El Salpicon

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There is the Chile Salpicion and the Mexican Salpicion.

This dish consists of shredded beef or chicken is a "spicy Mexican beef salad." It serves a lot as a meal while serving more as an appetizer. Makers of this dish can adjust the temperature of the heat by reducing or by getting rid of hot Chipotle peppers or replacing them with more mild ones.

The dish can be served either hot or cold. It is plentiful as a meal while also serving more as an appetizer. The Salpicon is an excellent dish when having a party because you can partially prepare it a few days before the day of your event.

Since this is not a mainstream food item on many Mexican restaurant menus you may have to do a little bit of traveling to experience the tastiness of this delicious dish. One popular restaurant, Pepin, in Scottsdale, AZ, serves this dish with shrimp, octopus and calamari. Click here to view the restaurant's website.

There are three parts to the dish:

The brisket, dressing and the salad itself.

The brisket, or a beef brisket, consists of chopped onions, stocks of beef, bay leaves, garlic, Chipotle Chile peppers, salt, and black peppercorns. Details on measurements and such can be found here.

The dressing for the salad has a beef broth, chipotle peppers, olive oil, lime juice, white vinegar, ketchup, minced onions salt and black pepper.

The salad its self has tomatoes, avocados, red onion, cubed Monterey Jack cheese, fresh cilantro with the option of adding radishes. To take a look at the preparation and execution in the cooking process of a Salpicon spicy Mexican beef salad, see below.

Here is a step-by-step explanation from www.recipezaar.com that describes what is involved in creating a Salpicon.

1. Prepare brisket: In a Dutch oven or a small stockpot, combine meat with onion, stock, bay leaves, garlic, chipotles, salt and peppercorns.

2. Bring mixture to a boil over high heat, skimming off any foam.

3. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 3 1/2 to 4 hours or until the meat is falling-apart tender.

4. Let cool 30 minutes in cooking liquid.

5. Reserve 2 tablespoons cooking liquid for salad dressing and save remainder, refrigerated, for a Southwestern soup or stew.

6. Pull meat apart into shreds.

7. (The dish can be made ahead to this point and refrigerated 1 or 2 days. Before proceeding, warm foil-wrapped meat in oven.) To make dressing: In a blender or food processor, combine reserved brisket liquid, chipotles, olive oil, lime juice, vinegar, ketchup, onion, garlic, salt and pepper and purée.

8. To complete salad: In a bowl, mix brisket with about 3/4 of the dressing.

9. Transfer brisket to a serving platter or bowl and toss it lightly with tomatoes, avocados, onion, cheese and cilantro.

10. Drizzle additional dressing over top, enough to make the mixture moist.

11. Garnish with radish roses if desired.

12. Serve warm with fresh hot tortillas, or chilled with tortilla chips for dipping.

(information from: http://www.recipezaar.com/65156)

The History of the Commercial Fajita

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Tex-Mex! You've heard the name but what does it mean and where does it come from?

Tex-Mex is the combination of two words "Texan" and "Mexican". The phrase began appearing in the 1940's to describe the mexican dishes prepared by Texas cooks. But it was not until 1973 that the Fajita started appearing on menus. The first time this was done was at a Tex-Mex restuarant by the name of Ninfa's Restaurant in Houston, TX.

The dish became popular and by the early eighties Fajita stands and hotels, such as the Hyatt's La Vista Restaurant, quickly began selling thousands of these dishes per month. Beef and chicken were becoming a larger part of people's diets and Fajita's used these dominant meats. People could find Fajitas on menus almost anywhere. In the past thirty years, the Fajita has made its way from local establishments to commercial marketplaces like TacoCabana.

There is a long standing history behind Fajitas. Click here for an article that gives a more in-depth time line than described here. The article gives you the history of the Fajita before it became commercial.

Click here for a restaurant in Tucson Arizona by the name of La Parrill Suiza that has Fajitas listed on the Menu.

