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Recycling food - cooking with stale tortillas

   Besides being wonderful fresh,  tortillas are also very tasty and useful when stale.  We have all eaten tortilla chips, which are essentially stale tortillas cut into wedges or strips, fried and seasoned.  Stale fried tortilla chips are a great topping for tortilla soup, posole, and other soups.  My mother used to give me day-old tortillas to chew on while I was teething!

  Stale tortillas are chewy and tough, but they retain their flavor.  When fried or baked, they become crispy.  In some dishes, crispy tortilla strips are used as noodles, in others as a base for whatever you want to pile on them, sort of like a creative open faced sandwich.  Here are a couple of my favorite recipes using stale tortillas.

  Chilaquiles used to be called “the poor man’s breakfast” because yesterday’s tortillas don’t go to waste, and the ingredients (chiles, onions, tomatoes, and whatever else you can use) used to be cheap and easily available to the poorest Mexican.  Some recipes use chicken, some use eggs (scrambled in a la Pad Thai), some use beef and some use no meat at all - just the stale tortillas and the sauce.  Here is a recipe for chicken Chilaquiles:

Chilaquiles Recipe

  3 dried ancho chiles

2 ripe medium tomatoes, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped

1 medium yellow or white onion cut into a  small dice (about 1 1/2 cups)

  3 serrano chiles stems removed and coarsely chopped (seeds and membranes removed if you’re heat-sensitive)

1 medium bunch of cilantro tough stems removed and coarsely chopped (about 2 cups)

Coarse salt, about 2 tsp. 

1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth

2 cups vegetable or canola oil for frying

20 (6-inch) corn tortillas (preferably stale), each cut into 8 wedges

Juice of one medium lime

For garnish:

2 medium limes, cut into wedges

Preparation:

Cut chiles into strips and transfer to a large, heatproof bowl. Pour hot water over chiles to completely cover them, and soak until they are soft and pliant, at least 10 minutes. Drain chiles, coarsely chop them, and place in the bowl of a blender or food processor, along with tomatoes, 3/4 of the diced onion, serrano chiles, and about 1 cup of the chopped cilantro. Add salt and chicken broth and blend until smooth.

Heat oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until 350°F, about 10 minutes. Fry tortillas in 5 batches until they are crisp and have stopped furiously bubbling, about 1 minute per batch. Remove with a slotted spoon to a paper-towel-lined plate and sprinkle with salt. Carefully strain oil into a heatproof container. Wipe out the pan and return it to the stove over medium-high heat. Take 1/4 cup of the used oil and add it to the skillet (discard remaining oil). When it is hot and shimmering, carefully pour in blended chile mixture (it will bubble furiously) and fry it, stirring often, until it is fragrant and no longer raw-tasting, about 7 minutes. Reduce heat to medium low and stir in lime juice. Taste the sauce, and if necessary adjust the seasoning with salt. Add fried tortillas, stirring gently until they are softened and well coated with sauce. Transfer chilaquiles to a serving platter and top with shredded chicken, cheese, a drizzle of crème fraîche, radishes, and remaining diced onion and cilantro. Serve with lime wedges on the side.

  Another use for stale tortillas as the base for tostadas.  Tostadas are essentially stale fried tortillas that are topped with anything you like, usually starting with a base of refried beans.  You can top them with guacamole, shredded chicken, beef, or pork along with salsa cruda and crumble cheese over the top.

BEAN AND RICE TOSTADAS

Corn oil
1/2 c. minced onion
2 lg. cloves garlic, peeled and minced
3 c. cooked brown rice
3 c. cooked and drained pinto or kidney beans
1-2 c. salsa cruda or pico de gallo
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
12 day-old corn tortillas.
3 c. grated sharp cheddar cheese
5 c. grated cabbage
2 tbsp. fresh lemon or lime juice
4 sm. ripe, firm tomatoes, chopped (for garnish)
1/2 ripe avocado, sliced (for garnish)
Dairy sour cream (for garnish)

Heat 2 tablespoons corn oil in skillet; saute onion and garlic until softened. Stir in rice and beans and mash beans into a thick paste, moving the mixture about until there are just some small chunks in the paste. Cook over low heat until well heated; keep warm. Meanwhile, fry tortillas in small amount of oil in separate skillet until slightly crisp. To assemble, spread a layer of rice and beans over each tortilla; add a layer of the pico de gallo or salsa cruda and sprinkle with a little cheese.

Toss cabbage lightly with lemon juice; add on top of tostada bean rice layer. Garnish with chopped tomatoes, avocado slices and sour cream.

  You can use lettuce instead of cabbage, if raw cabbage doesn’t sit well.  Sliced radishes are also delicious on tostadas.  You can use grilled fish with salsa verde on tostadas for a lighter, fresher tostada.  In fact, the only limit to what you use on tostadas is your own imagination and culinary creativity.

  ¡Buen Provecho!

Sunday Culinary Quiz

1 What does the cooking term émonder means?

2 Who invented Cuisine Minceur?

3 What is the famous dish Paul Bocuse created for the Élysée Palace on the occasion of his receiving the Legion of Honor from President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing on February 25, 1975?

4 Which cheese emperor Charlemagne was extremely fond of: Brie or Roquefort?

5 For which celebrity Escoffier created the Peach Melba?

6 Can you name the major ingredient in a coulibiac besides salmon?

7 Which chef committed suicide upon learning he had lost a Michelin Star?

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Friday’s Culinary Quiz!

1. A bill was issued to cover the following for what event? 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 bottles of whiskey, 22 bottles of port, 8 bottles of hard cider, 12 beers and seven bowls of alcohol punch large enough that “ducks could swim in them.”

2. What element is responsible for the holes in Swiss Cheese? Ha ha! Love this one!

3. Who said the following: “Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.”  

4. This Russian dessert consists of a fresh fruit salad macerated in wine and then covered with a puree of red fruit (red currants, raspberries and strawberries). It is traditionally served in a  large bowl set stop a dish of crushed ice.
5. Why is the Polish vodka Diaka billed as the world’s most expensive vodka?

6. A Puffball is A. a mushroom variety  B. a Danish pastry filled with meringue  C. a peach variety  D. a fish from Australia
7. What do half the people in the world eat on any given day?

Thursday’s Quiz

1) This tree has aromatic, evergreen leaves, and produces a year round crop of a peachlike, but tough dry fruit. When ripe, the fruit splits open revealing a large seed, surrounded by a red lacy network. Both the red fleshy part and the large seed are used to make two different food products. What are these two distinct food products?

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