In our humble opinion, there is a serious and shameful lack of sodas made with real sugar available in America today. When we were in Argentina last year, among the most (of many) pleasurable experiences was drinking a Coke out of a small bottle and having it taste like it used to. The fact that soda companies in America are now releasing “special” and “old school” editions that contain sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup just lampoons this ridiculous situation.

Now, we’re not exactly giant soda drinkers, and when we do indulge, we tend to go for things like San Pellegrino’s limoncita, except of course when we’re enjoying Mexican tortas (sandwiches) for lunch at the Mexican-run deli on our Brooklyn block. Then, we will always get a nice cool bottle of Jarritos, and most commonly, the flavor is pineapple (piña). Imagine our delight then, when we were recently invited to sample all 11 varieties of Jarritos.

Since 1950, Jarritos (meaning “little jars/jugs”) have been making a bevy of sodas that are as varied in flavor as they are brightly colored. Less carbonated than typical American sodas, and due to their containing actual sugar, they can taste a little over sweet and syrupy to the modern American palate. It’s a sweetness I happen to enjoy, and so I’m delighted that Jarritos is now challenging the US soda behemoths and selling their drinks over here too. And, to further sweeten the pill, as it were, Jarritos are, for a limited time, holding the JarritosNation! contest, in which you can gather points from each bottle of Jarritos soda to win digital cameras or a trip to Hawaii, which is strange given that Jarritos is made in Jalisco, Mexico.

Of course, slurping one down with a chorizo, ham and guacamole torta is one thing, but cooking something imaginative with a highly flavored and sugary soda is another thing entirely. In all honesty, we didn’t make a giant mental leap in using pineapple flavored Jarritos to make tacos al pastor given the pineapple that is central to that preparation. However, it was fantastically delicious!

It’s thought that tacos al pastor are a fairly recent invention in Mexican cuisine, and are a fusion of traditional Lebanese shwarma-type lamb kebab preparations (hence al pastor, meaning shepherd’s style) that the Mexicans changed to suit their taste for slow-cooked pork marinated in vinegar with a smoky pepper sauce. In Mexico, it’s usually found in specific tacos al pastor stands where fat elephant legs of juicy, spicy, sweet pork are shaved off and slapped between a couple of corn tortillas and served very simply with a zesty avocado salsa and a couple of chunks of pineapple.

Pineapple, both sliced and in juice form, is used in the marinade and the cooking sauce for tacos al pastor, and we decided to substitute it in the former with Jarritos piña in order to add some sweetness and pineapple flavor to the acidity of the vinegar that is used to tenderize the pork. It was not clear whether this necessarily added a huge amount of pineapple flavor to the pork at this stage because we subsequently baked it in a roasted guajillo, ancho and pasilla puree liberally studded with slices of pineapple for an hour and a half until it was fall apart tender, but I like to think it played its role in what is, however you make it, a dish made up of many layers of flavor.

Ever have one of those days where the only thing that gets you through is knowing you are going to have a good meal later on?  I have no idea where I read about this dish, but one day, trying to unwind after a long, frustrating and tiring day of putting out the fires that are usually started by teenage drama (I moonlight as a school counselor, in case you forgot), a mental picture of this dish formed in my head and I immediately went to the store to try and make it.  This dish is definitely not for the nut-hater.   But, maybe it could be?  As a girl who used to eat peanut butter on a spoon every day for breakfast (I’ve now matured to peanut butter spread on multigrain toast), this dish made me very, very happy.

It’s not surprising that Pollo en Salsa de Cacahuate  is a traditional dish from Puebla, Mexico.  Puebla is often thought of as the gastronomic mecca of Central Mexico and happens to be the birthplace of mole, that beautiful, dark, chocolatey sauce made of over thirty ingredients including nuts and seeds, and pipians, another sweet yet savory sauce using ground nuts and seeds.  Peanuts have been part of Mexican cooking since long before Spain invaded in the 15th century and are often used as a thickening agent.  Poblano cuisine, specifically,  is typically made of indigenous and local ingredients and, let me tell you, Pueblo is on my “must go” lists of places to travel to (and eat, eat, eat in).

