Tortillas Columbus

If touring taco trucks in Columbus has inspired you to roll your own, then I know of a place you should go to pick up some tortillas.

Kokis is a tortilla factory on Columbus' West side and my mom has been there enough times that she gets greeted with very friendly and familiar hello. As I was admiring the line through a window, someone invited onto floor to see the whole process. They start with corn, treat it with lime (nixtamal), then grind that into masa. the masa is fed into rollers which flatten and cut the tortillas to size. they bake in an oven then zigzag over racks then are packed by hand into plastic bags. Show up in the morning and you can get warm tortillas. While we were at Koki's my mom asked where was the best Mexican grocery store. We were directed to La Plaza Tapatia.



Living in Chicago all these years, I have been to a wide range of Mexican Groceries from Chicago Heights to Pilsen to Albany Park and La Plaza Tapatia is very very nice store. They have everything you would need for a barbacoa.



Did somebody say cookout?



I love pork tacos. We have had a lot of adventures here in Columbus, including bacon camp, the fair and butchering a whole pig. I hope to write about this stuff soon, but in the meantime take a look at the pics from this trip on flckr. Better yet, go fix yourself something good to eat.

Cheers


Kokis Tortillas
2992 Sullivant Ave
Columbus 43204
614-279-5000

La Plaza Tapatia
4233 Shoppers Lane (Behind Westland Mall)
Columbus 43228
614-276-0333

Carnitas Pibil and a lesson in the ways of BBQ

Pork tacos and a lesson in the ways of BBQ.

I am now positive that my favorite barbeque is pork shoulder rubbed with Achiote and spices. It's a preparation from the Yucatan known as Pibil. I originally started with a recipe from Rick Bayless' One Plate at a Time, but I have done it (and written about it) so many times that now it comes together on it's own. I assure you there are few things finer that a picnic of pork tacos. With fair weather finally forcasted, I decided to make pork tacos over the weekend.



Now you can try following Rick's recipe get some Achiote (annatto) seeds, try grinding them (Like grinding pebbles, very gritty, typically you make a flavored oil with the seeds) OR you can do what everyone else does in Mexico and pick up some paste. I combined garlic, salt, marjoram, thyme and Canela (Cinnamon)with the achiote and added enough olive to make a paste.







I rubbed this mixture on the pork shoulder.



I also started some sliced red onion to pickle in lime juice orange juice sugar ans salt. Overnight in the fridge for both of them.

[
[
[
[We interrupt this post to answer the MAC BBQ Hotline]

[PHONE RINGS]

MAC: Hello?

J*$h: (name obscured to protect privacy) Hey, what are you doing?

MAC: Just started marinating some pork for bbq pork tacos, wanna come over?

J*$h: I can't, got company coming, Pork tacos, that's sounds good, do you have a recipe?

MAC: Sure I'll send you Rick's.

[NEXT DAY VIA Email]

J*$H:

Hey you only sent me an ingredient list, how about some pointers?
1. Such as a basic rub I can use?
2. how long on the grill (est.)
3. will I need to add coals/wood as it progresses?
4. what internal temp?

MAC:

Sorry about that. I don't think you will have enough time to do a shoulder roast on the grill today, it takes six hours. Get some pork shoulder steaks and rub them with whatever ingredients you have that closely match rick's recipe. For Achiote seeds use paprika (and maybe a little turmeric if you got it), for the Mexican oregano use dried marjoram, black pepper, cinnamon,salt, garlic, olive oil, mix that together and squeeze in a lime and rub that on the steaks. let em sit for a while, at least while you get the fire ready.

2. You wanna cook these things as long as you can, after an hour they will be safe to eat but chewy. The longer the pork cooks the more they will tenderize, just like working a crock pot. BTW the pork should be in a pan or something so can baste them from time to time.

3. For the fire you want a small fire off to one side. You want the fire to run at 250-350F. Once you get it going you need to check it like every 20 mins. Add briquettes if the fire is going out, add wood for flavor as needed. It doesn't need to smoke like an old Chrysler tho.

