onion - Kate Degelau-Pierce

Posole Rojo with Chicken

Posole is a delicious Mexican soup that uses hominy. Trying to understand what hominy is took up a long discussion at dinner with my husband. What’s the difference between corn and maize? What’s hominy? (Corn and maize are the same thing, hominy is a type of field maize that’s been treated with an alkaline solution to make it more edible.)

Regardless, this is a yummy soup with chicken and hominy and veggies. We served it with tortilla chips, but I’ve heated up leftovers with rice and both are good.

1T oil
1 medium white onion, chopped, plus thin slices to serve
6 medium minced garlic cloves
3T ancho chili powder
2t ground cumin
14.5oz can fire-roasted tomatoes
2qt chicken broth
1.5lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
29oz can hominy, drained and rinsed
0.5c chopped cilantro
3T lime juice, plus wedges to serve
salt
tortilla chips
thinly sliced radishes to serve

In large dutch oven over medium-high heat, heat the oil until shimmering. Add chopped onions and cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, ancho powder, and cumin, then cook, stirring constantly until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring, until most of the liquid has evaporated, 3-5 minutes. Add the broth and bring to a simmer. Stir in hominy and chicken, then bring to a simmer. Reduce to medium, cover, and cook for 20 minutes.

Transfer the chicken to a plate. Cover the pot and reduce to low to keep hot. Dice chicken into bite sized pieces. Stir the chicken back into the pot and cook until heated through, 2-3 minutes. Off heat, stir in cilantro and lime juice. Taste and season with salt. Serve with onions, radishes, lime juice, and tortilla chips.

Recipe from Tuesday Nights by Milk Street.

Maque Choux

I love a big bowl of veggies and meat. It’s the best. Filling and good for you – provided there’s not too much meat, that is. Maque Choux is a traditionally creole dish that fit the bill for a filling weeknight meal. We served this with rice to add a grain.

1T veg oil
12oz andouille sausage, halved lengthwise and cut into 0.5″ pieces
2T butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 small red bell pepper, stemmed and seeded, finely chopped
1 Anaheim chili, stemmed and seeded, finely chopped
salt & pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
0.5t dried thyme
2c fresh corn kernels (or 1lb frozen)
1t cider vinegar
4 scallions, thinly sliced

Heat oil in a 12″ skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the sausage and cook, stirring, until well browned, about 3 minutes. Transfer to paper-towel lined plate and discard any fat in the skillet.

Set skillet over medium heat and melt the butter. Add the onion, bell pepper, chili, and 0.5t salt. Con, scraping up browned bits and stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened, 5-7 minutes. Stir in garlic & thyme and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Increase heat to medium-high and add corn, 0.75t salt and 0.25t pepper. Cook, stirring until corn is crisp-tender, 3-5 minutes.

Return sausage to skillet, stir and cook until heated through, about 1 minute. Stir in the vinegar, then taste and season with salt & pepper. Stir in the scallions.

From Tuesday Nights cookbook by Milk Street Magazine.

Carnitas

Carnitas has always been a bit mysterious to this white woman from the midwest. It’s delicious, yes, but could I tell you what’s in it? Nope. But! We found a recipe, and it turned out to be one of those recipes that was basically: put a bunch of ingredients in a pot and then walk away for a couple of hours. I can do that. Then we had some yummy tacos for dinner – plus leftovers.

3.5lb-4.b boneless pork butt, fat cap trimmed to 0.125″ thick, cut into 2″ chunks
2c water (we ended up using more)
1 small onion, peeled and halved
2T juice from one lime
1t ground cumin
1t dried oregano
2 bay leaves
salt & pepper
1 orange, halved

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 300F. Combine all ingredients (1t salt, 0.5t pepper) except the orange in a large dutch over (the liquid should just cover the meat). Juice the orange into a bowl and remove any seeds. Put the juice and the spent orange halves into a pot. Bring to a simmer on the stovetop, then cover and put into the oven until the meat is soft and falls apart when prodded with a fork, about two hours.

Remove the pot from the oven and turn the oven to broil. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the meat to a bowl; remove the orange halves, onion, and bay leaves from the cooking liquid and discard. Place the pot over high heat and simmer the liquid until thick and syrupy, 8-12 minutes. You should have about 1c of liquid.

Using two forks, pull each piece of pork in half. Fold in the reduced liquid, season with salt & pepper to taste. Spread the pork in an even layer on a wire rack set inside a baking sheet or broiler pan. Place the sheet on the lower-middle rack and broil until the top of the meat is well browned but not charred and the edges are slightly crisp, 5-8 minutes. Flip the meat over and continue to broil until the other side is the same, another 5-8 minutes.

Serve immediately with tortillas & garnishes. (Potential garnishes: corn tortillas, lime wedges, minced onion, fresh cilantro, sliced radishes, sour cream)

Chicken Cacciatore

This chicken cacciatore recipe is an old one from the October 2000 Cook’s Illustrated. It’s one of the first things I learned how to cook, and has become comfort food for me. Pair it with some good bread, and this is a hearty meal that makes me feel at home.