Traditionally, this dish should be made with dried chiles.  We used dried chiles in ours and I really just wanted to kick it up, so I added some chipotles in adobo.  For me, it added extra spice and the adobo added more flavor than the dried chiles did. In fact, I think you could leave out the dried chiles if you don’t have any on hand and just add some chipotles in adobo. It’s rare I’ll move away from the traditional but, in this case, flavor-wise I think it would be ok.  I also did not make this in a mortar and pestle and, again, although not traditional, a blender worked just fine.

Virtually everywhere they make sausages, and in a lot of places they don’t, some form of sausage in bread combination is sold by street vendors, often to the inebriated, and, in many cases, the consumer is best advised to be under the influence before taking their life in their hands with one of these mystery bag sandwiches. The night I met my wife, for example, I remember being horrified that her sister (who had introduced us earlier in the evening) was reckless enough — even after 50 drinks — to buy an insanitary-looking sausage in a roll from a street vendor in London’s Piccadilly Circus.

Where sanitation isn’t the biggest issue, a sense of disappointment often is, with the boring and insipid offerings available at any of the myriad hot dog stands lining almost every Manhattan street exemplifying this. Do not get me wrong, a New York hot dog — pulled from the disquietingly opaque water, slapped into a curiously spongy potato roll, and painted with mustard and an unidentifiable relish – is certainly a real taste of NYC street life, and when you’ve been pounding the city streets for an afternoon, almost enjoyable, but it is not great street food, regardless of what Adam Platt at NYMag says. (feel free to post your own disagreements with me below)

However, the more I travel, the more I realize that these sausage and bread combos can actually be both safe for human consumption and, in some cases, a delicacy. You may remember our merguez frites sandwich of last year, which was not just the best street food we’d ever had, but right up there with the finest sandwiches too. Even the overtly filthy nature of that vendor in Carcassonne failed to put us off. Indeed, it’s probably true that we would risk a searing bout of intestinal drainage on a weekly basis if only merguez frites were readily available.

So, during our recent trip to Argentina we were intrigued by rusty little cabins that we passed throughout Buenos Aires, either parked-up or slumping shack-ily on the sidewalk, emitting wonderfully aromatic smoke and advertizing choripán and morcipán on gaily painted signs. After one particularly lengthy trek across the city from Palermo to Recoleta to the edge of Balvanera, we were ravenous and mentally-prepared for something of questionable hygiene wrapped in a roll and doused with condiments.

Following a tip we had picked up online, we headed to the corner of Avenida Juan B. Justo and Avenida Santa Fe in Palermo [right next to the Palermo Subte stop (D line)], to a very sweaty looking snack bar for a pre-dinner choripán — a chori(zo) on bread (pan). Smaller than our pitifully-sized Brooklyn apartment and decorated with aging posters of scantily-clad beer models, our senses immediately told us that this cafe was exactly the kind of place that would deliver the equal measures of delicious, greasy victuals and stinging doses of the raging squitters we were looking for. [Happily, only the former arrived.]

Your typical sausage and roll combination features a roll that follows the dimensions of the sausage: long and narrow. However, one of the many things I immediately liked about choripáns and morcipáns is that they invert this absolutist relationship on its head. The sausage is split down the center, seared on both “faces” a la plancha and, dripping with bright orange fat, is placed inside a rectangular hunk of French-style bread. Not only is it texturally superior to its flimsy American counterpart, but its increased surface area and the greater density of the bread, make it a far better designed sandwich than the hot dog. As, enclosed in a larger roll, your choice of condiments — in this case, mayonnaise, “golf sauce” (not unlike Russian/Thousand Island dressing), ketchup, mustard, and chimichurri — are less able to escape and damage shirt or shoes, as frequently happens when biting down on the open-topped frankfurter.

Unfortunately, once you go choripán, you can never go back, and their absence from my everyday street food scene has become a source of extreme frustration now that I’m back in New York. Passing-by vendors of the humble hot dog several times a day, I can’t help sneer a little at their meagre offerings of limp weiner and rubbery potato roll, and I mutter to myself that the magnificent, spicy, chewy choripán is a shining light compared to their ghostly reflections.

