What I Ate This Week

Although this is really Raffi's bag, not mine, I wanted to share the recipes for one of the more delicious meals cooked up on Westminster Street lately. Critiques and suggestions for future food experimentation are encouraged.

Pork Fajitas

The old owners of Rancho Grande used to tell me as soon as I came in whether or not pork fajitas were on the menu that day, since it was guaranteed that I'd order them whenever possible. In an attempt to recreate the deliciousness of yore, Will and I made some improvised pork fajitas the other night.

Boneless pork chops were marinaded all day in the following mixture:
Juice of two limes
1 splash each soy sauce, vinegar, and olive oil
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp Mexican oregano
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp ancho chili powder

Will sauteed onions and jalapeno peppers in a skillet indoors while I played with fire outside.
The chops were then grilled over a charcoal fire for some indefinite period until we realized the fire was not hot enough and they were not going to cook before the Apocalypse. Then we chopped them into strips and threw them in the aforementioned (very hot and now empty) skillet until they browned nicely.

Tortillas: the hands down best way to heat up tortillas is over open flame. I use the gas stove and flip them with my fingers if they are big and tongs if they are small. They should be turned more or less constantly and are ready when air pockets puff up inside.

Accompaniments: we made this tomatillo salsa, although we used serrano peppers instead of jalapenos and increased the amount of lime juice. It was the most tangy, hot, scrumptious salsa ever. I highly recommend it. (It goes well with cheese quesadillas the next day as well.) We also put sour cream on the fajitas.

In the future, I think I'll just skip the grill and saute the pork from the beginning.