Lunch at Mercado Hidalgo - Tacos Fitos and Carnitas El Jerezano

Having worked up an appetite exploring Tijuana's Mercado Hidalgo, we headed outside to the North corner, where there were a number of places selling tacos de birria de res - tacos made with stewed beef.

We stopped at Tacos Fitos, which I had read about on the Masa Assasin blog.



We tried both the birria de res taco and the taco campechano (shown on the left, below), which was made with a combination of birria and tripe.



Here is a closer shot of the birria taco:



Both tacos were fantastic. Super flavorful.

After wandering around the market some more, we stopped at one of restaurants in the interior - Carnitas El Jerezano:



The carnitas was just ok, but the place was comfortable, the staff was friendly and the freshly made corn tortillas were great



Tacos Fitos and Carnitas El Jerezano were but two of many dining options in and around Mercado Hidalgo. Rest assured that if you come to visit the market, you will not go hungry.

A Day Trip to Tijuana's Mercado Hidalgo

A couple of Sundays ago, we had some friends visiting and we decided to take them down to Tijuana for the day. Within minutes of walking across the border, we had grabbed a cab and arrived at Mercado Hidalgo, Tijuana's central market.

Here is a map of the market's location - as you can see, it is not far from the border crossing:


View Mercado Hidalgo in a larger map

Taking up a whole city block, the market vendors are arranged around the edge, with the center being a large parking lot.

There was plenty of fruit on offer:



as well as sweets:



and of course, lots of chiles:



and mole pastes:



There was even a little cooking store:



and a few vendors selling Mexican cheese varieties:



Quite a few places had this purple corn for sale. I'd never seen it before, and don't know what it is typically used in:



There was a glass case that contained the largest amount of chicharrón I'd ever seen in one place:



Next to it was this interesting mass that was labelled "Chicharrón Prensado":



This was the first time I've encountered "pressed" chicharrón and I'm definitely curious to learn more about it.

We didn't do much real shopping on this trip - only buying some piloncillo (sugar cone) and tamarind - but the vendors and other shoppers were friendly and relaxed. It made for a very nice day trip.

Some Dishes with Fishes - Round Five

Posting these fish-dish roundups is becoming a habit with us. Hopefully there will be many more editions to come!

This round opens with a Seafood Fritto Misto - an Italian-inspired dish of lightly-coated and fried fish (in this case squid and black gill). Squid tentacles always look cool, and they tasted great, but the star of the show was the black gill. While the chunks of fish weren't much to look at, they were moist and full of flavor.

Cornflake-crusted White Sea Bass with Salsa Verde


This was our first time trying this take on a Rick Bayless recipe, and it was great - even though an initially too-hot pan caused the outside flakes to over-caramelize. The way the cornflakes went golden-orange was beautiful and also added structure and complexity of flavor to the fish. Combined with the salsa verde, it was very good indeed.

Middle Eastern Pargo Snapper with Bulgur and Garden Veg


We have a burgeoning love affair going on with Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Food. It has spawned a number of great meals for us so far, including the fish marinade and flavor profile (lemon, garlic, cumin, paprika, marjoram, mint) for this dish.

Indonesian Fragrant Fish (Grouper) Stew


This dish, from James Oseland's Cradle of Flavor, is a rhizome-fest - using ginger, galangal and turmeric. We've used turmeric a lot as a dried spice, but this was our first use of fresh turmeric, and it made a big impact on us. Lovely flavor and color.

Smoked Scallop Savory Custard


This was a bit of a crazy idea, but it turned out really well. We've been loving the bay scallops we get from Catalina Offshore - particularly smoked. They went beautifully with the delicateness of the soft savory custard.

Prawn Pathia - Indian Takeaway Recipes

Our Chicken Pathia recipe is one of the most popular recipes on our blog, and we often get requests for additional recipes using our Curry Base Sauce.

This Prawn Pathia is almost the same recipe as our chicken version, but uses fish stock instead of chicken stock, omits the red coloring and, of course, uses shrimp instead of chicken. While the overall flavor profile remains, the shrimp take the dish in a quite different direction.

