fresh fruit dessert salsas, imitation stuff

…………………..and a sleazy trick or two

This newsletter was inspired by the woman in Los Angeles who just sued Kraft Foods when she discovered that there is little or no avocado in Kraft Guacamole.  Hmm, isn’t that a little like chocolate chip cookies with no chocolate chips?  Anyway it turns out that Kraft ‘Guacamole’ is made from partially hydrogenated coconut and soy oil, modified food starch (whatever the hell that is) and yellow and blue dyes.  It’s evidently just a misunderstanding because Kraft spokesman Robert Lauriston said – with a straight face – “we think customers understand that it isn't made from avocado."  Yeah, right!  I wonder if that’s the same Robert Lauriston who was spokesman for Enron and Haliburton.   For whatever its worth some Mexicans have been making fake Guacamole for many years and it’s a lot better than the Kraft stuff.

 When I’m traveling in Mexico I gravitate away from touristy places and toward neighborhood ‘mom and pop’ places.  The food is usually better and you find lots of unusual regional dishes, best of all its almost free.  A decent breakfast of Huevos Rancheros, beans, salsa, coffee and tortillas cost a buck or so.  You can still find a mid-day ‘Comida Corrida’ – soup, beans, rice, a main dish, tortilla chips, salsas and a beverage for a couple of bucks.  The places are usually on the funky side, with Formica dinette sets, plastic chairs – far from fancy.  One thing they have in common is that someone in the kitchen is a good cook.  Unlike the franchise crazy USA they don’t open restaurants with a business plan and dreams of fame and fortune – they open restaurants because someone in the family is a real good cook. Since most of these places get few, if any tourists, they are happy to see you and will knock themselves out to please.  Another thing I noticed was that many of them served generous amounts of free guacamole.  Avocados are expensive and I wondered how they can give it away with a dollar breakfast. I was finally let in on the ‘secret’ by a friend whose parents owned such a place in La Paz.  Here’s how they do it:

Sleazy ‘authentic’ Genuine Mexican Fake Guacamole

Nothing complicated here – it’s just instant mashed potatoes with green food coloring (available at most super markets) stirred in till it’s the right color.  Add a whole bunch of salsa Mexicana (chopped onion, tomato, and jalapenos) some lime or lemon juice and some chopped cilantro.   I think it’s interesting that more than 5 % of all avocados consumed in the USA are eaten on Super Bowl Sunday.  Hell, if instant mashed potatoes can fool Mexicans in Mexico – you know a bunch of drunks watching the super bowl will never know.   This is a little too tacky for me to do, but let your conscience be your guide.  If you do serve it please don’t tell anyone you got the idea from me.  Another tip – if you chop one not too ripe avocado and mix it in so there are lumps of real avocado in the potatoes – no one will ever know.  Hey, I have another idea.  It’s green and it’s made from potatoes, so let’s call it ‘Irish’ Guacamole and serve it on St. Patrick’s Day.  We can claim it was originally an Irish dish called ’Macushla’ and the Mexicans stole the idea from the Irish, but potatoes didn’t grow well in the steamy climate. So one day some anonymous Mexican had an idea “hey lets’ try it with avocados” and that’s how guacamole was invented.

As long as I’m talking about fake stuff –here’s one that is actually good enough to be serve at a fancy dinner and has, from time to time, appeared on my menu.

imitation chocolate mousse

I have always loved good chocolate mousse and decided I wanted some on my menu.

I got out my cook books to find a good recipe and found that I’d need egg yolks, egg whites, cream of tartar, coffee, butter. Chopped Belgium Chocolate, sour cream, whipping cream, a candy thermometer and a bain marie (double boiler)   I had almost given up before I started when I remembered the chocolate whipped cream they served at Fenton’s Ice Cream Parlor in Oakland.  Here’s what I did.  I just whipped some heavy cream with a lot of sugar, a few drops of vanilla – as it thickened I added lots of canned Hershey’s Hot fudge topping until it was the color I wanted.  I whipped it until it was as stiff as it would get and tasted it.  Bingo – ‘imitation chocolate mousse’.  I had some doubts about putting something so simple on my menu so I invited some folks over to test it.  These were people knowledgeable about things culinary and they all raved.  They said it was the lightest fluffiest mousse they’d ever had and wanted to know my secret.  Anyway, it went on my dinner menu that weekend and was a huge hit.  I have since fooled around with the recipe and Fenton’s chocolate whipped cream has been sold as Chocolate Espresso Mousse (just toss in a couple spoons of instant espresso),

 Kahlua Chocolate Mousse (add some Kahlua), Bailey’s Irish Chocolate Mousse (add Bailey’s Irish cream) - you get the idea.  Amaretto or Cognac are nice additions as well.  To warrant the outrageous price I serve it in a wine goblet with a dollop of regular sweet white whipped cream on top -- some raspberry sauce and grated dark chocolate finish the presentation. I don’t pack it sown in the glass – it’s loose, so the sauce makes a real elegant pattern on the glass when it fills in the gaps.  Which brings us to:

homemade raspberry sauce

We all know that chocolate and raspberries are wonderful together but I thought that making a real gourmet fruit topping would be a complicated and time consuming endeavor.  Boy was I wrong.  The hardest thing about making a great raspberry sauce is finding the berries.  I haven’t even seen a fresh raspberry in fifteen years, but frozen are occasionally available down here and work well.