Happily, choripáns and morcipáns are easy and fun to make in the comfort of your own home and make a great alternative to the unimaginative backyard barbecue staples of weiners and burgers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we couldn’t find Argentine-style chorizo in Brooklyn, but the easy to find, and similarly fresh and soft Colombian and Mexican varieties make worthy replacements, even if they are longer and slimmer than their Argentina counterparts. This past weekend, humming “the choripán man, the choripán man’s really got it going on…” inanely to ourselves, we mixed-up a tangy chimichurri, grilled ourselves some chorizo, and enjoyed a taste of Buenos Aires with a cold beer, even if we had to imagine the warm weather and palm trees.

There are few things that, when slapped between tortillas and christened with spicy condiments, fail to get me excited. Making it a shame that the vast majority of Mexican restaurants near us have such a limited spectrum of taco fillings. Not that I don’t enjoy carnitas, carne asada, fish or chicken tacos, I very definitely do, but that there is something of a tyranny inherent in this four-point agenda.

Recently, after our meaty dust-up with the Uruguyuan-style tablita parillada, we found ourselves with a surfeit of grilled sweetbreads (aka mollejas in Spanish, aka thymus glands in biology), and were looking for creative ways to use this most succulent of leftovers. Ever the slayers of convention, we sought to break this taco-based tyranny, and gently reheated our sweetbreads combining them with a crunchy, tangy salsa of radish, roasted corn and grape tomato, all wrapped in a blue corn tortilla for a dramatic finish.

In this process, we learned that throughout the South-West USA and northern Mexico, taco stands offering sweetbreads (as well as other tasty fillings including tongue and tripe) are so common you just about fall over them at every corner. All of which made us feel slightly less original in our preparation, but no less enthusiastic about its merits. Indeed, it was reassuring to know that places still exist in this condensed and standardized world where you can be openly and brazenly glandular should the feeling so move you.

During last fall’s McCain-Obama Presidential election season, TV channel Comedy Central’s website had a feature called “remember when you cared about…” which reprised some of the now (& then) farcical action from the previous Presidential campaigns of W. Bush and John Kerry. The 2004 race was my first such campaign-season as a resident of this country, and Comedy Central reminded me that my particular favorite of the farces that staggered me at the time, for no other reason than I found it to be among the most ridiculous things I’d ever heard, was the furore over coma-patient Terri Schiavo’s right to live/die. This tragic, though utterly irrelevant coincidence captured the moral outrage/derision of an entire country for a while, managing somehow to obfuscate the abject performance of the Bush administration’s first term, and win them a second.

So, shamelessly parroting a humorous idea from said TV channel (while simultaneously removing the humor), we’re re-posting a meal we made a little over a year ago because it’s a great dish that we make regularly, and, ahem, because you, quite clearly, don’t remember that you didn’t care about it last time…

Sopes are a delicious and easy alternatives to your boring old tortilla.  We love piling these cornmeal “cakes” up high with a variety of toppings – beef, pork, pulled chicken or even just beans.  One of our obsessions is La Morena’s Chipotle Sauce.  I could drink this stuff.  It’s better than ketchup… yes, I said it.  Mixed with a bit of lime juice and cream/crema or sour cream and you’ve got a great topping for steak, chicken or sopes!  Give these crispy sopes a try and use your creativity to top it with whatever delicious things you find.

A lot of people love Jamie Oliver for his informal, cheekie-chappie attitude and antics, which they welcome as a nice break from the seemingly unapproachable TV chefs of the past. Personally, I find his mockney styles and instant familiarity grating, and have let this issue influence my opinion of his cooking. However, I’m big enough of a man to concede that, off-screen, he’s almost certainly a guy I would like, that I have great admiration for his efforts at giving low-income, disadvantaged kids opportunities to work in his restaurants, and, more recently, I’ve come to terms with the fact that he’s a pretty good cook too.

From the first, fateful occasion I ate morcilla I was hooked, and since finding a reliable source of it close by us in Brooklyn, I’ve been looking for ways of including it in my cooking. So, giving credit where it’s due, Jamie Oliver’s recipe for squid stuffed with black pudding was just the inspiration I needed. To the naked eye what follows might look like a simple execution of his recipe, but as I say, his recipe was just inspiration. I read the recipe, but did not follow it. I added a degree of chipotle heat to the sauce and switched the white wine for plenty of lemon juice, and to my mind, the addition of some spiciness and acid is what elevates this dish beyond its already delectable level, cutting, as it does, the richness of the blood sausage.

