Another Chilaquiles Smackdown

Can you guess what's missing from this photo of the dessert portion of the chilaquiles fiesta we held here yesterday?

Yes, I know it's hard to take your eyes off the exquisite fruit platter assembled by our friend Keith, laden as it is with passion fruit and mangos and prickly pear. And friend Susan's version of Mexican wedding cookies have been almost completely consumed. No, it must be Janice's churros, of which only a few scant crumbs remain. They were definitely a huge hit, made with fresh pate choux, deep fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar.

And that was after the chilaquiles--red and green versions--all muddled with tangy crema and queso fresco. And Yayo's perfectly cooked Spanish torta. And the chorizo sausage. And the poached eggs.

Most of the party is a blur for me. That's what I get for agreeing to make chilaquiles a la minute for 40 people. You are familiar with chilaquiles, yes? I like to think of them as the Mexican equivalent of French bread. The French call their stale baguettes "pan perdu," or "lost bread. They make economical use of it by soaking the bread in egg and frying it. In Mexico, tortillas are eaten with every meal. It's common for families to buy a tall stack of them in the morning. Should any go stale, you can fry them in some oil to make chips, then toss them in a sauce of tomatoes, onions and chipotle chilies.

Having thrown this party the last several years, we continue to refine our technique. Last year I struggled with the poached eggs. Now I think I have cracked that nut: a couple of hours before guests arrive, poach three dozen eggs as usual in a large skillet of simmering water with white vinegar (use the freshest eggs possible). Instead of dropping the cooked eggs into a cold water bath, however, cook them just to the point of doneness and spread them on lightly greased sheet pans. The eggs will continue to cook a bit. As guests begin to arrive, place the eggs in a warm (not hot) oven until you are ready to serve. Use a metal spatula to place them on a warm ceramic serving platter and garnish lightly with chopped cilantro. Guests can easily help themselves to the poached eggs at the buffet using a serving fork.

For the chilaquiles, we cut stacks of fresh corn tortillas into squares and fry them in the deep fryer. Have your sauces simmering on the stove, then simply toss the chips with sauce in a heavy skillet, stirring in some thinly sliced white onion. When the chips begin to soften, spread them on a platter and garnish liberally with crema, queso fresco and chopped cilantro.

Here's the recipe we use for our red sauce:

Red Sauce for Chilaquiles
Serves 6

2 tablespoons lard or canola oil
1/2 white onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes, with juice
2 chipotle chiles in adobo, seeds removed and chopped fine
1 cup chicken stock or broth
2 teaspoons oregano, preferably Mexican)
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
1 bay leaf
salt to taste

In a saucepan over medium-low heat, heat 1 tablespoon lard or canola oil. Sweat the onion and garlic until soft, about 10 minutes. Add remaining ingredients except salt and bring almost to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer gently one hour. Remove from heat.

Remove bay leaf. Pour sauce in into a blender and blend until smooth. Over moderately-high heat, heat 1 tablespoon lard or canola oil in a heavy skillet. Pour in sauce. Cook vigorously and reduce until sauce until it is the consistency of thick soup. If too thick, add chicken broth. Season with salt as needed. Remove from heat and reserve.

And here's a green chilaquiles sauce you might like to try:

3 tablespoons lard or canola oil
1 medium white onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 jalapeno pepper (about the size of your thumb), seeds removed and chopped fine
2 pounds fresh tomatillos (paper husks removed), cleaned and roughly chopped
½ cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 teaspoons dried oregano, preferably Mexican
1 cup chicken broth
salt to taste

Over medium-low heat, sweat the onion, garlic and jalapeno in 2 tablespoons lard or canola oil until onions are soft, about 10 minutes. Add remaining ingredients except salt and bring almost to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer gently 1 hour. Remove from heat.

Pour the sauce into a blender and blend until the ingredients retain just a bit of texture. Meanwhile, over moderately high heat, heat 1 tablespoon lard or canola oil in a heavy skillet. Pour in sauce. Cook vigorously and reduce until the sauce is the consistency of thick soup. If too thick, add chicken broth. Season with salt as needed. Remove from heat and reserve.

These sauces can be made days ahead and reheated.

Note: crema, a tangy sort of liquid sour cream, and queso fresco, literally a fresh white cheese that crumbles easily, are instant markers of Mexican and Central American cuisine and can readily be found at Latin markets. Tomatillos are not a form of green tomato but a relative of the gooseberry. They also can be found in Latin neighorhoods.

All-American Inaugural

If you thought these looked like pigs-in-a-blanket on steroids, you got it right. They're Hebrew National hot dogs baked in biscuit dough, then cut on an angle into bite-size pieces and served with five different sauces.

This was just one of my wife's clever innovations for an inaugural cocktail reception and open house for 100 that we catered yesterday. We were looking for an Obama-America theme (who wasn't)--some of his favorite foods that could be served on a buffet. So there was also chili and macaroni cheese served in tall ceramic shot glasses, our own Chicago-style deep-dish pizza that turned out shockingly well, small bites of sweet potato pie and an assortment of all-American cookies.

When the crowd finally departed, we then served dinner for 20: Our favorite meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Here's wishing President Obama--and all of us--good luck and hearty appetite in perilous times.

Dark Days: A Buffet for Urban Gardeners

My home is ground zero for our local gardening group, D.C. Urban Gardeners. This is no garden club, but an insurgent conclave committed to greening the District of Columbia.

To entice their attendance at these monthly planning sessions, I lay out some kind of buffet. It gives me a chance to show off the food that comes out of our own urban food garden, about one mile from the White House.

