Quest for the Ultimate Pastor
I'm experimenting again. I love pastor and have made it only once. It was definitely a learning experience because I needed to figure out where to find the

chiles I was not familiar with, like guajillo and pasilla. Not only did I need to find them I needed lessons on what they actually were. Alton Brown, and others, showed how one chile can have 3 names depending on whether it is fresh, dried or smoked. Here's a link to a great site that helped me figure it out, Cook's Thesaurus

The recipe I had used before called for guajillo chiles, and pasillas which I was able to find. They were then soaked and the pork was marinated. It was from the LA Times and fairly involved. It turned out good but not as fantastic as I'd hoped.

Last weekend I made another attempt. Now, I'm not really aiming for the ultimate authentic version. According to the purists I'd need a spit and a taco truck for that. I wound up at a local Von's without much time so I went with what they had - no guajillo, no pasillas - they didn't even carry the dried spices anymore. They didn't even have the little cans of chipotle in adobo I needed. OK so here's a sort of Sandra Lee version of Pastor using, of all things, Taco Seasoning Mix! They had a hot version so I used that. I started with the epicurious recipe and veered way off due to ingredient issues:

Here's what was declared "Very Tasty" by my significant other who's not prone to compliments and has definite opinions about his Mexican food.

1 large white onion, halved
1 16 oz can sliced pineapple
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup italian dressing
2 TB hot taco seasoning :)
3 garlic cloves, halved
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 2 1/2-to 3-pound pork sholder cut into 1/2-inch slices - (don't cut all the way through)
1 large or 2 small chipotle chiles and 1 to 2 teaspoons adobo from canned chipotle chiles in adobo
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Corn tortillas
Put the pineapple slices between the slices of pork. Slice 1 onion half. Add orange juice and next 5 ingredients. Place pork in large resealable plastic bag with onions. Add marinade and seal bag, releasing excess air. Turn to coat. Chill 1 hour. Remember I was short on time. 4 hours or a day would have been better.

Cook in crock pot for 2 hours then 300 degree oven (covered) for 1 1/2. Take the fat off the top of the sauce formed while cooking and add the chipotle and adobo (that your significant other has brought from Ralph's in time to add it after the cooking has taken place). Cook the sauce down until it becomes thick enough to brush onto meat. I added some honey at this point, maybe a tablespoon.

Prepare barbecue (medium-high heat). Grill pork with some sauce until slightly charred 2 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer pineapple and pork to work surface; chop remaining pineapple into 1/2-inch cubes, Chop pork. Transfer to platter; toss to combine with more of the sauce.
Meanwhile, finely chop remaining onion half and place in medium bowl. Add cilantro; toss to combine. Grill tortillas until warm and slightly charred, about 10 seconds per side.
Serve pork-pineapple mixture with onion-cilantro relish.

Maybe I need to come up with another name for this dish since the only thing that clings to the pastor tradition is the pineapple. Next time I'll use fresh pineapple (won't do a long marinade with fresh pineapple -enzymes you know) and do the whole soak the real chile thing. But, for a fake version this was "tasty."

Here are some links I came across in my search:

This site has a picture of what the authentic pastor situation in Mexico City is
http://www.batista.org/pastor.html

This site gave some good background on the pastor tradition. I'm not sure I'm onboard with cinnamon in the recipe though... Looks like a good recipe blog. He's a transplanted Californinan living in NYC trying to find good Mexican food. I remember being in the same situation in Boston.

http://www.norecipes.com/2008/05/04/tacos-al-pastor/

These recipes use a bay leaf which I think I'll try next.
http://onebigkitchen.com/?p=152
http://www.nibbledish.com/people/norecipes/recipes/tacos-al-pastor

Personal pet peeve - NOBODY USES APOSTROPHES CORRECTLY ANYMORE!

Plural words don't need them I ate 2 tacos.

Possesives use them. The taco's flavor. As in the flavor owned by the taco

Contractions use apostrophes This taco's good. As in this taco is good

OK I feel better. Heaven knows I'm not perfect but sheesh people. As the language changes the apostrophe will probably either be used for everything or dropped entirely.

Here's what I added to the pork mixture to doctor it up for the potluck:

Adobo sauce from a small can of chipotle in adobo sauce (3 TB)

1 tsp of Alton Brown's Chile Powder

1/s tsp garlic salt (5 cranks of sea salt and garlic)

1 tsp Mexican oregano.

3-4 TB water.

Brioche is Not That Hard

I've had the pans for years. They come out of the cabinet for many holidays and I eye them and consider actually using them. This Easter I finally did it. I've read how wonderful good brioche is and figured that since I have a bread maker most of the work could be done for me. Being a purist is not something I worry about. So, here's the recipe I used from Taste and Tell. The original instructions are very, very long and detailed but I just proofed the yeast and then dumped everything in the breadmaker. Of course I set it on manual because I wasn't baking it in the breadmaker. One thing that is important is to let the bread rise over night - which I did. The brioche came out great and I got lots of compliments. I left the "heads" off for simplicity's sake. I took some advice from Askville on this.

During my search for info on brioche I discovered Once Upon a Plate.blogspot. The photography is seriously gorgeous.