This is probably the simplest recipe I will ever give you.  Just put some berries (strawberries, blueberries, boysenberries and most other fruits work just as well – especially mangoes) in a pan over very low heat.  The berries can stain so use a stainless or Teflon pan.  I usually toss in a blob of butter but I’m not really sure it adds anything.  Add some lime or lemon juice then start adding sugar until it’s the sweetness you like.  Remember that this is for dessert, so very sweet is what we want.  Your only job now is to watch it to keep it from burning and give it an occasional stir.  As it simmers, the berries will start melting and turning into a sauce. You will have to add some liquid – water will do but I add orange juice. Don’t worry if it’s too thin; just keep cooking slowly until it reduces until it’s the thickness you like.  If it’s too thick just add more liquid.  That’s it!!  If you’d like a smoother, shinier, more elegant sauce just force it through a kitchen strainer to get rid of any seeds or lumps.  If it’s still too thick it’s not too late to add some more liquid.  I serve this sauce – made with strawberries with the flan at my restaurant.  If you really want to impress someone with your culinary skills add a shot of Jack Daniels to the berries, cook it up and call it something like ‘Authentic Tennessee Mountain Grown Raspberry Whiskey Sauce’.  It’s even better if you add Gran Marnier or some other orange liqueur instead of the juice.

Okay, that takes care of the fake guacamole and fake mousse.   Hmmm how about some fake veal??  When I was a kid one of my favorite meals was my mom’s breaded veal cutlets.  We would squeeze some lemon on them and eat them just as fast as she could make them.  I guess veal was cheaper then because if I wanted to cook up a mess of veal for a bunch of people today I’d have to get a second mortgage or sell one of my kids or something.  Besides I’d have all that guilt about baby cows being kept in the dark. Somewhere along the line I somehow figured out how to make imitation veal that could fool experts and now I’m going to tell you how

imitation veal piccata and…………………

Imitation breaded veal cutlets

I actually made this dish and served it to some professional chefs here in Mexico.  They

all wanted to know where the hell I found that great veal.  Tee-hee.  I use a boneless ‘lomo de puerco’ (loin of pork).  I like a smaller cutlet so I pick a loin that is pretty small in diameter.  I trim the lomo of any gristly nastiness and slice it into rounds about a quarter inch thick.  If you’ve got a nice butcher you could probably get him to slice it into some nice thin medallions for you.  It’s been so long since I shopped in the states they probably now have packages of medallions of pork loin all ready to go.  Once you have the relatively thin medallions you have to make them even thinner.  You’ll have to pound them with a meat mallet – if you have one.  If you don’t have a mallet you can beat your meat with the dull side of a large knife or the edge of a thick plate or a rock or something.  We want these puppies really, really thin.  Almost thin enough to read the paper through.  Once you have them the proper thinness toss them in a bowl of milk to marinate.  Milk?  Weird? Maybe, but trust me, it’s gonna be good.  Marinate them in the fridge for at least an hour – longer is better.  Move the imitation veal around in the milk ever once in a while to make sure they all get soaked.   When you’re ready to cook take the meat out of our secret marinade and let them drain, then use a paper towel to pat off any excess liquid.

Here are the other ingredients you should have ready when you start to cook.

Flour………………………..a pile of white flour on a plate

Oil………………………….. one of the few times I will recommend olive oil (hey, it’s traditional), but any neutral tasting oil will do.

Butter……………………… if I put butter in my fruit sauce you know I’m gonna use it in this one.  Actually the butter is important for the sauce we’re gonna make.

Chopped garlic………….. this is optional – most piccata recipes skip it but I like my garlic.  Just a couple of cloves.

