Sasha's Kitchen: Beef Tacos with Charred Tomatillo Pepper Relish

I made this delicious recipe for tacos from star chef Sam Talbot's cookbook, The Sweet Life.  The flavoring for these beef tacos is excellent, and pairs well with the roasted tomatillo pepper relish, as I just love tomatillos.  I substituted pimentos for jalapenos so there would be just a slight bit of heat, rather than a fiery taco.  The end result was delicious.  Also, I doubled the recipe for the relish and recommend doing the same, so I wrote it up as I actually made it.

Tomatillo-Pepper Relish (adapted from Sam Talbot)
1 cup diced tomatillos
8 jarred pepperoncini peppers, drained and seeded, thinly sliced
4 pimentos, sliced
juice of two limes
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Beef (adapted from Sam Talbot)
2 T canola oil
1 small vidalia onion, diced
3 celery ribs, diced
6 garlic cloves, diced
1 T cumin
1 T garlic powder
1 T onion powder
1 1/2 tsp old bay seasoning
1 1/2 tsp chile powder
1 1/2 tsp turmeric
1 lb lean ground beef
2 T crushed canned tomatoes
salt and pepper

Tacos
corn tortillas (6 inch)
shredded iceberg lettuce
1/2 cup diced tomato
2 lime wedges
sour cream
jack or cheddar cheese, shredded

To make the salsa, roast the peppers for 30 minutes at 450 and combine with the other ingredients.  Prepare the meat by sautéing the onion and celery for about five minutes until soft in canola oil.  Add the spices, garlic and canned tomato and saute another minute.  Then add the ground beef and cook through. 

Sasha's Kitchen: Beef Tacos with Charred Tomatillo Pepper Relish

Eric's Kitchen in Jersey City: Blackened catfish tacos

This is another 'healthier' dish that I really like. You can make it with almost any mild white fish but we chose catfish this time since it looked fresh at the store and it wasn't too expensive. The first time I had fish tacos was out in L.A. and I've loved them ever since. The first ones I had had breaded and crispy fish, shredded cabbage and a tangy, creamy sauce. I decided to try and replicate this sauce by making a tomato, cucumber slaw with lime juice, fresh cilantro and mayo. I was pretty happy with the results. I have no idea how close I actually was to what I originally tasted out west.

Ingredients: (Should serve about 4)
1 lb. fresh fish
half a cucumber, diced
1 small tomato, diced
1 tbsp chopped cilantro
2 small limes
2 tbsp light mayo
whole wheat flour tortillas
Guacamole
Some shredded red cabbage

I usually bread my fish fillets in breadcrumbs and chef prudhomme's blackened redfish magic and saute them until they are crispy but this time I decided to avoid the breadcrumbs, flour and egg whites and just use the redfish magic spices and saute it in sesame oil and lime juice. I find that sesame oil is perfect for cooking fish in terms of the flavor it imparts and it takes high heat very well for blackening.

For the sauce I simply mix up the tomato, cucumber a lime's worth of lime juice and some light mayo and black pepper. In the end you have a filling and satisfying meal that really isn't too bad for you. You could probably even cut out the mayo to make it healthier but I think it gives the sauce a nice consistency.

Eric's Kitchen in Jersey City: Blackened catfish tacos

Sasha's Kitchen: Ancho Chile Braised Lamb With Blue Corn Tortillas

One of the things I love most about living in America is the richness of its melting pot of cultural traditions, and its inherent diversity.  When each of our families came to America, we all brought our own cultural traditions, and those traditions gradually mixed into a constantly evolving American identity - and an ever changing American cuisine.  This reshaping of the American culinary identities, based on the cultural traditions of people from all parts of the United States (as well places outside of the United States, as the world becomes more global) is one of the reasons that I started this food website with different writers from places all over the United States and Canada.  Tonight, I noticed similar themes expressed in the epic Iron Chef America Battle tonight between Bobby Flay and Mario Batali that I watched while preparing this.  (We can save my obsession with the White House Kitchen Garden used in those recipes for another day).  I love cooking using all of these different traditions combined with traditional cuisine and not only my own heritage (Ashkanazi Jewish, Eastern European and Swiss).

