Chipotle Chicken Soup with Lime Crema

You may have heard of tortilla soup, which is a strange name for what is often either a cheese-based cream of chicken soup or a brothy minestrone with chicken.  What makes it 'tortilla' soup is the presence of some tortillas shoved in there against their will, either fried or dissolved right in.  While this can be quite delicious, if you focus just on the soup itself, and not on the tortilla part, you can go one step further.

My family this recipe in some magazine years ago, but I have since tweaked it to enhance the flavor some.  It relies on chipotle chiles, which have become amazingly popular recently.  Chipotles are nothing more than jalapeno peppers that have been smoked, and they are either found dried, or canned in a spicy sauce seasoned with adobo, a latin seasoning.  But since adobo just means 'seasoning', I can't quite tell you what's in it, other than that it's good.

Save yourself some time on this one and buy a store-bought chicken.  But if you happen to have roasted your own, and you happen to have made a stock from the bones of that chicken afterwards, I'm not going to stop you from using them to make quite possibly the best combination of those things that you could get in your mouth without committing some kind of crime.

I got a bit experimental and made a lime crema this time, figuring it would balance out the soup.  As peppers are alkaline, meaning that they basic in terms of their pH level, they can be neutralized by acidic things, as well as fatty things.  This is because the capsaicin found in peppers is fat-soluble.  So, if your head didn't just explode there, the moral is that if you mix dairy and an acid, you have a powerful chile-fighting condiment that might not taste half bad either.

Chipotle Chicken Soup with Lime Crema

• 1 chipotle from can of chipotles in adobo
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 chopped red bell pepper
• 3 chopped green onions, greens and whites separated
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp freshly ground cumin
• 1 tsp powdered chiles
• 2 cooked chicken breasts or meat from a cooked chicken, about 3 cups, cut or shredded into small pieces
• 28 oz low-sodium chicken broth, or homemade
• 14-16 oz can chopped tomatoes with green chiles, such as Del Monte or Rotel
• 12 ounces frozen or fresh corn kernels
• 2 tbsp cilantro leaves
• 1/2 avocado, slices

Nothing too crazy in this, but a bit of chopping before you can start

Try to cut things up as evenly as possible to assist in even cooking.  Go for corn kernel-sized bits of pepper.

Finely mince the chipotle pepper, as well as the other vegetables.  In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium-high heat.  Add bell pepper, the white parts of the green onions, the garlic, the cumin, and the powdered chiles.  Saute for 4 minutes until soft but not browning, stirring frequently.

Next, deglaze with the chicken broth.  Stir in the chipotle chile, chicken, tomatoes, and corn.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until ready to serve.

To plate, heat bowls and then ladle in soup.  Garnish with lime crema (recipe follows), cilantro leaves, and the tops of the green onions.  Arrange avocado slices on top and serve.

Lime Crema

• 2 tbsp sour cream
• 1 lime
• 1/2 tbsp cilantro leaves
• 1/4 tsp salt

In a small bowl, mix sour cream, zest from the lime, and the juice of half the lime.  If desired, finely mince the cilantro and add to the crema.  Allow flavors to combine in the fridge for 30 minutes if time permits.

Pretty simple, and pairs up well with the spicy soup.

Chipotle Shrimp Tacos with Spanish Rice

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, a holiday celebrated mostly by Americans to celebrate a battle against the French, I'm presenting a recipe served with Spanish rice, and I'm posting it on May 6.  Why?  Because in life, nothing's perfect.  One day, you will come to accept this, and all will be well.

Perhaps a short backstory is in order on this.  I will attempt to guess at your day yesterday.  It's May 5.  It's getting late.  At some point in the day you've had this conversation:

You: "what the heck is Cinco de Mayo all about?"
Anyone who will listen: "I have no idea."
You: "well I think we should probably have a margarita somewhere, just to be sure."

Needless to say, I was no exception.  A quick Wikipedia search turned up the fact that this is not Mexican independence day, and that Cinco de Mayo is hardly celebrated in Mexico at all, unless you're from Puebla, where a fairly spectacular battle was fought against the French in 1862.  But it is celebrated in Mexican restaurants north of the border, and that's good enough for me.  So we settled on making some tacos, which soon gave way to burritos, as we had consumed overly strong margaritas following a 3-2-1 recipe and weren't quite in the mood for portion control.  Also an artifact of the margaritas was our inclusion of tequila in the shrimp recipe, which was invented last night.  And finally, the ingredients of the rice, which started off as plain brown rice but quickly became "whatever you feel like should be in there" rice, and which turned out to be one of the best parts of the meal.

But we'll get to the rice in a bit.  Let's start with these tacos, which were deemed so good that they arguably shouldn't be put on the blog.  After a lengthy discussion and more margaritas, it was decided that the world had to know, so here we are.  Some of the better shrimp I've ever eaten, let alone made.  Let's do this!