8 bone-in chicken thighs (about three pounds, the thighs I got this time were HUGE and four were about 2.5lbs, so I just went with that)
salt & pepper
1t olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
6oz portobello mushroom caps, cut into 0.75″ cubes
4 medium garlic cloves, minced
1.5T flour (Yes, I used flour. Feel free to sub in cornstarch)
1.5c dry red wine (not merlot, nothing oaked)
0.5c chicken stock
1-14.5oz can diced tomatoes, drained
2t minced fresh thyme
1 piece parmesan cheese rind
2t minced fresh sage

Season chicken with salt & pepper. Heat oil in dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add four thighs, skin-side down, and cook until skin in crisp & brown, about 5 minutes. Flip and brown on other side, another 5 minutes. Transfer to plate, and brown remaining thighs, transferring to plate when they’re done.

Drain off all but 1T fat from the pot. Add onion, mushrooms, and 0.5t salt. Sauté over medium-high heat until moisture evaporates and vegetables begin to brown, 6-8 minutes. Meanwhile, remove and discard skin from thighs. Add garlic to pot, and sauté until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in flour and cook, stirring constantly, about 1 minute. Add mine, scraping pot bottom to loosen brown bits. Stir in stock, tomatoes, thyme, cheese rind, and pepper to taste. Submerge chicken pieces in liquid and bring to boil; cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer until chicken is tender and cooked through, about 45 minutes, turning chicken pieces halfway through cooking.

Discard cheese rind, stir in sage, adjust seasonings with salt & pepper, and serve.

Tomatillo-beef stew

It’s tomatillo season at my local farmer’s market, so when the latest Milk Street magazine had a *super* easy tomatillo stew recipe, we jumped on it. You can eat it both as a stew, but also as fillings for tacos, as you see in the picture above. Both are good options.

2.5 lbs boneless beef chuck, trimmed & cut into 2″ chunks
1 yellow onion, diced
5 medium garlic cloves, smashed & peeled
2 jalapeños, 1 stemmed, seeded, roughly chopped, 1 stemmed & sliced into rounds
3 bay leaves
1t dried oregano
0.5t ground cumin
salt & pepper
1lb Yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1.5″ chunks
12oz tomatillos, husked, cored, and roughly chopped
pumpkin seeds, toasted, for serving
roughly chopped cilantro, for serving

Heat the oven to 325F. In a dutch oven. toss together beef, onion, garlic, chopped jalapeño, bay, oregano, cumin, 1.5t salt, and 1t pepper. Cover, transfer to oven and cook for two hours.
Remove pot from oven, stir in potatoes and tomatillos. Cover, return to oven and cook until potatoes are tender and a knife inserted into the beef meets no resistance, another 1-1.5 hours.
Remove and discard the bay, taste, and season with further salt & pepper. Serve sprinkled with pumpkin seeds, sliced jalapeño, and cilantro.

Homemade Tomato Salsa

You know what tastes like summertime? Fresh tomatoes from the farmers’ market. The best way I know to use some of them up is homemade salsa. It’s easy to make and we have been known to go through a batch a week.

Homemade tomato salsa

12 small-ish tomatoes (I like early girl, Roma will do in a pinch)
1 onion, quartered
1 jalapeño, remove seeds if you don’t like it spicy
2 cloves of garlic
juice from 0.5 lemon
1T-ish of Lawry’s Seasoning Salt
cilantro to taste

Core the tomatoes, put them, the onion, the jalapeño, and the garlic in your food processor. Run it until everything is as pureed as you like it. move to bowl. Add the lemon juice and seasoning salt. Mix. Chop about 2T of cilantro. Taste, adjusting seasoning to your liking. Once satisfied, let it sit in the fridge for at least an hour before serving. Salsa, like soup, tastes better when the flavors have a chance to blend.

Mmm…. guacamole

There’s really only one thing to do when you have a bunch of avocados that are about to be too squishy to use: make guacamole!

This is the Alton Brown guac recipe, and yes, it controversially uses tomatoes. I like extra veggies.

3 Haas Avocados (I had a bunch of small avocados from Trader Joe’s – I just used the 4 or 5 I had since they were on the teeny side)
1 lime, juiced
0.5t kosher salt
0.5t cumin
0.5t cayenne (yes, you can lower this amount if you find it too spicy)
0.5 onion, diced
0.5 jalapeño, diced (I remove the seeds – the cayenne gives it enough kick)
1 roma tomato (the recipe calls for 2, but that always seems like overkill to me)
1T chopped cilantro
1 clove garlic, minced

Scoop out the avocado pulp and put it in a large bowl with the lime juice, toss to coat. Add the spices, then use a fork (or your potato masher if you have one) to mash everything together. Fold in all the other ingredients. Let it sit for an hour, then serve.