Un Chivo Delicioso: Goat Chilaquiles–kind of

I should have taken pictures, but my camera was out of battery, and really, there was no good angle. My goat chilaquile casserole, as I’ve decided to call it, looked like any baked cheese lasagna type thing from first glance. I could have taken a picture after I sliced it, but it looked as good as it tasted–like a goopy messy, drippy delicious pile of everything wonderful. Unfortunately, these things don’t translate well to photography. They look good to anyone in the vicinity, but I wouldn’t enter it in an art contest. There was melty baked cheese everywhere, thick homemade tortillas bathing in rich goat and roasted pepper stew and just thicker than runny egg yolks shining sunnily from the whole mess.

Chilaquiles are a traditional mexican brunch dish involving left over tortillas deep fried and layere with beans and cheese and sometimes eggs. I love chilaquiles, but am trying to be a little bit healthier, so I decided to do this a bit more like a casserole, and as a dinner dish.

I made the entire thing in a 9×6 lasagna pan, which was the perfect size. I put down a layer of homemade tortillas, one of goat stew, then cheese (queso fresco, of course). On top of this I cracked 2 eggs. Then layered more tortillas, more cheese, more goat. Then more tortillas and cheese on the top. Baked this for twenty minutes at 450 degrees. When it came out of the oven, I sprinkled it with a layer of cilantro.

A few things: Most any part of this could have been bought, I chose to make it all except the queso fresco myself, but that is because I like making tortillas and goat stew. The only thing I would say to not substitute is the queso fresco. It is simply the only cheese that fits here and is the most authentic (and delicious, but that is personal opinion).

Handmade tortillas: I used two cups of Maseca (corn flour) and one and a half of water, and a liberal sprinkling of salt. Mash this all together with your hands until it is one giant ball. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and grab out about a one inch ball of dough. Many recipes will tell you to roll it out between two sheets of plastic (which has never worked out for me) or to use a tortilla press (and I don’t got one of those). I use the authentic method, and reccomend you do too, because for this, it was great to have the slightly thicker, smaller sized tortillas. Smash your ball of dough flat between both hands. Then, using a slapping motion, smack your palms together, but with your fingers from one hand making a right angle to the other hand (if this confuses you, put down the dough, put your hands together like a prayer position, then, keeping the palms touching, rotate one hand 90 degrees towards you, this is how it should be when you slap them). Slap the dough back and forth between your hands until it gets bigger than your plams (at this point, if you keep going you will get dough everywhere). layer the tortillas on a plate, keep them from sticking using plastic wrap. To cook the tortillas, simply heat a skillet, dry, and leave them on each side until they just begin to brown.

 Goat stew: I made my stew with roasted peppers, since I don’t like tomatos. I used a 12oz jar of fire roasted red and yellow peppers (thank you trader joes). I blended these with a small can of diced jalapenos and half a cup of chicken stock. I poured this into the lasagna pan that I later cooked the whole thing in, then added about a pound of goat meat. I left this in a 325 degree oven for 2.5 hours. I took it out, fished all the goat out and let it cool. I took out all the bones from the goat and chopped it all up real small, then added it back to the stew, which I put over a low flame while I made the tortillas. At the last minute, I added half a sauteed white onion, one chopped fresh jalapeno and a bunch of chopped scallions.

Seahawks and Salsa: El Tajin on Broadway: (11/13/07)

All I asked for was decent food and a TV to watch the Seahawks play some Monday Night Football. By decent food I meant anything besides pub grub. Usually my go to method here is the ID, but after 45 minutes of driving around looking for parking (No diehard seattlite would pay for parking), I hightailed it to Broadway, where I found myself in the bar half of the brand new El Tajin Mexican restaurant.

I won’t declare Mexican food saved in Seattle, but let me tell you, this place is getting it on that track. This is not La Carta de Oaxaca high falutin’ small plates, this is some truck stop Mexican food, and I was impressed. The TV played the Seahawks game and the water never let my bottles of Sol get low, nor the BF’s draft Dos Equis. I was dissapointed they were out of the Chicharrones (mmmm…fried pork skin!), but I was happy to settle for the chilequiles. The menu covered every region of Mexico, with mole (Oaxaca), Huaraches (Vera Cruz), Tortas (DF), and Pepian (Southern, I’ve mostly had it in Guatemala). They had a lot of standard Mexmerican food, but they also had about all the traditional Mexican options one could want. And the balls to put fried pork skin on the menu.

Both my and my BF’s meals were reasonably good and big enough to feed a small army (I reccomend splitting one dish). I wouldn’t reccomend our individual meals, neccisarily (he had the combinacion tres valedores), but I do reccomend the restaurant as a whole. Why? The chips were clearly made in house, I know they used local tomatoes in the salsa because while the salsa tasted great, it also felt a bit like late fall tomatos. The food tasted like Mexico, even if it was portioned like America.

And the number one reason I want to shout the name “El Tajin” to the hills? Instead of coming with sour cream, as most Mexican restaurant meals do here in Seattle, they were served with true Mexican Queso Crema. Sigh….