Burritos and Spanish rice, the results of a successful night of invention at the hands of a bottle of Herradura

Tequila-Fired Shrimp Tacos-Turned-Burritos
by me, entirely me, and nobody but me

• 1/2 pound large (21-25 count) shrimp, peeled, deveined
• 1/2 tsp cumin, freshly ground
• 1/4 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp black pepper
• juice of 1/2 lime
• 1 chipotle, chopped fine
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp dried chile powder
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1.5 oz tequila
• 1/4 head cabbage, shredded fine
• 1/2 avocado
• Cilantro leaves as desired
• Tortillas
• Sour cream

In a medium bowl, toss the shrimp with the next 8 ingredients.  Try to work the lime juice into the shrimp.  Allow to sit for a few minutes, but not enough to accidentally cure the shrimp in the acidic solution.  While marinating, begin heating a large cast-iron skillet over high heat.

Season the shrimp in lime juice and a whole bunch of awesome.

Once smoking hot, add the oil and immediately add the shrimp so you don't burn the oil.  It may splatter if you just dump everything in, so individually add the shrimp, leaving behind the liquid.  Cook the shrimp for 2 minutes, then flip and cook another 2 minutes.

Not too much shrimp!  If you overcrowd, you'll end up with steamed nastiness, not seared crustacean magic.

At this point, a rational person would stop.  But someone 2 margaritas deep will instead forge on, and try to light the kitchen on fire.  By this I mean you will add 1 shot of tequila, and apply fire to it to get it to catch.  I had some difficulty with the flame part, but you can try to tip the pan or use a fireplace starter to get that thing to blow up like the Godfather.  Do it immediately, because it will evaporate quickly.  Once done having fun, remove shrimp to a bowl.

My alcohol-fueled tequila-fired shrimp.  Actual fire is optional.

To serve, assemble burritos/tacos with sour cream, cabbage, sliced avocado, the shrimp, and cilantro if you don't think it tastes like soap (I don't).  Serve with escabeche (pickled vegetables) if you have them, Spanish rice (recipe follows), or whatever you like.  More margaritas, for example.  ¡Olé!

Spanish Rice

• 1 jalapeno, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped finely
• 2 green onions, white parts only, sliced finely
• 1/2 lime
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 cup brown medium- or short-grain rice
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt

Begin by cooking the rice, which takes a while given that it is brown rice.  While rice is cooking, prepare your other ingredients.  In a pot, bring 2 cups water to a boil, then add 1 tsp of the oil and the brown rice.  Once boiling, add the brown rice, cover, reduce to a simmer, and cook for about 30-40 minutes, until rice is chewy and cooked through.  Drain rice in a colander or large strainer, and set aside.

Get your ingredients ready to go while the rice cooks

In a large skillet over medium heat, add remaining oil, and then add garlic, peppers, and green onion.  Saute for 3-4 minutes until soft and just starting to brown.  Now add the rice and toss to coat.  Stir in tomato paste and salt, and cook for 1-2 minutes.  Just before removing from heat, pour in juice from 1/2 lime.  Serve immediately.

Using brown rice gives a healthy kick, plus a delicious chewy bite to the rice that I thought was a huge improvement over standard long-grain white rice

Come on, work that lime!

Spicy Poblano Burgers with Chipotle Cream and Pickled Red Onions

Well, after an overly long hiatus, I'm back.  Life is good, thanks for asking.  I mean, how bad could it be, considering that I was finally able to make a crazy hamburger recipe without my good friend and former housemate lamenting "why would you ever put something in a burger besides salt and pepper?!"  Because it's awesome, that's why.

Show me potato salad!

Tonight's post liberates and modifies a burger recipe from Cooking Light, wherein ground beef is augmented with spices and a roasted chile pepper.  To top it off, it calls for a chipotle cream, as well as pickled red onions.  For those of you who haven't had either of these things, a) I weep for you, and b) you need to try them.  Chipotle peppers, being jalapenos that have been smoked and either dried or preserved in a spicy sauce called adobo, are more than just the namesake of your favorite mission-style burrito.  They are also a small piece of heaven, and make for an incredible flavored mayonnaise that's very easy to whip up at home.  And pickled red onions are a garnish traditionally served in Latin cuisine, with a slight bit of tang and a crisp, refreshing bite.  The idea of throwing these things on a burger sounded too good to pass up, and I assure you, the combination is fairly impressive when you're done.

The chipotle - a smoked / dried jalapeno.  And you thought it was some kind of crazy mystery pepper!

Pickled red onions.  I use my own recipe, which is easy and fast, and requires about 4 things you have around the kitchen.

The recipe calls for roasted poblanos in the burger meat.  This is a simple process that can go horribly if you don't follow the directions.  Let's walk through the process quickly:

1. Take your peppers and char them over an open flame.  Do not bake them, don't put them in a pan and sear them.  Char them, over a gas burner, on a grill, or in a broiler.  Turn them regularly, to make sure they are well blackened.
2. Take the still hot peppers and put them in a bag.  You're trying to get the skin off, which you don't want to eat.  To do this, you want the steam coming from the peppers to work its way throughout the membrane keeping the skin attached, so that even the non-charred bits give up their fight and let go.  Translation: place in a sealed plastic zip-top bag, and let the peppers sit for 15 minutes.
3. Peel the skin off.  Try to get as much as possible removed, or the final product will both look and feel weird.

