October 12, 2014 Lunch Huevos Locos at Garcia’s Kitchen and Dinner New Recipe Texas chili

At 9:00 I drove Suzette to the Fall Festival at the Hubbell House in the South Valley and helped her set up her booth.  When I returned I checked our telephone messages and discovered that Mike Verhagen was in town.  I returned his call around 11:30 and told him I was thinking of eating lunch at Garcia’s kitchen and then shopping at Pro’s Ranch Market.  He said he could join me in a few minutes. 

At around noon Mike arrived and we drove to Garcia’s Kitchen, which is one of the closest restaurants to our house.  When we arrived the restaurant was full and we were offered the front table beside the front door and the cash register, which we took.  We both ordered Huevos Locos.  The waitress asked us if we wanted red or green chili and I answered red and so did Mike.  Huevos Locos is actually Machaca and in Mexico where it is never served with chili sauce. The first time I ordered it at Garcia’s it was not served with sauce.  So today’s dish was decidedly un-Mexican and not very pleasant because it was smothered with red chili.  Also I had forgotten that the dish is served with fried potatoes, which neither I or Mike ate.  I did get an extra toasted corn tortilla and enjoyed the dish by eating it like a taco rolled in corn tortillas.  Mike ordered one of Garcia’s great thick toasted homemade flour tortillas.

After lunch we drove to Pro’s Market, which was crowded with shoppers for the weekend specials.  I bought a pineapple (2 lb./$.99), limes (2 lbs./$.99), a papaya ($1.29/lb.), brown onions (5 lbs./$.99), fresh jalapenos ($.69/lb.), bags of tortilla chips (12 oz. for $.99) and canned pinto beans and peeled tomatoes for the Texas chili.  We drove home and unloaded and Mike said he liked chili and I invited him to join us for a bowl of chili at 6:00. 

I started making the chili around 2:00 by sautéing two pounds of 90% lean ground beef (Albertson’s $3.79/lb.), then chopping three onions and about 2 tbsp. of garlic an adding that to the meat.  Then after cooking the meat until it changed color to grey and the onions softened, I added three 28 net oz. cans of tomatoes and two 40 oz. cans of pinto beans and about 50 oz. of water to the chili pot (enough to cover the ingredients and allow for some reduction due to convection as the chili cooked. 

I then went to the garden and picked about ten stalks of oregano and plucked the leaves from the stalks and chopped them and added about ¼ cup of fresh oregano to the chili and slow cooked it for several hours.  Suzette called me at a bit after 3:00 saying she was ready to be picked up.  So I picked her up.  When we got home she tasted the chili and said it did not have any salt or flavor.  I remembered that I had not seasoned the chili, so I added salt, cumin seeds, ground cumin, ground coriander, some Pendrey’s chili blend and a dash of black pepper.   It seemed like a perfect accompaniment to making Texas chili; I watched the Dallas Cowboys win a tight well-played game against the Seattle Seahawks while I was making the Texas chili.

Texas chili Recipe: 

The usual proportions I use are 1 lb. of meat, 1 onion, 1 lb. of beans and 1 lb. of tomatoes.  This bath was short of meat.  I should have had 3 lbs. of ground meat instead of 2 lbs. Perhaps I will add the PPI steak tomorrow.

Mike arrived a bit after 6:00 with a bottle of 2009 Domaine de la Noblaie Cabernet Franc from Chinon in the Loire Valley.  It was a lovely, smooth red wine.  Mike and we share friends in France, Kip and Jean Louis.  Jean Louis’ family’s ancestral home is in the Touraine area of the Loire Valley, quite near Chinon and Vouvray.  Mike said he bought the Chinon at a Total Wine store in Aurora, Colo., so there is hope I will be able to find it in Albuq.

I made guacamole with finely minced onion and pressed 4 small cloves of garlic, salt, 2 avocados, a dash of Cholulu, juice of about 1 lime and three stalks of cilantro, chopped and served t with tortillas chips.

We nibbled guacamole and sipped Chinon as we watched Doc Martin and then Suzette heated lovely basil corn muffins that the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery had made for the Fall Festival.  We crumbled bits of corn muffin into the chili, which enhanced its flavor.

Mike who grew up in Milwaukee and Suzette, who grew up in Pennsylvania, both said that this was the recipe they ate when they were growing up and it was always called "Chili".  I was amazed because this is the type of chili made in Texas that is called chili con carne.  The recipe is rooted in the frontier days when chuck wagon cooks on cattle ranches and trail drives would make a stew of fresh killed beef and a handful of the wild growing chili pequins or in Spanish Chili Arbol and dried beans and water.  This was the regular meal on cattle drives.  

At 7:00 we ladled bowls of chili and enjoyed dinner.  I opened a bottle of 2012 Beaujolais Villages (Trader Joe’s $5.99) after we finished the Chinon, which was not nearly as good as the Chinon because it had a slightly bitter finish.

Suzette excused herself a bit before 8:00 and Mike and I watched an episode of Inspector Lewis and we sipped small glasses of the lovely Grappa di Brunello, Mike and Kathryn had brought us from their trip to Italy earlier this year.

I faded a bit after 9:00 and had to ask Mike and later Suzette to explain the end of the plot of the show to me, because I had dozed off near the end. 

I said goodnight to Mike at 9:30 and went to bed.  Luckily Suzette had seen the episode and could explain the intricacies of the plot also.

I liked the chili even though it is a little light on meat.  That overabundance of beans and tomatoes will resolve itself with more cooking, as the beans and tomatoes go into solution and become part of the stock.

Bon Appétit