¡Tortas!

Sometimes inspiration comes from several places, all hitting you within the space of a few short days. The Oak Cafe at school is doing a Mexican street food menu this week. I've been sort of craving tortas. I was curious about making a version of bolillos, the rolls used for this sandwich. Then, a Mexican friend tried some bread that I'd made and said it tasted like the bolillos she had as a child in Mexico.

My bread was sourdough, so I started thinking. Maybe bolillos, like most food in Mexico, taste different than our version. Maybe they've got more flavor, more complexity. So, why not use a light sourdough formula from a poolish and see what happens?

The other ingredients - carnitas and chile colorado - are simple enough to make if you have time.

For the carnitas, I cut some pork shoulder into 2" cubes, added a quartered lime, some salt and some garlic and braised it for about three hours. The fat slowly renders out as the water evaporates, so in the end the meat can fry a bit and brown in its own fat. You can also take the meat out, increase the heat to high and boil away the water. When you're down to the fat, reduce the heat and brown the meat. Done.

The chili colorado was a bit different. I thought I had a great stash of chilis, but only had cascabels, moritas and some hot New Mexico Hatch peppers I'd dried last summer. Chiles negros, anchos and guajillos are now on my shopping list, so I can get more chili flavor without the heat. I had all the other ingredients: brown stock, fresh garlic, a bit of ripe canned tomatoes, salt, black pepper, onion, celery, carrot, cumin and coriander seeds.

The chilis get seeded, then sautéed in a bit of vegetable oil after the spices, onions, carrots and celery. The trick is to heat them up without scorching them, to release their flavor. Then the chopped garlic, and finally the stock and tomato to cool things down. After that, a bit of simmering and into the blender for a quick purée. The sauce gets returned to the pan, and dosed with red wine vinegar according to how tart you like things. Finally, adjust the salt and everything is ready to go. One local restaurant goes fairly heavy on the vinegar, but it's safer to add in increments while tasting to find the level you prefer.

When everything's ready, cut a bolillo in half, toast it lightly, add a layer of salsa, some carnitas, some more salsa or cilantro and sliced avocado. I never get enough avocado in restaurants, so this transforms the torta into a real luxury.

You can serve tortas open faced, covered or wet. If you like them wet, completely drowned in salsa, make the salsa more liquid, almost soupy, by adding more stock.

Banh Mi!

It was a long, hungry drive from Sacramento to L.A. Although it's great getting here early, it also means no In-N-Out stop for lunch, since they don't open until 10:30 am. Nobody would likely call glass of orange juice and a banana hearty fare for the road, healthy as it may be.

So, upon arrival I headed to Banh Mi My Tho in Alhambra for a very tasty grilled pork sandwich. In case you've never heard of them, banh mi are a Vietnamese-French hybrid sandwich: French baguette, Vietnamese grilled pork, fresh hot chili slices, cilantro, shredded carrots, green onions, cucumber, vinaigrette. They're a great deal - a sandwich maybe six inches long won't even cost you three bucks.

These guys make the sandwich to order while you wait in a crowded, tiny market-like space, surrounded by Asian language newspapers, a large refrigerator full of all kinds of drinks, packaged foods, a display case full of egg rolls and some kind of meatballs, and other people waiting for their orders.

There's nowhere to eat inside, although there is a bench outside, more for waiting than eating, I'd guess. So, away we went, a sack full of sandwiches in hand.

After starving half a day, I grabbed my sandwich at the first red light and took a bite. The baguette crunched, yielding to softer dough, then the chewier meat and fluffy veggies. I took another bite, as the banh mi's mix of sweet-sour and savory flavors filled my mouth. Hunger began to abate. Another bite - this time with a big hit of fresh chili flavor, then feel the burn. Then cilantro... A very interesting sandwich and a great way rescue myself from the clutches of road trip hunger.

In case you're in the area with some cash money (they don't do plastic) you can visit Banh Mi My Tho at 304 W Valley Blvd in Alhambra.

Shrimp Po'Boy (actually Lazy Boy)

Sometimes you just get an idea. There's no trace of where it came from, but it grabs you and won't let go until you try it out. This is not a simple sandwich, with several steps that need coordination, so that just makes the process that much more mysterious.

It was a dark but not stormy night, after a long day. This however was not enough to stop me once possessed by the concept of tweaking a po'boy so that all the ingredients were either seasonal for winter or previously frozen. So, no tomatoes. I was out of lettuce, and did not have or want some of the other traditional ingredients. But then a real poor boy would not run out to buy ingredients that he couldn't grow or didn't already have, would he? Gas is expensive.

So, the sauce became a spicy Hollandaise variant using home made vinegar, three kinds of chilis and salt. The greens became garden fresh arugula. The shrimp was the real deal, frozen Louisiana Gulf shrimp. The relish was caramelized onions and garlic. The bread, rosemary levain - a bit chewy perhaps but with a flavor that would go great with the other ingredients.

After all was said and done, it was quite a tasty sandwich. The dishwashing was less tasty, since all this stuff could not easily be combined into one or two pans.

