What's your favorite food?

[Rebeca Darklight]

sleepydumpling food rules!!!!

I guess I should post something else... Hehehe...

I had chilaquiles yesterday... yummy chilaquiles with chicken. They are basically fried pieces of tortilla with sauce on top, hahaha, in writing they are not too interesting, but they are really yummy in real life... yum, yum... yum... I'm hungry again!!! I should be healthy, I should have an apple or something.

[sleepydumpling]

It does, but it does not play nice with me, LOL!

I'd never heard of chilaquiles but they sound divine!

[awelker]

they do sound appetizing.

[Rebeca Darklight]

If you want the recipe, just tell me! I can post one... For both red and green chilaquiles... yummy chilaquiles... I think green chilaquiles would be more difficult to make, because of the ingredients, but red chilaquiles are very easy, you only need red tomatoes.

[Rebeca Darklight]

This is a recipe for Enchiladas, but you can use the sauce for Chilaquiles as well:

4 tomatoes
? onion
3 chiles de ?rbol (tree chiles, dried; you can use the red ones used in Thai cooking)
1 garlic clove
2 tablespoons of parsley
1 teaspoon of salt
? teaspoon of pepper
8 tortillas
300 gr. of reques?n cheese (or chopped grilled chicken; the reques?n makes the plate lighter; options for reques?n in the end)

Put the tomatoes in a Teflon pan (you can prepare the pan with just a dab of oil [help yourself with a napkin] so that the pan doesn?t get stained) and let them grill. You have to turn them over so they get burned evenly (as much as possible). Ok, not burned, they have to grill evenly so you can take the skin off. Help yourself with a fork and a knife to take of the skin and get rid of it afterwards. Cut the tomatoes in small chunks and put them in the mortar. (You can also dip the tomatoes in boiling water to take the skin off, but the flavor is very different.)

Cut the onion in big slices and grill them too, then put them in a blender with the tomatoes. Add the garlic clove (cut it in little pieces to help yourself out).

Toast the chiles in the pan too (without the branches). Do it very fast, because they burn easily. Put them in the blender.

Add a little water (less then 1/2 cup). Grind them like crazy (be careful of not touching your face after touching the chiles. Wear plastic gloves or add a dab of hand cream to your hands because the chile is very easily absorbed to the skin).

Pour the resulting sauce in a pan. Add the parsley, the salt and the pepper and mix. Let the sauce boil in a medium heat. Lower the heat and let it boil another 15 minutes.

While the sauce is boiling, heat the tortillas in a pan. Don?t let them get toasted, they have to be soft. In another pan, add a teaspoon of olive oil and fry the tortillas in each side (less than a teaspoon of oil for each tortilla), don?t let them get all toasty either, they have to be soft too. Put them on absorbent paper to get rid of most of the oil.

Then, in the plates the meal is going to be served, put a tortilla, pour two tablespoon of the sauce on the top of it, and then two tablespoon of the reques?n cheese. Fold the tortilla. Pour one tablespoon of sauce over the folded tortilla. Repeat until you have made four enchiladas in each plate. Serve immediately as the enchiladas get cold very fast. You can decorate with onion slices.

Reques?n is a white cheese, like a drier ricotta cheese. It?s used as a snack (smeared in crackers or little pieces of toasted tortillas). It?s considered a ?light? cheese because of its slow quantity of fat. You can use other grinded cheeses, but that don?t have a strong flavor, otherwise it will fight with the chiles. You can add more chiles, but be careful, chiles de ?rbol are very spicy.

Chilaquiles

6-8 tortillas
The red Enchilada's sauce
A little milk, about a cup
1/2 of cream
A cup of cooked chopped chicken (optional)
Any good melting cheese (a cup or so; you can use a mix of Italian chesses, parmesan, mozzarella, asiago? etc)

Preheat the oven to 200?C.

Cut the tortillas in triangles (six per tortilla). You can: fry them in olive oil (a 1/2 cup of so, the triangles of one tortilla at the time) until they are toasted and let them rest on top of absorbent paper to get rid of most of the oil, or toast them in the oven, without oil, just putting the tortillas triangles in a heat resistant plate until you see they are getting toasted (I haven?t tried that one, but my mom says they come out ok).

Then, in an oven-proof plate with a dab of oil in the bottom (to avoid stickiness), put a layer of tortillas, then cover them with the sauce. Next just add a little bit of milk on top of it; then add the chicken and top with the cheese. Repeat the layers until you finish with the cheese.

Put inside the oven for 10-15 minutes tops. Take it out and let rest for 5 minutes before serving (very hot).

You can add a little bit of cream of top of the chilaquiles (or lots if the sauce is very spicy, hehe).

[awelker]

they sound really good!!!!

[Rowan]

Italian. I learned how to make authentic Italian from an ex-boyfriend's mother and my husband loves it. I think he would thank her if she was still alive

[sleepydumpling]

Mmmm... Italian!

I've currently got an addiction for San Choy Bow. Spiced pork mince served in lettuce cups. YUM!

[Rowan]

The problem with me getting good food in Iowa is that all of the small, very authentic restaurants go out of biz because they are overwhelmed by the number of chains. We finally got our first Thai restaurant and we are generally the only two people there. We have great Mexican and Italian but we are lacking any Indian fare....it is so depressing.

[awelker]

i think that one of the main reasons that ethnic food resturants close in smallar communities is because people are afraid to try it.

[Rowan]

My hubby is sort of a curry guy and we need any good ideas for recipes that anyone may have.....he is going to come on and check out the board. He came in and said that tonight.

[sleepydumpling]

Mmmm... curry. I make some MEAN curries.

I think that whole thing about the independant places getting wiped out is like that all over the Western World really. The chains so often just annihilate the independants.

I've discovered a great Japanese restaurant here in Brisbane tonight... Wagamama!

[Rowan]

We have a killer Japanese restaurant here in Iowa. My husband took me there and then proposed to me We may go there for our one year anniversary on Sunday.

[sleepydumpling]

Nobody proposed to me tonight sadly....

[Rebeca Darklight]

I was dying to try Indian, until a Hindu girl moved to my old house (I have lived in my new house for almost three months, I'm so happy about it) and then every day the house smelled of Curry. The first day was very cool, but after two weeks, not so much. Too bad.. I hope I forget soon about that constant smell so I can start soon to want to try it again...