Wednesday Dinner: Sopa De Lima

Lime is not what one would expect to find on a list of soup ingredients. Soups usually evoke carrots, celery, and bay leaf from your flavor memory, not cilantro, chili peppers and lime.

This soup bears a striking resemblance to sopa de lima, or Yucatan lime soup. Budget Bytes, the website where I found this, took some short cuts away from authentic, but not enough to affect the integrity of the traditional sopa too greatly.

Tuesday dinner: Tomatillo Chicken Quesadilla

The Wife loves tomatillos. Usually when I buy them, the end result is a batch of salsa verde. I’ll fire roast them over the gas burner on the stove to char them up a little and puree them for salsa.

Tomatillos are nifty little fruit. They have a husk and a sticky skin, which goes away with a quick rinse. Their flavor is earthy with a slight sweetness. They just beg to be matched with cilantro and onions.

Tuesday dinner: Chorizo stuffed peppers

I love chorizo. Have I mentioned that before? Anyhow, I also like poblanos and those make the odd appearance around the kitchen.

Serious Eats presents this version as a Mexican version of the Italian stuffed pepper. Now, I made something similar once before, but thought that I could get the two Mexican flavors I liked best together on one plate.

The recipe’s author intended this for a charcoal grill. The threat of rain and a 90-degree temperatures scared me inside and hunkered down into my air conditioned kitchen. I opted for a 500-degree oven instead. It worked just as well.

Tuesday dinner: Gringo enchiladas

The best enchiladas I’ve ever had were at The Mission in Syracuse. Granted, I don’t eat a lot of enchiladas, but they do something to them at The Mission that makes them leaps and bounds better than those I’ve had anywhere else.

I call these gringo enchiladas because, well, there’s not a lot about this that seems authentic. I’m not slow roasting the chicken. I pan-seared it, though I probably could have gotten away with buying a rotisserie chicken at Wegmans and shredding the meat. Don’t get me wrong…they came out really good, but it felt like cheating. (To any teacher reading this article: It is very likely that I cheated in one of your classes, either on homework or on a test. Apparently now is when I’m going to have the epiphany that cutting corners robs you of the fulfillment of a job well done. Congratulations. You won.)

Wednesday dinner: Chorizo white bean stew

My Wegmans just recently began carrying chorizo in its meat department. It’s possible that they have been doing this for a while, but I like to think that I would have noticed, as I look for these sorts of things on a regular basis. I’m glad, to be honest. I’ve had success making my own, but sometimes a store-bought version is handier. The best I had found locally was at Nojaim Bros. on Gifford Street in Syracuse‘s Near West Side neighborhood, which serves the area’s Latin American and Caribbean populations. It’s out of my way to get there, so I’m happy that Wegmans has a convenient, and good quality, option.

Wednesday dinner: Gringo arroz con pollo

I’ve wanted to do arroz con pollo for a while, but never got to it. The inspiration for my attempt was a platter of the Latin American chicken and rice dish that was in the cooler at Ithaca Bakery when I stopped in for lunch on Sunday. It looked damn good. And, I figured if it could be a refrigerated dish at an upscale bakery that it could very well be a weeknight dinner.

We’re assisted by The Kid and her no longer needing to eat by 4:45 p.m. each night. Dinner is now a post-5 p.m. endeavor, something we discovered when she stopped eating dinner but was hungry by 7 p.m. I needed the extra time here, as the rice needed to simmer and all of the flavors required time to gel.

Tuesday dinner: Chicken with salsa verde

Sunday’s Wegmans trip was a taste of Murphy’s Law at the grocery store. Usually, the produce department is hemorrhaging tomatillos, the sweet but ugly little fruit used to make salsa verde. Of course on the day I was looking for a half-pound of them, they were nowhere to be found. The produce manager told me that they would be on the truck that evening. So, Monday’s dinner moved to Tuesday.

The Wife likes tomatillos and will pretty much go with salsa verde (or simply, green salsa) whenever it is available. Our personal favorite is the variety dished at The Mission. It’s sweet, smokey and has just a hint of heat (they list it as a medium salsa). In the past, I’ve broiled and pureed them with other ingredients to make a traditional cold salsa as an accoutrement. Tonight, I went with a sauté.

Tuesday dinner: Gringo chorizo

This took 10 minutes to cook through.

Before we get going, how is it that the Tuesday after a three-day weekend seems like three days packed into one? Seriously, I looked at the clock with the expectation that it was after 3 p.m. Imagine my disappointment when the little digital display said 12:46, blinking at me like a passive-aggressive ninja.

/soapbox

My love affair with chorizo has been documented on this blog. Stuck in the Northeast, my access to good, authentic Mexican food is limited. There is a decent taqueria in town and one of my favorite restaurants in Syracuse calls itself pan-american, but it all pales in comparison to the gritty, authentic taco stands of the south and west.