Vegetarian Quesedilla and Guacamole

Despite the amount of pleasure I take in gnawing on flesh and bones, I also don’t mind vegetables. Here is my favourite current meat free recipe, and it’s quite alright. I’ve included a recipe for home made flour tortillas as well, because they really make the dish. They’re more flavourful, easy and cheap. Some people might even say they were ‘gnarly’ or ‘wicked’. I’m trying to be humble lately though, so I just say they’re ‘quite nice’. I don’t mean it though. I think they’re bodacious!

For the tortillas you’ll need…

2 cups of plain flour, sieved

half a cup of milk

2 tsp of oil, perhaps sunflower

1 and one half tsp of baking powder

salt

To make, you need to add everything in a bowl and mix by hand. If it’s a litle too sticky, then add a sprinkle/s of flour until it is. Knead it for a fair few minutes, until you have a smooth dough. Cover and set aside for twenty minutes or so. I would make the guacamole now.

So for the guacamole…

1 avocado

half a lime

sprinkle of dried chilli flakes

bit of seasoning

palmful of coriander, chopped

Split, seed and scoop the flesh out. Mash it up with a fork, add the rest of the ingredients. That should have taken two minutes at most, so you could start the filling if you want.

So for the filling you’ll need…

half a tin of beans - preferably black beans, but kidneys, black eyed or something like that will be fine. also, drained.

half a cup of chicken stock

half a tin of tomatoes

garlic, chopped

half a red onion

a lovely red pepper, roasted and peeled

a nice hard cheese. i used cheddar.

Saute the onion in a little olive oil until soft, add garlic and then the beans. Add the stock and tomato, stir a little and add the pepper. Simmer lightly for 10 to fifteen minutes, or until the beans are soft and the sauce has thickened and reduced. While it’s thickening, get on with the final stage of the tortillas.

Take out the dough, flour a chopping board and roll out dough balls about half a fist big. If you don’t have a rolling pin then just use something cylindrical, like a booze bottle or somesuch. Roll them out as thin and round as you can and cook them in a dry frying pan on a medium heat, about a minute on each side, or until they resemble tortillas.

Take a pair of the tortillas, apply the filling to one side, sprinkle liberally with cheese and then top with the other tortilla. Plonk it back into your frying pan and cook for a minute or so, flip, another minute then out on a board. Cut up and serve however you want, with the guacamole and maybe some nice sour cream.

Braised Recipe 3 : Mexicanish Pork.

I like mexican food, or at least the idea i have in my head of mexican food. No doubt this isn’t really mexican food, but i imagine if i gave it to a mexican they wouldn’t hate it. Why would they? It’s delicious.

boneless rolled shoulder of pork
chicken stock
carrot
onion
celery
chilli
tomato puree

Take the pork shoulder and pre-boil it like you might have the ribs if you bothered to look at that recipe. This will boil out the impurities and blood and muck you’d only have to spoon off the top during the cooking process. Give it about ten minutes or so. Clean out the pot and then throw everything else in and the pork, with stock to cover, put a lid on, and simmer slowly for three or four hours, or enough time so the meat just falls apart when you touch it. Take out the pork and allow to cool.

In the forever you’ve got to wait for the meat, you might as well make some accompaniments. I like to have some refried beans, and a little salsa with my pork. I present both here. For the refried beans you will need…

tinned kidney/pinto beans
garlic
onion
stock from the cooking pork

Drain off the beans; you can use dried, but i don’t see the point. Add to the pan with finely sliced onion and a clove or two of garlic and cook it down lightly in the pork stock in a covered pan. If it boils dry, add more stock. Wait for the beans to turn tender and then mash dem up. When mashed, the pulpy insides will suck up most of the stock, but just add more to adjust the consitency to something resembling a thick humous.

You’ll have plenty of time to make some delicious salsa as well, for which you’ll need…

tomatoes

roasted peppers

spring onions

garlic

chillis

coriander

lime

olive oil

salt

Chop up the tomatoes, springers, then crush your garlic and finely dice. I use one birds eye chilli or a couple of average chillis chopped. Next, add the coriander, squeeze half a lime over what you’ve got chopped, a couple of glugs of olive oil and season. Alternatively just throw everything in a processor.

Back to the meat: when cool, break apart the meat into about thumb size chunks and apply a dry rub of…

cumin seeds
coriander seeds
cinnamon
salt
pepper
a little all purpose caribbean seasoning

Dry pan, toast the cumin and coriander, then grind. Add the rest. Apply to meat. The built-in fat in the shoulder means no oil. Put it into a hot oven. We’re looking to crisp the edges and get a decent crust on the meat and no more, otherwise it will get dry…incredibly dry. As soon as it starts to turn, grab it out, throw it on a chopping board and cut into little chunks. Meat done.

Cooking completed, place everything you’ve made into a warmed tortilla with a little sour cream and eat it with some friends you like.