Raw agricultural commodity used in making that quantity of beef stew (67 FR 79611)

Recently, TJ and I were invited to weekend family dinner where the matriarch served up homemade menudo and birria. Neither dish is a particular favorite of mine, but her concoctions were so good that I thought I should give them a second chance on my list of foreign recipes to try. In terms of cooking, menudo is not much different than pozole, which I made a while back. But I'd probably be more successful bringing back the Puerto Rican boy band than making tripe edible. Besides, cow flesh is more forgiving -- and tasty -- than cow stomach, so I thought I could give birria a shot. 

Birria is more traditionally a meat stew, but here in Tijuana it is frequently a taco filling. In looking at recipes I decided to pick and choose some pieces from two. For the meat, I already had an eye of round, about a pound and a half, so I decided to simply add 1-1/2 pounds of ribs (left), using the meat combination from the stew recipe but the quantity from the filling one. I ignored both recipes in terms of preparation, opting to slow-cook the meat, for three hours on high, instead of watching a simmering pot all day. Within about 30 minutes, the stock was already beginning to form (right).

While the meat cooked, I prepped the peppers. And here, I made another recipe merge. I used most of the peppers from the taco recipe, except the California chiles, because, surprisingly, I couldn't find them in the store. So I selected guajillo ones, which were suggested in the stew recipe and are said to make a suitable substitute, in terms of their color, size, and heat. The guajillos are long, narrow, and red; the pasillas and anchos are both green, but the anchos are smaller and wrinklier (top left). After stemming and seeding the peppers (top right), which felt like using a letter opener to cut Fruit Roll-ups, the peppers soaked in water for about an hour (bottom left) before they were drained (bottom right), leaving a trail of orange-stained cookware (In the future, I'd suggest using a disposable dish to soften the chiles.)

From here on out, I stuck to the taco recipe, mainly because it simplifies the seasonings by using achiote paste, which contains many of the spices from the stew recipe. Plus, considering I shop at a Latino market all the time, I was able to easily find it, right by the ketchup. The tomato, onion, garlic, peppercorns, cumin seed, and achiote paste all went in the food processor first (top), creating a vibrantly scarlet sauce (bottom left). I thought that the chiles would add most of the color, but it seems the achiote paste is the key because the peppers merely deepened the red of the mixture (bottom right).

While the sauce waited during a work event, the meat rested, leaving it plenty cool to slice. I pulled out all of the meat first (top left), so I could scoop some broth for the sauce and store the rest for future recipes. A knife was on hand, but really the meat was so tender that I could just pull it apart (top right). The bones from the ribs had fallen off long before, so I just strained them out of the leftover stock. A cup (more like a cup and a half) of it went into the sauce, then the sauce and meat went back into the crockpot  to simmer (bottom).

Actually, I was supposed to strain the sauce before putting it into the meat, but I forgot, and to be honest, the sauce was so thick that it seemed a shame to waste so much flavor. Possibly, the pepper skins made the mixture more bitter, but the only really noticeable effect was the occasional surprise bite into a peppercorn. TJ set up a complete condiment station of hot sauces, onions, cabbage, limes radishes, and cilantro (left). Still, I stuck to a common construction with dollops of meat on tortillas, topped with only onion, cilantro, and a squirt of lime.

I have to agree with TJ's assessment that it wasn't the greatest taco we've ever had. But, he admitted, it seemed like real birria, which both of us find somewhat bland (particularly TJ, who uses hot sauce like ketchup). For the leftovers, we plan to drop a good dose of seasoned salt into the meat, in the hopes that it will better suit our sodium-addicted American palates. We have some dignity, though, in that, no matter what, the tacos will not be smothered in shredded cheese.

Our communities have all benefited from the contributions craft brewers have made (152 Cong. Rec. E1088)

Usually, if there is a turf war over drugs, it leads to violence. But apparently, if there is a turf war over alcohol, it leads to parties. Recently, in Tijuana, there was not one, but two, beer festivals in a single weekend. I can't be sure why the organizers would plan their events at competing times (especially right before -- instead of after -- the city's annual marathon), but if you need a narrative, I will suggest that the Cerveza Tijuana, which along with Stone Brewing sponsored one of the festivals, had a falling out with the Asociación de Cerveceros Artesanales de Baja California, the sponsor of the other festival, about how many swear words the entertainment should use.

A significant number of curses poured out of Hollywood Roses, a tribute band to Guns N Roses (left), as the beer flowed at TJ Beer Fest, held in the parking lot of Caliente Casino (right). The mostly-Mexican attendees didn't seem to mind, though, perhaps because the band's banter was entirely in English -- and entirely annoying (incidentally, most of their songs were, too).

 

It was worth bearing the brunt of the bad music because this festival was the better deal. Admission was $10, which included tickets for three samples. Then you could buy more samples for a little less than a dollar, or full pours for $3-$4, depending on the brewer. TJ even got a deal at Cervecería Legion; for just a couple bucks more, the brewery threw in a pint glass with its logo (top left). Some of the other beers on hand were sponsor Cerveza Tijuana, of course (top right); Cerveza Agua Caliente; Cerveza Cucapá; Cerveza Patricia; and Cerveza Mexicali (bottom).

 

Most of the brews we tried for the first time were pretty mediocre, possibly because they got a little skunked sitting out on the sun-soaked pavement all day. From the comments of our fellow suds-sippers, the winner seemed to be Baja Brewing Company, whose Cactus Wheat, which I sampled in Cabo, got good reviews. But in my opinion, the best free sample was the mechanical bull, obviously the most appropriate activity for beer drinkers. I managed to fly off just before the operators shut down the ride for the night.

