Mexican Fiesta

The blog has been a little sparse lately- mainly because I've been a bit lazy and going back to the old favs, and also because there's been a baking fail or two which I won't go into. But this will make up for it-trust me.

I've only been over to the states twice, but if somebody could bring Taco Bell here it would be much appreciated, especially at 5 in the morning on the way home from Hitch. A Taco Bell 'chulupa' is a taco where the shell/tortilla is substituted for fried bread. As in roll up your sleeves, kitchen covered in flour, homemade bread. I've struggled with bread making as I've previously mentioned-but these always turn out great so I can't stress enough how much you need to try this. It's a lot of work- and there's a lot of little things going on. If you attempt it for 1 or 2 people, you are probably out of your mind. But it's the kind of recipe that you could get lots of people round, get everyone doing bits and pieces and make a night of it.







So the chulupa consists of:
Deep fried bread (recipe below)
Refried beans
Rice
Meat of your choice (recipe below)
Chilli corn mix (recipe below)
Salad (lettuce, tomatoes, red onions)
Guacamole (recipe below)
Sour cream
Cheese

Four recipes today!!!



Chulupa bread
I've tried lots of different white bread recipes for this, and they all work, but this one I use for pizza and it always works out great. I wasn't sure how much 14g of yeast would be so I just put in 4 tsps and it worked.
So make the dough a couple of hours ahead, make sure you knead it enough, and then after you've let it rise and double in size, knead it slightly and separate it into small balls about the size of a tennis ball. You then just roll these out into little circles and if you can let them rise for 15 mins on floured GREASEPROOF paper (I learnt this lesson last night when I though glad wrap would suffice....It didn't.
When everything else is done, heat 1 1/2 cups of cooking oil in a frying pan on medium, and when it starts to have ripples in it, go ahead and fry your bread in the oil till its beautiful and brown and crispy. Done!

Refried beans- straight out of a can, heated in the microwave.

Rice- plain white rice is fine- you only need a couple of tablespoons per person.

Meat- The marinade for the meat I stole from one of my fav food bloggers (sodelushious.com) and tweeters Chrissy Teigen (recipe here). I couldn't find chiles in adobo or adobo sauce, but I found chipotle sauce bottled in Mexico at the supermarket and it is smokey and spicy and amazing.
Last night I used chicken thighs. Chop them into bite-size pieces, and fry them in some olive oil till their browned slightly (not cooked through yet). Add the marinade and continue to cook till the meat is done and the marinade has thickened. Squeeze in juice of half a lime and wallah! I ALSO though, tried a fish chulupa with fresh tarakihi last night- and it was goooooood. Chop the fish up, and very very lightly sautée it in olive oil till it is still translucent in the middle. Set the fish aside on a plate, and cook the marinade in the frypan until it is thickened and the garlic in it cooked through. Then remove from the heat, and add the half cooked and leave it to finish cooking in the hot marinade. Lime it up to stop the cooking process and it's done. If you don't like spicy food, you can omit the marinade and just put plain meat in.

Chilli corn mix I made up last night while looking through one of my cookbooks. And I'm glad I did- because it went great especially with the fish, and I'm going to do it whenever I can get fresh corn.
Recipe
2 cobs of fresh corn
25 grams butter
1/2 red pepper
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon paprika
Salt and Pepper

With a sharp knife, cut the corn kernels off the cob. Heat a frypan with the butter till melted, add the corn and sauté for 3-4 minutes. Add the pepper, garlic, paprika and season to taste, and sauté until the corn and peppers are cooked through.

Guacamole. I make a pretty good guacamole.
Recipe
2 ripe avocados
Juice of one lime
Handful of finely chopped red onion
Handul of diced tomatoes
Handful of coriander
Finely chopped jalapeño peppers (to taste)
1 Tbsp sour cream
Salt and pepper

Put everything in a bowl. Mix it. Eat it.

So it's a lot of work right- like I told you. But so so so worth it in the end. Bags not being the person frying the bread who has to wait till last to eat.

Please excuse my photos via iPhone, as my son used my camera batteries for his video games.