Dave at weber_cam has a good dicussion about lighting an indirect fire on a kettle

4. As for internal temp, I'm going for 200F on my roast, but that is going to take forever. You pork steaks need to get to at least 160F but they wont shred until the temp hits maybe 190. You're gonna chop this stuff up for tacos anyway so pull it off when you're ready to eat. Good luck let me know what happens

[MEANWHILE Back at the Ranch]



I got some banana leaves. I Pass them over a hot grill to soften them. They darken slightly. I line a pan with the leaves, nestle the roast then cover with more leaves. Enter the smoker.



I slow cooked the pork for about six hours, I got the internal temp to about 195F. I was busy doing garden work so I shut the vents and let it sit for another couple of hours



Time to pull the pork.





I roasted some habaneros, garlic, blended it with lime juice and salt for a hot sauce.



The pickled onions are done.



It's a beautiful day to eat tacos.

[
[
[
[
[MEANWHILE J*$H writes another note on the MAC BBQ Hotline]

J*$h:

I Made the tacos - everything went fine, but mostly done in the oven. We had to meet friends at Morton, so we threw it in there for a head start (4.4 lbs bone-in shoulder) at 250. Got back 3 hours later, and it was just about done. Not realizing that, I had started the coals, so I threw it on for 40 minutes or so, just to do it. Not sure if the taste changed much. Rub was lime juice, chili, cumin, ancho chili, lots of garlic and kosher salt. A very positive experience I must say, delicious all around. Also made a corn relish I saw bobby flay make - corn, charred jalapenos, cilantro, red onion and lime juice. Good, too. And of course, autentico tortillas.

Thanks.

[Hotline disconnects, MAC is troubled but then enlightend]

A very positive experience? How can that be? I gave J*$h somewhat explicit instructions on how to BBQ and he ignored them. Maybe the lesson today isn't for J*$h but for me (and any other would be BBQ expert). It reminds me that BBQ isn't taught at culinary school. Sure they have catering classes for feeding 700 but it ain't pulling sugar at Cordon Bleu. As far as I know Careme didn't codify the technique for smoking ribs in the backyard. In fact I can only think of one rule when it comes to BBQ: Don't burn yourself (that's also a culinary school rule too). I heard about a new BBQ book whose tagline is "Everything you Know about BBQ is Wrong." While flogging foodies with funny phases may sell books, It goes against what I pontificate on this blog: If it works then it's right. I don't give two squirts about how you cooked the meat because BBQ is much more than just process. It's also about bringing being people together to eat. Make it good, make it yours. However if you are still having trouble, give me a call I'd be glad to help.

Cheers.

PS If you enjoy reading rants about BBQ (I don't), read my post Pig Pick

Cochinita Pibil con Aloha: The Accidental Foodie in Kauai

The third in a series of occasional articles about cooking in Kauai.

I don't go to gourmet stores. OK, I do and I love the the artisanal meats, the European cheeses, the beautifully package pastas. But, when I am in these stores, such as Dean & Delucca or Fox & Obel or Katzinger's, I am a tourist, and I hate feeling like a tourist. Over the past couple of years my cooking has been evolving to working with ingredients that I can get nearby. Now I can't say this is about "eating local," but I got tired of travelling fourteen miles to the nearest Trader Joe's, or thirty miles to the nearest Whole Foods to stock my kitchen on a weekly basis (I still go to Joe's about one a month). So my cooking and has changed to take advantage of the best of what I can get from Walt's (only a five minute walk). Now that Farmer's markets are in full swing, we are getting wonderful produce from Michigan and great poultry from downstate. It's all a matter of getting to know your surroundings; we have been living in the Southland for almost four years, and I am still finding new and interesting places to get food. In fact I am starting a new web page devoted to "Small market" shopping in the Southland. We'll see how it goes.

Finding ingredients close at hand was a little different in Kauai. An initial impression of the Hawaiian Islands may be that you get only pineapple and sugar locally and everything else is shipped in from the mainland. Adding to that impression is the fact that Hawaii still holds the top slot as the state that consumes the most Spam(who doesn't love potted meat?). However, as reported in a previous post, there is a lot of great local produce available at the Farmer's Markets (Called the Sunshine Markets). But what about the meat?



