Wedding Food

There is no other way to put it, we had a glorious wedding. The food played an important part, as food always does during an event that includes family and friends. But it’s me and Peter, so libations were a co-star as well.

We had about 100 family and friends travel to Guanajuato for the wedding. Amazing!!! It was sort of like Camp Duarte/Velazquez. Everybody intermingled all week, touring the city together, drinking, eating and dancing the night away. I’ve often heard from newlyweds that their wedding was a blur, the benefits of a destination wedding was to really spend quality time with guest and foster an environment where we truly felt like one family by the end. But it’s a wedding, so there were some stressful moments for us.

Guanajuato is still a bit provincial, particularly the local rules about getting married in the Catholic Church. At the main office we were given explicit instruction about what we had to do, but when we asked exactly how we could accomplish all our task, it became, “Well, the guy should be there around 9:30am, but if he’s not come back later.” We came to find out that we didn’t actually have a finalized wedding date until we “presented ourselves”. I knew there was a problem when Peter was discussing our wedding with Angel (the guy in charge while the priest was out) and he turned white. But with a shrug, Angel said, “So you want to get married on Friday?” And then the kicker, I had to give confession IN SPANISH before we could get married in the Church. So there I was with my Mom and Norma writing out a script for me to read to the Priest the next morning. The next day, Peter went first and let’s just say that the Priest asked him some pretty interesting questions. The confession was out in the open, so I could see Peter’s horror stricken face as he answered “no” to committing some very peculiar sins. Then it was my turn, I read from my script. I was really nervous and was speaking very quietly, so he asked me to clarify if I had lied, so I pointed to my sin of lying on my paper and told him “si”. I got a wink and a “bueno”. Phew!! All done.

If you are ever going to get married or throw a big event in Mexico you must hire our coordinator, Alicia Vilar (one day I’m going to figure out how to put a link). Even though a wedding in Mexico cost about a third that it would in the U.S. we were still on a budget. But you would never have been able to tell, she knew all the right places to cut back and where to splurge. But even she was surprised at what we got at the Camino Real Hotel for our welcome party. In order to cut corners we ordered appetizers for less people than we expected. So Peter and I, along with close family promised not to eat. Turns out that wasn’t necessary, this was not finger foods. In the picture you will see taquitos, empanadas, cheese, meatballs in Chipotle sauce, potatoes in spicy red sauce. We enjoyed the music of Estudiantines and drank beer and wine (taste tested earlier in the week) and mingled with our guest on the amazing patio of the hotel. Everyone was sufficiently primed for the big event the next day.



Ok, I cried…but Peter cried a little too, which made everyone else cry, which made it the most love filled moment of my life. But mostly we ate, drank and danced the night away. That’s really why you throw a wedding anyway, right? So the food (I wasn’t taking pictures at the wedding so I’ve had to rely on others)… The cocktail reception had a few surprises, though I wasn’t there to enjoy it. We were thinking, “gourmet street food” when we picked our appetizers. Set against a beautiful Hacienda, perfection!

Toasted tortilla baskets with shrimp ceviche
Jicama and cucumber cocktail with lime, orange and chili powder
Corn mushroom quesadillas
Mushrooms stuffed with pork rind in green sauce
And for a conversation piece to throw back with some tequila: Tortilla chips with guacamole and fried grasshoppers!!

Dinner:
Squash blossoms stuffed with cheese and pumpkin seeds
Cuitlacoche (corn mushroom) stuffed chicken breasts with ranchero cheese and bean sauce
Guava mousse with cajeta sauce and strawberry coulis



The food was presented beautifully. But I have to admit, I don’t remember all the flavors. It’s really just stimulation overload at your own wedding. I’m ready to just be a guest at a wedding from here on out.

But my mom added a surprise and it was the hit of the night. At midnight we served Pozole. Now this I remember, because it really hit the spot. It was pork Pozole in red chile broth, super spicy and delicious. I highly recommend serving guest food at midnight, even if they are not driving home. (Sadly no pictures have turned up)

Like I said, libations were a co-star. We served freshly blended margaritas (Regular, Mango and Tamarindo (tamarind). The waiters passed around shots of Centenario Anejo. And if that wasn’t enough you could have Sangria or Rum and Coke. There were soft drinks and Jamaica Agua Fresca to keep folks hydrated.

















The next day we had a brunch with fruit, chilaquiles and pan dulce with lots of coffee!! Everyone looked really tired and really happy...and we couldn't have been more blessed.