Winter Shrimp Po'Boy
Serves two hungry people as a meal or four as an appetizer (just cut bread into 3" long pieces)

Ingredients

• 2 pieces of Rosemary levain baguette, about 6" long, sliced lengthwise to about 1/2" of the other side, leaving a "hinge"
• 4-5 Gulf shrimp, 16/20 size, cleaned and de-veined, cut into two pieces
• About 2-3 Tbsp each Corn meal / cake flour mixture for dusting
• 2 eggs, about 1/2 cup milk mixture for dredging
• Aleppo chili powder to taste
• 3 large leaves of arugula
• 6 Tbsp onions, small dice or brunoise
• 1-2 cloves garlic, small dice or brunoise
• New Mexico chili powder to taste
• Pimenton agridulce to taste
• Oil for frying shrimp
• 2 egg yolks for sauce
• 4-5 Tbsp. butter, cut into 1/2" - 3/4" cubes
• 4 Tbsp. or so Red wine vinegar
• Oil for sauteing onions

Process

1. Defrost shrimp in refrigerator or cold water
2. Slice butter into cubes, leave out to soften
3. Pre heat oven to 250° F
4. Slice the bread
5. Clean and devein shrimp, cut into two pieces, drop into milk-egg mixture.
6. Tear arugula leaves into about 2" pieces
7. Chop onions and garlic
8. Mix corn meal, flour, three chilis
9. Mix vinegar with some salt, half the onion/garlic mixture, 3 chili powder to taste, reduce by about 1/2. If you over reduce, add water.
10. Mix milk and egg mixture
11. Heat oil for frying shrimp
12. Sauté remaining onion-garlic mixture in some oil until it has a nice golden brown color, set aside.
13. Heat water under double boiler
14. Dredge shrimp in flour/cornmeal mixture, fry until golden, place on dish in oven to reserve.
15. Strain chilis and onions out of vinegar, add to double boiler. Have butter cubes and a bit of cold water ready at hand so you can add them quickly as needed.
16. Whisk in egg yolks, and keep whisking as you add butter a little at a time. Watch this sauce very carefully - when it starts to thicken it will go fast. Keep adding butter to maintain a nice consistency. I usually don't end up adding all the butter. When the sauce is getting thick (or is just a tad thicker than you want, take it off the heat (off the double boiler, since the water is still hot), and add a bit of cold water to stop it from over cooking. Keep whisking a bit to keep things smooth. Add salt to taste if you wish.
17. Now, you're ready. Don't let the sauce sit since it will go downhill rather quickly. If you have to let it sit, add a bit of heavy cream instead of cold water at the end of cooking to stabilize it. Prepare two plates with a piece of bread each. Pour a bit of the sauce into the bread to moisten it a bit, add some of the onion/garlic relish, add some shrimp, tuck the arugula into the space between the bread and the spinach, and pour on the rest of the sauce. Enjoy! These things are supposed to be messy and drippy, so lean over your plate as you eat.

If you're reading this in summer, add vine ripe fresh tomatoes, maybe sauteed eggplant or peppers.

Torta de carnitas

 

French baguette à l'ancienne...

...meets Mexican carnitas. The world will never be the same.

Before I really get started, I'd like to say one thing. Carnitas has ONLY three ingredients. Pork, Salt, Water. The water doesn't really count since it evaporates during cooking, leaving really only two ingredients. Any more - even a little hint of pepper, citrus, garlic - is overkill. The other secret is to use very low heat to coax out all that porky goodness.

So, as everyone knows by now with torta madness sweeping the land, a torta is a Mexican sandwich. There are a lot of variations beyond the traditional bolillo bread.

This is my take on what is fast becoming as ubiquitous as tacos. Instead of a bolillo, I used a French baguette à l'ancienne. This is a complex, slow fermented wonder that transforms the lowly torta into something worthy of passing up a meal at the French Laundry. The meat: carnitas, slow braised then delicately fried in its own rendered fat. The salsa: cilantro, pineapple, serrano pepper, green onion. The pièce de resistance: fresh slices of avocado.

Just FYI, I've never seen a baguette à l'ancien outside of France - but they can indeed be made here with American flour, yeast and a good formula. And a fair amount of time.

¡Cemitas!

¡Que rico!

A trip to Los Angeles just wouldn't be the same without a cemita for lunch. Here in Sacramento, nobody seems to even know what a cemita is, let alone where to actually get one. Well, the answer to the second part of that question is simple: drive to L.A.

You can make your own cemitas, if you can find a source for papalo or Papaloquelite. Papalo is the herb that gives a cemita its unique taste, although the chipotle sauce has a bit to say about the flavor, too. It's like precolumbian cilantro, but from a totally different plant family.  I suppose you could substitute cilantro for papalo, but enough substitutions and you'll have a carnitas burger with chipotle sauce and not a real  cemita autentica.

Making a cemita should not be too difficult, if you already know how to make bread and chipotle salsa - just follow the sketch above. The buns are more of a French style lean dough than a fluffy, puffy bun style dough or or bolillo like they use for tortas. I would start by adding tomato paste to canned chipotle to reduce the burn factor, then experiment a bit by adding perhaps a bit of cumin, a bit of garlic, a bit of Mexican oregano. Quesillo is a type of string cheese. The meat is relatively simple, and all that's left is some hefty slices of avocado.

You can vary the meat, too. Although I like carnitas, you can also use milanesa (pounded, breaded chicken or veal). There are so many ingredients, you could probably even leave it out for an ovo-lacto version.

If you're not going to make your own, and you're in Los Angeles, my favorite place to get this things is at Cemitas Poblanas Elvirita, 3010 East First Street, across the street from the cemetery at Evergreen. You may not see the place at first; it's kind of nondescript. It's pretty Spartan inside, too. Some tables, a big menu on the wall, a counter, a cooler along the wall and someone to take your order, preferably in Spanish. You can get the chipotle sauce on the side to let people unaccustomed to this sauce ease in gradually. Better yet, if they don't like it that leaves more for you. Beware, though. Some people's intestines don't take kindly to this kind of shock. For seasoned chiliheads, it should not pose any problems. I like the carnitas because it's moist, but the chicken - breaded like milanesa - is a good choice, too.

Alas, there don't seem to be any cemitas served in Sacramento restaurants.