Food, Drink and Tomfoolery

A sopapilla is a kind of fried pastry or quick bread, similar to Indian fry bread, common to New Mexican cuisine. If you’ve never had one, they’re frickin’ delicious. Anyhow, without further ado, here’s my recipe, recently perfected after several years of experimentation:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablesoon butter
• 1/4 teaspoon dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• pinch of salt
• approx. 1/2 – 3/4 cup warm water

This recipe may be increased very easily, just increase proportions linearly. These measurements will make about 6 sopapillas. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and butter in a bowl, mixing thoroughly. Add a little tap-hot water to the yeast, allowing yeast to dissolve. Combine yeast with flour mixture, adding water and mixing until mixture becomes doughy. The dough should be quite soft, but not sticky. Allow dough to rise for about 30 minutes. Roll out on a floured surface, approximately 1/8th inch thick. Cut into triangles. Prepare a pan of hot oil to fry dough in. When oil is ready, place triangles of cut dough in the pan and splash hot oil on the exposed side of the dough continuously. They should bubble and expand. Oil should be hot enough to cook each sopapilla in about 45 seconds, browned all over.

Serve with honey. Enjoy!

There are essentially two conditions under which I make Rocket Fuel.

1. I need a breakfast that I can take down quickly and not be remotely hungry until like 1 PM.
2. I’m going on a hard bike ride and I haven’t had time to load up on pasta the night before.

I call it “Rocket Fuel” because I hate the term “smoothie,” but in the vernacular of the unwashed masses, that’s what it is. It’s highly variable and is based on what I have on hand, but the basics pretty set.

• 1/2 block of tofu (usually silken, but any kind works)
• 2 generous teaspoons of honey (have substituted brown sugar, but prefer not to)
• 1-2 bananas, ideally frozen ahead of time
• 1/2 cup-ish yogurt, whatever you have on hand
• 1/2 cup-ish frozen berries, whatever kind you like
• a splash of milk or orange juice to thin

I add ingredients and blend thoroughly after each one; depending on how thick you like your fuel you can add milk or orange juice at the end to thin it out; ice cubes would also work—I’m a fan of OJ, though, it gives the whole unholy concoction a nice tang.

You’ll typically wind up with somewhere between one large or two medium sized servings of the stuff, which can be refrigerated for about a day, but not much longer than that.

I’m no nutritionist, but I can tell you this: I took down a tall glass of Fuel yesterday afternoon when I realized I hadn’t had lunch and had to be at an alleycat race in 45 minutes—several hours and 25 fairly hard miles later, I got home with plenty of energy to spare, and didn’t eat dinner until 10.

By waiting so long to bake dough I made a couple of days ago, I believe I may have inadvertently created a sour pizza dough.

I am extremely interested to see how it tastes — updates to follow, assuming I don’t die of food poisoning.

[EDIT] I wouldn’t call it “sourdough,” but letting the dough (which was basic pizza dough straight out of Bittman, incidentally) rise for a couple of days, deflating it as necessary, definitely resulted in richer, more complex bread, with perhaps a hint of sourness. I topped my crust with a light drizzling of olive oil, some basil, and some freshly-grated Parmesan.

I need to eat more vegetables.

 Hello and welcome to Ventoozler, yet another collective cooking blog.  I thought I’d kick things off with a comfort food recipe that’s been a long-time favorite in my family, primarily because I’ve posted this elsewhere and it’s an easy cut-and-paste. Enjoy!

This is a very simple recipe that’s been passed down for countless generations in my native New Mexican family. It’s also the best food for flus and colds ever, due to the natural antibotic effects of garlic and the vitamin C in green chile, not to mention the sinus-clearing effect. Best eaten with a hot stack of home-made flour tortillas.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups green chile, chopped
• 5 good-sized potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1/2 lb pork steak, cubed
• 1/4 lb bacon, chopped
• 4-6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1/4-1/2 tsp Mexican oregano (add more if your chile is hotter, less if it’s mild)

Reserve 2 potatoes. Combine all remaining ingredients in a large pot, add about 2 quarts water. Boil on medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add water if it boils down too much. Boil for about 2 hours, at which point the potatoes should have more or less dissolved. If they’re not dissolving, you probably didn’t chop them small enough. Fry the remaining potatoes, then add to pot, continue to cook until they’re soft enough. Add salt to taste.

Note: the quality of green chile you can obtain is very important. The best chile in the world comes from Chimayo, New Mexico. Not Hatch. Just trust me on this one. Still, it’s quite good with whatever you can find.