Saturday, April 12, 2014

almost tinga de pollo and mango guacamole



Of course the day I decided to go Mexican had to be the day when my fiancé, who works in a Mexican restaurant, went on a week-long road trip to shoot a movie. So there was no response when I asked him "how do you make tinga de pollo at work?". So I had to rely on a recipe from Epicurious and, unfortunately, the limited supplies of the Polish suburbia.

This recipe is pretty good, but I call what came out from that "almost" tinga de pollo, because I couldn't find chipotle en adobo within a 5km radius from my parents' house and I had to use marinated jalapeños. It still turned out great. I served it with mango guacamole, which is totally amazing, especially with such great ingredients as we had:


  • 1 super ripe avocado
  • 1 ripe mango, diced
  • 1 small chili pepper
  • juice from 1 lime
  • chopped fresh cilantro

Using a spoon scoop the avocado out from its skin and squash it in a bowl using a fork. Add the rest of ingredients, mix thourougly. The end.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

seasonal: grilled asparagus with oyster mushrooms



Finally! Spring! Asparagus!

This is a quick one - I trimmed and scrubbed the asparagi (I love to think this is the proper plural form) and grilled them with a dash of unfiltered olive oil, some salt and freshly ground black pepper.
At the same time I sliced the oyster mushrooms, chopped a large shallot and fried them on butter until they relinquished all liquids (also with salt and pepper). Voila!

You can't see it on the picture, becuse the dish was already a mess when I figured it out, but parmesan shavings really bound it together, elevating it from different ingredients thrown on a plate to a proper dish.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Coconut Lime Mussels


Friday night I made Coconut Lime Mussels from this recipe at epicurious.com, turned out pretty well, my mussel-loving friend said they were amazing (she took the photo). I'm still on the road to get convinced to shellfish.

Thanks to Marta I also discovered the Vivino app, which we used extensively that evening. So cool!