Pictures have been streaming in via facebook and I’m anxiously awaiting the photogs pics. So I keep reliving the week in my mind as I finally emerge from my “mexicoma”.

Where do I Shop

So, you are probably wondering, where do I get my ingredients for cooking in the Northeast? Well, as luck would have it, right when I started getting really serious about Mexican cooking Mexicans became the fastest growing immigrant group in New York City. For a great book on this read, “Mexican New York” by Robert C. Smith (he was my advisor….gotta give a plug, not that he needs it). Of course this fourth wave of Mexicans spread to many places, so by the time I moved to New Haven, there was a growing Mexican community in the next town over, Fair Haven, where I could shop as well.

In NYC I shop on 116th St between 1st Ave and 3rd Ave. This is solidly Spanish Harlem. This area of Manhattan, wedged between historically white upper-class residents and working-class/poor African American Harlem is an ethnic enclave that is seeing a new wave of Mexican immigrants. This area started off as an immigrant Italian neighborhood during the construction of the subway system in the early part of the 1900’s. (they weren’t considered “White” then) Then during the large migration of Puerto Ricans during the 1950’s it started to become “Spanish” (a la West Side Story…).

Now, when I moved to New York, it was really disconcerting that everyone called themselves and others “Spanish”. Nobody in L.A. calls themselves Spanish unless they really think they are from Spain via Mexico. (this is sort of akin to some WASP’s, with no genealogical evidence, who think they came off the Mayflower, RIIGGGHHHT) Growing up I learned that to affect only your “Spanishness” would mean that, in some way, you were rejecting your Mexicanness or in denial that 95% of Mexicans regardless of their skin color are Mestizo, (Mixed, Spanish and Indigenous) even the wealthy. And let’s face it, if your family moved to the East side of Los Angeles, you are not from an elite Spanish family in Mexico. So the first time I was asked if I was Spanish in NYC, I immediately said, “NO!!”. When asked innocently, “What’s the difference between being Mexican and Spanish?” I said snottily, “An ocean and a continent!!!”. Ok, time to chill… I finally learned that when the Puerto Ricans started migrating to New York, no one here knew how to identify them (not white, but not really Black either). The only thing they could recognize is that they spoke Spanish, so they were called “Spanish” (which of course turned to Spic pretty quickly). So out here it’s pretty innocuous to say Spanish people/Spanish food etc for anything from Latin America. As a woman who was raised Chicana I still can’t call myself Spanish, but I accept the term and the rich history that makes up Latino New York.

Anyway…When we got to the grocery stores on now heavily Mexican 116th Street and saw Chorizo in the butchers fridge for the first time I practically hugged the glass and licked it. They had more than one brand too!!! And all sorts of cheeses, chiles, the powder to make Horchata (in different flavors even!!), big bottles of Tapatio, spices in those little baggies that cost a dollar. AND!!! Next door was a taqueria with real pastor, carne asada, lengua too!!! Now New York REALLY has everything.

Chorizo and Eggs

When I first moved to NYC for graduate school the Mexican community was really small and actually non-existent to me. Mexican food here was really bad too, fake Tex-Mex stuff that, with a strong margarita, would just have to do. The only other Mexicans I knew beside myself were the friends I made at Teachers College or the Law School who were ex-pats from LA. and Texas. I know now there were some places that existed like Zarellas, but that would have been way out of my grad. school budget anyway. (and who ever heard of expensive Mexican food) However, slowly but surely things started to improve. There was Mama Mexico that we patronized with a vengeance, singing loudly with the Mariachi’s and ate to fill up our homesickness. Then Russell moved to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a growing Mexican enclave, and he would drive to the upper west side to pick us up and take us to eat. Letty and I would buy our weight in Pan Dulce to take home.

Early on in NYC I became obsessed with Chorizo. I’ve always liked chorizo, but given the fat content really didn’t crave it all too often. But now that I couldn’t find it anywhere, I couldn’t live without it. One night, while on a date in my first or second year of graduate school we walked by a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant that I have never been able to find again and there it was on the Menu. That’s it, our plans had to change and I walked in and asked for a table. I have no idea how the date went, all I remember is that they gave me an extra serving of queso fresco on top because I couldn’t have been more excited.

Now that I can find Chorizo in NYC, I couldn’t be happier. We buy a batch and freeze it in serving size portions. It’s still such a guilt ridden food from the gods, so I make it for Peter and then just mooch off his plate (those calories don’t count, right?)

