Spicy Pork Chorizo

Pork chorizo is perhaps the ultimate in guilty-pleasure eating in Mexican cuisine. If you care about your health, don't eat this; if you care about it like a French gastronome or just don't give a shit, do eat this! In a burrito, a quesadilla, on a torta, or just spooned into your maw right out of the frying pan like a disgusting, gluttonous Philistine.

Today's Specimen

Ingredients

• 12 oz. pork chorizo


• 1 (about 1 -1½ cups) poblano pepper, diced


• ½ (about ½ - ¾ cups) medium yellow onion, diced


• 1 (about 1 tbsp.) habanero, fine diced


• 1 (about 1 tsp.) garlic, fine diced

Directions

1. In a large frying pan or sauce pan, on medium-low heat, combine all ingredients and allow to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the chorizo starts to stick to the pan, or about forty minutes.

Next Time in the Lab

The only way I can think to improve this would be to maybe use a whole small yellow onion and add some cilatro. The cilatro would depend on what the chorizo would be used for: e.g. if this is going into a burrito that incorporates rice with lime juice and cilantro in it, adding cilantro to this chorizo would be redundant.

• Use a whole small yellow onion (about 1 cup).


• Add a cup of chopped fresh cilatro.


• Toss in a pinch of cayenne pepper.

Poblano Spanish Rice

Spanish rice is an indispensable part of Mexican cuisine and as such is mandatory to know how to prepare properly in order to round out any Mexican meal. I've seen a lot of recipes that call for bell peppers, but poblano peppers are vastly superior to me because of their slightly smoky flavor and their beautiful dark green color.

Today's Specimen

Ingredients

• 2 cups brown basmati rice


• 4 cups water


• 1 (14 oz.) can diced tomatoes


• 1 (4 oz.) can diced green chilies


• 1 (about 1¼ - 1½ cups) poblano pepper, diced


• 1 (about 1¼ - 1½ cups) medium yellow onion, diced


• 1 heaping tbsp. (about 3½ - 4 tsp.) chili powder


• 1 tsp. salt

Directions

1. Toss all ingredients into a covered pot on medium heat and once it begins to boil drop down to low and allow to simmer — stirring occasionally — until the water level is reduced to the point where the rice is moist but there's no standing water in the bottom of the pot; about forty minutes.


2. Be sure to fluff the rice and let it sit for ten to fifteen minutes before serving.

Next Time in the Lab

About the only thing I can think to do with this recipe is maybe toss in just a pinch of cayenne to spice it up a little, but as far as adding any other ingredients goes I can't think of anything that wouldn't turn this into something weird or ugly.

• Add a pinch of cayenne pepper

Mango-Chili Chicken Pizza

There's something irresistible to me about the combination of mango and habanero. I just had to try my hand at this highly experimental pizza that for days haunted my dreams as I wavered in how to top it without making it taste to sweet or just plain strange. For the pizza dough I used this recipe, which makes enough crust for two thin 14" pizzas and is decent but I'll eventually improve it.

The recipe below is enough to make two 14" thin-crust pizzas.

Today's Specimen

← Mango-Habanero Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 mangos, peeled and seeded


• 1 habanero, seeded


• ¼ cup yellow onion, diced


• 1 tsp. fresh ginger


• ½ cup white vinegar


• ½ cup cane sugar


• 1 cup water

Directions

1. Toss everything in a food processor or blender and puree until all the ingredients are evenly distributed and the consistency is smooth and uniform.


2. Pour the sauce out of the blender/processor and heat on low in a sauce pot for at least half an hour to bring out the flavor, then set aside.

← Lime-Chili Chicken

Ingredients

• 2 small (about 1 lb.) boneless chicken breast portions


• 4 limes, quartered


• 2 habanero peppers, sliced


• Water to cover marinade (about 2 - 2½ cups)

Directions

1. Steam the chicken breast for half an hour, set aside or rinse in cool water to cool, then slice and shred by hand or using a masher.


2. In a small mixing bowl add the shredded chicken with the other ingredients, with enough water just to cover the marinade.


3. Cover and let the chicken marinate in a refrigerator for at least four hours, preferably overnight.


4. When getting ready to assemble the pizza drain the marinade and remove the chicken and place on paper towels or a dish cloth to blot out excess moisture, making sure to remove the bits of habanero if you or any guests are sensitive to spicy foods.

← Vegetable Toppings

Ingredients

• 1 poblano pepper, diced


• 1 red bell pepper, diced


• 1 orange bell pepper, diced

Directions

1. Just dice them up and mix together and set aside

← Cheese Topping

Ingredients

• 16 oz. mozarella cheese


• 8 oz. romano cheese


• 8 oz. asiago cheese

Directions

1. Mozarella has a high moisture content, to crumble the mozarella by hand into small bits and leave on a plate and cover with a paper towel and let dry in the refrigerator overnight.


