tekobo Posted December 28, 2023 Report Share Posted December 28, 2023 Starting to prep for our New Year's Eve party, four days out. Today was marinade and sauce day with a little bit of tortilla action thrown in for good measure. I picked a recipe for chicken tacos with chilmole. The recipe said that preparing the chilmole would remove the ability for the air in your kitchen to sustain life, such is the level of capsaicin that would be released when you roasted the 100 arbol and 8 ancho chilies to the level of blackness required to make the sauce. I had a simple solution to that - fire up my 23 KK, get it well heat soaked and "broil" (we say grill in the UK) the chillis in there. I also made the al pastor marinade as per @Troble's recipe. I doubled the recipe. Our sturdy Vitamix had a job on its hands, getting all that achiote blended in! See this post for more about tacos al pastor After all that work I ended up with three tubs of al pastor marinade and one of chilmole. I also wanted to experiment with tortillas. I started off with beautiful purple corn. This is following the wash after nixtamalisation. Some people say to wash a lot, some say to wash a little. This time I washed a lot. Just depends on when I remember that I don't need to slough off ALL of the outside of the kernel. Machine in action, grinding the corn. IMG_4010.MOV Working on my own I managed to make 42 tortillas in under half an hour. I have left them to cool and will test the reheating methods tomorrow. 42. The Answer to Life the Universe and everything. It is a sign. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacKenzie Posted December 28, 2023 Report Share Posted December 28, 2023 (edited) WOW, what goodness awaits, my mouth is salivating just looking at pixs of the marinades and the tacos. Is everyone in your neighbourhood calling emergency services to report difficulty in breathing? Edited December 29, 2023 by MacKenzie 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOC Posted December 28, 2023 Report Share Posted December 28, 2023 More than a tortilla a minute! Impressive! Looks like you will have some happy guests in a couple of days.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonj Posted December 29, 2023 Report Share Posted December 29, 2023 20 hours ago, tekobo said: 42. The Answer to Life the Universe and everything. It is a sign. Nice nod to Douglas Adams there, @tekobo! Beautiful tortillas as well! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PVPAUL Posted December 29, 2023 Report Share Posted December 29, 2023 @tekobo I have many fond memories of my parents making a family recipe we called “Devils Dust”! Devils dust is just using dried chile Japones (Japanese) and toasting in a dry cast iron skillet until toasted like you did with the dried chilis in your picture. Once cooled we put them in the blender and blend until a consistency you like. We use it to put on top of pizzas and in some of our family recipes. when dad would make this in the indoor kitchen it will smoke and if you coughed once you were done! Needless to say us kids would head into the basement until all was clear!! I’m making tortillas tomorrow to go with tacos 3 ways…. Duck carnitas, Mexican green pork and brisket. Just made an escabeche type salad for taco toppings to go with onions, cilantro & radish! Good luck on your dinner outing!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tekobo Posted December 30, 2023 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2023 Way to go @PVPAUL! Will be interested in seeing how yours turn out and in learning about your Mexican green pork recipe. I was very pleased to have hit on a method for toasting the chillis without dying of coughing at the same time! Not the first time my KK has come to the rescue. I need to do my final round of shopping today and I realise I can't do that without knowing how many people are turning up. The problem is, I am not sure how many I invited. Happily, I issued most invites by email so I will tot them up and then figure out by how much I have to over cater. Looking forward to seeing others' taco photos from new year! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troble Posted December 31, 2023 Report Share Posted December 31, 2023 @tekobo42 tortillas in 30 minutes is pretty impressive! Sounds like an excellent feast. Can’t wait to see the meal photos Happy New Year! Salud! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tekobo Posted December 31, 2023 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2023 Thanks @Troble! I could not quite remember how to cook the Al Pastor so I went back to your post for temps and times. All under control, I think. Apart from the blustery wind and rain but that is the UK for you. Happy New Year All. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PVPAUL Posted December 31, 2023 Report Share Posted December 31, 2023 So yesterday was our early NYE gathering with some close friends and their kids and my family so we had a total of 13 of us. A pic of my sweetie helping to press tortillas outside in about 34 F weather…pretty mild end of December evening here in SE WI. A couple pics of the taco spread and one finished taco…..I thought they turned out great but then I’m tooting my ow horn I guess. Our friends sister was a professional in the food industry with a high skill set in confectionary / baking. This is a pic of a coconut cake……..many years ago my wife and I enjoyed going to a Chicago restaurant called “Heaven on Seven” a New Orleans themed restaurant that make an excellent coconut cake. This cake was as good as the cake or better than we used to get at Heaven on Seven! Today we are taking it easy before we head to Mexico where other good people can make great tacos for us!!! Good luck @tekobo and Happy New Year to all the good folks here on the KK Forum, 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacKenzie Posted January 1 Report Share Posted January 1 Happy New Year to All. 😁😸😄😼🌮 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonj Posted January 1 Report Share Posted January 1 Happy New Year! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tekobo Posted January 1 Author Report Share Posted January 1 Happy New Year. Nice looking spread @PVPAUL. Looks like we both had a good taco night. Tacos are much less common here in the UK so our friends were surprised and blown away by the food, particularly as most of them have nothing to compare my skill level with! First the tortillas. With me rolling and pressing and a friend cooking, we made 308 tortillas in 2.5 hours. I don't have any pics of the process but we had four going at once on my large heavy weight griddle. We covered them over but after six hours waiting the top tortillas were a little curled up, as per photos below. We managed to revive them on the comal and they came out well on the night. We have some left over and I am looking forward to seeing how they perform after being frozen. The friend who helped me is in his late seventies and had never seen a blue corn tortilla before. His first question was "how are you going to turn that into something edible?" We went from that to him comparing the tortilla to a mould (he used to be a university lecturer in biology). He was finally converted by the beauty of watching a pink tortilla rise on the griddle and once he tasted a taco al pastor he became a fully fledged taco evangelist. And here is the spread, ready for people to dive in. We learned lessons from parties past and didn't put all the food out at once, replenishing bowls as needed. The tacos al pastor stole the show, right behind the crispy chicken skin. Everyone loved the home made crema Mexicana, made simply by mixing double cream and buttermilk and leaving in the dough proofer for 36 hours. Best wishes for the New Year to you all and thank you for all the help and advice over the years. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacKenzie Posted January 1 Report Share Posted January 1 WOW 👍👍 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonj Posted January 1 Report Share Posted January 1 Beautiful! I'm sure everyone was blown away. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PVPAUL Posted January 1 Report Share Posted January 1 That is a Beautiful spread @tekobo!!!! I know I would have been blown away if I was a guest………and I have an intimate knowledge of all of the hard work & love that went into that……….I’m sure your Fiesta will go down in the archives for you and your guest as the best NYE dinner ever!!! Congratulations!!! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony b Posted January 4 Report Share Posted January 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C6Bill Posted January 5 Report Share Posted January 5 What a great looking meal !!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