The mostly charred peppers.  I used cubanelle, because I'm lazy and couldn't find poblanos.  About the same heat level and flavor in a pinch.

The peppers, after steaming in a ziploc bag.

Look, the skin comes right off in sheets!

If you're lucky, you can get most of the skin off in one pull.

The finished product, peeled, seeds removed, and sliced open.

We all thought the burgers were great, although I would have cooked them slightly more rare on a better grill.  Regardless, the tart chipotle cream, the slightly sweet, slightly sour pickled onions, and the savory burger come together in what I thought was a well-rehearsed symphony of flavors.  Make sure you are sitting when you eat the hamburger, and please, remember to eat responsibly.

The recipe calls for making a few subassemblies, which need to be prepared in a certain order to get the flavors and consistency correct.  I will outline the recipe in the order in which you must complete everything for maximum awesomeness.  Besides changing the order of the recipe, I replaced white bread and milk with panko crumbs, which gives the burger just a bit more body and a less mushy meatloaf-y texture.

Spicy Poblano Burgers with Pickled Red Onions and Chipotle Cream

Adapted from Cooking Light, July 2010

• 2 poblano chiles
• 1 oz panko crumbs
• 3 tbsp minced fresh cilantro, divided
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt, divided
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper, divided
• 1 pound ground sirloin (I used 90/10 chuck)

• 1/2 cup light sour cream
• 1 tbsp minced shallots
• 1 tsp fresh lime juice
• 1 (7-oz) can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (you will just need 1 chile)
• 4 (1.5-oz) hamburger buns, toasted

• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 2 tbsp white sugar
• pinch red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp dried oregano

First, get the pickled onions pickling.  You can do this a day ahead, but a few hours is better than nothing. Most importantly, slice your onions thinly and uniformly.  For this, I use a mandoline, also referred to in my kitchen as 'the finger slicer'.  This medieval torture instrument is valuable not only for injuring yourself, but also for making precisely sliced foods.  Observe:

The mandoline - observe nature's cruelest mistake

I recommend using the finger guard, unless you have excellent medical insurance

These perfectly sliced onions were created in about 10 seconds total.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, add vinegar, sugar, red pepper flakes and salt, heat until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and add onions and dried oregano. When mixture is cool pour into a quart container. You may need to add a bit of water just to cover. (If you have time, keep at room temperature for about 6 hours, then place in the refrigerator).

Next, prepare the chipotle cream.  Combine the remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons cilantro, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon black pepper in a medium bowl. Stir in sour cream, shallots, and juice. Remove 1 chipotle pepper and 2 teaspoons adobo sauce from can; reserve remaining chipotle peppers and adobo sauce for another use. Chop chile. Stir chopped chipotle and 2 teaspoons adobo sauce into sour cream mixture.  Set aside and allow flavors to combine.

Now you can get the poblano peppers roasted.   Preheat broiler, or use a gas / charcoal grill.  Either grill, turning frequently, or place poblano chiles on a foil-lined baking sheet, and broil for 8 minutes or until blackened, turning after 6 minutes. Place in a zip-top plastic bag; seal. Let stand 15 minutes. Peel chiles, and discard the seeds and membranes. Finely chop.

Now, prepare your spices.  Naturally, you use whole spices, right?  What's that, you don't?  Well, throw out your spices, because they are undoubtedly bland and gross.  Instead, go to a latin market and pick up fresh coriander (the seeds of the cilantro plant) and cumin (the seeds of some other plant), and grind up fresh as needed.  I specifically purchased a coffee mill that I use just for latin spices, which would produce some of the worst coffee ever at this point, but which does an excellent job at making fresh ground spice.

Grind your spices fresh for the best flavor

Combine panko, poblano chile, 1 1/2 tablespoons cilantro, cumin, coriander, paprika, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, and beef, tossing gently to combine. Divide mixture into 4 equal portions, gently shaping each into a 1/2-inch-thick patty.  Make sure to shape the burgers thin and wide, so that they won't contract into a sphere when cooked.  A trick I learned on Food TV - press a small indentation in the center of each patty, which helps prevent this 'burger bulge' and results in a completely flat burger after cooking.  Cover and chill until ready to grill.   Also, if you're going to the trouble of making this recipe, shell out for decent buns.  A burger that takes this long to make deserves to be on bread without preservatives, that doesn't cost 25 cents, has some flavor, and won't turn to complete paste if looked at incorrectly.  Like a good CEO, burger buns should have some integrity.

Place patties on a grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 3 minutes or until grill marks appear. Carefully flip patties; grill an additional 3 minutes or until desired degree of doneness.  Don't be that person that squishes the burger with your spatula - yes, it sounds great, but all you're doing is wringing the flavor and moisture out of the burger, along with potentially cross-contaminating your cooked burger implement with raw beef bits.

I try to make the burgers wide, so they don't shrivel up into small burger balls that are gross when you get them to a bun.

Place 1 patty on bottom half of each bun; top each serving with 3 tablespoons chipotle cream and 1 tablespoon Pickled Red Onions.  Serve with whatever sides you like, and enjoy your hard work - you earned it.

Chipotle pickled red onion roasted pepper burger