Mexican Feasta Fiesta

Sunday night of a long weekend meant a perfect opportunity for Bookery Cook dinner partying, Mexican styles… salsa, burritos, corona, sangria, colourful skirts, Freida-inspired headpieces, a tortilla-rolling tag team and living room dancing.

Prepping for the Mexican banquet, we took our green bags and appetites (lots of taste testers) to Kelvin Grove markets (held in Blamey st at QUT Kelvin Grove every Saturday, 6am till 1pm).

On the menu…

Salsa
Corn chips/crackers/or toasted corn wraps for a lighter option
Homemade tortillas
Shredded and refried skirt steak
Refried beans
Sweet and not-so-sweet chilli sauce (recipes below)

To serve: Lettuce, tomato, grated carrot, guacamole, grated cheese, natural yoghurt (or sour cream – these will save your mouth lest they turn into fiery furnaces!) 

First thing first: Sangria.

Chilli Sauce

Domesticated by the Aztecs in Latin America more than 6000 years ago, chillis belong to the Solanaceae family (deadly nightshade to those of you who have the misfortune of being allergic to them). Apparently when capsaicin (a colourless compound contained in chillis) stimulates nerve endings and raises your pulse, hence the ‘heat’ associated with them… They are also believed to release endorphins, giving you a natural high and acting as an aphrodisiac, and on top of this they chillis are also rumoured to speed up your metabolism so load up your plates!

7 cloves of garlic, peeled
250g large red chillies, stems removed
3 thumbs of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
1 thumb of galangal, peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup fresh coriander leaves
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
3 tablespoons water
50ml fish sauce
50ml cider vinegar
1/3 cup ketjap manis

Place garlic, ginger, galangal and coriander into a food processor and blend to a smooth paste.

In a saucepan, place water and castor sugar and turn the heat to medium. Stir until the sugar dissolves. When it has, bring to the boil and for 5-8min or until the syrup starts to caramelise- stirring occasionally to prevent it from burning. 

Reduce the heat back to medium and stir in the paste. Bring to the boil and add the fish sauce, cider vinegar and kitchen menace. Bring back to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1-3mins.

Place in jars and enjoy!

Note: We found that this sauce is more delicious the day after its made. So if you are planning a Mexican dinner party, try and make the sauce 1-2 days in advance, but if you aren’t that organised its still delicious hot off the press.

Also, if you and your guests aren’t so chilli savvy, you can de-seed half of the chillies to create a milder version.

For the Not-So-Sweet Chilli variation, follow the same ingredients/process except reduce the amount of sugar to ½ a cup and 2 tablespoons of ketjap manis.

Kneading the tortilla dough

Tortilla-rolling tag team sussing out their techniques

Recruiting our El Salvadorian friend for the tortilla cookingKeep cooked torillas under a warm damp cloth whilst you cook the rest – this will keep them warm and prevent them from going dry… a tip kindly imparted to us by some banquest-partakers (we have previously kept them warm in the oven where they often dry out and complicate things at rolling time) 

The dinner spread post-round one

Then to finish off the meal (and any potential space in our tummies): a crumbly and moist flourless chocolate cake. Although its Mexican authenticity may be debatable, the delectability of this cake (made with ground almonds) is not.

ARIBA !