Recipes

Chile Verde Pork Quesadillas

September 11, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

I am lucky to live in an area with such a wide availability of ingredients used in tex-mex recipes. My local grocery store, for example, has a 4 ft deep box full of tomatillos, tomatoes, and every pepper both fresh and dried on display. Ever since I tried salsa verde I have been a huge fan of its sweet and sour flavor and how good it tastes on pork, chicken, fish, etc. Because of its versatility I can enjoy it on a lot of different Mexican dishes. My favorite cut of meat lately has been pork shoulder, which cooks so nicely on low heat over a few hours. I buy a larger weight and double my salsa verde recipe so I can have lots of leftovers too! The quesadillas were super tasty and not too difficult to throw together.

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Korean BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich

September 7, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

There is still time to celebrate summer with this spicy Korean BBQ pork. This recipe has all the elements of a good barbeque with the added seasoning of gochujang and Korean BBQ sauce. The sauces provide the perfect barbeque flavors of sweet, tangy, and savory. The pork is slow cooked for 8 hours so the meat should fall apart from the bone. Pork shoulder has turned into my favorite cut of pork simply because of the transformation it goes through after cooking it slowly. The pulled pork turned out really tender and easily shredded into a delicious BBQ sandwich. Topping with coleslaw is also a must for this recipe!

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Roasted Sesame and Ginger Coleslaw

September 1, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

A great addition to the Korean BBQ Pork Sandwich was this sesame and ginger coleslaw. A standard pulled pork recipe just has to have a side of coleslaw either in or outside the bun! Coleslaw can get really heavy if you add too much mayo and sour cream, so I only add a little to give it just a mild creaminess while staying light. Since the pork was flavored with Korean sauces, I flavored the coleslaw with similar ingredients. The coleslaw turned out really nicely and provided a good balance against the spicy pulled pork.

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Korean BBQ Sauce

August 18, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

This all purpose BBQ sauce is great for sandwiches, marinades, and grilling. It has a nice balance between spicy, tangy and sweet with some added nutty flavor from the roasted sesame seeds.

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Pierogi with Crispy Fried Onions

August 1, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

Pierogi are classic Polish dumplings that are boiled or fried and stuffed with mashed potatoes and melted cheese. Making pierogi is pretty involved and takes 2-3 hours to prep and cook. It’s worth the extra time to make it yourself since these turned out great. I was really happy with the flavor of the filling and the dough. The crispy, sauteed onions, chives and sour cream were a nice topping that worked well with the pierogi.

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Penne with Vodka Sauce

July 16, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

This dish required a technique I had never tried before–flambe. Flambeing alcohol involves setting the alcohol on fire in a saute pan until it burns out. What’s leftover is all the aroma and flavor of the vodka, without all of the alcohol. The vodka is the critical component of this dish because it reacts with the sauce and brings out the flavor of the tomatoes. I have tried this dish before without the flambe technique and I like the results of flambeing a lot better. I have also tried this dish with bacon instead of pancetta, but I have come to prefer the pancetta. Lots of vodka sauces are pale pink but I only put 1/2 cup cream in the sauce so mine was a pale brick red instead. I prefer the darker sauce–I think the cream can mask the flavor of the tomatoes. I topped the pasta with a little grated parmesan and basil.

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Chile Verde Tamales de Pollo

July 15, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

Tamales are a Mexican food made of masa (corn flour) and stuffed with any number of fillings. Tamales are an old food, meaning that it was probably eaten by Aztecs and Mayans as early as 8000 BC. Making them is a pretty involved process and it requires some time to get everything prepared and cooked–about 3-4 hours. I had a lot of fun making these, and when I was forming the dough into the corn husk I could picture someone from a different time and background doing this very same activity (which was pretty cool). The tamales turned out really well. The dough had a nice fluffy texture and the filling had a spicy, savory flavor. The filling was a tex-mex style shredded chicken and sweet corn. I seasoned the dough with cumin, paprika, and cinnamon. The chile verde was tasty and pretty simple to make too. I topped the tamales with a little monterey jack cheese and sour cream.

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Chile Verde

July 14, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

Chile Verde is a sweet, spicy salsa that is made most commonly with tomatillos and a number of different green chiles. This salsa goes well with chicken, pork and fish, and can be used as a topping for burritos, tacos, tamales, etc. The tomatillos provide a great sweet and sour flavor that I like a lot. Depending on how smooth you wish to puree the sauce, you could create a thicker version that would be great as a salsa dip as well.

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Tex-Mex Shredded Chicken with Sweet Corn

July 12, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

This is an all-purpose chicken filling that could be used in all kinds of mexican dishes. I used this as a filling for tamales but it would be great in tacos, burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, etc. The shredded chicken is pretty simple to make and has a nice sweet and spicy flavor. I only added the corn for the tamales so that is an optional ingredient.

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Roasted Corn and Red Pepper Salsa

July 9, 2011 by The Partial Ingredients

This corn salsa is perfect for the summer sweet corn season. I made this to go with some Chile Verde Chicken Tamales and the pairing went together well. The salsa was mostly sweet with just the right amount of heat. It would go nicely on burritos and tacos too.

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