a cream-soup consistency bean puree). Market ladies serve them plain, but 'fancier' places will serve them with shredded chicken or pork on top. Then the salad topping!

The little place near the Punta de Mita in Vallarta, across the road from the beach served green possum enchiladas this way.

Theabroma

[ExtraMSG]

There's nothing better than nachos or cheese enchiladas topped with sour cream and olives. Mmm. Mind you, these aren't kalamata olives or spanish olives, just the blander black olive you get in the can at the supermarket. With sour cream, cheese, guacamole, and olives you have four fats all working harmony. You Texans don't know what you're missing apparently.

[ExtraMSG]

ExtraMSG just made me think of another form of enchilada - corn tortillas dipped in the sauce and folded in quarters, shingled down the plate, with more sauce and queso fresco or cotija crumbled on top. This is typical for Entomatadas (tomato sauce) or Enfrijoladas (a cream-soup consistency bean puree). Market ladies serve them plain, but 'fancier' places will serve them with shredded chicken or pork on top. Then the salad topping!

The little place near the Punta de Mita in Vallarta, across the road from the beach served green possum enchiladas this way.

Theabroma

My antojeria mexicana has those in it. Probably a couple of my other books, too, but there's a great pic in Quinatana's book.

[chefrodrigo]

There's nothing better than nachos or cheese enchiladas topped with sour cream and olives. Mmm. Mind you, these aren't kalamata olives or spanish olives, just the blander black olive you get in the can at the supermarket. With sour cream, cheese, guacamole, and olives you have four fats all working harmony. You Texans don't know what you're missing apparently.

[ExtraMSG]

Oh, sure, coming from a cuisine that insists on putting chili on everything:

Edited March 23, 2004 by ExtraMSG (log)

[lovebenton0]

There's nothing better than nachos or cheese enchiladas topped with sour cream and olives.  Mmm.  Mind you, these aren't kalamata olives or spanish olives, just the blander black olive you get in the can at the supermarket.  With sour cream, cheese, guacamole, and olives you have four fats all working harmony.  You Texans don't know what you're missing apparently.

I haven't lived in CA since I was a toddler, so I know I have not eaten black olives out there, but I have eaten, and used black olives, in good old Tex-Mex cooking for nachos, and chalupas. Also in what I was told are "garden enchiladas" which are made with flat soft fried corn tortillas shingle stacked in layers with sauteed onions, chilies, and often squash and/or corn topped with cheese and black olives, then a small mountain of shredded lettuce or cabbage, and fresh tomatoes. So these probably originated in NM, and I was lucky enough to taste them here, in Texas, from a Mexican/American friend.

As far as set recipes for home cooked Mexican food, I have eaten the same "dish" such as enchiladas and tortilla soup, made a dozen different ways in Mexican homes, because just like an Italian red sauce, or your own recipe for vegetable soup, it is quite often a concept you are going for, not a carved in stone recipe. Mexican cooks are at least as creative as everyone else.

[Mabelline]

Don't youall reckon that maybe black olives started with Blanca hostesses in the sixties with all-things-Mexican, because they crossed over from the salades nicoise that were also promoted? Or am I whistling in the wind?

[badthings]

The book I referred to above, which is basically a record of pre-'49 (upper class) californio cooking, makes frequent use of olives in recipes both a la mexicana and a la "española". (I put "española" an quotes because Pinedo is eager for a variety of reasons to associate her culture, including food of course, with Spain; but Mexicans do still use olives in such "authentically" spanish dishes as bacalao a la viscaina). She even suggests frying (flour) enchiladas in olive oil. Anyway, the frequency of their use is easily attributed to their abundance here, which is of course a factor of their suitability to the climate as well as the rather more direct connection to the (franciscan) culture of the missions in California than in other parts of Mexico conquered earlier. Christianity is a religion of vine, grape, and wheat.

Personally, I can do without california olives on my nachos. Or on pretty much anything for that matter.

[Mabelline]

There was always an olive in sweet bean tamals at Christmastime. I just remembered that.

[Kent Wang]

In Galveston, we have the Bronco, a gigantic breakfast taco, about three times the size.

[jscarbor]

the Bronco is a big fat mess, but its tasty.

In Galveston, we have the Bronco, a gigantic breakfast taco, about three times the size.

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[fifi]

Where in Galveston? And how the heck did they come up with "Bronco?"

[Kent Wang]

When I was living in Galveston during high school, before I really knew much about food, my friends and I always thought that La Estacion (aka The Station) had the best broncos. Dirt cheap, like $6 and can fill you up for an entire day. I believe the bronco was originally the term another restaurant came up with in Galveston, and then everyone copied it. Maybe... it's been a few years.

[jscarbor]

I always thought the original "Bronco" was from the Donut Shop on Braodway? It has just about everything but the kitchen sink in it.