A few years ago, I picked up a copy of The Border Cookbook by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison, copyright 1995. I'm not sure where I found it, but knew that I had to have it as I needed a starting point to cook some good Mexican dishes.
For a time I was a regular at a place called Tacos el Ganadero and they served some of the best authentic Mexican food I've ever experienced before or since. If you are ever on the west side of Grand Rapids, MI, (Lane and Bridge area) you will not regret finding this place and getting the shrimp quesadillas. They are huge: jam-packed full of shrimp, avocados, cilantro and chihuahua cheese plus they have this spicy sauce slightly similar to a diablo sauce that makes them just slightly sloppy. MMM! I remembered that I really enjoyed the fact that I could GORGE on this thing and take the other half home with me to eat later!!
Per Google, it looks like Tacos el Ganadero is still there at 950 Bridge St. While they don't have a website, they are listed in many citysearch/yelp sort of things. Look it up, go there, eat, and tell me what you think. And don't be shy if you don't know Spanish. Just say "quesadilla camaron" (kay-sa-dee-ya ca-ma-rone where rone rhymes with lone) and they'll know what you are talking about. If you don't care for shrimp or quesadillas (you wacko), they (used to) have photos on the wall for the gringos to point at as well as photo menus. Ah, man, I miss that place. It was cute how the waitresses would giggle as I stumbled over pronunciation while drooling on the pictures in the menu.
Anyway, it was Tacos el Ganadero that inspired me to buy this cookbook and I recently cracked it open for the first time in years --probably since I bought it. I wasn't into cooking as much as I am now and since the cookbook didn't have photos, I quickly lost interest (plus I was working, getting ready to go to and then attending university etc). While there isn't a fantastic recipe for shrimp quesadillas like Tacos el Ganadero does it, I had a renewed interest and found the easiest recipe in the book to start with:
Diablo Shrimp
Diablo Sauce
2 whole small Roma or plum tomatoes, unpeeled
2 canned chipotles or dried chipotles soaked in hot water to soften
8 garlic cloves, roasted
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp ground New Mexican chile (or ancho or guajillo chile)
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp salt plus more to taste
1/2 tsp dried oregano, preferably Mexican
1/8 tsp ground cloves
2 c stock: seafood, chicken or a combination
1/4 c vegetable oil
2 lbs. medium or large shrimp, peeled but tails left on, deveined if you wish
Line the broiler pan/rack with foil and heat the broiler. Broil the tomatoes 15-18 minutes, turning occasionally, until they are soft and the skins split and turn dark in spots. Cool tomatoes briefly.
Puree the tomatoes, their skins and cores with the rest of the ingredients except oil and shrimp.
In a heavy skillet or large saucepan, warm the oil over high heat.
Pour in the sauce, being careful to avoid splatters as the liquid hits the oil.
When sputtering stops, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the sauce thickens but still spoons easily.
The sauce can be made a day ahead and rewarmed. If cold, rewarm in a heavy skillet or large saucepan.
Add the shrimp to the sauce and simmer only until they turn pink and firm -- a matter of just a couple minutes. Do not overcook the shrimp as they will toughen.
Serve hot with rice or potatoes.
Rodney and I had this with Mexican red rice, pinto beans and corn tortillas. And it was deelicious! What I liked is that I could make sure the shrimp weren't swimming in sauce. If there is one thing I can't stand about food is how a lot of times it is drowning in a gravy or a sauce. That totally hides what should be the highlight of the meal!
While not exactly cheap, it was cheaper than going out to "get Mexican" at a decent place, including the one across the street.
- Tomatoes: $0.79/lb = $0.79
- Chipotles: $1.79/can
- Garlic head: $0.50
- Mexican dry chile: $0.79
- Shrimp: $3.99/lb.
- Rice: let's just say $3 because I don't know what I paid for the rice
- Beans: $0.89 per 15oz can
Total: $15.74 for the entire meal, which is about $5.50 per serving -- there was about three.
Easy. As the recipe states, you can make the sauce one day and the meal the next. That helps since it takes forever to peel and devein the shrimp. I'm not into eating poop, and Rodney's even more freaked about it than I am.
Since there is no dairy and it's not insanely hot, it was easy on Rodney's belly.
2 comments:
I am really enjoying reading your blog! One small note: your calculations of meal costs seem rather inaccurate when you note what you paid at the moment (I.e. $3 for a bag of rice) when you maybe only used a few cups of rice, or in a previous recipe, $3 for a bag of sugar when you only used a little bit of sugar for the recipe). Because your goal is to be able to tell how much it actually costs you to make a recipe, it seems to me that the only way to truly compare this is to figure out the cost of the actual amount of ingredients that you used. Anyway, happy cooking!!!
Yes, you are spot on about the pricing posted. I didn't really get into the swing of it until much later so the earlier recipe prices are artificially bloated. I'll have to go back and fix that one of these days. Thank you.
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