In Kauai I saw only one butcher cold case in the big supermarkets and when I saw it, it was not in use. Usually I found meat packaged in Styrofoam trays, I suspect it comes that way from the mainland. I suppose I could have asked around to find out when the would have the case open (If ever) but I was already cutting into beach time. I had discovered on the Internet that there is a hog farm on Kauai, I just couldn't find it in the market.


Then my mom found a newspaper ad touting island raised pork should on sale at the Big Save. I immediately rolled up to Hanalei to pick my pork, but they were out (**no rain checks, supply may vary by store**). Phooey. I looked in Kapaa, Lihue, and then we went to the Southside.

photo credit: Ekarhu

In Waimea, we hit the shave ice shack then onto the Big Save where I found my quarry.

At this point, gentle readers, I should be sharing with you some hooped up Hawaiian recipe for a pork filled luau, and at the time, I thought about doing that, but I didn't want to dig a hole in our gracious hosts' yard. But the yard does play an important role in what we made.

A Mexican Luau.

One of my favorite party dishes is slow roasted pork tacos. It started last year after I went on a tirade about an article by Mark Bittman where he said it was impossible to find a good taco outside of the Southwest. I had adapted a Rick Bayless recipe for pit roasted pork wrapped in banana leaves. since then I made it several times using a whole roast and omitting the banana leaves. It's not that it is hard to get banana leaves in Chicago, they can be found frozen in Asian or Latin groceries, but I didn't want to make a special trip, and I was using the smoker. In Kauai things were switched around: I didn't have the smoker, but I did have a stand of banana leaves.

So I selected a leaf and gave it a good washing. The night before I marinated the pork in citrus juice, garlic and spices.

The next day I arranged the leaves on a roasting pan placed the steaks, and poured the marinade over top.

Then on a gas grill preheated, set on low, for three hours, until the internal temp it at least 180F up to 200F if you really want the meat to shred.

While the pork was cooking I made a habanero salsa: I roasted in a dry skillet six peppers, 3 cloves of garlic then threw them in a blender with 20 grams of seeded guava and some coconut milk.

Time to eat.

The banana leaves gave the pork an anise flavoring that blended perfectly with the marinade. Serve with red onions pickled overnight in citrus juice and you have the perfect Yucatán treat in Kauai.

Aloha.

The Mail Bag - Slow Pork Taco Recipe

[Dear SMAC,]

Ha! I did find a 3# pork shoulder chunk at the ShopRite on Monday. I'd like to do a rub/marinade and grill it the next day for tacos. No achiote seeds on hand but I have everything from Bittman's carnitas recipe in the Times last week. Any suggestions on the marinade? Should I try to add some wood for smoke when I grill it? What temp am I shooting for internally? Do I need to add something to make steam when I grill it?

Signed

sweatin' and grillin'
West Orange, NJ

Dear SWAG:

There’s always a wise guy out there tryin’ to break yer shoes. I’m sure you could find a three pound piece of shoulder in the crammed, family of six studio apartment dwelling, environs of NYC; there is only so much you can fit into one of those Holly Hobby Easy Bake Ovens. But all jabbin aside, how about that heat? Do not try to make sausage in this kind of weather it’s just too hot, but my order of Fermento and Dextrose showed up today so we are going to get down to business soon.

Now about grilling three pounds of pork shoulder. First about the Bittman article, seriously, it looks like page 298 of Rick Bayless Mexico, One Plate at a Time except no achiote or banana leaves. Go to the library and check it out.

But anyway, following the carnitas recipe I suggest the following changes:

For the marinade I would replace the lemon juice with fresh squeezed lime juice and bump it up to at least ¼ cup up to ½ cup. Bump up the salt too, A heavy tablespoon. I not sure about the authenticity of coriander, it is good for Italian sausage but tacos? Skip that , Instead put in some cloves, less than ½ teaspoon. Double the cumin and double the peppercorns. Put some cayenne in too. After toasting toastable spices (toast only whole spices), grind that all up as powdery as possible. Take your powder your garlic and your juice, and blender until smooth. Put the meat a Ziploc pour in the marinade, message well, and let it go overnight in the fridge.

