March 7, 2013 Breakfast – Machaca Lunch – My Brother’s, Taco Salad Dinner – Baked Ham with Baked Sweet Potato and Steamed Broccoli

March 7, 2013 Breakfast – Machaca   Lunch – My Brother’s, Taco Salad    Dinner – Baked Ham with Baked Sweet Potato and Steamed Broccoli

We got up and soaked in the Radium Hot Springs pool at Scott’s Radium Hot Springs Resort.

 Then I got dressed for Court and we drove to the small village of Don Ana at the north end of the Mesilla Valley to Scott’s favorite restaurant, Cha Chi’s Mexican Restaurant, which is an outpost of their very successful Las Cruces restaurant.  I had had a taco salad with desebrada on a previous visit to Cha Chi’s that I enjoyed very much so I ordered Desebrada with eggs, chilis, tomatoes and onions. The owner said he knew what I wanted and went to tell the cooks.  When I tried to explain to the waiter what I wanted he said, “Machaca”.  I nearly screamed, “Yes” as I recognized the correct name.  Anyway they made it for me and it was great, especially with two warm corn tortillas and a glass of orange juice.  It was like being back in Baja California, except at the farmhouses in Baja where I first ate it, they used real dried beef instead of day old roast beef.

Here is a description by the Jamison’s in Wikipedia:

Machaca  ma't͡ʃaka (help·info) is a dish prepared originally most commonly from dried, spiced beef or pork, then rehydrated and pounded to make it tender. The reconstituted meat would then be used to prepare any number of dishes.^[1] While drying meat is one of the oldest forms of preservation, the drying of beef with chilis and other native spices was developed by the ranchers and cowboys of northern Mexico.^[2]

After the arrival of refrigeration, dehydration was no longer needed for preservation. Most dried beef is sold in the U.S. as jerky. In Mexico, it is still sold for cooking as well as snacking; however, this is done mostly in the north and in small-scale operations.^[2] Most machaca dishes now are made from beef that has been well-cooked, shredded then cooked in its juices until the desired consistency is achieved, which in Phoenix can be soupy, dry or medio. In Tucson and south, the preparation is almost always dry, and approximates more closely the taste and texture of the original dish prepared from dried meat. Carne seca is an alternative name for machaca in Tucson and Sonora.^[1]

Prepared machaca can be served any number of ways from tightly rolled flautas, to tacos, to burritos, or on a plate with eggs, onions and with peppers (chiles verdes or chiles poblanos). Machaca is almost always served with flour tortillas, which tend to be large, up to 20 inches in diameter.^[3] A very popular breakfast or brunch dish is machaca with eggs, associated with miners in the State of Chihuahua.^[4]
The dish is known primarily in the north of Mexico, and the southern regions of the U.S. states of Arizona, California, and New Mexico. However in central and southern Mexico, it is not well known by lower socioeconomic classes.^[5]

Here is the recipe for desebrada to give you an idea of the difference:

Ingredients

1½	lb. Pot Roast
3	small onions diced
4	garlic cloves, chopped
1	T. Vegetable oil
1	28 oz. can whole tomatoes, drained and chopped
3	Serrano chilies, seeded and chopped
1	t. Mexican chili powder
	salt to taste
	Coarse black pepper

Directions

Cook roast in pan at 350 with 1/2 of onions and 1/2 of garlic till tender. Approx. 4 hours. (Covered with a lid and with added water just covering meat.) Remove the meat and onions, discard drippings. Shred meat. In the pan put 1 T. oil and the other 1/2 of onions, cook over medium, stirring until golden. Add rest of garlic, cook 1 minute. Add tomatoes, chopped chilies, chili powder and shredded meat. Cook uncovered on medium heat until most of juice evaporates. Add coarse black pepper to taste. Spoon meat onto heated flour tortillas. Roll into a burrito and eat.

We then went to court at 10:30 and I did my thing as Scott’s lawyer in the Lower Rio Grande Adjudication until 12:20. Sammy Singh invited us to My Brother’s Place for lunch.  When we arrived we saw all the other lawyers who had been at court, so My Brother’s must be very popular.  I ordered what I had ordered last time, Taco Salad, but without the bell peppers or pico de gallo.  Sammy ordered the daily enchilada special and Scott ordered his usual Fajitas.  My Taco Salad was wonderful.  A deep fried large flour tortilla shaped like a bowl filled with torn iceberg and romaine lettuce in the bottom covered with taco meat and garnished with chopped red cabbage, shredded cheese and sliced black olives.  They placed chopped tomatoes, a scoop of guacamole and a scoop of sour cream and some beans on the plate beside the bowl.  With the elimination of the extra peppers, there must have been a pound of taco meat.  I loved it. 

Sammy’s enchiladas and Scott’s fajitas both looked very good.

Unfortunately, that much taco meat was a little hard to digest so when we returned to Scott’s I drink a Sam Adam’s Boston Lager beer and I talked with Melissa and her mother for a while so I could help digest the mega taco lunch.

I started home at 4:30 p.m. and arrived a few minutes before 8:00 p.m. still on my protein high. 

When I arrived home I found that Suzette had baked the smoked ham we bought at Costco for Christmas, but had not used, and the two yams.  As I pulled my suitcase to the bedroom, she de-stemmed two stalks of broccoli and started them cooking in the steamer. I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of Le Ferme Julien French Rosé (Trader Joe’s $5.99, the best value rosé in town) made by the Perrin Family in the Rhone Valley.  I love rose with baked ham.

We had a lovely dinner, except the meat was slightly dry, so we sauced it with the not too sweet blueberry glaze.  I am not sure whether the dryness was due to overcooking or the meat having been stored so long.  Its expiration date was March 13, 2014.

I ate Spumoni for dessert. 

What an amazing day of food!

Bon Appétit