La Consupo: Barbacoa y Mas

The lack of “good” Mexican food in Seattle has long been lamented, but today I present to you evidence slightly in the contrary. My most vivid memory of food from my stay in Mexico was not the homemage guacamole by the Senora of the house (though that was mouth wateringly smooth and delicious), nor was it sneaking pieces of the freshly made cheese or perfectly spiced ‘al pastor’ meat in to my mouth while working the line at Abuelita’s Pizzeria. No, it is of a Sunday morning, when we all piled in to the car and took a drive in to the mountains for a brunch of barbacoa.

La Consupo, on Greenwood, just north of 85th, doesn’t have any grannies out front hand pressing tortillas on a giant griddle while grinning at you with no teeth, instead it has a store, filled with typical Mexican goodies. In the back, though, it is like entering the world I remember. Seated at our table we were clearly the only non-Mexicans in the place, and my poor blue eyed blonde haired boyfriend the only one who did not speak fluent Spanish. A waiter came and took our order: one pound of barbacoa, please. It’s alot of meat, but I had other plans for that later. We also ordered a consume each. The consume is huge. A meal in itself, if you so chose. It was somewhat greasier than I would have preffered, made with the non-edible pieces of the lamb used as the meat for the barbacoa. Digging deep, I came up with tasty grease cutting pieces of hominy, soaking in the flavors of the fiery red soup. If ever a hangover cure existed, this is it, grease and all.

B at this point got up and served himself a Mexican Coke from the fridge nearby which held a variety of Mexican refrescos, or soft drinks. If you have never had Mexican Coke, and which to try it, I encourage you to do so, so long as you don’t have diabetes. The sugar flavor is far more overwhelming than American Coke, yet in that strange way that sour candy is good, the extra sugar kind of makes you smile.

Soon our barbacoa landed, just as I remembered it, a pile of meat chopped up and served on a piece of paper. Also came a dish with a few limes, a bit of chopped white onion, some cilantro and hot tortillas. Ripping of a piece of tortilla, I used it to grab the meat, tearing it from the pile, sprinkling condiments and shoveling it whole into my mouth. Yes, this is the flavor I remember. Transported to the crowded dining room north of Queretaro, I smiled. The meat is tender, it pulls away easily with your tortilla, as it should, and provides all the flavor needed, with some extra crunch from the onions.

Packing up our extra meat, I immediatley began planning future meals with it: On monday, I added it to wild mushroom filling for my tamales and on tuesday I sauteed the meat and added a few tortellini at the end for a new texture, similar to Mark Bittman’s recent NY Times article on adding pasta as the lesser player in a vegetable dish.

Barbacoa was truly the meal that kept getting better and better. But one note, like in Mexico, I believe they only serve this one on sunday mornings–and after church treat.

Mr. Villa’s

On Lake City way, just a few blocks from my house is Mr. Villas. It is shabby from the outside, but by the time I woke the BF up at 1pm on saturday, I just wanted food, and Mexican sounded great. It was a little crowded, so service was slow until a second waitress showed up. However, they kept us well supplied with their delicious house made tortilla chips and salsas. In fact, by the time my food came, I didn’t even want it that much. Which may have been a good thing. My fajita meat (Fajitas de res) was like rubber, the sauce unflavorful. The sopes were good, but nothing exceptional. I would go back, but is it bad if I just want to eat the chips and salsa?

La Carta de Oaxaca

Oooh, I waited along time to try this place. After repeated attempts to eat here botched by the rumbling of my tummy after hearing that it was a one hour wait, I dragged my parents out here for my Dad’s birthday on a monday night. It was still a ten minute wait, but at least this time I could enjoy a margarita at the bar while I waited.
All the plates are fairly small, so we ordered about half the menu and dug in. Started with chips and guacamole. The chips were great, but the guac was not as good as I hoped. It was creamier than I am used to, no big chunks of deliciousness. The salsas from the salsa bar were fairly good though, especially the pico de gallo-esque fresh veggie one. Next up was the Albondigas, a beef meatball soup. It was very authentic–just like what I have had in Mexico. But then I remembered that every time I order I wonder why I didn’t just order an extra taco al pastor! We had the tostadas con camarones. They were alright, but the smallness of the shrimp pieces (all chopped up) meant a little less shrimp flavor coming through everything else. The two kinds of tacos–al pastor (a personal fave of mine) and halibut were both quite good. I would say that I would prefer them more in the style I am used to–less sauce, more allowing of the lamb and fish flavor–than with the creamy sauce. Last but not least, the Mole negro oaxaqueno. Unreal. Now I understood why everyone raves about the place. Everything else was good, this was unbelievable. I get it. If I went back, I might skip straight from the chips to a few orders of Mole Negro.
and the price? Well, my dad’s comment was “This is pretty much as good and as cheap as the food we had in Mazatlan”
Now, I’m not going to make fun of him for Mazatlan being his source for Mexicanity, but it makes my point. Good, cheap mexican food in Ballard. Not an easy find in these parts!