Where this dish would sit in terms of global cuisine, I’m not sure. Its inspiration was British, its sauce Mexican-influenced, and its stuffing almost Spanish in flavor, but the dish really worked well regardless of its provenance. We made it as a tapa, but it would work perfectly as a first course, as a light main course, or even cold as part of a salad, and because the squid look really cool, but are really simple to make, they’d impress the hell out of dinner guests, providing, that is, they were adventurous enough to eat blood sausage.

Morcilla-Stuffed Squid (Calamares Rellenos con Morcilla)

Ingredients (serves 4)

8-10 squid (bodies, not tentacles)

2 small morcilla links, or 6oz of your favorite black pudding/blood sausage, casings removed

1/2 spanish onion, diced finely

2 cloves garlic, crushed & chopped

1tsp sweet paprika/pimenton dulce

1tbsp lemon juice

1tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley

1tbsp olive oil

8-10 toothpicks

For the sauce

2 plum tomatoes, diced finely

3 tsp chipotle powder

1/2 clove garlic, finely diced

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp water

1 pinch salt

1 squeeze lemon juice

Recipe

• Rinse out your squid with cold water and remove any cartilidge or other crap if you bought them whole.
• Add oil to saute pan and, when at medium heat, add onions. Allow to sweat for 3-5 mins until soft.
• Break up morcilla/sausage with your fingers and add to pan. Continue to break up with a spoon while it cooks.
• When onions and morcilla are well combined, add garlic and paprika/pimenton, and mix well.
• Increase heat to medium high and add lemon juice.
• When ready, mixture should be well-combined and pretty coherent rather than loose or solid.
• Allow to cool enough so you can handle it.
• Fire-up your grill/barbecue to medium-high.
• Salt interior of squid lightly and stuff with mixture and “sew” top closed with a toothpick.
• Do not overfill. Squid shrinks when cooked and too much filling will cause it to leak and make a mess of your grill.
• Oil your grill so squid don’t stick and grill them for 2-3 minutes per side or until grill-marks have developed and squid are nice and firm.
• Remove from grill and allow to come to room temperature.
• Slice and serve with sauce.

The sauce

• Heat saute pan to medium. Add half olive oil and garlic.
• When garlic is lightly colored, add tomatoes.
• Tomatoes should melt into a sauce texture with a little stirring.
• Add water, salt, parsley and chipotle powder. Combine well.
• Reduce heat. Add lemon juice and remaining olive oil.
• Serve over and under the stuffed squid.
• Enjoy!

Since we’re always on the search for the traditional and authentic, we really wanted to do the steak taco justice. In Mexico street food is rampant, fresh and delicious. You won’t see Old El Paso pre-made, fried taco shells, pre-packaged “taco seasoning” or over-salted ground beef plopped in the middle of the tortilla. The meat, veggies or fish and toppings are fresh and the food is cheap. Carne asada (grilled steak) is one of the most popular dishes of many parts of Northern Mexico. It’s synonymous with barbecue – the verb, not the noun version as is often used in America to describe the sweet sauce brushed on various bits of meat and poultry. Even more interesting is that “a carne asada” or “una carne asada” in Mexico also refers to the party/social gathering/event surrounding the making of the actual meal. I think that’s pretty kick-ass. I feel like Mexicans always find a good reason to party! They’ve got tequila AND ‘una carne asada’!

You may also be interested to know that tacos have been around for a long time. No, I mean a really long time. Like, longer than a Britney Spears marriage (cheap shot and bad joke, I know). A Spanish soldier named Bernal Diaz del Castillo wrote about the taco in the 1500’s but he’s not the inventor of the delicious, utensil-less, portable meal. Anthropologists discovered evidence that those who lived in the lake region of the Valley of Mexico made tacos filled with fish (hey, they lived by a lake). In other parts of Mexico, tacos were filled with live insects, locusts and/or snails. Fillings were determined by what was local and available, same as many other culture’s meals, except America, of course. Today, this still holds true. Although you may not find many taco stands selling insect or locust tacos, fillings will be different depending on the geographical region you are eating them in.

The first taco recipe found in America comes from a California cookbook published in 1914 called “California-Mexican Spanish Cook Book“. The recipe went as follows:

The tacos are made by putting chopped cooked beef and chili sauce in tortilla made of meal and flour; folded, edges sealed together with egg; fried in deep fat, chile sauce served over it.

