I don't want to sound like Tevye, here, but I think most of us have some sense of tradition. Even the iconoclasts tend to be Different Just Like Everyone Else. Goths, for instance, dye their hair shoe-polish black and wear gruesome tattoos and pierce body parts in ways that most of us consider shocking, painful, or just plain odd. Most importantly (to my point, that is), they all do these shocking things in a pretty standard, traditional way. If Goth kids wanted to be truly original in their outré fashion statements, they'd wear pale pink chenille, dye their hair strawberry blonde, eschew piercings and kohl, and get tattoos of Care Bears and fluffy bunnies. Of course, then no one would recognize them for the edgy rebels they believe themselves to be.
This same adherence to tradition seems to apply to cooks (including chefs) as well. Even the innovators and rebels tend to rebel within boundaries and with a concern for tradition in mind. Professional culinary curmudgeon Anthony Bourdain, in A Cook's Tour, expresses a certain reasonable disdain for such innovations as monkfish tagine--tagine, after all, is desert fare. Who ever heard of monkfish night at the oasis? On the other hand, Bourdain has nothing but praise for Thomas Keller's French Laundry creations like lobster navarin and the salmon chop. Seems those creations should be just as liable to ridicule; lobsters have nothing much in common with lamb, and salmon don't really have chops.
I don't mean to pick on Tony. I think most people have what appear contradictory reactions to such breaks with tradition. Besides, he seems to be right. Monkfish tagine would get nothing but sneers from connoisseurs of authentic Arab cuisine, but Keller's dishes are generally just considered playful and clever. (Caveat: somewhere, someone hates Thomas Keller for creating so many dishes that play on comfort food themes. No matter the subject of revision or how well it's executed, look hard enough and you'll find a curmudgeon who just can't stomach the revision in question.)
Besides, I know that I also tend to be of two minds about culinary traditions. I have been known to insist, for example, that Eggs Benedict consists of Hollandaise over a poached egg on Canadian bacon on an English muffin. Period. I know that many restaurants have created delightful variations on this theme--smoked salmon or dried chorizo in place of the Canadian bacon, crumpets or tortillas in place of the English muffin, Habañero or lime instead of lemon in the Hollandaise. Those creations are not Eggs Benedict. They may be delicious, fascinating, clever, and even nutritious, but they are not Eggs Benedict.
Sure, most restaurants offering such variations at least tell you in their menus that what you're ordering is a variation. Chez Zee in Austin offers several of these variations in their weekend brunch menu, and I have no objection to their offering a Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict. The name tells me that I'm not getting the traditional dish. On the other hand, it thoroughly irks me (and my wife even more so) that they label the traditional Eggs Benedict "Canadian" to keep the servers from confusing the orders. If there actually is such a thing as a Canadian Eggs Benedict, it probably contains maple syrup or some other ingredient that differentiates it from a traditional Eggs Benedict.
Oft repeated interchange at Chez Zee:
Mrs: "I'll have the Eggs Benedict."
Server: "Which Eggs Benedict?"
Mrs: "The original Eggs Benedict."
Server: "Would that be the Canadian Eggs Benedict?"
Mrs (sharply annunciating): "Eggs Benedict!"
On a similar note, one of my favorite Austin restaurants, the Castle Hill Café, recently gave me cause for irritation by misapplying a traditional name. Generally, five aspects of Castle Hill appeal to me:
- the chef is a genius who does a remarkable job of balancing simple flavors (sweet, salty, spicy, tart, bitter), complex flavors (fruity, smoky, citrusy, piney, beefy), and textures f(crunchy, smooth--oh, you get the idea)
- the menu fuses Mexican, European, Arabic, and Asian cuisines in exciting and innovative creations
- except for a few standards in the appetizer and dessert offerings, the menu changes every two to four weeks
- the service is outstanding
- the prices are reasonable
Seared Gulf Red Snapper Filet with Sauce Veracruzano, Chipotle Puree,
Olive-Caper Relish, and Corn Pudding Tamale $21.95
A seared Gulf red snapper filet served in a sauce made from roasted tomatillos, charred poblanos, white wine, pepitas, garlic, and cilantro. With a chipotle puree, olive-caper relish, and corn pudding tamale.