This menu started with sweet potatoes that arrived in last week's CSA box. I added a mix of cooked greens from the CSA and the garden plus some Gorgonzola cheese to make the sweet potato galette I wrote about some weeks back.

Also on the buffet were bowls of our pickled beets and pickled green tomatoes. The green tomatoes are always a sensation. In addition, we still have a surfeit of tomato jam. For that I baked some tall, fluffy buttermilk biscuits.

Finally, to calm the sweet toothes in the crowd, daughter and I made a batch of heart-shaped brownies. We displayed them on a lacy, white ceramic stand, dusted with confectioner's sugar.

We then continued with our insurrection.

Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies

Obviously, anything as dangerous as a peanut butter whoopie pie warrants an explanation.

Normally I try to steer clear of desserts and sweets. And these "whoopie pies"--which must look painfully familiar to anyone south of the Mason Dixon line, where Moon Pies rule--are basically death on a bun.

What happened was, I've been conducting a new year's cleanup--clearing desktops, sorting through piles of accumulated papers, thinning out files and finally going through my entire collection of food magazines, tearing out any worthwhile articles and bundling the rest for the recycling center.

It was in a January 2004 issue of Martha Stewart Living that I spotted the recipe for whoopie pies. On any other day, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. But I have an 8-year-old girl here on holiday break who's watching too much TV. She jumped at the chance to make whoppie pies. (The blame, in other words, rests soley with her.) The rest, as they say, is history.

Well, not so fast. Because it also happens that the garden gang I hang with, D.C. Urban Gardeners, was scheduled to drop by for a meeting. So I slotted the whoppie pies for the dessert end of a simple buffet to serve while brain wracking over how to support sustainable horticulture in the District of Columbia. The final menu worked out this way:

Winter salad of greens and roasted beets from the garden, toasted walnuts and Gorgonzola cheese with mustard vinaigrette; buttermilk biscuits with our own tomato-coriander jam; roasted acorn squash slices with maple-pomegranate glaze; and, of course, whoopie pies.

People are astonished to learn that we are still harvesting salad and beets from the garden, yet we are, and other things as well. But that could soon be coming to an end. Temperatures have plunged close to 20 degrees hereabouts, and the lettuces were already looking a little ragged.

The whoopie pies are deadly: two cakey chocolate cookies sandwiching a peanut butter-infused butter cream. One is enough to sound cardiac alarm bells. Two--well, by then you are condemned to a special place in peanut butter hell.

Yet, I heard nary a complaint. For the recipe, see Martha's website here.

Building a Cocktail Buffet

When we put on a cocktail buffet, we go into production mode.


One of our go-to hors d'oeuvres is grilled shrimp. We use tail-on shrimp and apply a light drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, then a spice rub adjusted to the menu theme. Most of our rubs include a few basic spices--coarse salt, garlic salt, onion powder, brown sugar and usually chili powder. For a Southwestern theme, we would add cumin. Cinnamon and coriander would give the rub a North African tilt. For an Asian flavor, we use ginger and powdered lemon grass.

Line shrimp on a sheet pan, apply olive oil and dust with spice rub. Flip the shrimp and repeat the process.

For a small group, we would favor really large shrimp and place them on skewers so they don't curl. Otherwise, for larger groups, we lay the shrimp directly on the grill over very hot coals. Flip the shrimp once and look for some nice charring here and there. They only take a few short minutes to cook through. Remove them to a sheet pan to cool.


We served these Asian-style shrimp with a mayo dip seasoned with wasabi.


Miniature crab cakes also make an excellent hors d'oeuvres. We favor large pieces of crab meat in our crab cakes, not the kind where everything seems to have been run through a food processor to resemble cat food. The cakes are bound together with just a bit of egg, mayonnaise and bread crumbs.


If you have a crab cake recipe you like, all you have to do is reduce the size of the cakes from what you are used to. My wife likes a small mechanical scoop. It looks just like a miniature ice cream scoop. In fact, these scoops come in many different sizes.



Mix your usual ingredients in a bowl, then heat about 1/2-inch cooking oil at the bottom of a heavy skillet. Use both hands and the scoop to form the crab cake mix into small rounds. Place these in the hot oil with plenty of room around each, then flatten with a narrow off-set spatula. When the cakes have browned on one side, turn to the other side. The oil should be just hot enough to cook the crab cakes all the way through without burning. You will see the oil bubbling around each crab cake.




Remove the cakes to a baking sheet lined with paper towels. We served them with a Chesapeake-style tartar sauce, just a dollop on each crab cake.


We made two kinds of miniature sandwiches for the buffet using sweet potato biscuits. The sweet potatoes are first roasted in the oven, cooled, then incorporated into a traditional biscuit batter. My wife uses a small cookie cutter to form the biscuits. After they've baked and cooled, it's quite easy to open them into two halves and lay them out on the kitchen counter for assembly.




There were two different sandwiches on the menu: roasted turkey with a sage-infused mayonaise and cranberry sauce and a glazed ham with our own green tomato-apple chutney and maple mustard.



Once the biscuit pieces are lined up, we use a small spatula to spread the condiments, then lay down pieces of turkey or ham cut to size. Once the sandwiches are finally assembled, they can easily be stored in the refrigerator until you are ready to display them. They can even be made a day ahead. Just bring them up to room temperature before the guests arrive.


A suggestion for display: Try stacking the mini-sandwiches on decorative plates placed on a three-tier stand. This brings some drama and verticality to the buffet.

Besides being loaded with holiday flavors, the sandwiches--small and tidy as they are--also have a kind of tongue-in-cheek appeal. They make you want to giggle out loud.