I’ve had this dream of one day becoming a loving and nurturing abuela. To that end I have radically improved my tortilla manufacturing capabilities.
Armed with a tortilla press and some instant masa flour, I realized that I was making tortillas that weren’t anywhere near as wet and greasy as I would expect a corn tortilla to be. So I got the wet masa in a bag.
Five pounds of fresh tortilla goop for only two bucks! Corn meal is one of those instances where the cost and content of human food approaches that of animal feed.
No two ways about it, you can’t press the tortilla straight onto the metal of the press. You need wax paper or plastic.
Step two of the authentic tacos at home project is to get some meat. As it turns out, the local guero supermarket actually sells barbacoa in a pre-cooked bag.
Let’s zoom in on the relevant part:
Que sabroso!
You want to spice up that barbacoa taco a bit? Maybe you should try some of Jay’s homemade habanero pickles.
Is it hot? Why would a jar of habanero slices, habanero seeds, and vinegar be hot? Feel free to heap it on.
Remember that dried lutefisk, or "stockfish," I dragged back from Cranfills Gap? Well, it was stinking up my room, even when wrapped in two layers of plastic bags, so I had to do something with it (not just hang it up on wall with ornaments).
As it happens, the Italians frequently cook with stockfish, and they don’t prepare it with lye. They prepare it by re-hydrating it, and then frying it in olive oil and adding tomato sauce.
You know, the way any reasonable human would try cooking it.
I don’t want to sound racist or anything, but I think the Italians might be intrinsically superior to my people.
This is what the stockfish looks like after several days of soaking in water and salt.
It’s swollen significantly. After the second water change most of the smell disappeared. I was supposed to pound it to break up the fibers before the re-hydration, but it still seemed very palatable.
It was not easy to peel off the skin.
Which was surprisingly tough.
I’ve saved it. I’m considering turning it into a purse or something.
Then came the dusting in flour and spices.
Then the frying.
In honor of the Tuscany people, I also made tomato sauce with pasta.
It was pretty crispy and still a little chewy, but it didn’t taste half bad. If I had a pantry with stacks of stockfish, I would eat this every week. If nothing else it looks a lot better than lutefisk.
