14 July 2012

A lazy Saturday calls for...

...a Spicy Paloma!

Fiery hot tequila margarita

We really enjoyed our visit to Mayahuel in New York, and were inspired by all of their tequila-based cocktails. Within hours of arriving home from New York we were trying to reproduce their delicious drinks.

This is our attempt to reproduce their Spicy Paloma. We used a margarita base as the starting point, and the Mayahuel menu as a guide:
3 oz jalapeño-infused tequila
2 oz fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice
2 oz fresh-squeezed lime juice
¼ oz agave nectar (or simple syrup)
tonic water
kosher salt

Rim a glass with kosher salt. Mix the other ingredients (save the tonic water). Pour over ice, and add tonic water to taste. Delicious. And with a nice post-margarita burn, this is a really unique turn on a traditional margarita. And Mrs. Dude liked our incarnation even better than the Spicy Paloma. Enjoy!

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12 July 2012

Jalapeño-infused tequila

Ingredients

We recently visited Mayahuel in New York. It's a great little Mexican place. Not fajitas and margaritas Mexican, but more Mexican-inspired American cuisine. The most exciting part was the various cocktails using jalapeño-infused tequila. Fun cocktails that had a slow burn associated with them. Yum! Well, as soon as we got home I started a batch.

I wasn't sure where to start, so we started with:
5 jalapeños
1 ½ cups tequila (I used Herradura reposado)
Preparing

I chopped the jalapeños and soaked them in tequila in the fridge. Three days, stirring each day.

Jalapeño-infusion

Then run the infusion mess through a sieve. This infusion creates a nice tequila with a slow burn. Amazing on its own, but better in a cocktail. More soon.

Jalapeño-infused tequila

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10 July 2012

Embarrassingly simple grilled portobellos

Well, and so here we are in July, and it's definitely barbecue season. Indirect Heat has been getting a lot of traffic, and most of my recent posts have been non-bbq related.

But we have been barbecuing. Some old recipes and new ones. Here's an old one...

Nearly 15 years ago, when I was bartending at Valhalla in Houston, we would have a few bartender parties ever year. We were all grad student volunteers, so the biggest benefit to bartending was the parties. Free beer and free food. Well one of the bartenders was a former chef and current martial arts teacher, and he was given a budget to feed us. Most of the grad students at these parties were interested in the free beer, but the food was pretty awesome. At one particular party, I hit up the chef and asked him, "These grilled mushrooms are amazing, what's the recipe?"

"I'm almost embarrassed to tell you. It's really simple."

"How so?"

"No, it's really embarrassingly simple..."

"Okay..."

So here it is:
Portobello mushrooms
Italian salad dressing
Get the best portobellos you can.

Mini portobellos

Peel the skin and the gills off.

Trimming portobello

Chop into large chunks. You want them not to fall into the grill slats. And toss the mushrooms with Italian dressing all over.

Marinating portobello

Heat a grill to screaming hot, however is your favorite method. (I use charcoal grill, started with a chimney starter
).

Grill, maybe two minutes a side, just until you have grill marks on the mushrooms.

Grilling portobello

Serve while screaming hot.

Grilled portobello

When you bite into them, and the molten hot juices spray into your mouth, well... it's dangerous but embarrassingly delicious. I don't often post "simple" recipes, but this is one. And it's pretty awesome.

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