Very different from what the Mexicans and Americans look at as tacos today. The above quote seems more like a tortilla empanada or chimichanga? A real, traditional carne asada taco will always be pretty bland and never spicy. The meat, usually finely cut flank or skirt steak, should be seasoned only with some salt because the delicious flavor of the beef is what is to be tasted. No cumin, no chili powder – nothing but salt. The spiciness and other flavor comes from the various toppings you can put on your carne asada. Salsas, chopped white onion and cilantro are just a few traditional toppings. This dish is also traditionally made with corn tortillas, although we (ok, I) forgot to pick some up on my grocery trip and I couldn’t be arsed going back to the store.

For our toppings we decided to make another popular Mexican condiment, rajas. As the great Rick Bayless puts it, rajas is “a true-blooded Mexican classic”. The word rajas is spanish for strips and in Mexico that means strips of chile. In parts of central and northen Mexico poblanos grow everywhere, so rajas will feature the poblano chile. Again, just like with the fillings of tacos being determined by the geographic location, so is the rajas topping. Poblano peppers are dark green in color and don’t have much of a spiciness to them. In parts of California these peppers are called “passillas” and in Mexico, “chile verde”. You may have heard of ancho chiles, well these are poblano’s in their dried form. The rajas are basically made of onion, roasted poblano, some garlic and herbs. Ok, now on to the recipe!

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STEAK TACOS WITH RAJAS AND SALSA VERDE (Tomatillo Salsa) – serves 3-4

Ingredients for Steak

• 3 pounds steak (preferably skirt or flank
• Salt
• Corn or flour tortillas (corn preferable)
• Optional toppings: avocado slices, lime juice, crema/sour cream, thinly sliced cabbage, diced onion, jalapenos, scallions etc

Ingredients for Rajas:

• 2 poblano peppers, roasted, skin removed and thinly sliced
• Optional and not traditional: yellow or orange pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• pinch of oregano ,thyme (optional)
• salt

Ingredients for Salsa Verde (Tomatillo Salsa)

• 3 – 4 tomatillos, husk removed, washed and roasted in oven
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 scallion, sliced
  
• Handful of fresh cilantro
• Lime juice
• Pinch of salt
• Optional: Roasted spicy pepper like habenero or Serrano, minced

What to do:

1. Heat oven to 475. When oven comes up to temperature, add your tomatillos and allow to roast whole for 10-15 minutes until soft and slightly browned.
2. Salt your steak on both sides. Roast your poblano pepper by placing pepper directly on the open flame of your gas stove turning frequently. You will do this until the skin is blistered and blackened all over the chile. Remove and place a towel over it until it cools.
3. Remove tomatillos from oven and make salsa verde by placing all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. Taste for seasoning by adding salt and extra lime juice if necessary.
4. Now, make the rajas by heating up a skillet till red hot. Add some oil and first saute your onions and yellow pepper (if using). Allow to sauté for 4 to 5 minutes and then add the garlic. Allow to sauté for another minute or two. Finally, add the roasted poblano pepper and sauté for 30 seconds. Remove all to a plate.
5. In the same skillet, not adding any extra oil, add your steak. This process should be QUICK. We like our steak really pink inside – medium rare. For a thin piece of steak, this will mean cooking each side for about 3 to 4 minutes per side. If worse comes to worse, UNDERCOOK it and then make a little slice in it. You can always cook it a bit more, but never take back the cooking time on an overcooked piece of steak.
6. Remove steak and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat up your tortillas. If using flour, heat in dry skillet for a few moments on each side and wrap in a towel. Or, microwave for 20 seconds wrapped in a towel. If using corn tortillas, you should fry them a bit in some oil in the skillet. You don’t want them crispy, just pliable and cooked.
7. Cut your steak on the bias against the lines of the steak so you get a clean cut. Assemble your tacos by putting all the various toppings you’d like on each! ENJOY.