Some notes on the recipe, as questions have come up on our other curry recipe posts:

• We use the term "Indian chilli powder" as that is what is on the label of the powder we typically use. If you can't find that, use a hot, red powdered chile (cayenne works well). Be sure not to use a spice blend - you just want straight powdered chile.
• For the stock, you should use just the amount concentrated stock cube or granules that would be needed to make a cup of liquid - do not add the corresponding amount of water. The goal is to get the flavor of the stock without diluting the curry base.

Prawn Pathia

Serves four.

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons oil
1 medium onion, chopped small
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt (to taste)
1-2 teaspoons Indian chilli powder (or other hot, red powdered chile)
1 large bunch fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped (coriander)
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
Approx. 1/3 recipe Ubiquitous Curry Base Sauce
1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
Fish stock cube or granules (enough for 1 cup)


Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add cumin, ground coriander, garlic, ginger, and onion. Cook while stirring until onions are wilted.

Add "Base Sauce", fish stock, cinnamon, vinegar, and sugar. Stir to mix. Add salt to taste, and chilli powder to get the spice level you want.

Simmer for about 10 minutes to allow flavors to mix.

Add a large handful of the cilantro to the pot and mix it in. Simmer for another 10-15 minutes.

About 5 minutes before serving, add the shrimp and another small handful of cilantro. Simmer until the shrimp is opaque and just cooked through.

Serve with Pulao Rice and flat-bread.

Hawaii "Odds and Ends": I-naba Soba, Giovanni's Shrimp Truck, Me's BBQ and More

Ok - last Hawaii post, I promise!

Here are some odds and ends of food we had on our trip that didn't make it into a post of their own. Above is the cold soba lunch at I-naba Soba in Honolulu. We had never had soba served this way before, and we really enjoyed it. Rather than being served as a soup, you dip the noodles into the sauce. The soba was fantastic, as was the tempura.



Although we had Oahu's north shore locked in as a shrimp destination, our first shrimp of the trip was at Savage Shrimp in Koloa on Kauai. We had the place's namesake "Savage Shrimp" dish. Served in a spicy broth with bread on the side for dipping, it was hearty and flavorful.

Later, on Oahu, we made it out the north shore. We had a hard time deciding which of the shrimp spots to hit up. In the end, we settled on Giovanni's Shrimp Truck - mostly because we were on the bus and it was near a stop.



We shared a batch of Giovanni's Garlic Scampi:



Simple fare, but good. There was a ton of garlic in the sauce - which we really liked, but if you aren't a garlic fan, this wouldn't be for you.

One night, we were wandering out from our vacation rental at the south end of Waikiki and Sherry spotted Me's BBQ. A tiny little Korean joint tucked away on a side-street, the feel of the place immediately appealed to me. They have a small indoor area with a counter where you order, and a few tables outside.

We ended up eating there twice, and our favorite item was the Fish Jun - delicate, thin pieces of fish coated in an egg batter (sorry for the bad, low-light photo):



We like the Jun so much that we made our own version as one of the dishes in our Feast of the Seven Fishes last Christmas Eve. We also really liked their Kalbi and Kimchi.

There was an Izakaya place, Tokkuri-Tei, not far from where we were staying, so we went there for dinner. It had a pleasant atmosphere and friendly knowledgeable waitresses. The dishes we had were hit and miss, but more hit than miss. This beef tongue skewer was one of the better ones:



I had decided that I needed a teriyaki burger. Teddy's Bigger Burgers was just a block away from where we were staying and seemed to be pretty well liked. Not by us, though, as it turned out. The burger didn't look bad:



Unfortunately, it was dry and uninteresting. One of my least favorite burgers I've had in quite some time. And pretty expensive, to boot. Not recommended.

We also cooked with some local ingredients while we were visiting the islands. I saw Redondo's Portuguese Sausage in the grocery store and couldn't resist picking some up:



It was very tasty for breakfast - sliced up and fried with eggs.

And, of course, we couldn't leave out the Hawaiian staple:



Spam and eggs made a lovely breakfast one morning on the tiny balcony of our vacation rental in Honolulu.