Chorizo and Eggs

For every egg use about an inch to inch and a half of Chorizo. Squeeze the meat out of the casing onto a hot skillet. Chorizo has a high fat content so there is no need to add oil to the pan, the fat will render itself out pretty quickly. Proceed to break it up as much as possible.

Whisk your eggs

Once the fat really starts to spread around and just before the Chorizo gets crispy put in the eggs and mix everything together. You want the Chorizo to be in every bite of your scrambled eggs. Everything will turn a light red color.

Serve and eat with Tortillas (use your fork as little as possible).

Enchiladas Placeras

For a while I’ll be blogging from recipes cooked since my last entry, but, never posted.

So from the outset these Enchiladas seemed strange. But who am I to know. Like every good Chicana from L.A., I made enchiladas in the Northeast by lugging cans of Las Palmas enchilada sauce in my suitcases after summer and winter break. It’s how my grandma made them, so it must be the right way. Since no one I know makes them from scratch, there was no one to impress. But then I got the “how do you do this the right way” bug and here I am.

Enchiladas are amazing (Fried tortilla, good, spicy sauce, good, cheese, good), everybody loves them and they are relatively simple and inexpensive to make. So far I have not met an enchilada that I didn’t like. From the red, but mild chile sauce of California, to the extra spicy red sauce with a fried egg on top in New Mexico, to the multitude of varieties that I sampled in one sitting in Austin, Texas because someone knew the owner and she kept bringing everything out from the menu. Then of course there are the green chile varieties, but that’s for another blog entry. I chose the enchilada recipe in Kennedy’s book from Michoacan since it’s the most northern and I assumed similar to what I had grown up with. I was a little confused at first because the recipe calls for Guajillo chile and I thought for a second that Diana Kennedy got it wrong. But with the enchilada you can discover the transformation of Mexicans after annexation. What chiles where abundant in the region shaped the type of enchilada that was created. In California, we of course use the California pod among others, stepping away from the more traditional guajillo chile.

But the really strange thing is when I saw cubed carrots and potatoes on the list. Basically they end up being a side dish. Now this I had never seen until…..last summer, when, my then new Fiancé Peter and I took a trip to central Mexico to interview wedding coordinators and scout locations for our wedding (that is now three weeks away!!!) We were deciding between San Miguel De Allende and the city of Guanajuato. On our last night in San Miguel we were walking around and the church down the street was getting ready for a fiesta. We crashed the party, listened to live Banda music, danced a little, watched the kids run around with sweets in their hands and ate from all the vendors as we waited for the fireworks extravaganza called “Castillos”. And there they were, red enchiladas made with the now distinctive taste of Guajillo chiles, Queso Fresco and spooned on top and on the side, CUBED CARROTS AND POTOATOES. I will never doubt you again Diana Kennedy…

I find myself a little obsessed with the enchilada now. I liked these enchiladas, but I’m a California girl and want them to taste like California Enchiladas (which means monterey jack cheese too). So I started scouring around for cookbooks that had distinctive California Mexican cooking. I found two, “El Cholo cookbook” (which I paid a small mint for because it’s out of print) and “Baja: Cooking on the edge”. I can’t wait to dive in.

Enchiladas Placeras O Pollo de Plaza (Michoacan): Serves 6 (Diana Kennedy, The Essentials Cuisines of Mexico)

The topping
8 ounces red bliss or waxy new potatoes (3 small ones), unpeeled
8 ounces carrots (3 medium)
1 tsp of salt
1/3 cup mild vinegar

The sauce:
3 Guajillo Chiles, seeds and veins removed
3 Ancho Chiles, seeds and veins removed
About 1 ½ cups of water
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 slice white onion
¼ tsp dried Mexican Oregano
Salt to taste

The Enchiladas:
Lard or Vegetable oil for frying
12 freshly made tortillas (yeah, right!)
8 ounces queso fresco, crumbled and lightly salted (about 1 1/3 cups)
½ cup finely chopped onions
A 3-pound chicken, poached and cut into serving pieces

To serve:
Strips of canned Jalapenos chiles en escabeche
2/3 cup prepared sour cream (she really means Mexican crema)
1 cup finely shredded lettuce or raw cabbage

Rinse the potatoes and cut them into small cubes; scrape the carrots and cut them into smaller cubes. Cover the carrots with boiling water, add the salt, and cook them for about 5 minutes over high heat. Add the potatoes and cook them for about 8 minutes – they should be al dente – then drain.