I read the description, so I knew that the dish included a tomatillo sauce, a chipotle chilli purée, and a relish of olives and capers, but I was still surprised by the dish. The two things that really bugged me were something extra and something missing.
The something extra was that the relish contained sweet corn. Bad choice. Somebody at Castle Hill must have been watching Bobby Flay. News flash, Flayites: sweet corn does not make everything taste either more Mexican or more Southwestern. Sweet corn makes everything taste like sweet corn. Sweet corn was a poor choice for this particular relish because the sweetness overwhelmed the salty tartness of the olives and capers.
The something missing was a primary sauce component. Although the two sauces were tasty, they did not a traditional Veracruzano make. The missing item--the item I had subconsciously assumed would be there when I read "Sauce Veracruzano"--was tomatoes. (And, no, tomatillos are not tomatoes. They're a variety of gooseberry. Delicious in their own right but not tomatoes.) It would be easy to dismiss my objection as a misreading on my part--the menu did not, after all, claim that the dish included tomatoes. Au contraire, mes amis, the menu said Veracruzano.
Overall, then, the snapper dish was tasty, but because it was not what I expected, I did not enjoy the experience. When you label a dish, whether you are making a traditional dish or some wild, exotic variation, you have to consider the ramifications of the name. Sure, you can make curried beef, curried tuna, curried yams, curried rutabagas; but anything labeled "curry" had better contain enough of the spices generally associated with a curry to give it a curry-like flavor. Similarly, anything labeled sushi should probably contain vinegared rice (although you might be able to get away with some other starchy element as long as you also used raw fish and nori). Likewise, if you are willing to stand up to the scorn of the aficianados and want to try monkfish tagine, you'd better damned well be slow-cooking the monkfish in a covered pot with a proponderance of Moroccan ingredients. Anything else leaves your audience feeling cheated.
So, damnit, if you call it Veracruzano, it has to contain capers and tomatoes. Anything else is a just wrong.
I came home from Castle Hill that night and made up my shopping list for the next night's dinner, which you can bet included the makings for
Huachinango Veracruzano (Red Snapper, Veracruz-style)
dramatis personae
two tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
two red snapper filets (about a pound each)
one half cup chicken stock
one half cup white wine
four Roma tomatoes--cored, seeded, and diced
one chilli arbol--seeded and minced
two tablespoons non-pareil capers
preparation notes
Huachinango Veracruzano is obscenely simple to prepare, expecially if you let your fish monger do all the work for you. Be sure the snapper fillets are fresh and thoroughly scaled. When you get them home, run your hand over the skin from tail to head to be sure the monger has not left any scales (if you find any, you should be able to pluck these out with your fingers). Next, each fillet skin-side down and run your fingers down along the seam that runs from head to tail between the back and belly meat. If you find any bones, hold down the filet with one hand and pluck the bones with a pair of needle-nosed pliers. This is probably the hardest work you'll do for this dish.
When you are seeding the arbol, you might want to wear rubber gloves.
In a non-stick sauté pan over a medium flame, heat the olive oil to the point of shimmering, and put in the fillets, skin-side down. Allow the fillets to cook until they are opaque about halfway through (this time varies quite a bit with thickness--four minutes or more). Pour in the white wine and cook until most of the liquid is gone. Pour in the stock and continue to braise the fillets until they are done (the meat is opaque, and at the thickest point, shows no pink between flakes when separated with the tip of a knife).
Taking care not to damage the skin, gently remove the fillets from the cooking liquid to a serving platter. Add the tomatoes and dried pepper to the cooking liquid still in the pan and wilt the tomatoes (about a minute). Sprinkle capers over the fillets and pour the tomatoes and cooking liquid over all.