Now for cooking. Since I know SWAG has a kettle grill (Weber 22”), that will be our weapon of choice. It is actually a perfectly good tool for smoking, especially with such a small piece of meat. First let’s set up the grill: Get some aluminum foil. You are going to build a small charcoal pile (I dunno 15-20 briquettes) on one side of the kettle. Build a wall of foil to sequester the pile with a little room to add more charcoal. Now the foil is not as much a retaining wall, but a heat shield, and a reminder to keep the fire small. Now you can buy some Charcoal Briquet Holders for that fancy pants look, but foil will work just fine. Try to line the rest of the charcoal grate with foil or use a drip pan because it is going to get messy. Fire up about ½ chimney of coals throw that on top of your little pile coals, a couple small chunks of wood (Hickory, I know you have some, I try to avoid bark) and see if you can get your fire to stabilize between 250 and 300F. How do you know when your grill is at temp? Go get a thermometer. For my mom’s kettle I picked up a Weber Grill Food Thermometer and ran it through a cork and stuck it in the vent as pictured here. If I want to control venting, I use balled up pieces of foil.

Arrange the cooking grate so that the handle is over the fire; there will be enough room to feed the fire without removing the grate. Or again, for that fancy pants look, you can get a hinged cooking grate ( I got one of those for my mom too). When cooking like this, I do like to put a pie tin of water over the fire for a little steam. I haven’t done any research and since the meat (a particularly fatty cut anyway) has been marinating, I don’t know how much difference the steam makes, probably not much. I figure it is not too much trouble( make sure it is a pie tin the old lady doesn’t care about, sorry mom), and the water helps regulate the temperature, so what the heck.

It is going to be around 3 hours to get 3 lbs of shoulder “Fork Tender.” What Internal temp is fork tender? 200F. Just cook it as long as you can stand it and look for it to be done anywhere between 190 and 200F. Now I am not positive about this smaller cut of meat, but you may find it races to 160F, then plateaus, and crawls the rest of the way to 200F. Try to keep the temp constant, and throw on another chunk of wood if it isn’t smoking.

Mac’s Modified Slow Roast Pork for Taco Recipe Ingredient List

10 cloves garlic, peeled

3 pounds pork shoulder, preferably boneless and in one piece (whatever)

1 Tablespoon peppercorns

1 teaspoon (or more) dried Mexican oregano (or Greek, don’t bother with fresh unless it is in your garden, which it should be)

1 Tablespoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

½ teaspoon whole clove

½ teaspoon cayenne

1 Tablespoon salt

2 Tablespoons fresh orange juice

¼ to ½ cup fresh lime juice.

Now I just made this up. I haven’t tested it, tune it to whatever makes sense to you, but it sounds good to me. And do the pickled onions, they are really good. Bayless' onion recipe calls for 3 red onions sliced, 1 1/3 cups lime juice, 2/3 cup orange juice. Marinate overnight. With a three pound roast, you could cut that recipe in half. And add some sugar. For pictures of an 8 pound roast marinating and the pickled onions, see the South Side Tacos post.

Thanks for the question, keep em coming, and SWAG, send us some pictures of your baby roast!

Cheers.

South Side Tacos

Well it’s been a busy summer here in the Southland, swimming lessons, traveling, trying not to listen to the news, it’s a wonder for when a guy can get any cooking done. By the way, the South Side was mentioned in the Sunday New York Times, last weekend. In an profile of John C. Reilly, the article stated that Reilly grew up in a “gritty South Side neighborhood…” in a “squat bungalow.” Once again the myth is perpetuated: Say you are from the South Side and folks start lookin to see if you have a gun stuck in your waistband. There must be some rule where folks from outside the Chicago are required to say “gritty” when saying the words “South Side.” I am sure that if, as the article states, Mr. Reilly’s father owned a commercial laundry service, and they lived in a bungalow near Marquette Park, Reilly’s youth may have been more accurately characterized as a “modest middleclass upbringing.” But that doesn’t sound very cool.