Cover the vegetables with cold water and add the vinegar. Stir and set aside. Heat a griddle and toast the chiles lightly, turning constantly so they don’t burn. Cover the chiles with hot water and leave them to soak for 10 minutes. Put ½ cup of water into a blender jar, add the guajillos, and blend until smooth. Add the remaing 1 cup water, the anchos, garlic, and onion and blend until smooth. Add the guajillo puree, the oregano, and salt to taste.

Melt a little of the lard, and when it is sizzling, dip each tortilla into the raw sauce – it should jut lightly cover it (if the sauce is too thick dilute it with a little more water_ and fry it quickly on both sides.

Remove from the frying pan and put about 1 scant tablespoon of the cheese and ½ tablespoon of the onion across each tortilla. Roll them up loosely and set them side by side on the serving dish. Keep warm.

In the same fat, fry the pieces of chicken until they are golden brown. Drain and arrange them around the enchiladas.

In the same fat, fry the vegetables until just beginning to brown, and drain well. In the same fat, cook the remaining sauce for a few moments and pour it over the enchiladas. Cover with the fried vegetables.

Top with the chile strips and on each serving add a spoonful of sour cream and a sprinkling of cheese, with lettuce on the side.
Note: to reduce the amount of oil, drain the fried vegetables in a strainer and shake gently. Coat the chicken pieces with the chile sauce and place under a hot broiler, turning them from time to time so that they are evenly cooked.

How time passes

First, I can’t believe how much time has passed. Well, right after my last post, my Grandmother Rosa, who I wrote about in this blog, became seriously ill. It was rough and scary and then miraculously they figured out it was her thyroid and she sprang back to life. After this, I scrambled back to New Haven and tried to survive the rest of the spring semester. When my first year of teaching successfully (or mercifully) ended, I walked at my Graduation in NYC (though Grandma was still too weak to make it) and then Peter and I with 4 other friends took off to hike the Inca Trail. Although we experienced many culinary adventures both in the kitchen and out, there was no time to post on the blog.

But tragedy hit again at the end of summer. Grandma was not feeling well and eventually she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. I’m not usually an “everything happens for a reason” type of person, but I really think she had cancer all along and they missed it, but God gave us the summer with her to say goodbye. That summer she went to a wedding, a family reunion, she got to see pictures of me in my cap and gown (she told everyone in the hospital that I am a Professor), and most importantly we got to hug and kiss her a lot that summer. She didn’t suffer for long and for that we are grateful. By the time she got ill again I was back in New Haven teaching but was lucky enough to fly back just in time to say goodbye. She died at home with her family nearby. I was honored to give the eulogy at her funeral where I got to tell my favorite stories about her. She was a remarkable woman who I admire greatly. I was trying to post the program I made to share a bit more about her...but can't figure it out. So trust me, she was a woman before her time and you would have liked to meet her.

Baja Style Fish Tacos

Ah, Baja street food...the memories of driving down with friends to Rosarito for spring break. Piling more people into a hotel room than is legally allowable and then waking up with at least one more person that didn’t drive down with us. We usually got our hand stamped in the afternoon at the big club (Papas and Beer or Senor Frogs?) so we could wait in the shorter line in the evening, but we usually started our night at Rock and Role Lobster. And while there were usually only weekend romances with people from UCLA we ran into down there (why we drove for hours to just hang out with more UCLA people is beyond me), this is the infamous location where my college roommate Sylvia met her wonderful husband Paul. (BTW, not me Mom, remember I had a college boyfriend, or as Alvie always wondered, why bring sand to the beach?) Sylvia saw Paul sitting on a speaker and thought he was cute. Then while a group of us danced he passed by on the dance floor. Not knowing what do to (“oh my god here he comes, should I talk to him…what do I do), Chris decided to shove Sylvia into him. As Paul helped her get back on her feet he asked if she wanted to dance…and the rest is history. And yes there is a picture to commemorate the day. I took it, and while for some reason the camera took a crooked picture with the top of their heads cut off, they still have it framed with pride. They are one of my favorite couples…Rosarito…it can happen.

So after a night of dancing and $2.00 Coronas with lime, fish tacos are the perfect thing to eat. These were a lot of fun to make at home, they tasted great and were a lot lighter than the ones
you get in Baja.