Rice (especially saffroned rice, Mexican fried rice, or rice with a little achiote) makes a good accompaniment.
What jug?
So, if you noticed the title of this article, you're probably wondering what the hell Huachinango Veracruzano has to do with a "Little Brown Jug." Nothing, really, but it does have a great deal to do with messing with traditions. In my particular case, it has a lot to do with Texas chili.
Lemme 'splain:
Big Band leader Glenn Miller supposedly hated the 19th century minstrel song "Little Brown Jug." Can't say I blame him. This odd little number, written in 1869 by J. E. Winner, often taught as a children's song, and revitalized in the thirties, is a peppy ditty that deals with the ruinous effects of alcoholism. What seems to have bugged Miller, however, was not the incongruity of didactic lyrics accompanying an upbeat number so much as the 1930s popularity of this melodically simple tune. He considered the tune purest musical pablum. So why did he arrange, perform, and record a song he hated? One theory says that it was a favorite of his wife's. No one knows, really. Miller left no written record explaining his reason for turning this insipid little song into a blaring, brassy, Big Band standard.
I think I know the truth, though. I think he did it precisely because he despised the song. In reworking the tune, Miller effectively killed the original. Go searching for a copy of Little Brown Jug today, sixty years after Miller's death, and you'll probably find a hundred variations on Miller's arrangement for every pre-Miller version. Miller remade "Little Brown Jug" into something he could stomach.
I understand the impulse. I have similar feelings about many songs, stories, movies, and culinary creations. If I had the time and the skill, I would re-make all of my pet annoyances in forms I find more palatable (think Return of the Jedi with no Ewoks).
That's what I had in mind a few weeks back when I decided to take on Texas chili. It's a sad thing for a Texan to have to admit, but I really never cared much for chili. I can stomach some of them, but--well, frankly, I'd rather not. Setting aside as irrelevant the execrable idea of adding beans to chili, and ignoring the ravings of some truly fanatical Texas chili purists who insist that no tomatoes be used, much about Texas chili just doesn't work for me. After pondering this matter for some time, I decided that the following aspects of this traditional Texas food were the primary offenders:
- Too much cumin. I find cumin acceptable in minute quantities or when appropriately moderated by other spices (as in Garam Masala). Alone and in too large a quantity, it overwhelms every other note in the chili.
- The crock pot thing--part one. Overcooked, stewed dishes always strike me as bland. All the flavor gets cooked out of both the meat and the vegetables. The meat tastes like yarn and the onions typically wind up with a texture like slimy old Jello.
- The crock pot thing--part two. Prolonged cooking of all the elements together doesn't blend them so much as obliterate them. I might taste some onion, but I rarely taste any garlic. Individual chilli peppers lose all distinction, which is tragic.
- Crappy meat. Okay, so tenderloin or prime rib would be silly in such a heavily spiced blend. On the other end of the spectrum, chuck and round are pretty nasty in this form.
- One-note chillis and one-note tomatoes--also a tragic loss. I wanted the best qualities of both fresh and stewed tomatoes, and I wanted the best qualities of both fresh and dried chillis.
Deconstructed chili
The following fed three adults and two tween-aged children.
dramatis personae
two one-pound, one-and-a-half-inch-thick top sirloin steaks--trimmed
one bottle dark hoppy beer
juice of four medium limes
two teaspoons sea salt
two teaspoons achiote paste
one fresh poblano pepper--seeded and diced
four garlic cloves--peeled and sliced
one sweet onion
ten premium chipotle peppers
four mulatto peppers
peanut oil
one pound cherry tomatoes
one half cup beef stock
one teaspoon Mexican oregano (fresh or dried)
one half teaspoon fresh thyme
one half pound Monterey Jack cheese, sliced in wedges
two cups masa harina (dry or prepared)
water
blender
wire mesh strainer or sieve
grill, grill pan, or broiler
iron skillet or comal
tortilla press
preparation notes
This is more a meal than just a dish, so I have to note first off that this meal requires a good chunk of time, primarily because the steak needs to marinate overnight.
