It’s what I had in the freezer: 1.5 lbsish of 90-10 beef and .5 lbs of chorizo. Mixed in a bunch of the regular spices: cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, oregano, cayenne, ground chilis, 1 can of “rotel” tomatoes and hatch chilis, diced onion, diced various peppers, a bit of beef broth…just kinda make it up as you go along.
“Picadillo”, in Mexican terms, can have any number of weird ingredients: diced potato, carrots, peas, corn, etc…
Throw in some diced olives and parsley and you have a proper Argentine empanada filling.
Hear me out, and ignore HH if he tells you it’s crazy: add some raisins and chopped or slivered almonds to your picadillo. The raisins add just that little bit of sweet, and the almonds add some texture.
One of my favorite things in the world are the chile rellenos at Matt’s El Rancho with raisins and pecans. I always think that they harken back to some earlier Europe when it was common to put dried fruit into savory dishes. They’re excellent.
If you ever find yourself with Korean chili paste in your fridge when making chili, try dropping a big spoonful in. You can stop sharpening your knives now.
This Thai curry place we ordered from has five spice levels: mild, medium, hot, very hot, Thai hot. I ordered hot and it is face melting. I’m mixing it up with:
A.) a Sierra Nevada Pale,
2.) a bowl of cherries,
d.) a bag of pistachio nuts, and
5.) a house salad from the Thai place.
Does anyone have any go-to techniques for capsicum mouth remediation?
Milk is not an option. Had a glass with a cookie last night and my asymptomatic COViD flared and plugged my nose until about twenty minutes ago (hot Thai).
Here they use a steamed egg dish and steamed rice balls as a way of cooling your mouth down. Not sure how scientific it is but generally they’re served with the spiciest foods and they seem to work for me. The rice is pretty much plain steamed rice with bits of roasted seaweed. Separate from the spicy sauce.
This. Everything else works because of the sugar in it. In fact, the Scoville Heat Scale is based on how much sugar it takes to neutralize the capsaicin. Just open a sugar pack and rub it on your tongue.
During Covid isolation, I found myself eating hotter food, and then a bit hotter, and then a bit hotter. I got used to buying jalapeños at the grocery, though I kept wondering why they were considered hot. The grocery store jalapeños never were. I liked the taste, but they were always very mild.
This spring I’ve grown jalapeños, and they are surprisingly hot. I can’t get used to the difference. Everybody else in the household is annoyed at the difference.