CHECK OUT SOME OF THESE OTHER RECIPES YOU MAY ENJOY:

• SPATCHCOCK CHICKEN (A TUTORIAL)
• SHREDDED CHICKEN SOPES WITH TOMATILLO AVOCADO SAUCE
• BREAD-CRUSTED FISH WITH LEMON-BUTTER SAUCE
• PROVENCAL RABBIT WITH OLIVES AND CAPERS
• GROUND LAMB KABOBS (Lamb Kubideh)
• HORNAZO (Spanish Sausage-Stuffed Easter Bread)
• PAPPA AL POMODORO (Tuscan Tomato and Bread Soup)

Almost every time we eat out at one of our favorite local Mexican cheap-eats, it is difficult for me to resist the crunchy and tasty sopes. These traditional Mexican dish involves fried masa cakes and can be topped with a variety of things – chorizo, beef, chicken, pork, veggies or beans. Some are made small as a sort of appetizer or first course, we make them larger for a main meal (about 6 inches in diameter). If you kind of ‘pinch’ the sides of the masa, it helps some of your toppings stay on the sopes. I really get excited when I know we’re going to make a weeknight meal out of this because, yes, it involves a bit of frying, and we all know how good anything fried tastes, but the combo of flavors and the layering of flavors is really amazing.

One sauce, or salsa, we make often to top our enchiladas, burritos, fajitas and sopes is a delicious tomatillo-avocado salsa. For some of our readers, it may be difficult to find tomatillos, the small green, ‘tomato-like’ fruit with a brown husk surrounding it. They are not green tomatoes, though. Research finds that these beauties never took hold in Europe and the beloved red tomato was taken to Italy where it reigns supreme today. These sweet treasures are used in a lot of Latin American cooking. If you can get your hands on them, I highly recommend giving them a try. Make sure you husk and wash the stickiness off them before you use them!

Please don’t be turned off by what seems like alot of work to make this meal. If you’ve ever made burritos or fajitas, you can make sopes! If you don’t have tomatillos or can not get them, don’t worry, just top with your favorite salsa!

SHREDDED CHICKEN SOPES WITH TOMATILLO-AVOCADO SALSA

(serves 2 for 2 big entree sized sopes)

Ingredients

• 2 cups masa harina
• 1 cup warm water (may need less)
• pinch of salt
• vegetable or corn oil or frying
• 1 large chicken breast or 2 medium sized ones (with or without skin – just take skin off after you boil)
• 1 onion, sliced in 1/2” half moons
• 1 green or red pepper, cut in half and sliced into 1/2” slices
• 1 minced clove of garlic
• juice of 1 lime
• 2 scallions, sliced
• cilantro
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon chipotle powder
• salt
• 1-2 cups of our beans with chorizo and cumin (you can make these without the chorizo as well)
• sour cream as a topping
• cojita, shredded cheddar or monterey jack cheese as a topping
• tomatillo-avocado salsa for topping (SEE BELOW)

What to do:

1. Boil some water and cook your chicken breasts for 12-15 minutes or until it is not pink inside. How long you boil it for will depend on how big the piece is.
2. Make your tomatillo-avocado salsa (see below).
3. Start making your beans w/ chorizo and cumin if you choose to.
4. In a bowl, add your masa. a pinch of salt and the water. You want it to be thick, not like pancake batter. If you need to add water, add more. If you feel like it’s too thin, add more masa. You will want to shape them and fry them about the same time (I’ve found that the dried masa sometimes doesn’t stick together as well as I’d like it to). Reserve this in the bowl until you’re ready to fry your cakes.
5. When your chicken breasts are cooked, allow to cool and then shred using your hands or a fork. Keep handy so you can add them at the end of Step 5.
6. In a pan on medium, saute your onions and pepper in some olive oil. Add your minced garlic. After 4 minutes or so, add your shredded chicken breasts and your spices (cumin, chipotle powder and some salt if necessary). Add the juice of half a lime and stir. Allow to warm the chicken back up, then turn on low to keep warm.
7. Now, it’s time to fry your sopes. Take a lump of masa/water mixture and push it down so it’s about 1”-1 1/2” thick in a circular shape. It does NOT have to be perfect. If you can pinch the sides of it up a bit, this could help your topping from moving. Many times I do not do this, so don’t worry if you just have a disc-like masa cake. Usually mine end up being anywhere between 4″ to 6″ in diameter.
8. Heat your oil up so it’s in frying-mode, making sure the oil level is about 1” to 2” deep. When oil is hot, using a spatula, slowly slide your sopes into the oil. After 1 1/2 minutes check it to see if you can turn. You want them to be a golden color, not very dark. They get very cruchy even if they do not look that brown.
9. Remove from oil and allow to drain on paper towels.
10. Now it’s time to build! On top your your sopes, add a layer of your beans, then a layer of your shredded chicken/onions/peppers mixture and a bit of shredded cheese. Top with your tomatillo salsa, a small dollop of sour cream, a squeeze more of lime on top and scatter some sliced scallions! ENJOY!!