Tonight's recipe uses one of the new featured indedients for the month of January on Akitcheninbrooklyn.com, lamb, prepared in a traditional way, by braising a boneless leg of lamb, mixed with flavors of the American Southwest.  If you are interested in other ways to prepare lamb, you can find my New Years Eve recipe for rack of lamb with fresh herbs here.  Inspired by Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook, I prepared a similar southwestner-inspired lamb, rubbed with ancho chile powder (which I must emphasize, is not spicy at all).  Chef Flay's recipe (which differs significantly from mine, but certainly inspired me) is on page 172 of his cookbook.  Both my recipe and his are attempts to combine a pretty traditional dish - leg of lamb - with flavors of the southwest, in a way that makes sense from a culinary-taste perspective.

Here are the ingredients that you will need for this recipe:

1 three pound boneless leg of lamb, trimmed of fat (I bought mine from my favorite butcher and Italian Market here in Park Slope, M&S Prime Meats)
3 T canola oil
two big handfulls of baby carrots
lots of ancho chile powder - at least 4-5 T (note: this is not spicy at all)
3 stalks of celery, cut up
1 large onion, diced
4 1/2 cups low sodium Chicken Stock
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 cup creme fraiche (or lowfat sour cream if you prefer)
Fried blue corn tortillas
Parsley for garnishing
Scallions for garnishing

First, like Bobby Flay in his recipe, I rubbed the leg of lamb on all sides with the ancho chile powder.  I used the powder sparingly to creat a full coat, so I cannot begin to quantify how much I used.  Ancho chile powder is not spicy - it is made from dried polambo peppers and has a raisin like taste.

Next, I heated the canola oil in my dutch oven on medium high heat, and seared the lamb on all sides, which took about 10 minutes.  Then I added the carrots, celery and onions to the pot and mixed for a minute or two.  Next, I added the braising solution - in this case the chicken stock, and seasoned sparingly with the thyme, bay leaf and rosemary.  I then put the entire pot in the oven at 350 F and cooked for about an hour and a half, until it was fork tender. 

Next, I removed the lamb and the vegetables and prepared the sauce.  (Actually, my husband Brad did this part, while I worked on the spiced-pumpkin creme brulee that I will be writing about in the next couple of days).  To prepare the sauce, we strained the liquid from the braising solution into a saucepan and boiled until reduced to a sauce for about 20 minutes.

As you can see from the picture, I served the dish in a blue corn tortilla, with scallions, parsley, creme fraiche and cojita cheese (which Bobby Flay described as a firm-textured Mexican cheese that is today generally made from cow's milk).  The carrots and celery are much to tasty to go to waste, and make a nice side dish.

You can purchase blue corn tortillas and fry them to serve, or if you prefer, it also makes a tasty lamb dish on its own with the vegetable side.

Sasha's Kitchen: Ancho Chile Braised Lamb With Blue Corn Tortillas

Sasha's Kitchen: Raisin Chicken Tacos

I am actually not the biggest Mexican food fan in the world. I really don't eat enchiladas or burritos, and I detest baked beans. But I do enjoy a good taco. My mom has made the following chicken taco recipe for years, and is a very simple, easy to make recipe. It is probably not the most traditionally Mexican recipe in the world, but it is a dish that my husband and I both enjoy. This is not a spicy dish in the slightest - it is actually a tad sweet because of the presence of the raisins. I have made a few modifications to my mom's original recipe (mainly in that I do not put in black olives), and that I serve the tacos in blue corn tortillas because I have a fascination with blue and purple food. In fact, I have read that there is such a thing as purple (and also green and orange) cauliflower, so one of my goals going forward is to find these cauliflower for sale somewhere in the New York area and hopefully either myself or one of the local guest writers will snap some photos of the purple vegetables.

To make the tacos:

1 package of chicken (use either Empire or Bell & Evans)
1 can mild enchilada sauce (I prefer the red variety, although I made with the green variety tonight)
1 small can mild green chiles (please note that there are not spicy)
1/4 cup raisins

You can boil the chicken and once it cools shred into small pieces. Mix with the other ingredients and cook about 10 minutes.

To prepare the shells you should purchase blue corn tortillas (or regular corn tortillas) and fry the shells in oil to make them into tacos.

Another note on some upcoming features I have in the works: I am working on two chef profiles - one of a 31 year old chef who owns a Michelin starred vegetarian restaurant in Napa and another of a chef here in New York with interesting ethnic influences, who has a new cookbook out.

In addition, please stay tuned for some upcoming roundtable features on this blog, including a series of posts on risotto, (more) dishes made using carrots and a Virtual Valentines Day Dinner hosted right here on akitcheninbrooklyn.com.

Sasha's Kitchen: Raisin Chicken Tacos