All Comments on 'Cooking with the Monkey'

Hi RMB, I like the looks of your instructions and I'll give it a shot as long as the weather here stays cool. Thank you. It seems you are going to enter the survivor contest this year so I'm sure you're up to your ass in writing.

If you get a little time off, I would love to know how you make your Borracho Beans. I know what borrcho means as well as crudo which usually follows. (G) I guess reduce the water and substitute a good dark beer in equal amounts.So the change in proportions would be appreciated as well as anything else you'd like to tell me. Thank you and good luck in the contest.

Mike

I love this article. I gave you 5 stars just for the carne guisada recipe--it's more robust than mine. Thank you for teaching me something new. I don't know how many beginners can make tortillas without a demonstration, however, but I give you huge credit for including this recipe. Nothing beats fresh, home made tortillas! The only place I differ with you is the rice, but that's a matter of personal taste.

I agree about the tortillas. I've made them since I was knee-high to a grasshopper and my babysitters mother made them. She didn't use a pan, just threw the rolled out dough over the flame of her stove. I don't have a gas stove, so I can't do that. When I started making them again when we moved into a house (I refused to use our apartment kitchens so my hubs did all the cooking for several years), I had to re-learn how to roll out a round tortilla. My first ones looked more like Texas than anything round.

As for the rice, meh. I don't make it that often, but I wanted to include it so this was an entire meal. This is the rice I make when I have to make it, though most of the time I don't add in the peas or anything. Just onions and peppers and tomato-y rice.

Thanks for the comments and I'm glad the recipes were so appreciated!

Five stars. Still can't believe I'm finding such tasty recipes on Literotica, but I'm sure not complaining. I'm bookmarking this to cook for a crowd sometime. I like spicy food, and always like an excuse to use my cast-iron enamel chili & gumbo pot.

I haven't cooked much Tex-Mex, so I am always confused on how to properly handle hot peppers like jalapenos. In your Carne Guisada instructions, you say to dice the onions & peppers. Does any Tex-Mex cook just automatically know that you're supposed to remove the core & seeds, or do you leave that in for your Carne Guisada? The references to it being extra-spicy makes me think you mean to leave the peppers whole (seeds and all) while chopping them up.

Then in the salsa recipe, you explicitly say to de-seed the peppers.

I tried to cook enchiladas verde from an "authentic Tex-Mex housewife" recipe once, and dutifully blended a jalapeno or two in with the tomatillos per the recipe instructions (seeds and all). It was so hot, even I couldn't eat it (and I pretty much live on Crystal or Louisiana Red-Hot sauce).

So...can you help clarify the pepper situation for those of us who didn't grow up on this stuff? I appreciate it!

Wow, I didn't think about this when I wrote the recipe down. This really depends on your tastes. If you know you can handle the heat with the seeds and veins intact, by all means use them. It really varies for me and my family.

The last time I made this I used a single serrano and a single jalapeno, and I seeded them, I've made it with just two jalapenos and left the seeds in, I've made it with just two serranos and left the seeds in. On the serranos, I generally leave the seeds because those buggers are so small that it makes it tedious. If I leave the seeds, I use less peppers.

The only peppers that I always seed and even use gloves to handle are habaneros. The gloves are because I have a bad tendency to forget I just cut up a hot pepper and I touch my face, and then I wonder why the hell I'm burning...

Also, when you're picking out peppers it's a pretty good bet that the bigger the pepper the milder the heat. I generally try to choose big jalapenos and serranos because of this. It's not an infallible rule, but I've found it to be true more often than not. The bigger ones are also easier to seed. :)