Chopped parsley…………just a spoonful or two

Capers ……………………..a couple of tablespoons or so.  I‘m partial to the smaller

capers

white wine………………… any dry white table wine will do - about a half to three quarters of a glass.  

cooking it up

Take each of the very thin cutlets that you patted dry and flour them.  Just a very light dusting of flour on both sides – we do not want a thick crusty coating.  When you have all of them floured and put aside, fire up your pan.  If you’ve been reading these stupid newsletters you know I like my big old heavy cast iron pan, but any frying pan will work – the thicker the better though.  Add some oil – we’re not deep-frying these guys but we want a generous amount of oil.  Add some butter and get the oil/butter mix very hot – almost but not quite smoking.  Start adding the floured meat.  The pan should be hot enough that they start sizzling immediately.  Now pay attention because you definitely do not want to overcook them – not even a little bit.  As soon as the cutlets start showing signs of being cooked on the edges – turn them over.  This will be quick maybe the first one will be ready to turn before you get the last one in the pan, probably less than a minute if you pounded them thin enough.  Once you turn them they are done enough in a matter of seconds – not minutes.  As each cutlet is done set them on another plate and keep cooking till they are all done.  You may have to add more oil and butter as you go, if you’re cooking a whole lot of them.  When all the cutlets are done, turn the heat down to medium-high and dump in the wine.  If there is no butter/oil left in the pan add some.  If you’re using the optional garlic now is the time to add it. As the wine/butter mix it bubbles up scrape up the brown bits, if any.  After the wine has bubbled for 30 seconds or so toss in the chopped parsley and capers and turn off the heat.  We just want to heat the parsley and capers not cook them because the parsley will lose its bright color and some of the flavor.  The reason I took this wonderful dish off my menu is my cooks invariably over cooked it.  It was still good but it tasted like pork not like veal –and Heck, if I want something that tastes like pork chops I’ll use pork chops.  Even if you do overcook it - it will be wonderful – just call it ‘Medallions of Pork Loin ala Picccata’. Okay, as long as we’re imitating stuff here’s how to make

Imitation breaded veal cutlets

Prepare the meat exactly like above – you won’t need the capers, garlic or parsley but you will need some beaten egg and some bread crumbs.  We just want a lightly breaded cutlet we don’t want a thick eggy, doughy batter, so mix the beaten egg with at least an equal amount of water.  Dip the cutlets into the thinned egg mix – let it drain a little then into the bread crumbs.  As each cutlet is breaded set it on another plate till they’re all done.  Do not stack them on top of one another- leave a little space between them.  Then into the hot butter/oil just like above.  As soon as they start to show browning on the edges turn them over- the first one will probably be done before you finish turning them.  As they finish cooking stack them on a platter – once they’re cooked you can stack them on top of one another.   When they’re all done I sprinkle a little chopped parsley over them and serve them with lemon or lime wedges.  If you’ve over cooked them and they taste like pork just call them ‘Breaded Medallions of Pork Loin’

Continuing in the same vein – the last time I was in the United States just about the only thing more expensive than milk fed veal was Abalone.  Somewhere along the way I discovered how to make great abalone using Squid (calamari) – at the time one of the cheapest of all sea foods.  A big thick slab of calamari is probably too hard to deal with so you have to find a fish guy or butcher who will cut you some very thin (about a quarter inch) calamari steaks.  Then you have to really pound the heck out of them – even more than the veal.  We were just pounding the imitation veal to make it thin but we’re pounding the squid (imitation abalone) to make it thin and to tenderize it.  If you want tender squid you have to either pound it and barely cook it or cook it for hours in liquid.  Anything in between is rubbery, chewy and as tough as a saddle.  Once you have pounded it enough it should have doubled or so in size. Cut the imitation abalone into a size that pleases you then give it the same treatment you gave the fake veal -light flour – light egg and light bread crumbs – then cook it the same way……….. very hot and quick.  As soon as it starts showing color around the edges turn it and do the other side quickly – do not over cook.  When it’s a nice light golden color it’s probably perfect.  Take it out of the pan and turn down the heat.  Add some more butter,  some finely chopped garlic and some sliced almonds as soon as the almonds are a nice toasty color – turn down or off the heat and add some lemon juice or white wine and some chopped parsley or green onion, and pour over the ‘abalone’.  I serve this with lemon wedges.  I also really like this ‘Imitation Abalone Amandine” with a good tartar sauce. Maybe you would too, so here’s a trick to making a tartar sauce that’s way better than your mom’s.

In whatever tartar sauce recipe you use - if it calls for chopped pickles or pickle relish – use chopped capers or chopped green olives instead.  It doesn’t matter if it calls for mayonnaise, sour cream or even yogurt if you add some smashed up hard boiled egg it will be greatly improved.  Oh, shit, I might get kicked out of the chef’s union.  The hard boiled egg and capers is a secret.

Please let me know how it turns out, and I’m very open to suggestions for future newsletters.  Also I can’t find any vitamin C in large doses (500 mg-1000mg) down here  so if you’re headed my way  bring me some – also a couple of large bottles of strong

B-complex would be nice.

Spencer.