I pretty much followed the recipe exactly, I don’t think I’ve ever deep fried anything before. I used Corona for the beer batter, because it’s light tasting. I don’t like beer (except in Rosarito, uh?), so this worked best for me. Also I used cabbage instead of lettuce, since that is how they are served in Baja. And next time I would love to make the sauce with Mexican Crema or Crème Fraiche instead of Mayonnaise to get closer to the original.


We served these with refried beans. Peter and I will definitely be making these again.




Recipe: Fish Tacos (Cooks Illustrated, “The Quick Recipe”)
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
1 cup mayonnaise
1 ½ tsp juice from 1 lime, plus one lime cut into wedges
1 chipotle chile packed in adobo sauce, minced to a paste
Salt
4 cups vegetable oil
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
1 cup beer
1 ½ lbs sturdy white fish fillets (cod, halibut, or haddock), cut into 4 by 1-inch pieces
12 small corn tortillas
½ head iceberg lettuce, cored and shredded fine (I used cabbage)
Hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco (I used Tapatio)

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 200 degrees. Mix the mayonnaise, lime juice, chile and salt to taste in a small bowl; set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large dutch oven or heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat until the oil registers 350 degrees on a thermometer. Whisk together the flour, cumin, cayenne, and 1 teaspoon salt in a large bowl. Whisk in the beer until the batter is completely smooth. Add half of the fish to the batter and stir to coat. Cover a wire cooling rack with several layers of paper towels and set if over a rimmed baking sheet.

Using tongs, transfer the fish to the oil and fry until golden brown (making sure the pieces don’t touch, 4 to 5 minutes). Transfer the fish to the paper towel-lined rack and set the baking sheet in the oven to keep the fish warm. Repeat the process with the remaining fish. While the fish cooks, toast the tortilla, 1 at a time, in a skillet over medium-high heat until softened and speckled with brown, 20 to 30 seconds per side. Wrap the tortillas in a slightly moistened kitchen towel to keep warm.
For assembly, smear each tortilla with mayonnaise and top with shredded lettuce. Add 1 piece of fish to each tortilla and serve immediately, folded in half, passing hot pepper sauce and lime wedges at the table.

Arroz a la Mexicana/Mexican Rice (Due to some technical difficulties I wasn’t able to take pictures. But that didn’t stop us from eating!)

Even though I’ve made Mexican rice more times than I can count, I’ve never made it from scratch (i.e., pureeing tomatoes rather than just opening a can of tomato sauce). For this recipe I used my new Diana Kennedy book, “From My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients”. Diana Kennedy and Rick Bayless are probably the most famous Mexican cooks from the U.S., which means they write in English, something my 3rd+ Generation monolingual status needs right now (Bilingual in 2007, baby!!). I like Diana Kennedy because she was the first to document Mexican cooking in English. She lives and runs an institute there, and has been given the highest honor by the Mexican Government. She’s also very anal, and fussy about doing things “right” and in the most traditional of ways. One of my very best friends, Veronica, got me her last book, “Mi Mexico”, but that is more like graduate school of Mexican cooking and I’ve been a little afraid of cooking from it. So I got her most basic book

My grandmother taught me how to make rice and beans when I was in college. I think she was influenced by the “innovations” that came about in the 1950’s that helped home cooks stream line their recipes. She used Campbell’s chicken and rice soup, I use organic chicken broth. She used powdered onion and garlic, I use the fresh. But I’ve never pureed my own tomatoes. I also added the carrots, which I don’t usually do, though it does make the rice look prettier. I didn’t have the other optional ingredients on hand. And the results…pretty good, much more delicate in taste than with canned. But I kind of like the tanginess you get from canned tomato sauce. Final verdict, unless I have an abundance of tomatoes I don’t think I’ll make a habit of pureeing them.

Recipe: Arroz a la Mexicana (Diana Kennedy, “From My Mexican Kitchen”)
Makes about 6 servings

1 ½ cups long grain white rice
¼ to 1/3 cup vegetable oil
8 ounces tomatoes, roughly chopped, about 1 ½ cups
1 tbsp roughly chopped white onion
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
About 3 ½ cups chicken broth
1 small carrot, trimmed, scraped and thinly sliced, (optional)
2 tbsp peas (optional)
1 large sprig parsley (optional)
2 serrano chiles, left whole (optional)
Salt to taste

For this quantity you will need a flameproof pan about 4 inces deep and 9 inches across. Pour hot water to cover over the rice and let soak for about 5 minutes. Strain, rinse in cold water and strain again. Be sure to shake the strainer well to remove any excess water. So do not do this step ahead of time or the rice will become too damp.

