Jackfruit for tacos

I love tacos, tortillas and Mexican food in general, and for me it goes with beans, but everyone is talking about jackfruit these days, so I gave it a try. Got myself a jar of green jackfruit in beans and started the experiment.

First I fried some onion with olive oil and a Tio Pablo Mexican spices, in the meantime I drained the jackfruit and cut it into smaller segments, like in the photos.

I added the jackfruit to the onions and cooked it until the jackfruit become soft and easy to break with the wooden spoon. 

 Like this. Various recipes suggest breaking it up so it resemble shredded chicken... not sure I like the idea, never had shredded chicken and I don't see the appeal of it, but the jackfruit 'core' is a little hard, so some mashing goes well here, and the spices combined well. I used this to fill tacos, with the usual salad, tomatoes, guacamole and salsa verde, it was good, and I made several variations ever since, but I now use cans of organic Jack Fruit, they are easy to find in all supermarkets! And I got better at mixing my own spices ;-).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

An improvised Vegan Mexican dinner

Garlic and Cilantro Guacamole

My little Max made Mexican dinner the other night. The highlight was guacamole, since he loves avocado. Making dinner for the family was on his school list of things and chores to do at home, everybody in his classroom had to do 7 things from a list of 10, and I think that he did pretty well :-).

The best guacamole is the one my Mexican primo Alejandro makes. Actually, he makes different types, all good, but when I have to make it I have some personal preferences:

1 I prefer smooth to chunky

2 I like it green, no tomatoes

3 I prefer garlic to onion

4 I don't like it spicy, I want to taste the avocado, not the chili.

Fussy ehhhh!!! So I gave Max all the ingredients for a garlic and cilantro smooth guacamole.

He had to mush (with a pestle) 5 small avocado with the juice of half a lemon. Then he added the garlic, squeezed (that was hard work!!!)

Finally he chopped the cilantro in my hollow herb chopping board (it comes with a curved herb knife which is quite easy to use). He likes doing that. He added the salt, to taste, and that took a while (he was adding about a grain at the time, just to be safe).

Taaaa Daaa!!! It was lovely!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini and Max ©

Mexican Salsa Verde

Here are my tomatillos, some are little, some are huge...but they all taste great...

I asked my Mexican primo Alejandro for a salsa verde recipe and this is what he told me (word by word):

"About the tomatillos, you can cook them, but if you have time to roast them, much better.

For about 2 kilos of tomatillo use 50 ml of vegetable oil, add 2/3 onions, 4-5 garlic cloves, green chilli, cilantro (as you wish, I use a lot). Salt (as you wish) NO SUGAR. Some people who work with preserves suggest to put sugar to diminish the vinegar flavor. And vinegar. Someone told me that if you put 100ml of vinegar per litre, it preserves well (as long as is refrigerated), and the flavor of the vinegar is not to strong, so there is no need for sugar. Normally big companies put more vinegar and sugar because the product is not refrigerated.

Make some test, with sugar and without and see what happens. I kept some salsas in the fridge for up to 3 months without problems. Frozen salsa may last up to a year or more."

So I tried with no sugar and little vinegar for a fresh salsa verde to be eaten within a week:

Roast the tomatillos first, then place in a pot with the other ingredients (adding the cilantro at the end) and boil up. Then I used the blender (even if you use an electric blender the seed will remain whole), not sure if Alejandro would approve....

I use this salsa within a week: delicious!

Then I added a bit more vinegar and sugar for a second version, to preserve.

Place the hot salsa verde in sterilised jars, dried in the oven. Seal the jars with cellophane covers (available in supermarkets) secured with an elastic band, or capsule lids (I use Quattro Stagioni brand). If using capsule lids, place the jars in a pot and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the jars. Let the jars cool down in the pot overnight and when they are cold make sure that the capsule has popped by pressing gently on the lid. Cellophane covered jars will last for several months and capsule lid jars for up to one year. And I put one in the freezer...just to see what happens...

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©