Rich Man's Brioche from The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart

Sponge
1/2 cup unbleached bread flour
1 tablespoon instant yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm whole milk

Dough
5 large eggs, slightly beaten
3 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour
2 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 egg, whisked until frothy, for egg wash

Another Light and Easy Appetizer

I was in Costco yesterday and went by the giant crab display which got me thinking,
"I love crab. How can I work that into Easter somehow?" Endive as a crab delivery vehicle, that's how, wasabi optional. I found this idea on the Eating Well site.

Thoughts on Easter Appetizers

I always need to have appetizers. Actually, I'd rather just have appetizers than the big meal. They're so much more interesting. So, I'm having an Easter gathering with eight people, or so. The appetizers should be light - I'm thinking veggies are good, but they need to be different. Here's my list of possibilities:

Artichoke - I'll pull the leaves off this year. Only my SO ate them because the pulling was too hard to deal with.

Sugar Snap Peas with Sesame -

Once Upon a Plate.blogspot has a nice recipe, and her photography is lovely.

And then there are the salmon cucumber bites I made last year, or should I put the salmon on pumpernickle for a change? Pioneer Woman took an artistic shot that inspired me with the pumpernickle.

Wouldn't carrots - with the stems be cute on a bunny platter?? And how can I use the multitude of spring cookie cutters? Maybe cutting and baking tortillas would work?

Fresh Cherry Pie

The day after my neice's party we went cherry picking. The season was just finishing up so we had to do a bit of hunting. It was great fun and there were quite a few varieties of cherries. I kept taking pictures hoping they'd be fabulously artistic (Ha!)

I've also never made a cherry pie, especially from fresh cherries. There is one obstacle between the picking and the pie - the pitting. Since this might be the last time I cherry I didn't want to invest in a unitasker like a pitter. My research uncovered one recomendation to use a paper clip to pry out the pit. It took me forever to get a cupful of cherries. I hightailed it to Bristol Farms and picked up a pitter for around $3.00 and proceeded to kick myself for not doing that in the first place. Much better.

My sister had a great recipe and it came out nicely. My SO gets the cheapest pie turnover pastry things in the store so this pie was a special treat.

Here's the recipe:

1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
4 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup white sugar
4 cups pitted cherries
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Place bottom crust in piepan. Set top crust aside, covered.

In a large mixing bowl combine tapioca, salt, sugar, cherries and extracts. Let stand 15 minutes. Turn out into bottom crust and dot with butter. Cover with top crust, flute edges and cut vents in top. Place pie on a foil lined cookie sheet --- in case of drips! Bake for 50 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown.

Did you know they've changed the formula for Crisco? That was the sure fire ingredient for a good pie crust. They took out the trans fats and now it makes a greasy instead of flaky crust. This formula change is causing all sorts of problems. Melinda Lee talked about it on her show last weekend.

Catching Up

OK, it's been a busy year and I have cooked and experimented the whole time, and even taken some fairly unsatisfactory photos of the recipes.

About this time last year I was determined to make a fancy cake for my neice's birthday, complete with fondant and at least one tier.

I started small with a stacked cake for a friend's birthday. The cake was supposed to look like two presents that featured a fondant bow on the top. I used Wilton colored fondant for the decorations. First I ran them through my pasta machine then cut them into strips. I formed a bow and curly ribbons. To keep the bow from collapsing I just used crumpled foil inside each of the loops. for the curly ribbons I wrapped small strips around the left over dowels (from the stacking.) It took more than a day to dry and I was lucky I allowed enough time.



I wanted to try a topsy turvey cake so I tried my hand when we had a casual family get together. Sad, very sad. Cracked fondant and strangely shaped cake layers. I'm afraid to post a picture for fear it would be featured on the Cake Wrecks site ! Here's a video tutorial from Janelle's Cakes and the post from egullet that shows what I used as a guide and goes into great detail. I didn't use the plastic pieces he refers to though.


I was getting so many wonderful ideas from Pink Cake Box and was sure that my neice would want something fancy - maybe with feathers. Finally my neice's party was planned. She had picked a the signature design from Pink Cake Box. I was slightly releived that she picked a simpler cake than I had envisioned and I managed a decent amateur version.




I made my own fondant from marshmallows. It tasted better than the Wilton stuff and was considerably cheaper. The dark brown got a bit sticky with all the food coloring I had to add.

A big new (Wilton) rolling pin and cutting board worked great for getting the sheets of fondant the right thickness. We all had fun making the ribbon roses.
There was plenty of cake left over and one of my neice's friends was having her family birthday the next day. We sent her off with the bottom teir decorated with extra ribbon roses. My attitude towards cake of this type is that they are craft projects. Once their function (edible party centerpiece) is fulfilled then it's OK to toss the cake out. It's preferable to applying it to my hips! Everyone was glad we didn't have to this time.

In July I cooked for my dog, and made some really cute cupcakes for people too. I got the idea from Family Circle and their website has a full tutorial. The hardest part of the procedure was finding the mini M&Ms. Finally I found them in the baking aisle. I had been looking in with the candy. The tongues are my favorite part. I was lucky to have left over fondant but the recipe calls for flattened out Starbursts.