Last night's dinner was a resounding success. Chantal made chicken enchiladas, which we topped with salsa verde. Now we have to find a night of the week to be our official Enchilada Night. There were no enchilada tortillas available in town (these are thicker than the ones you use for tacos), so Chantal used flour tortillas, and they worked just beautifully. She used the Mexican method of making one enchilada at a time, rather than putting a bunch in a pan and baking them. We used the salsa verde recipe we got from Maria. Here it is, complete with our revisions:

Salsa Verde

about 7 tomatillos
water to cover
1-2 chiles
1-2 cloves of garlic
1/4 of a white onion
salt and pepper to taste
1 avocado
pinch of sugar

Remove the "paper" from the tomatillos and rinse them. Put them (whole) into a cazuela or saucepan with the chiles. I used two jalapenos and part of a poblano that I had left over. Add the onion, salt and pepper, 1-2 cloves of garlic, and enough water to just about cover the tomatillos. Cook over medium heat for about 20 minutes. Cool. Drain, reserving the water.

Place the mixture in a blender. Add an avocado. (Sour cream or mayonnaise may be substituted for the avocado.) Blend, adding 1/4 of the reserved cooking water if the salsa is too thick.

Here's the part that Maria says she got from watching Emeril. Tomatillos have rather a tangy, almost lemon-like flavour. If your salsa has too much tang for your taste, add a pinch of sugar.

Here's where Chantal and I took off on our own. We doubled that pinch of sugar - the salsa still wasn't sweet, and it shouldn't be, but it was much smoother. Then, I decided to add a bit of whipping cream (leftovers, again), and the result was perfect, or so we think.

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While I'm talking about recipes, I should straighten out the one I put in when I first got here - the one I named Hamburguesa San Carlos, iirc. It turns out that it's actually called Picadillo, which means that everything in it is chopped. The real recipe goes like this:

Picadillo

1 lb. minced beef, turkey, pork, or a mixture
1 potato
2 medium tomatoes, ripe
1/2 white onion
3 cloves of garlic
1-2 chiles (Serrano, jalapeno, guero) to taste
handful of raisins
handful of green olives
3 T olive oil
herbs and spices, if you like - oregano, cumin, maybe cinnamon?

Pre-cook the potato and dice it. Coarsely chop the other non-meat ingredients.

Heat the oil in a cazuela. Add meat and brown it. Season. Add potato, tomato, onion, garlic, and chiles. Taste for seasoning. Add a bit of water or stock if the mixture is too dry. Add olives and raisins. Cook another 5 minutes or so. Use to stuff chiles rellenos, enchiladas, tacos, etc.

The combination of raisins and olives sounded a bit strange to me, but it's really very good. I think pine nuts would go well in the dish. It makes a good base for a pasta sauce, as well.

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Last night was very quiet for a Friday. We think that the disco across the street (Have I mentioned that? It wasn't there last year. It's quite the going concern on the weekend, starting at about 10 p.m. and going on until 3-4 a.m. The sub-woofers are earth-shaking - literally.)
Anyway, they weren't going last night. We think that with all the Carnaval festivities going on in Guaymas, nobody's bothering to come out here. Let's hear it for Carnaval!



We just came back from Miramar, where we went to take some pictures of the fishing fleet. It's rather a grey day today, which turned out to be good for taking pictures.

There wasn't nearly as much going on today as there was yesterday, though, when they seemed to be bringing in squid by the tonne.








I enjoyed watching this man mending his nets - until Robin told me they were drift nets, which are apparently horrid things.


On the way back home, we stopped to take pictures of the rock I'd been admiring, and found that the fishing (squidding?) boats were looking particularly photogenic out there.