2. The next day grate the asiago and romano and mix togetehr and set aside separate from the mozarella.

The Assembly Line

Necessary

• 1 large pizza screen or pizza stone


• 1 clean surface large enough to roll out a 14" pizza


• Olive oil

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 500° F if you're using a pizza screen; 450° F if using a stone.


2. If you're using a pizza stone, place the stone in the oven to preheat along with it.


3. If you're using a pizza screen be sure to apply a thin coat of olive oil to the screen, preferably using a paper towel.


4. Roll out or hand toss the dough into 14" circles, large enough to just reach the rim of the pizza screen or stone.


5. Once the oven is preheated either pull out the stone and cover with the dough or cover a non-preheated pizza screen with the dough. If you try to assemble a pizza elsewhere and transfer it to the stone or screen you'll have a fabulous disaster on your hands!


6. Ladle a thin layer of the mango-habanero sauce onto the dough, up to an inch from the edge. No more than 1½ cups sauce should be necessary; if the sauce is too thick it may drip onto the edge or even into the oven.


7. Evenly spread half of the chicken and peppers onto the sauce, also up to one inch from the edge.


8. Take half of the mozarella and spread evenly up to an inch of the edge of the pizza, then take half of the romano-asiago blend and do the same.


9. Place the pizza (on the stone or screen) in the oven and check every five minutes, turning if necessary to ensure even browning of the crust and cheese. If you're using a screen the pizza should take no longer than twenty minutes to cook and will probably be finished in fifteen minutes; if you're using a stone it could take as long as half an hour — hence the importance of regularly visually checking it as it bakes. You'll know it's done when the cheese is slightly burnt and the crust is brown.


10. When the pizza is finished baking pull it out of the oven and set out to cool for fifteen minutes before slicing and serving.

Next Time in the Lab

Holy shit! This is the perfect summer pizza! The only things I would change about it would be the mango-habanero sauce and the cheese blend. Well, the crust could be a bit lighter and more flavorful, but that's a different matter altogether and a different post.

• Use only one mango with one habanero and half the other sauce ingredients accordingly.


• Add fontina to the cheese blend, halving the mozarella to 8 oz. and adding 7 - 8 oz. fontina. The fontina would be grated and added to the mozarella after the mozarella has been left to dry.

Crock Pot Cuban Black Beans & Rice

If you're poor beans and rice are the perfect combination for a healthy main course. Not that you have to be poor, mind you. Proteins, carbohydrates, and that lovely poo-fluffing fiber; with a minimal addition of veggies you also get better carbs and some useful vitamins and minerals. The problem is making beans and rice taste good, which I've seldom known anyone adroit at. It's not at all difficult, though, as you're about to see.

Today's Specimen

Ingredients

• 2 (14 oz.) cans of black beans


• 2 cups brown basmati rice


• 4 strips of thick hickory-smoked bacon, cut 1½ inches


• 1 large poblano pepper (about 1½ cups), diced


• 1 medium yellow onion (about 1½ cups), diced


• 2 cloves garlic (about 1 tbsp.), fine diced


• 2 cups vegetable broth


• 1½ cups water


• 1 tbsp. Bragg Liquid Aminos®


• 1 tsp. white vinegar


• 1 tbsp. ground cumin


• ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper


• ¼ tsp. marjoram


• ⅓ tsp. black pepper


• 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

Directions

1. In a large saucepan on medium heat cook the onion in the olive oil until it starts to brown.


2. Add the poblano and garlic and cook — stirring frequently — for another five minutes.


3. Add the bacon with the Liquid Aminos and white vinegar and cook until the bacon is half-way cooked (sweating and the meat discolored slightly) and most of the liquid has been absorbed or evaporated. The onions should be caramelized.


4. Add the contents of the saucepan with any residual liquid to a crock pot with the beans, rice, vegetable broth, and water to a crock pot set on high. Cover and cook for four to six hours, checking occasionally to stir and be sure the liquid hasn't evaporated. It's finished when there's very little liquid left to it when the mixture is stirred.

Next Time in the Lab

I can't think of anything I'd do to this recipe other than maybe toss in more cayenne pepper to heat things up — or perhaps a finely diced habanero — or a diced tomato for extra vegetable content. Other than that, the flavor was perfect: slightly sweet and smoky but not so much that the flavor of the beans and the rice were overpowered.

• Add a large tomato, diced.


• Add a habanero, finely diced.


• Increase the garlic to three cloves.

Bragg Liquid Aminos® is similar to soy sauce, and is in fact a soy product, but has a smokey taste to it. I haven't tried this, but I imagine using a similar amount of soy sauce with a two or three drops of liquid smoke would replicate the flavor of it without necessitating an additional purchase.