Zucchini ribbons with chile, pine nuts & ricotta

Posted on March 4, 2021 by loschileros

At the Chile Trail, we live for danger. Don’t believe us? Try this on for size. We’ve been known to let the gas tank get down to a quarter full before filling it up again. Yep, we know – madness. Once we waited to pack for holiday a whole week before we left. Crazy? You got it.

So when someone gave us a mandoline for Christmas we saw danger written all over it. For the uninitiated, a mandoline is a kitchen utensil with a flat frame and adjustable blades for slicing vegetables. The danger? Use it without the hand guard and you’ll find that it’s good for creating wafer thin slices of finger too.

Zucchini ribbons sliced on the mandoline.

How could we resist? Soon we were slicing everything that didn’t move from carrots to fennel to apples and pears. We thought about it using it on butter but realized that was just silly. This I’m-a-fancy-pants-chef-like-person-dish is the result of our borderline obsession with the mandoline.

If you don’t have a mandoline, you could use a super sharp knife or even try a vegetable peeler. Or you could stop being such a cheap so-and-so and buy one. They’re – as they say in England – cheap as chips. And then you too can take a walk on the wild side.

Ricotta is optional but you know you love it.

Serves 4

1.5 lb. zucchini – green, yellow, whatever

¼- ½ tsp. chile pequin

1 large clove of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced

3 Tbsp. pine nuts, lightly toasted

2-3 Tbsp. olive oil

1 lemon

Ricotta cheese (optional)

Wash the zucchini and give the stem end a light trim. Slice on the mandoline to create long ribbons. Or use a super sharp knife or vegetable peeler.

Place a deep frying pan on medium-high heat. Add the olive oil. When it’s warmed, add the chile pequin. The chile should sizzle and spit. Don’t be deterred – remember, we live for danger. Add the garlic, give it a quick stir and then immediately add the zucchini (if you’re busy texting your buddy you’ll find that you’ve burned your garlic).

Season with salt and stir fry for a few minutes. The zucchini should relax but you don’t want it limp. Remove from the heat and stir in half of the pine nuts. Place the zucchini on a platter. Finely grate the lemon over the zucchini. Slice the lemon in half and give the veg a few generous squeezes of lemon juice. Sprinkle the remaining pine nuts over the top and add another hit of chile pequin and generous dollops of ricotta cheese, if you’re using.

Sit down and eat. You deserve it. You’ve faced danger and come out the other side.

Don’t forget to add more chile. Always more chile.

Sun-dried tomato, walnut and chipotle chile paste

Posted on November 30, 2018 by loschileros

Congratulations. You did it. You survived Thanksgiving and aunt Vera’s creamed onions. You sat through endless bowl games and bowls of food. No one died of food poisoning and no blood was spilt over the scrabble board. All in all, I’d call that a success.

Now you’ve only got Christmas and New Year’s before you can crawl off into your man/woman/person cave and hibernate until Spring. Imagine all those seconds of stuffing and turkey and gravy providing you with the perfect padding to keep you going until the daffodils are in bloom. Go ahead, eat that extra slice of pie because you’re going to need it.

Oh, if only we were more bears. Wouldn’t hibernation be a great solution for short days and long nights? But alas, you’ve got the day job. And the kids and the bowling team (whose idea was that?). So snap out of it. At best, you can sneak in some mini weekend hibernations – aka naps. Close the doors, ignore your phone and be a solitary curmudgeon for half an hour.

Of course you must keep your strength up, so whip up a batch of sun-dried tomato, walnut and chipotle chile paste. Slather it on a slice of bread or spoon it onto a baked potato. Heck, eat it out of the jar as far as we’re concerned. Before you know it, spring will be here. You’ll search for your sunglasses and put the snow shovel away. You’ll stretch, smile and realize there’s suddenly more than 2 hours of daylight. You’ll look in the mirror and your smile will fade, as you ask yourself why you ate those last five slices of pie.

Sun-dried tomato, walnut & chipotle chile paste

3 oz sun-dried tomatoes

2 oz walnuts (or other nut)

1 lemon, finely zested

1 whole chipotle chile

½ clove garlic.

4 oz olive oil

Place the chipotle chile in a small bowl and cover with almost boiling water. Allow it to sit and hydrate for 10-15 minutes. When it’s softened, remove it from the water, slice it open and remove the seeds. Coarsely chop.

Toast the nuts in a frying pan or in the oven until lightly golden. Watch them like a hawk though, as they’ll quickly burn if you’re not alert.

Coarsely chop the sun-dried tomatoes and walnuts. Place them in the small bowl of a food processor or mini blender. Add the lemon zest, garlic, chopped chipotle chile and about 1/3 of the oil. Blitz. Stop and stir and then add the remaining oil so you have a thick, spoonable paste.

Store in a jar and cover with olive oil.

