dear food blog community

PJ and I went through a period of eating tacos de carnitas and al pastor from street vendors almost everyday. We were accustomed to the greasy, salty, deliciously seasoned meats packed with flavor. I'm not a big carnivore, but I didn't want to miss out on the taco fun. Also, before school everyday, we would stop by our favorite tamale cart for a guajolota which is a tamale in a torta roll (starch on starch). We weren't getting much variety of color, texture, or fiber in our food except for the usual dinners of lentils and brown rice, but even they were getting tired. Now that school is out we've had time to shop at the markets and cook all our meals at home.

Maybe I'm missing the carnitas because lately I've been chasing an earthy, meaty umami flavor in my cooking. I've been trying to maximize richness and complexity in things like mushrooms and leeks and its been working pretty well. I'm not talking hen-of-the-woods or even crimini, I use the plain white button mushrooms, champiñones, that are so common here. Button mushrooms have a high water content and when sliced and sauteed they lose most of their juices and mass. Lately I've been searing them halved or whole on a very hot comal til they even blacken. I avoid moving them, only once to flip them really. The result are plump, juicy morsals with a complexity of flavor so much more intense than what I was used to from them. For one dinner, the seared mushrooms joined roasted leeks and fat french fries over brown rice for a hearty steakhouse meal. The most satisfying to me is getting amazing flavors out of the humblest ingredients, which, given my economic status, has become my specialty.

Another trend going on here is the hard boiled egg thrown on the plate of every meal. This is mostly due to a new cooking technique thanks to PJ. I always thought the best way to hard cook an egg was to put it in cold water, bring it just to a boil, then take it off the heat and cover it, letting it cook gently for 11 minutes in just hot water. Thats how I learned at a restaurant. "Never boil a protein!" as the sous chef threw the egg on the floor (it happened). But the problem with this method, even after shocking in ice water, was that the shell was always so difficult to remove, and would rip the fragile egg white with it. PJ's method for medium-boiled eggs: bring water to a boil, gently lower eggs in, and simmer for 8 minutes. They're perfect. I also really like how they look on the plate.

spinach with balsamic caramelized onions, mushrooms, fries, avocado, egg, brown rice

The variety of items on the plate, as you might have guessed, is another major theme this season. Lately I've been enjoying up to six components on one plate, which is double the usual amount, commonly a legume, grain, and green. Really its just the addition of small things like an egg or avocado but they make an impact. Having several components is nice because it offers many combinations of flavors, temperatures, and textures to provide new experiences within one dinner. I enjoy the challenge of maintaining harmonious flavors while increasing the number of colors and shapes, but its important to me that there's enough raw or barely worked items to maintain a certain level of simplicity. I'm citing Korean food as an aesthetic influence on this presentation. Actually, I want to start making colorful quick-pickles to go with some meals as well.

black beans, brown rice, squash, avocado, egg, spinach salad with carrots

The new experimenting might come from simply having more time, but it has definitely reinvigorated my home cooking. Its nice to enjoy eggs outside of a tortilla española, which became an everyday norm, but I imagine the bonus medium-boiled egg trend will have to fade sometime as well. As for the tacos, we had some al pastor last night at 1 AM and they are still delicious.

-Kenny