 

Upon arriving at the Baja Beer Fest, held on Avenida Revolución, I immediately noted that it did not have a mechanical bull. It also did not include any free samples with its $6 admission fee (otherwise, the prices for 4-ouncers and pints were about the same). But what it lacked in activities and cost-effectiveness, it made up for in atmosphere. Smack dab in the middle of downtown, it provided vistas of city's landmarks: the fountain in front of the Jai Alai Palace (top left), the extra-large Mexican flag (top right), and the Welcome to Tijuana arch (bottom).

The lack of a mechanical bull might be because this festival was geared toward a different crowd (i.e. one that includes gringos like myself). Possibly because it was the middle of the day, there were far more families and friends just relaxing and sitting at tables (left) instead of hanging on each other in an attempt to remain standing. But there were some similarities; I did hear the entertainment (right) use the F-word at least once, for example. 

But no doubt, there were differences in the food. As opposed to the bratwurst, which I highly suspect were probably chorizo, at the previous festival, downtown drew some more gourmet establishments, including Don Diego (left), whose choripan and empanadas convinced me I should track down its non-tent location. The quality was so high that TJ didn't even think twice about shooting an oyster from a street vendor (right).

 

Like the food, the beer was better. Many of the Tijuana operations -- including Cervecería Monastika, Silenus Cerveza, and Cervecería Rámuri were much more well-established than the small home brewers at the first festival. And many participants were from farther afield. Old Mission Brewery and Cervecería Marinera came up from Ensenada, as did Blondyes Home Brew, whose offering would pretty much be good only for the beer pong tournament it was advertising. The clear winner here was local favorite Cervecería Insurgentes, whose owl logos will soon be found at Baja Craft Beers Tasting Room, which opens July 27 at Orizaba 3003-E5 (two streets west of Sonora for you Tijuanenses).

So perhaps some other men's beer brawl was our boon. Or perhaps, Tijuana just likes to party. Merely one weekend later, the same casino parking lot was the site of the first-ever Festival de la Brasa, la Cerveza, and el Vino, where not one, but two, types of alcohol would be served up with grilled treats from 16 area restaurants.

I get to eat Thai food and ... Latina and Latino food (147 Cong. Rec. S3070)

Okay, I admit it; I've been slacking on the experimental cooking front. So with a few more weeks off from teaching after my out-of-town work trip, I figured I better get back on the foreign-recipe horse before I lost my motivation to ride. TJ had picked up some great pork loin, and we had leftover shrimp, so I immediately thought of Pad Thai. Clearly, I am out of epicurean practice because I forgot to reserve some of the pork TJ grilled for my noodle dish. So the day of my culinary comeback, I stopped by the store to pick up some boneless pork chops.

The relatively simple recipe required a few other prepwork tasks. First, I had to soak the flat rice noodles, which were surprisingly difficult to find; I could've ventured to an Asian market, I guess, but I was too lazy, which meant that I also had to make my own "preserved radish" by cutting one up and letting it marinate for a day in some salt and vinegar (left). Incidentally, after I went to all that trouble, the instructions never said what to do with the preserved radish (I added it to the wok with the Pad Thai sauce). And I could've used the electric coffee grinder to chop up the peanuts, but after it turned the almonds I inserted into paste last time, I opted for a non-electric hammer instead, to ensure I wouldn't end up with peanut butter (right).

Shopping at a Latino supermarket actually helped with some supplies. Tamarind juice would've been impossible to procure, and although the recipe explains how to make your own, you would still have to track down tamarind paste to do it. Instead, I picked up a bottle of Jarritos tamarind soda, which is as ubiquitous as Coca-Cola in Mexico (left). In another stroke of luck, piloncillo, a form of hard-packed palm sugar, is a staple in the Mexican produce aisle. The "little pilon" I picked up was just less than the amount called for by the recipe (right); I figured the sugar in the soda would make up for the rest.

The most time-consuming part of this meal is the sauce. The ingredients aren't complicated, but you have to stir pretty consistently for an hour as the salt and sugar slowly dissolve into the liquids -- reduced tamarind soda, water, and fish sauce (top) -- then make sure the mixture doesn't overboil and become too hard. I cooked the sauce for the full 60 minutes, until I got a stiff roll that resulted in a solid thread from the spoon (bottom). This was too much heat, as the sauce nearly became the consistency of Bit-o-Honey. Because of this, I used four instead of five tablespoons of sauce for the noodles, and I had to reconstitute the rest with water before I stored it, lest I end up with Pad Thai popsicles.

The time it takes to stir-fry the noodles is inversely related to the time it takes to make the sauce, so I assembled my ingredients in order (top), fully ready to wok and roll (yea, I used that pun; you gotta problem with it?). First, a little oil is used to sizzle up garlic, pork, and shrimp (bottom left), then you remove the shrimp before you put in the noodles and sauce (and the preserved radish, in my case). The noodles only need to be tossed with the sauce for a few seconds before you add the shrimp back in and create a bird's nest in which you can fry the eggs (bottom right).

The last step is to stir in the egg, along with the peanuts, green onions and bean sprouts (left). It's been a long time since I ate professionally made Pad Thai, but mine seemed soupier than what I've had before. Maybe I didn't let the egg fry enough? Or even four tablespoons of the sauce were too much? Nonetheless, it tasted delicious, especially when served with a squirt of lime and eaten with our direly underutilized chopsticks.

Of course, the rich flavor should be no surprise, considering the amount of sugar in the sauce. Did you see the size of that piloncillo? But I comforted myself by noting that the proportion of noodles to bean sprouts was nearly equal, clearly proving that this is a healthy, vegetable-heavy dinner.