A few of the ingredients may be difficult to find, so let's talk about substitutes.
Chipotle and mulatto peppers are somewhat different from most dried chilli peppers. Most dried chillis (arbol, pasilla, guajillo, New Mexico, cascabel) are just that: dried. Those chillis all start out as fairly thin-skinned fresh fruit. Chipotles start as jalapenos. Mulattos start out as ripe poblanos (as opposed to anchos, which start as green poblanos). Jalapeno and poblano peppers are too fleshy to just dry in the sun (or in a drying kiln). They rot instead of drying. So to get a dried chilli from these fleshy fruits, the jalapenos and poblanos are smoked. The result is a richer, more complex flavor.
I consider the smoked chillis a key ingredient in Deconstructed Chili.
I start with dry chipotle chillis for my chipotle purée, but if you can't find them, I suppose you can use the canned ones (they're not as smoky tasting). On the bright side, if you use the canned chipotles, you won't need to soak and cook them prior to puréeing them.
I don't know of any reasonable substitute for the mulatto chillis. If you can't find mulattos, anchos are the closest and are more widely available. If you can't find anchos or mulattos, use the darkest, richest dry chillis you can find.
The achiote paste might also be difficult to find outside of Texas and Mexico. If you have to use a substitute, I would recommend a savory chilli-based steak rub (okay, I'm guessing).
I also ought to say something about the tortillas. I know my wife and daughter consider the homemade corn tortillas a key element in this presentation. Corn tortillas are not too difficult once you get the hang of them, but they're a pain in the tuchus the first few times. One important suggestion: use prepared masa harina. The prepared stuff contains a small quantity of lard and has thoroughly absorbed the necessary amounts of moisture and oil. I was surprised to find that most of the directions available on the Internet call for masa and water with no lard.
The easiest way to explain this meal is to start with an understanding of the final product. Deconstructed Chili on the table consists of the following components:
- broiled, marinated, chilli-rubbed, thin sliced rare sirloin
- onion, garlic, poblano sauté
- tomatoes wilted in tomato-beef sauce
- chipotle chilli purée
- mulatto chilli purée
- Monterey Jack wedges
- fresh corn tortillas
Timing all of these things to come out together is rough. I recommend the following order of preparation:
- Marinate the steaks.
- Prepare the chilli purées. You can do this up to a week in advance. This stuff keeps remarkably well in the refrigerator.
- Rub the steaks and set them aside.
- Make the onion sauté and set it aside in a covered bowl.
- Make the tomato-beef sauce and seed the tomatoes (don't wilt them yet) and set them aside.
- If you're making the tortillas, roll the masa balls and preheat your skillet (or comal if you're a purist).
- Preheat your broiler, grill, or grilling pan for the steaks.
- Cook the first half of the tortillas.
- Start the steaks.
- Cook the second half of the tortillas while the steaks are cooking.
- Set the steak aside to cool for a minute, and wilt the tomatoes.
- Slice the steaks.
- Serve everything.
1. Marinate the steaks:
Place the steaks in a wide bowl with three of the garlic cloves, the diced poblano, one half-teaspoon of the achiote paste and a teaspoon of the sea salt. Pour in the beer (I use Negro Modelo) and the juice from two of the limes. Cover this concoction and leave it in the fridge overnight.
2. Prepare the chilli purées:
The two chilli purées differ only in that I add a tablespoon of lime juice to the mulatto and a garlic clove to the chipotle. Be sure you keep the chillis and their resulting purées separate. Otherwise the steps are identical:
- Remove the stems and seeds. Yes, I know, the seeds are a source of heat. Great. They're also bitter. The chipotles have plenty of heat in the ribs. Trust me on this: throw out the seeds.