Continuing on this digressive diatribe regarding the Times (wait, you’ll see it comes full circle) I read over two articles today regarding Tacos. I’ll insert links for the articles, but I don’t know how long they will work, at a certain point the Times makes you pay to peak. The first article, The Taco Joint in Your Kitchen, by Mark Bittman, has only one valid worthwhile statement: In New York, a good taco is hard to find. True. When I lived in New York, good Latino (Mexican) food was very hard to find, we would travel to the ends of the Earth (New Jersey) in the hopes of finding something above mediocre.

But then the article goes on to state that Genuine Tacos can only be found in the Southwest or Mexico. False. Once again New Yorkeritis rears its ugly head; that’s the disease were the New Yorker (the inhabitant, not the magazine) believes that the only thing West of NYC is New Jersey and California. When I lived there I had it too. Chicago has some of the most beautiful, most delicious, most hardcore Mexican food to be had anywhere, and I missed it terribly when I lived out East. And what goes into a “Genuine Taco” in the little 3 inch corn tortillas supposedly only available in Cali and South of the Border? In my experience, meat. If you ask, and you can put up with the cook shaking his head, cheese. You get three on a plate surrounded by a little lettuce and tomato, and you eat them with a little salsa. Wash it down with a little horchata (no beer, its lunch time, and you are on the job) or if you are at Irazu on Milwaukee Ave., a Guayaba en Leche and there you go, genuine.

The second Article (just a related recipe) Recipe: Slow-Roasted Pork for Tacos, must be geared towards the apartment dweller in Murray Hill. The recipe calls for two pounds of pork shoulder; good luck finding that. Most shoulder roasts come packaged between five and eight pounds and rarely come boneless. And you should cook a full roast at a time anyway, pulled pork freezes really well and reconstitutes nicely in a skillet. The bigger piece of meat just takes more cook time. I wont go into the spices and prep, but regarding cooking and serving, the meat should be shredded and that means cooking to somewhere between 190F to 200F. Below 190 you’ll be slicing. The recipe says to cook until “very very tender, at least two hours” Just take its temp you will know when it is done. Anything above 160 and below 175 the meat is fully cooked, but you’ll be slicing a very chewy piece of meat.

And wait a minute, this recipe looks like a dumbed down version of Slow Roasted Achiote Pork, in Rick Bayless’ Mexico, One Plate at a Time. Why? Well that’s what was in the kitchen last weekend.

Last weekend was the block party, the time of the year when the neighbors get together eat, watch movies outside and generally run amok until two or three in the morning.

The past couple of years I have done a brisket bbq but this time I bought a pork butt for pulled pork ( about 8-1/2 pound bone in). However the neighbors wanted a Mexican theme. So how about pulled pork tacos?

Rick’s recipe called for blending achiote seeds (I learned they are also called annatto seeds, which made them easier to find) black pepper, cumin, Mexican oregano, cinnamon and cloves, stir that into lime juice and orange juice, and throw in a handful of cloves. Put your butt into the marinade and let it soak overnight.

Now the recipe calls for cutting the roast into several slices and wrapping them in Banana leaves. Now as much as I like the idea of pork steaming in banana leaves over the pit fire, I lent my bone saw to a buddy to trim his mulberry tree, so the roast stays whole. I started the roast at 8 am figuring 6-8 hours to finish. However at 7 am I realized I was short charcoal, so a I built a smaller than usual fire. Instead of a 275F smoking temp I was at 225F. So at 5PM(the party already started) I pulled the pork off at 185F, 15 degrees short of the goal.

Most of it shredded but some had to be sliced. Again to hammer home the point, on tough cuts of meat (pork shoulder, Boston butt, beef brisket beef plate) you cook them low and slow to allow the fat to render (“self basting” in the Taco article) and the connective tissue to break down. The results is moist and tender meat. Most of the rendering and tissue break occurs past 160 F, so you got to keep on going.

Anyway Taco time. The night before I also sliced some red onion and marinated it in 2 parts lime juice (limes were twelve for a dollar) and 1 part orange juice. To build a taco: Tortilla, meat, onion.

Repeat.

Notes: the Tacos were magnifico, and they where enjoyed by all the gritty Southsiders. The marinade only called for 1 tablespoon of salt, I’d maybe double that next time. The onions had an exquisite color but they needed a bit more sweet. Next time make sure you have enough charcoal.

Cheers.