Menudo is a traditional Mexican tripe soup that is very popular down here in Laredo Texas. In fact, Laredo even hosts a Menudo Bowl, which is a Menudo cook-off that takes place each year a couple of weeks prior to the Super Bowl. We’ve enjoyed tripe numerous times in restaurants, etc… but our previous attempt at cooking the stuff (over a year ago) left a bad taste in our mouths, but we decided it was finally time to give tripe another shot this past weekend. Helping to encourage us was knowing that Menudo also involved another cow part we’ve been wanting to try, beef feet!

Chicago has so many incredible restaurants that’s its impossible to eat at them all over the course of a weekend… but we tried our hardest!

One of our favourite food discoveries since moving down South is Frito Pie. We’re not sure why it has the name, but the recipe basically consists of Frito corn chips, melted cheese, and any type of chili. You just combine them all, usually in the chip bag itself, and then top with pickled jalepenos for a perfectly gluttonous dish. For our homemade version of Frito Pie we went with a chedder beer sauce and a Rick Bayless inspired Texas chili.

Huitlacoche aka Corn Truffle or Corn Smut is a fungus that grows on ears of corn. The spores basically look like kernels that have become big balloon-like mushrooms and while it’s considered a delicacy in Mexico, most American farmers think of huitlacoche as a blight. This makes it really hard to find in America, even in a border city like Laredo. Thankfully we at least managed to get a hold of a canned variety, but in order to try fresh or frozen huitlacoche it seems as though we’ll have to find somewhere that will do mail order (if you’re aware of any vendors let us know!)

David and I spent Christmas with my family all squeezed into my sister Kathleen and her husband George’s cozy Vancouver apartment.  My Mom has always been an adventurous cook so it was a lot of fun watching her tackle Julia Child’s pastry wrapped duck (she was inspired watching Julie & Julia).  Christmas is the only time I feel any connection to my half Ukrainian heritage because my mom makes the best perogies in the world (and I’ll fight anyone who says differently).  We then took off to spend New Year’s with David’s family in Edmonton and enjoyed some Lebanese dishes like Fatayer and German style ones like Steak Tartare.

For this year’s Christmas vacation, rather than flying, we decided to do a big road trip up the West Coast from Texas to Canada. This meant by the time we finally circled back home to Laredo we had spent over a hundred hours on the highway. During the past three summers we’ve been doing similar — although shorter — U.S. to Canada drives; so along with the motivational power of Bob Seger’s greatest hits, our tolerance for double digit hours in the car each day has thankfully become fairly high. This video covers the first half of our trip, as we drove from Laredo to Tuscon and then spent a couple nights each in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland — before making our way up to Canada for a Christmas at Nicole’s sister’s place in Vancouver (Part Two: Canada will be up next).

The first time David and I had Sichuan Hot Pot, we were in Tokyo and had no idea we were eating at a Chinese Restaurant.  It was one of our most memorable meals of that trip (actually all the food was seriously amazing) and since then we have been trying to recreate our own version, cobbled together with whatever ingredients we could find in the Laredo vicinity.  We make absolutely no claims to authenticity but it is ridiculously yummy and fun.  The fun aspect is definitely enhanced if you have a portable element, metal mesh scoops to stick your meat, etc. in, and chop sticks.

Asian Hot Pot

• 1/2 lb  good quality beef, sliced deli-thin
• 2 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 cup cold water
• 1 cup medium grain sushi rice, rinsed three times in cold water, drained.
• 1/4 lb mushrooms, stems trimmed, halved if small, quartered if big
• 2 cups green cabbage, sliced (you can cook this in the hot pot or dip it in the mayo sauce and eat it raw)
• 1/4 lb tofu, cubed
• 3 tbsp oil (we like using duck fat)
• 6 small dried chilies, (we used chile de arbol)
• 2″ ginger, peeled, minced
• 1/4 cup red pepper paste (we use this Korean kind that is spicy and sugary)
• 1 1/2 tbsp black bean garlic paste
• 1 quart chicken stock
• 1/3 cup dry sherry

Peanut Sauce

• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sambal oelek
• 2 tbsp water

Spicy Mayo

• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tsp sriracha

1. To make slicing easier, place the beef in the freezer for a few hours prior to preparing the meal.
2. Combine the rice vinegar, sugar, and salt.  Mix well and set aside.
3. Start steaming your rice: place the rice in a saucepan that has a lid and add 1 1/4 cup cold water.  Cover and bring to a boil.  Let boil for 2 minutes, then reduce heat to medium and let cook 5 minutes. Then reduce heat to your very lowest setting and let cook 15 minutes. Remove lid, cover with a clean tea towel and let stand on element for 10-15 minutes. Pour on rice vinegar mixture and fluff lightly with a fork.  Its now ready.
4. Meanwhile, chop your vegetables, and tofu, set aside.
5. Slice the beef deli-thin.
6. Combine the peanut butter with 1/2 tbsp soy sauce,  1 tsp sambal oelek, and 2 tbsp water.  Set the sauce aside.  Check taste and consistency and adjust to suit you.
7. Combine the mayo and 1 tsp sriracha (or to taste).  Stir well.  Set aside.
8. Heat the oil in your pot.  Saute the dried chilis until fragrant.
9. Add the ginger and stir 20 seconds.
10. Stir in the chili paste for 30 seconds.
11. Add the black bean paste and stir well.
12. Pour in the chicken stock and bring to a boil.
13. Add the dry sherry, reduce heat and simmer until serving time.
14. Arrange the vegetables and meat on your table, along with the dipping sauces and bowls of rice.
15. Transfer the pot to a tabletop heating element.  Cook your food by dipping in the hot liquid.  The meat will only take about 20 seconds or so but your tofu and mushrooms taste better the longer they are in there. The rice is delicious with the meat and veg, especially if you pour a little of the stock on top.  Yum.

Notes

• Serves 2-4 (you’ll want to double the beef and vegetables for 4). Your hot pot can probably only comfortably give four people dipping room and you don’t need to increase the liquid amount for that size of a group.
• For the beef, some marbling is yummy, but you don’t want giant chunks of fat.
• In addition to mushroom and cabbage, other vegetables that work well in the hot pot are thinly sliced daikon, potatoes, and zucchini. We have also had hot pot with lamb and it was amazing.  In Japan we cooked noodles in the hot pot as well but we haven’t been able to find the right noodles. Let us know if you come up with your own recipe or other ingredients of your own to try because we would love to keep expanding our hot pot horizons!

For this year’s American Thanksgiving Nicole’s mom was in town, so we decided to cook a big mix of old and new favourites — with the Pig Head Torchon being the main highlight. Torchon is basically a method of wrapping and rolling meat into a log shape and then slicing it into discs. It’s mainly known as a preparation for foie grois, so this pig head variation by chef David Chang is certainly the more economical way to go.

Inspired by reading that America has the biggest, juiciest chicken feet in the world we decided to try cooking the tasty — yet annoyingly difficult to eat — dish.