- Place the chillis in a small sauce pan with just enough water to cover them. Heat the chillis until they change color (the chipotles will go from brown to dark burnt orange; the mulattos will go from black to a tobaccoey reddish brown). Remove the chillis from the water but DON'T THROW OUT THE LIQUID.
- Drop the chillis into a blender and add the lime juice (if you're puréeing the mulattos) or one sliced garlic clove (if you're puréeing the chipotles) and a pinch of sea salt (probably no more than a quarter teaspoon).
- Blend the chillis, adding the reserved liquid from the sauce pan as necessary. Once the purée achieves a uniform consistency (a little thicker than prepared mustard), pour it into a mesh strainer (or onto a sieve) and strain the purée. This leaves behind the papery outer skin.
Cover the purées and refrigerate them until the other elements of the chili are ready to serve. The mulatto purée should be dark-brown-to-black, smoky, and a bit tart. The chipotle purée should be reddish-brown, smoky, and hot.
3. Rub the steaks
Not much to say about this. Remove the steaks from the marinade and leave them alone for a few minutes to dry them off. Rub the steaks with one teaspoon of achiote paste. Leave the last half teaspoon of achiote for the tomatoes. Brush the steaks with a tiny bit of peanut oil and set them aside for now.
4. Make the onion sauté
Hey, this is a snap. Preheat a little peanut oil in a sauté pan over a medium-high flame. Strain the onions, garlic, and poblanos from the marinade (reserve a half cup of the liquid and throw out the rest) and sauté them in the peanut oil until the onions begin to clarify. Add the reserved half cup of marinade and the Mexican oregano. Cook down the liquid. Pour the sauté into a bowl, cover it, and set it aside.
5. The first half of the tomato stuff
Seed the tomatoes. I found that the quickest wat to do this is to cut them in half perpendicular to the core and scoop out the innards. It goes pretty fast. Set aside half of the seeded tomatoes. Combine the other half with the beef stock and cook it over a medium heat until the tomatoes are thoroughly wilted. Strain this concoction through a wire mesh strainer or sieve to remove the skins and any stray bits of remaining fiber. Return the liquid to the sauce pan and add the thyme. Over a low flame, reduce the tomato-beef broth by half. Remove this from the flame until you are ready to wilt the remaining tomatoes (just before serving).
6. If you're making the tortillas, roll the masa balls and preheat your skillet (or comal if you're a purist). If you're not making tortillas, the rest of this is a snap.
7. Preheat your broiler, grill, or grilling pan for the steaks.
Hey, to each his own. I'm sure a back yard barbecue would turn out a fine version of this dish. I prefer a grill pan.
8. Cook the first half of the tortillas.
Here's the routine that works for me, using a dry skillet over a medium high flame:
- thirty seconds on one side
- thirty seconds on the other side
- thirty seconds again on the first side, this time pressing down a bit with the spatula. When the tortilla puffs, I know it's going to turn out right.
- Once more on the second side for thirty seconds.
9. Start the steaks.
Four minutes on each side produced some beautiful medium rare steaks.
10. Cook the second half of the tortillas while the steaks are cooking.
Second verse, same as the first.
11. Set the steaks aside to cool for a minute, and wilt the tomatoes.
You don't want the steaks to cool too much, so this should go pretty fast. Heat the tomato-beef sauce to bubbling. Add the remaining tomatoes. Stir them a couple times and remove them from the flame after thirty seconds. Pour them into a serving bowl. The residual heat will be sufficient to wilt the tomatoes.
12. Slice the steaks.
Thin. No more than a quarter inch thick.
13. Serve everything.
You can probably come up with a number of ways to do this. I fanned the steaks over a bed of the onion sauté and ran thin parallel stripes of the purées down the steak. The tomatoes, cheese, tortillas, and remaining purées, I served on the side. Guacamolé makes an excellent addition.
I didn't include instructions for making tortillas. The process is fairly simple in concept, but it takes practice. I also didn't say when to make the guacamolé or slice the cheese, but I'm sure you can work that out.
