A Food and Drink Blog by some Philly Outlaws

Ingredients:

Tamales -
24 corn husks
1 1/2 cup of fresh corn
1 medium onion
2 cups chicken stock
6 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons shortening
1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal
1 1/2 spoons suger
pinch of salt and pepper

Shrimp
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 poblano pepper seeded
1/4 cup fresh mint
2 cups fresh corn
1 medium onion
40 (1 1/2 pound) peeled and deveined shrimp

Salsa
2 vine ripe tomatoes coarsely chopped
1 jalapeno minced and seeded
1 red onion finely diced
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/3 cup fresh basil
1/4 cup fresh mint
1 tablespoon sugar

Start by soaking the 24 corn stocks 2 hours before you plan on making the meal. In a food processor puree the chicken broth, half the onions and one cup of corn. Add the puree into a mixing bowl and knife in the butter, shortening. Add the corn meal, sugar and salt and pepper  into it. mix it together by hand. The mixture will be thinner then you think it will just make sure you get all the lumps out and it will be fine.

Preheat your oven to 350 digress then roast your garlic.

Take the best 20 of the stocks and set them aside. take the remaining 4 and tear them into 1 in strips to tie the ends. Place 2 stock tapered side out over lapping by about 3 in in the middle. Scoop about 1/3 of a cup in the middle and fold one side in. Next fold the other side in. then take the sides and use the 1 in strips to tie them off while pushing them towards the middle.  Don’t worry if a little comes out the seams. These can be prepared 1 hour before cooking time. Steam for 45 min.

Add tomatoes, lime juice, mint, basil, red onion, jalapeno and the 2 roasted garlic cloves into a mixing bowl and stir together.

Take 2 cloves of your garlic chop it up and add it to a sautee pan with a table spoon of olive oil. Add the rest of the chopped onions, poblano peppers, 1 1/2 cup of corn and 2 roasted garlic cloves to the pan. Sautee them for 2 min and add the shrimp. Cook until shrimp are done.

Take one of the tamales cut then end off and one slice down the middle so the corn meal spills on the plate. Spoon some of the onions, poblanos, and 4 shrimps over the tamales then add a spoonful of salsa to the side.

Ficelle, aka Small Baguette

Yeah, I know it’s been a long time since there was a last post.  This is typical of a new blog, people are pumped to start it, but they never actually continue after a few months.  That’s why most of you have specific blogs that you read in your RSS feeds, and ours isn’t one of them.  Well, this is my attempt to not let chewandbrew die, and pull back the few readers that we had.

Let me begin with an excuse; I’ve been very distracted in the past few months with an old friend of mine.  We’ve rekindled our nearly broken relationship, (much like this blog), and have started getting along again.  After some research from friends and strangers alike, I’ve learned why I started to hate this old friend, and how I can once again begin to entertain having another relationship with it!  This friend that I speak of is nearly as old as humankind itself and without it world hunger would be 7-fold if we wern’t dead already.  The friend I speak of is bread.  Leavened or Not, Flavored, Shaped, Baked, Steamed or Boiled, Bread has been with us for many years and with my disregards to the late Atkins (he’s an idiot), it is still a staple food and shall continue to be.  Hell, with an introduction like this I’m nearly tempted to say, as Alton Brown may, Bread Is… (duh duh duh duh nah nah nah UH UH), GOOD EATS.

Currently I’m not going to give out any recipes, but will give you a simple link that might make you love or hate bread more than you already do.

The Baker’s Percentage

Sure, maybe you hate math, and if so, then you should continue to bake as cookbooks suggest and measure everything with the godawful volume measurement scale, but if you truly want to bake good breads (and I hope that you do), then you should break out a calculator.  Once you get a calculator in your hand, and a digital scale in your kitchen, with a little know-how, you should find what is the Zen of Bread.

Add us back onto your RSS Feeds, as we’re back, and there will be more and more focus on breads and their primary ingredient, grains.