TOMATILLO-AVOCADO SALSA

• 4 tomatillos, husks removed and roasted
• 1/2 ripe Haas avocado
• 1 1/2 cups of cilantro (or two big palmfuls)
• 1 scallion (or 1/4 onion if you don’t have a scallion), cut in half
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 tablespoon of sour cream
• 1/2 – 1 jalapeno (if you want it spicy), minced
• salt
• food processor or blender

What to do:

1. Preheat your oven to 457 degrees. Husk, de-stem and wash your tomatillos. Roast your tomatillos on a baking sheet for 10 minutes whole. They will look a bit brown and will be very juicy.
2. In a blender or food processor, add all the rest of your ingredients including the roasted tomatillos. Puree until smooth. Put in a bowl and into the refridgerator to cool down. See, so easy!!

CHECK OUT THESE OTHER POSTS YOU MAY ENJOY:

• PASTA (PERCIATELLI/BUCATINI OR SPAGHETTI) AL’AMATRICIANA (ROMAN CLASSIC PASTA DISH)
• JAMAICAN JERK CHICKEN
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• The Wrong Message from a Former Prophet (Delia Smith Jumps Ship)
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• SALAD NICOISE

Our end of Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn (one of the two main thorough-fares in the neighborhood Architectural Digest recently named the best in America, Park Slope), is festooned with restaurants of all kinds. In fact, there are more restaurants, I would say, than there are any other kind of stores on the street. An average of perhaps two and a half eateries per block. Many of these have sprung up in the last few years and are of a certain type – dim-lighting, dark wood interiors and “fusion” menus – catering to the newly-arrived, brownstone-purchasing, high income-earning folks that used to only inhabit the upper west and upper east sides of Manhattan . Since the advent of these restaurants, many of the neighborhoods’ original retailers have left – in fact, just this past weekend, we noticed that the shady-looking storefront selling Articulos Religiosos had gone, probably to be replaced with some joint with a menu trying to emulate Tyler Florence. Anyway, in the midst of all this change and gentrification sits Los Pollitos II, a small, noisy Mexican restaurant specializing in rotisserie chicken, a few northern Mexican staples (fajitas, burritos, etc.) and some more Caribbean-coast inspired dishes, that has remained a constant in the culinary landscape of our changing neighborhood.

Last night, my wife and I were feeling a bit under the weather and decided we wanted Pollitos’ chicken soup, some rotisserie chicken, rice and beans and a salad. A very basic, wholesome meal without too many flavors. A large soup (more than a pint), half a roast chicken, a small rice and beans, an order of tostones (starchy, fried, smashed plantains) with garlic sauce, and a large house salad was ordered. We were told we might have to wait 45 minutes to an hour for our order, but we were undeterred — Pollitos has become a go-to restaurant for us (one month this year, when we were crazy busy organizing our wedding, we went there nearly twice a week) and when you want Pollitos, you can’t have anything else. So we settled in to bear our hunger pains until the food arrived. Not only did it arrive in less than half an hour, but the bill was $19.23 for enough food for two meals for two people, or maybe more because we eat too much. $19.23!! Worringly, it’s almost cheaper than buying ingredients and cooking it ourselves, but this isn’t unhealthy food. It’s not low-calorie and it’s certainly not fat-free, but rice, beans and chicken with a side salad is what most of the world would call a good meal and would eat more often if only they could afford it.

Their chicken soup is frankly, a triumph. Never before have I had chicken soup with more flavor and less fat. It arrives with carrots, potatoes, chicken (half a breast and a whole wing, in this case), onion and cilantro, and is, or might be, a meal in itself. Perhaps because they have so many bones from all the rotisserie chickens, their stock is just that bit richer than elsewhere, or perhaps it’s the cilantro, I’m not sure, but I would strongly recommend you try it whether you’re feeling a bit rough or in perfect health. I could rave on at length about how tasty their rice and beans is (something that a lot of people underestimate how hard it is to make tasty), how delicious their tostones and garlic sauce are (really amazing) and how much crisp, fresh salad they give you, but instead I’m going to devote my final words to their rotisserie chicken. It is succelent and juicy – even the white meat, the skin is crisp, salty and almost sweet, and the bones are chewable because of the slow-cooking. It may be the the finest rotisserie chicken in the city and you can get a whole one for under $8. I rest my case.

Indeed, we are not the only ones who have discovered Los Pollitos II, however, I think we may have the distinction of being two of its most regular customers. In the past year, we must have eaten there twenty times, and call me a pikey if you like, but I took my wife there for her birthday too! (They gave us a free dessert, a weird, sweet shot of something, and five of the waiters took an old warped guitar off the wall and serenaded her with “feliz cumpleanos a ti”. How’s that for customer service?)

CHECK OUT OUR OTHER RESTAURANT REVIEWS, FOOD COMMENTARY AND RECIPES.

TORTILLA SOUP (feeds 4)

• 1 hot pepper (cayanne, scotch bonnet, jalapeno, etc.), thinly sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic, diced
• 1 onion, thinly diced
• 1 teaspoon of chipotle seasoning powder
• 4 cups of chicken stock
• 2 cans of spanish tomato sauce (I prefer Goya’s brand)
• 1 large piece of skinless, boneless chicken, boiled in hot water for 10 minutes, cooled and then shredded
• big palm-full of cilantro
• juice of one lime
• 2 sliced scallion
• 4 corn tortillas (can use flour), thinly sliced into strips and deep fried for 2-3 minutes till golden brown ***NOTE: You can cheat and buy a good brand of tortilla chips if you really have to
• GARNISH: extra cilantro, a dollop of sour cream, diced avocado, sliced green olives (optional), some shredded cheese (I prefer Mexican cotija if you can get your hands on it).

What to do:
+ + =

1. Boil some water (or use chicken stock) and boil your large piece of skinless, boneless chicken until cooked – about 10 minutes (depends on thickness). Cut in half to check if it’s done. If it’s not, throw it in the boiling water/stock for a few more minutes. Take out to cool.
2. Heat up your chicken stock or if using the same chicken stock your boneless chicken cooked in, make sure it stays warm (and that you have enough!).
3. Heat up a big soup pot to medium and heat up some olive oil. Add your garlic and onion and cook till medium-soft. Add your diced hot pepper and allow to heat for another minute or two to soften a bit.
4. Add your teaspoon of chipotle seasoning powder to the onions, garlic and hot peppers and stir around for a few seconds, releasing the flavor.
5. Add your chicken stock and stir.
6. Add your Spicy Spanish Tomato Sauce cans and stir.
7. Squeeze a bit of lime in the mixture, throw the palmful of cilantro in and allow the soup to simmer for about 20 minutes.
8. **OPTIONAL STEP – Feel free to use some store-bought tortilla chips if you really dont’ have the time/means to make homemade ones, but you know how I feel about it! It tastes better w/ the homemade kind.*** Meanwhile, heat up some veggie oil in another pot. Using corn or flour tortillas (I prefer corn for this), thinly slice up some up so that each long slice is about 1/2 and inch wide. As soon as the veggie oil is hot, throw in your slices and fry till golden brown. When done, remove with slotted spoon and allow to drain on some paper towels. Sprinkle with some salt and a small bit more of the chipotle powder.
9. Now that the chicken is cooled, shred the piece into many bits for the soup.
10. Assemble your bowls by adding some of the topping ingredients in the BOTTOM of the bowl. Add some (only a bit!) tortilla strips to the bottom, enough shredded chicken to satisfy, a small dollop of sour cream, some cilantro, a bit of diced avocado, scallions, optional sliced green olives and cheese.
11. Spoon some of the reduced soup into your bowl over the toppings.
12. Add one more squeeze of lime to each bowl and then your final garnishes on top (more tortilla strips, scallions, bit of cheese, cilantro, avocado and another dollop of sour cream). Enjoy this comforting bowl of hearty, spicy soup!

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• BRAISED PORK CHOPS WITH LIME AND OLIVES
• ROASTED PORK SHOULDER (Pernil) – The Quicker Version
• ROASTED PORK SHOULDER (Pernil) – The Low and Slow Method