Zucchini with chile negro, pine nuts & basil

Posted on June 26, 2018 by loschileros

It’s summer and let’s face it, Mother Nature is being a bit of a show off. She’s treating us like we’re minor royalty and dazzling us with all her best from raspberries so sweet they make you want to cry to tomatoes that taste – well, like tomatoes should taste. So we smile and say ‘yes please’ and ‘thank you so much’ and enjoy every last bite of it.

Of course we know it won’t last forever – it never does. We roll from one barbecue to the next putting a mental block on the words ‘autumn’ and ‘winter’. Right now it’s all factor 50, cold rosé, and nabbing the last beach chair before someone else does.

If we can be bothered to cook it has to be quick, simple and tasty. Luckily, just about everything is in season so it’s a bit of a no-brainer. If you’ve got your own vegetable garden – you-industrious-so-and-so – so much the better. Then you can saunter out and pick your own and be incredibly smug about it.

And while you’re at it, pick a zucchini while it’s still small and cute and before it looks like a club wielded by a grumpy giant. Make a quick chile sauce, toast some pine nuts – aka piñon or pignoli – tear some basil leaves and you are done. Because who wants to spend summer in the kitchen when all the fun is happening outdoors?

Serves 2-3 as a side dish

1 zucchini, about 8-9oz

2 Tbsp pine nuts

1 lemon, zest & juice

1 small clove of garlic or half of a larger clove

1 dried chile negro

pinch of cumin seeds

¼ tsp smoked paprika (sweet pimenton)

4 Tbsp olive oil

small handful of basil leaves

To make the chile sauce, place the dried chile in a bowl and cover with not quite boiling water. Allow to sit for around 15 minutes until soft and pliable. Remove the stem and seeds and chop roughly. Mix together the chile, lemon juice & zest, garlic, cumin seeds, smoked paprika and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Blitz in a blender, taste and add salt as needed.

Slice the zucchini into rings and set aside. Heat up a frying pan and toast the pine nuts until golden. Watch them like a hawk as they’ll burn before you’ve had a chance to check out your Instagram feed. Remove the toasted nuts and place in a bowl. Add the remaining two tablespoons of olive oil and the sliced zucchini. Cook over medium high heat until nicely browned on both side. Add the toasted pine nuts, stir and remove from the heat.

Place the zucchini and pine nuts on a serving platter. Tear the basil into pieces and garnish the zucchini with it. Drizzle the chile sauce over and serve any remaining sauce in a bowl on the side.

Sour Power

Posted on February 12, 2014 by loschileros

When life gives you lemons, forget the lemonade. Instead, make an extra-dry martini with a twist (so much more refreshing). But hold on – why is it so bad to get a bunch of lemons anyway? Lemons are lovely (just think about that martini) and we can all use a whack of sour in our lives, can’t we? Sour is good. Sour makes your lips pucker and wakes your mouth up. Not to mention that thanks to lemons you don’t run around like a toothless sailor with a bad case of rickets. Lemons are essential any time of the year but they’re much appreciated in the cold, dark, dregs of winter when we really need something – dare I say it? – zippy. And there is nothing zippier than a jar of preserved lemons. Loved in Middle Eastern cooking, preserved lemons are a must on any shelf. Now you may be lucky enough to have a grocery store near you that sells them but don’t bother. Save your money. Preserved lemons are a dawdle to make. The only caveat is that they should sit in their wee glass jar and steep for about 4 weeks before you use them. However, there are lots of recipes for ‘quick’ preserved lemons although lets be honest, there’s not a lot of preserving going on in a few hours.

How to use them once they’re done? The real question is how not to – they’re incredibly versatile. You use the flesh and can chop that up and add it to stews, tajines, roasted veg, salads – you name it. Of course, never content to let well enough alone, I add chile and other spices to give it an extra kick. So sue me. I can’t help myself.

(Recipe after the break.)

A year ago today…

HOT LOVE &
CHIPOTLE CHILE CHOCOLATE COOKIES
If chile is the food of love — and let’s be honest, it is — this is the perfect Valentine’s recipe.

Preserved Lemons with Chile and Spices

If you can, use unwaxed lemons because be honest, do you really want to eat a bunch of wax? The recipe is for four lemons but you can scale it up or down based on the number of lemons you’ve got. Basic math is that you’ll need a tablespoon of sea salt and the juice of a lemon for each lemon you’re using.

4 unwaxed lemons
4 tbsp coarse sea salt
1 cascabel chile (rehydrated with hot water)
Sprinkle of cumin and coriander seed
Juice of 4 lemons

Get a jar that’s just large enough to fit your lemons. Fill the jar with boiling water, let it sit for a minute then empty the water out. Let the jar dry and it’s ready to go.

Wash the lemons and make four lengthwise cuts from the top almost all the way to the bottom. Don’t cut all the way through – you want the lemon to stay in one piece. Stuff each lemon with a tablespoon of salt each. Place the lemons into the jar – squeeze them in tight. Sprinkle a bit of cumin and coriander onto the lemons and add the cascabel chile. Squeeze in the lemon juice (the juice of one lemon for each lemon you’re storing) and close the lid. Store for about 4 weeks before using.