Saturday, April 14, 2007

burritos


I made burritos last night for the whole gang.

The car was broken down on the upper deck parking for Super Spar, a local grocery store. While waiting I went to get pies for lunch. Mmm, pies. I saw tortillas and decided to buy some, with the thought of making burritos for dinner or breakfast. It was an easy sell.

Later went back to Checkers (another store) for kidney beans (no refried beans around here), bell peppers, tomatoes, ground beef, etc. Couldn't find sour cream. Could find a small bottle of Old El Paso (I think) salsa. That helped a lot with getting the flavoring right. Wasn't like Santa Fe, where salsas take up a couple of racks of shelf space, but hey, I'm not complaining.

Getting the overall flavor was a bit tricky, given that I had no chiles or chile powder. I faked it with paprika, cinnamon, some basil and oregano, pepper and salt. Would have liked some cumin.

Heikki looked at the tortillas in the bag and said he'd had them before but there were better ones available. As it turned out, I had an ancient New Mexican secret up my sleeve. I lightly toasted the tortillas on the pan on the stove. I find that helps the taste a lot. (In old-school style I could have done it right on top of the flame, but it was an electric stove.)

Everyone quite liked my burritos.

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