I-naba Soba
1610 S King St.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-953-2070

Savage Shrimp
Kukui'ula Village Suite K-158
2829 Ala Kalaikaumaka
Koloa, Kauai

Giovanni's Shrimp Truck
56-505 Kamehameha Hwy
Kahuku, Hawaii
808-293-1839

Me's BBQ
151 Uluniu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-926-9717

Tokkuri-Tei
449 Kapahulu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-732-6480

Teddy's Bigger Burgers
134 Kapahulu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-926-3444

Food Photo Round-Up

When we make a good dish, but I don't really have enough for a blog post, I often post a picture on twitter instead. For those of you who don't follow along with those tweets, I figured I'd do a round-up of some of the pictures here on the blog.

The picture above is a homemade Sicilian sausage (one of our favorites - we need to do a post on making them sometime) with Hasselbeck (or is it Hasselback?) potatoes and a black kale salad.

Mapo Doufu


Fuchsia Dunlop's version of "Pock-Marked Mother Chen's Bean Curd", from her book "Land of Plenty" is on our regular rotation.

Chawanmushi


This was our first attempt at making Chawanmushi, and it turned out really well. I love savory custards.

Shoyu Ramen


Not quite homemade ramen - I call it "home-assembled". We buy packaged ramen noodles and add the trimmings - fish cake, pork slices, greens, nori and, of course, a soft-cooked egg.

Lamb Shanks Braised in Red Wine


Is there is anything more comforting than a braised lamb shank? We do a red wine braise based loosely on a short rib recipe from Daniel Boulud's "Cafe Boulud Cookbook".

Romanesco


The first time I saw a picture of Romanesco I was amazed - it is such a cool looking vegetable. Sherry has had great success growing them this winter, and we've been eating a lot of it.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara


Perfectly cooked spaghetti coated with egg is a thing a beauty. We make ours with homemade pancetta, which I prefer to the traditional guanciale.

Green Chile Cheeseburger


We've posted a number of times about green chile cheeseburgers in New Mexico, but we also make them at home, using hatch green chiles that we buy by the crate when they are in season. Yes, that is American cheese on the burger. I make no apologies.

Gougères


Light, puffy and cheesy - Gougères may be the perfect snack. They are made with the same choux pastry technique used for cream puffs, but go a savory direction instead of sweet.

Pan-Seared Duck Breast with Green Beans and Potatoes


Rosy pink meat and succulent skin - what more is there to say?

Homemade Bacon


It has been over three years now since we started making our own homemade bacon, and we're still going strong. Store-bought bacon is a thing of the past for us. We're almost out of the last batch we made - time to make some more!

Malasadas at Leonard's Bakery in Honolulu

After poke at Ono Seafood, we were ready for some dessert, so we headed up to Leonard's Bakery for some malasadas. Malasadas are a style of yeast doughnut brought to Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants.



Leonard's Bakery is all about the malasadas. They are made hot and fresh to order, come with a variety of sugar toppings, and can be filled with an assortment of fillings.



The bakery does sell items other than malasadas, however. We tried one of their sausage wraps - a Portuguese sausage encased in Pão Doce (Portuguese sweet bread):



It was tasty, but nothing particularly special.

The malasadas, on the other hand, were very good. Our favorite was the original, plain sugar version:



Hot, fluffy soft dough topped with sugar. Simple, but perfect.

We also tried a malasada "puff" stuffed with custard:



I love anything filled with custard, but in this case it was a bit too overwhelmingly sweet.

To round out our malasada sampling, we tried the cinnamon sugar flavor, which we weren't too fond of, and this version with "Li Hing Mui" (salty dried plum) sugar, which we liked:



But the real winner was the "original" malasada with plain sugar. Sometimes simple is the best.

We had a few left over the next day, and the were pale shadows of their former selves - you really need to eat them hot out of the frier. If you go to Leonard's (and you should!), be sure to only order as many malasadas as you can immediately consume.

Leonard's Bakery
933 Kapahulu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-737-5591