Burritos can be detrimental!!

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Picture this: thousands of screaming fans at a University of Arizona football game; at halftime the thousands of fans sit down and watch children play football. The thousands of fans see a guy wearing a Sombrero that is faded red talking on a cell phone for 10 minutes straight.

Random things get thrown at the guy's Sombrero for 10 minutes. I took it that the fans did not like the fact that the guy was wearing a Sombrero when the sun was not out.

This is what went down at the Arizona Wildcat versus the New Mexico Lobos football game on Saturday Sept. 17. As I was witnessing this, I got to thinking what would happen if someone actually through something big and heavy like a burrito from Chipotole at the guy. Would a fight erupt? Who would be involved? I scoped out a potential catastrophe waiting to happen.

A Burrito has a lot of grimy edibles like beef, cheese, beans and sour cream; things that can cause a lot of mess and aggravation to someone. This can be detrimental if one of these things comes flying at you from above at excessive speeds. It can cause a person to become very angry. I know I would. In fact I would probably be extremely heated and want to beat the person up regardless of what it took. The experience can sometimes be detrimental to a person, especially if they least expect it.

If it hit them and they felt the splat of gooey meat, beans and melted cheese on their face, they would most likely become a crazy menace.

Click here to access more information about burritos from the website of Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Driving On Down Past the Border

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My father came to visit me here at the University of Arizona in the fall of 2006. He was on his way to Colorado stopping first in Arizona to pay me a visit. I am from Connecticut and have not had the chance to see my father that often since coming to college, so this was a special trip. He had made one visit before and would make many more. This was the first one.

My dad rented a car from the Tucson International Airport and came to pick me up on a Saturday after arriving the night before. We drove down into the border town of Nogales. It took us about an hour to drive into the border town before we noticed a mexican eatery near the side of a narrow street, where we decided to stop to eat lunch. I still remember the experience to this day - the eatery had red awnings displayed with Coca-Cola logos. Underneath these red awnings were sturdy plastic picnic tables.

We arrived in mid-afternoon and the cafe was quiet. No one was around. Traditional Mexican music played out of speakers underneath the awning. My dad and I sat down and the waitress came over to us to ask us what we wanted. She spoke in Spanish with my dad while assisting me with my order. We had trouble communicating our order to her.

This was my first time eating real fresh authentic mexican food. It tasted quite good. I had a chicken quesadilla with rice and beans while my dad had four hard shell beef tacos. We had never eaten real mexican food like this before. My experience with Mexican food had always been with chain and fast food restaurants like Taco Bell, Del Taco, Taco Johns and Taco Cabana. At this cafe the food tasted fresh; not processed like the restaurants above. You could taste the goodness. It was hearty and seemed more healthy then a gordita from Taco Bell.

The meal was inexpensive, just a few dollars for two people. In the states a meal this good would be much more expensive. It is worth it to spend money on a tank of gas to visit Mexico on a nice sunny day to enjoy this type of food experience.

Traditional Mexican Music

Casablanca

On Friday, I went to my Fraternity's Bidnight party at Casablanca Mansion at the corner of Franklin and Stone. The greek system at the University of Arizona has a rush week where they recruit new members interested in joining a perspective fraternity. Every participating fraternity has a party at the end of the week where they celebrate the bids handed out to potential new members. The function is either at a fraternity's house or a local establishment around Tucson like my fraternity's bidnight party was.

Casablanca is a restaurant known for its Mediterranean Cuisine with a Mexican feel. The food was very good with the Hummus sauce and the Falafels.

The DJ at the party played a lot of Mexican music. It made me feel like I was dancing, partying and eating great food at a club in Nogales. I do not normally dance to Mexican music but that night I was. There was even a belly dancer. It was the highlight of the night. Everyone loved it. The restaurant has spanish rock nights or Kintos on Saturday nights.

See for yourself on the web at http://www.casablancabarandgrill.com/index.html