Heat the oil in the pan and stir in the rice – it should sizzle as it touches the oil. Stir until the grains are evenly coated and continue frying over medium heat until they sound brittle and are just starting to turn golden, about 10 minutes. Tip the pan to one side and drain off the excess oil.

Meanwhile, put the tomatoes, onion, and garlic into a blender jar and blend until smooth. Stir the puree into the rice and continue frying over fairly high heat, scraping the bottom of the pan to avoid sticking, until the mixture has been absorbed, abut 5 minutes.

Add the broth and the optional ingredients; stir the rice well, adjust the salt, cover the pan, and cook over medium heat until all the broth as been absorbed – airholes will probably form. Carefully dig to the bottom of the rice with a fork to see if any moisture remains; if so, then continue cooking over low heat for a few minutes more. Set aside, still covered, to give the rice a chance to continue steaming evenly for about 15 minutes

When serving, gently stir the rice from the bottom with a fork because the seasonings tend to sink to the bottom.

Welcome to the inaugural post for my new site dedicated to Mexican cooking. And what else would I start with but the most important staple of the Mexican diet, the tortilla. Its Nahuatl name is tlaxcalli changed to tortilla by the Spanish in the 1500’s. While the point of this site is to learn Mexican cooking from scratch…well what can I say, unless you know a person who has a mill to grind corn in NYC or New Haven, I just didn’t have time for my metate to arrive and grind the corn by hand. Otherwise I would have soaked my dried corn in lime slate as directed by Diane Kennedy.

So I started with Maseca brand instant corn masa mix. You are supposed to mix in enough water so that it is as soft as possible without being sticky. Then I let it rest for 15 minutes. Peter and I cleared the dining table and rolled the dough into 15 little balls.

During my grandmothers childhood in Chavez Ravine (Dodger Stadium to the few who don’t know my family history), the trucks would come along to pick up residents to go to the Campo to pick oranges or whatever. They did this for extra money or to help out family members who were new to L.A. and working in the fields. Early in the morning the women and girls would get up and start preparing the tortillas. There was one gentleman in the campo that told my grandmother. “I always know when Rosie is here, because I can hear you making tortillas”. Apparently her clapping to flatten the tortillas had a distinctive rhythm to it. My grandmother is a very precise, hard working woman. I’m sure stories about her will color this site often.

Because I have yet to purchase a tortilla presser, we decided to pat them out by hand the old fashion way. Here is where I learned that I put too much water in the masa and the first few tortillas stuck to our hands. Peter brilliantly dusted his hands with flour and things went much better. I was hoping I would inherit my Grandmother’s natural rhythm, but by the time I was born, there was no more fresh tortilla making and I guess this skill didn’t come stamped on my genetic code.
I think I made my first anthropological observation while flattening tortillas. The reason fresh tortillas are so small is because they are made with little Mexican hands. I could only make them so big before they dipped off the sides of my hands and started to break. Peter’s tortillas came out the best of all because he had more surface area to work with.

They took a couple of minutes to cook in a skillet (Macy’s didn’t sell a comal). They could have used a little salt, but served with the Ropa Vieja (Daisy Cooks) that had a little too much salt, they were delicious.

If your thinking, “Puerto Rican/Cuban Ropa Vieja with tortillas, why?” Well, it’s ‘cuz that’s what we had planned to eat anyway. Chalk this up to the West Coast and East Coast colliding.

Recipe (Tausend, Marilyn. Cocina De La Familia)

Ingredients:
2 cups masa harina for tortillas
11/4 cups of warm water

Directions:

Pour in 11/4 cups of warm water all at once and mix together with your hands. Knead briefly. The dough should be soft as possible but not sticky. Cover with plastic wrap.
Let the masa rest about 15 minutes. Set the tortilla press and 2 pieces of heavy plastic, such as from freezer bags. Place one of the sheets of plastic on the bottom of the tortilla press.
Roll into about 15 equal-size balls. Cover with plastic.
Heat a large griddle, comal, or cast-iron skillet over medium heat.
Open the Tortilla press and put a ball a masa on one sheet of plastic. Cover with the other and gently press down the top plate of the press.
Slide the tortilla off your hand – don’t flip it – onto the hot griddle and cook for a mental count of 20. The underside should just be freckled. Do this to the other side until done.