Grilling with Beer and Wine

To accompany with the copious amounts of beer and wine that we were consuming, we grilled a Mexican / Asian dinner inspired by fresh produce at the peak of its season.  I made fresh guacamole, roasted tomatillo salsa, roasted tomato salsa for both pre-dinner snacking with tortilla chips as well as for accompaniments to the grilled meat tacos.  While making your own salsa isn't necessarily cheaper than buying it at the store, I feel like you can better control the quality of your ingredients, as almost everything was organic and from the farmer's market, and avoid unnecessary preservatives.  It is quite time-consuming, but I feel like it just tastes better.

My favorite was the tomatillo salsa with a smoky sweetness and the faintest bit of heat

We grilled up some skirt steak, marinated overnight in some soy sauce, rice wine vinegar with lots of garlic and ginger, and some thinly sliced spicy pork.  No vegetarians were in the house, clearly.  The pork came pre-marinated from the Korean supermarket but we kicked up the heat a bit with some more sriracha sauce while sauteing it in a cast iron skillet right on the grill.  I am a big fan of skirt steak; it wasn't cheap, at $9.99 per lb from Whole Foods, but was the right balance of structured yet tender.  As accompaniments to the meat, we had the salsas mentioned above, red leaf lettuce, and store-bought kimchi and thinly sliced daikon for some acidity and crunch.  I had also bought freshly made corn tortillas from the local Mexican supermarket, Top Valu.  I really liked the tortillas and also the tortilla chips from Top Valu.  The tortilla chips tasted like real chips that you would get at a Mexican restaurant, actually made from real tortillas with a nice heartier crunch.  We'll never go back to tostitos again.

 

We also grilled up some mustard potatoes with scallions (grilled potatoes are the best, crunchy and charred on the outside, and soft and delicious on the inside, and also served up a corn, black bean and pepper salad.  For dessert, we had some no-pudge brownies, Sam's delicious oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (I need the recipe!) and vanilla ice cream and frozen yogurt.  Quite a decadent meal!  Recipes to follow

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa:

• Remove the husks and wash 6 tomatillos
• Remove the skin and quarter 1 white onion
• 1 serrano chile and 1 jalapeno pepper
• 4 cloves of garlic (you can leave the skin on)
• Put all the vegetables on a baking sheet, toss with a little olive oil, salt and pepper
• Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, then turn on the broiler for another 2-4 minutes until everything starts to char
• Remove the skin from the garlic, the stems from the pepper and chili, and the bottom of the tomatillo and put everything in a food processor with juice from 1 lime, 2 tsp of cumin, 1 tsp of salt, small drizzle of agave nectar, handful of cilantro leaves and pulse together.  Add up to 1/4 cup of water if necessary.  Let sit for a few hours to let the flavors combine

Roasted tomato salsa:

• Quarter and core 2.5 beefsteak tomatoes (about 1.5 lbs, I happened to have beefsteak tomatoes)
• Remove the stem and halve 1 red pepper
• Remove the skin and quarter 1 yellow onion
• 1 serrano chile and 1 jalapeno pepper
• 4 cloves of garlic (you can leave the skin on)
• Put all the vegetables on a baking sheet, toss with a little olive oil, salt and pepper
• Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, then turn on the broiler for another 2-4 minutes until everything starts to char
• Remove the skin from the garlic, the stems from the pepper and chili, and put everything in a food processor with 2 chipotles and some of the adobo sauce, small drizzle of agave nectar, juice from 2 limes, 2 tsp of cumin, 1 tsp of chili powder, 1 tsp of salt, handful of cilantro leaves and pulse together.  Let sit for a few hours to let the flavors combine

Guacamole:

• Scoop 3 avocados into a bowl, squeezing a little lime juice every so often (use up to 1 lime)
• Mash up the avocado with a fork
• Add 1 clove of finely minced garlic
• Seed and dice 1/2 a tomato and add
• Add 1/4 cup of finely diced red onion
• Season with 1 tsp of cumin, salt and pepper and mix everything together with the fork

Corn, black bean and red pepper salad:

• Husk and then boil 3 ears of corn for 10 minutes
• Small dice 1 orange pepper, 1/2 a red onion
• Finely mince 1-2 cloves of garlic
• Rinse and drain 1/2 a can of black beans
• Shave the corn off the cob when finished boiling
• Combine everything together in a non-reactive bowl.  Zest and juice 1 lime, salt and pepper, and a pinch of sugar to taste.  Let sit for a few hours to let the flavors combine.

Grilled mustard potatoes with scallions (from Mario Batali's Italian Grill):

• Boil 1.5 lbs of fingerling potatoes for about 6 minutes (or until you can pierce them with a fork)
• Thinly slice 6 scallions
• Halve the potatoes and toss into a bowl with 1/3 of the scallions, a little less than 1/4 cup of olive oil, and a handful of cumin and fennel seeds (Mario uses celery seeds, which I didn't have)
• Thread the potatoes onto skewers and then grill, rotating occasionally, until the outsides are lightly browned
• Toss the potatoes in a serving bowl with the remainder of the scallions, 1 3/4 TB of dijon mustard, little less than 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar, 1/3 cup of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste