As a treat for my lovely fellow chef, I decided to whip up some homemade Southwest food last night; no surprise there.
So, having made that decision, I settled on fajitas.
I will note here that fajitas are supposed to be flank steak; I couldn't find any on my excursion to the grocery, so I settled on chuck steak instead, but for the record flank steak is better for this.
So, I collected a bunch of stuff, all of which will get organized by recipe (there are two, and a trick. You'll see.)
First, I cut two good-sized chuck steaks into short strips. This came out to maybe a pound and a half of strips - half inch thick by around four inches long.
I took two gallon freezer bags, and put one inside the other - you can use one, but two reduces the chances of leaks. (This is my Secret Ninja Master Meat Marination trick, so pay attention.)
When you're marinating meat, there are a lot of ways to go about it, but the technique that's always worked for me is to put the meat into the inner bag, and put the marinade in with it; make sure all the air is out, and then you can knead the meat with the marinade several times during the marinating time without getting your hands all sloppy. This way you reduce the amount of marinade needed, and it works it into the meat more deeply, than any way I've ever found to do this.
So, first the marinade:
Chopped cilantro (get one bundle for this meal, and use about a quarter of it here; the rest you will use in two other dishes.)
Olive oil (1 part per...)
White wine vinegar (...two parts of this.)
Lime juice (If you get one of those little green plastic limes, use about a third here; the rest will go in the aforementioned other two dishes.)
Ground cumin
Chili powder
Black pepper
Minced garlic
As an aside here, when making pico de gallo (one of those two dishes,) I cut up a pepper; I put a few - only a few - of the seeds in with the meat and marinade to give it a bit of kick. I used enough oil and vinegar to roughly cover the meat 2/3 of the way. Spices can be to taste, but be generous, since this is the bulk of the fajita flavor, right here.
Once the steak strips and the marinade were combined in the inner bag, I made sure the air was all squeezed out, then sealed the inner bag, and repeated the process with the outer bag, and sealed that, then kneaded the meat for ~2 minutes or so, and then set it in the fridge. I'm not going to annotate, here, but during the preparation of the rest of the meal, I took the meat out and kneaded it several times, maybe every half hour, to ensure the spices and flavors were really worked into the meat.
Now, to complete setup for the fajitas themselves, I cut one red and one yellow bell pepper into strips a little more generous than the meat, and sliced out one half of a Vidalia onion so that there would be mixed vegetables. I set those aside in a covered dish (there are cats here,) and turned my attention to the pico de gallo.
I will pause here for a brief note before I begin the pico recipe to digress about peppers.
There are a ton of different peppers you can use for any dish, and it pays to know the flavors and heat levels for them.
For pico de gallo, it's supposed to be hot, but know your audience.
Poblano peppers are very mild; they're also huge. I diced mayyyyybe a third of one for the pico de gallo I made last night; for a hotter flavor, I prefer serrano peppers to jalapenos, simply because - though slightly hotter - they have a much richer flavor. I am not a huge fan of jalapeno peppers' actual flavor.
If you're really crazy, you can use habaneros, but you and I will be the only ones eating it, most likely.
So.
For pico de gallo, you'll need:
The other half of the previously mentioned Vidalia onion, diced;
Your chosen pepper, diced (WITHOUT the seeds;)
Tomatoes or tomatillos diced in approximately the same quantity as the onion (two good sized tomatoes will come out to about the same as the one-half onion if you get big onions;)
Finely chopped cilantro - roughly half what you have left of your bundle;
Roughly a tablespoon of minced garlic;
Half the remaining lime juice;
And some more white wine vinegar. (Quantity dependent on other factors, see below.)
Put the diced vegetables and peppers in a dish you can cover, and add the cilantro and lime juice. Stir this to make sure the garlic and cilantro are pretty evenly distributed, and then add enough vinegar to cover your vegetables.
Cover the dish, and put it in the fridge.
Next, I made fresh guacamole.
I've posted that recipe before, so I won't repeat myself, but you can use any remaining lime juice, and the rest of the cilantro, in the guacamole.
Put that in the fridge too.
Now, when you're ready to actually start the cooking - the guacamole and pico de gallo need about an hour in the fridge to really soak up the flavors - get yourself a good, high-sided frying pan. A pretty big one.
Put a couple of tablespoons of oil in the pan, on high heat, and lightly sear your vegetables - the onion and pepper strips; don't burn them to a crisp, but if they get a bit blackened, it's fine.
Once the vegetables are done, take them out of the pan, and put in the meat, marinade and all, lower the heat a bit, and let it cook until the meat is nicely browned.
Once the meat is browned, add about 1/4 cup of water, and let it cook down around the meat until you're back to the original volume of liquid, then toss the vegetables back in, stir it around for a minute or two, and you're done.
To serve the pico de gallo, drain off the vinegar mix and serve the pico de gallo "dry." If you make enough for an army, and you know you're going to have some left, you can keep the vinegar mix and put any leftover pico back in it to store overnight.
I served this with sour cream, shredded cheese, and warmed tortillas.
As a note, for those of you who don't have your own tortilla press or a steamer, the field expedient way of making those restaurant-style steamed tortillas is to take two sets of 4-5 paper plates; put a wet paper towel - wet, not dripping - one one set, put your tortillas (maybe 10 at a time but no more) on the towel, put another wet paper towel on top of them, and cover with the other set of plates. Microwave them for 90 seconds and like magic, steamed tortillas.
At any rate, this is a flavorful (and colorful!) dinner; the preparation takes a while, but the gustatory delight once you're done is worth every bit of it.
Enjoy!
...As a final note, here are the commonly used peppers ranked by heat from lowest to highest:
Poblano (the Ancho is the dried version) 500-2500 Scoville units of heat
Jalapeno (the Chipotle is the smoked, dried version) 2500-8000 Scoville units of heat
Serrano 10000-23000 Scoville units of heat
Cayenne 30000-50000 Scoville units of heat
Piquin 50000-100000 Scoville units of heat
Habanero 100000-350000 Scoville units of heat
And for the insane...
Naga Jolokia 855000-1075000 Scoville units of heat.
For a comparison, police-grade pepper spray is about 5 million Scoville units, and pure capsaicin is about 16 million.
WASH YOUR HANDS after cutting peppers; if you rub your eyes with pepper juice you will regret it, and habanero juice will make your hands feel like they're under a blowtorch for days afterwards if you don't wash it off with grease-cutting soap.
Just so you know.
