Pozole and Tiramisù

Recipe: Pozole and Tiramisù

My randomness has taken me international today. I made Pozole, which is a Mexican stew and Tiramisù, which is an Italian cake dessert. I imagine it’s the Universe’s way of honoring my actual international trip to Europe next week. J One of the neat things I like about this experiment is that I’m trying recipes of all styles and cuisines. I typically cooked general purpose food, nothing exotic at all. Now I’m trying food I never imagined cooking, or even heard of, and learning fun facts about the food along the way. Like Pozole (I’ll warn you, the story is slightly gross). According to historical records, Pozole was made to be consumed on special events. Pozole is a stew made with corn and a meat. Corn was a sacred plant in Mexico, which is why it was only consumed on special occasions. Apparently, in ancient times, the meat used to cook the Pozole was human. When cannibalism was banned, pork became the staple meat, as it "tasted very similar". Now, mind you I found this tidbit of information out on Wikipedia, so I guess you have to take it with a grain of salt. But it was still something neat to learn, especially since I had never heard of this dish before this week. I’m glad I didn’t google Pozole until after I made the dish though. I may have broken the rules of my project 3 weeks in and refused to make it. And no worries, I definitely used pork. I also cooked with a jalapeno pepper and an Avocado for the first time. The thing about jalapeno peppers, you should wear gloves to make sure the oil in the pepper doesn’t burn your fingers or get in your eyes if you rub them. Since I wanted to follow the recipe exactly, I did it. But the entire time I’m thinking, if I need to wear surgical gloves in order to prep the food, maybe cooking with said food isn’t such a good idea. Anything too hot to touch can’t be good for you going down, right? I will say, I ate this dish several hours ago and so far my stomach has not gotten pissed at me. And I know, millions of people eat food with jalapeno peppers everyday, and I know I’ve eaten food with them before. I’m just saying, I fundamentally needed to wear a food condom before screwing with the pepper. Somehow, that just seems wrong. Now for avocados, my entire life I’ve always thought avocados were a difficult food to deal with. There was just something intimidating about that dark vegetable/fruit with the bumpy skin. And it was confusing that some of them in the store were bright green and some were darn near black. How did you know which to pick and when they were good. So confusing. I now know that avocados are actually a really easy food to prep. You just have to slice it in half, get the pit out and cut it up however you need it in your recipe. And the skin isn’t tough at all to cut through. So now I’m thinking of all types of things I want to make with avocado. I’m definitely going to try my hand in guacamole sometime soon. The avocado went really well with this dish. I put slices of it on top of the stew, and then as you ate the stew, you just scooped pieces of the avocado up into your spoon. The creaminess of the avocado went well with the spiciness of the pepper. I’ve never been a big pork fan, it’s probably my least favorite of all the major meats, but it tasted really tender and flavorful in this dish.

I made several friends at the market while searching for ingredients for my Tiramisù. I searched Giant Eagle for 20 minutes looking for ladyfingers and mascarpone cheese. I eventually found someone to help me, it ended up being my favorite Giant Eagle meat counter lady, who is quickly becoming my favorite Giant Eagle person period. Once she found out I was making Tiramisù, she got super excited and told me how she once dropped a pan of Tiramisù on the floor and how she really had an internal battle for about 10 seconds to actually eat it off the floor. She went on about Tiramisù for the next 10 minutes that she helped me find the ladyfingers and the mascarpone cheese. Actually once we got to the cheese department, she pulled the deli woman into the conversation and they both started in on Tiramisù. J I’ve noticed that this project has really given me an outlet to bond with all types of people. I’m finding people are really interested in my project and my quest to cook all of these recipes. Sometimes they’ve made some of the recipes and can give me tips (this happened with my Linguine with Lobster Sauce adventure). And sometimes they are just interested because they love the dish I’m going to cook (like the Tiramisù). Whatever the case, my cooking thing has really given me an avenue to really connect with lots of people, which I sometimes (well actually most times) struggle to do. So yay! Another cool thing about my project. In making the Tiramisù, I found a coffee recipe that is really really good. Simmer a ½ cup of water and ½ cup of sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Pour it into 2 cups of espresso. Once the espresso is cool, pour 3 tablespoons of Rum in. I’m telling you, you’ll thank you me later. I used this concoction to dip my ladyfingers into. Once the dish was made, I had a few ladyfingers leftover that wouldn’t fit in the pan. I nibbled on a few of them before I realized I was getting somewhat buzzed. J They were sooo good though. I didn’t get to make the Tiramisù until Sunday morning, and since it needed to refrigerate for at least 6 hours, and since Terraun left at 3pm Sunday, he didn’t get any Tiramisù. But after I ate my piece, I decided I would go ahead and just eat his piece too. And then had another one for myself. It didn’t turn out quite as pretty as the picture in the cookbook, but it definitely tasted as good as the cookbook looked. I actually will take the rest of the pan to work tomorrow since it’s really not a good idea to leave me alone with the entire pan in the house. I could actually make myself sick.

Oh, update: when shopping for my recipes this weekend I did find Thai red curry paste at the Kroger in Belpre. (Thanks to several of you for the suggestion to check out their International food department). No luck on Thai chiles or Thai basil though. L Maybe this recipe will get put on hold until I’m in a larger area, which means I’m going to need to leave Parkersburg before my experiment is done. Sounds like a win-win to me. I’ll get to make my Thai soup AND I’ll be somewhere else!