garlic

Pico de Gallo Recipe

June 14, 2017

For me, most Mexican food is incomplete without a little pico de gallo. The slightly sweet, spicy, and acidic salsa is the perfect condiment to go with my tacos, tortilla chips, burrito bowls, tamales, slads, chicken… the list goes on.

While I normally keep a container of store-bought pico de gallo in the fridge (the Walmart grocery brand is actually my favorite, believe it or not), I recently found myself with tacos to eat and no pico de gallo to go with them.

Thankfully, my over-buying at the grocery store came in handy for once and I happened to have everything I needed to make my own!

HOW I MADE IT

Pico de gallo is pretty simple. It consists of tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, garlic, cilantro, and lime juice. Don’t forget the lime juice. It ties everything together!

I started by seeding and chopping the tomatoes. Then chopping up half an onion so that the pieces of tomato and onion were similar sizes. To get rid of the harshness of the onion, I soaked the onion piece in water while I prepped everything else.

I wanted the garlic flavor to be evenly dispersed throughout the pico, so I “pureed” it with my knife. To do that, I first minced the garlic, then sprinkled coarse salt on top and scraped the blade of my knife over the salted garlic. I hold the blade at almost a 90 degree angle and go back and forth several times until it’s a paste-like consistency.

Then I finely chop up some cilantro and some jalapeno.

Everything goes into a bowl with the juice of 1 lime, some salt and pepper. Then it goes to the fridge to “marinate”. Pico de gallo is sooo much better once it’s had a chance to sit in it’s juice and get all happy

It only takes a few minutes in the fridge (30 at the least), then the pico is ready to eat!

Homemade pico de gallo is so much easier than you think, and its a heck of a lot better than the stuff at the store (even the stuff at Walmart). I forgot how much I like making my own because I can control the heat, and more importantly, the garlic! I like my pico to have a distinct garlic flavor (you’d be surprised at how many store bought picos leave out the garlic completely!). But if that’s not your speed, then you can pare it back!

Next time you find yourself without some salsa on hand, make your own instead of running to the store. Plus, it’s a good opportunity to work on some knife skills!

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Authentic Chicken Doner Recipe

October 26, 2016

One of my favorite places to grab lunch during the week is this little hole in the wall Turkish spot a couple blocks from my office. Several of my coworkers had raved about it, so one day I tagged along.

“What would you like, sweetie?” the cashier asked

“Chicken kabab, please.” That was the only thing I really recognized on the menu.

“Shish or doner?” Apparently there is more than one variety of a chicken kebab.

“Uh. Uh. Doner?” I responded, even thought I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

When I opened the container back at the office I was certain that they gave me the wrong order. It wasn’t chicken skewered on a wooden dowel with some vegetables. It was just some chunks of chicken covered in some sort of red sauce (I wrongfully assumed tomato), over a bed of rice. Sure it looked edible, but it wasn’t what I ordered. My coworkers had never ordered the chicken doner off the menu, so they couldn’t provide any assurance that what I ended up with was actually good. Despite all that, I decided to dig in.

“Oh, this is pretty good!” I thought to myself after the first bite. Then I proceeded to clean my entire plate in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t just good, it was freaking fantastic!

A few months later, my husband and I went on our trip to Berlin and find out doner kabab is actually one of the most popular fast food dishes in the city. There is practically a doner kabab place on every corner. (I knew these were my kind of people!) Once we returned home from our trip, I made it one of my goals to try to recreate my favorite recipe.

I started by perfecting the marinade. Really, it’s all in the marinade. I combined some olive oil, lemon juice, paprika, garlic, coriander, and a bit of cumin in a shallow dish and gave it a good whisking. I tossed in about a pound of chicken thighs, making sure every nook and cranny of the chicken was covered in the marinade.

Side note: I prefer chicken thighs in this particular recipe because the meat stays nice and juicy. You could make it with chicken breast, but it might become too dry.

I let the chicken sit in the oil and spices for about 6 hours (overnight would be preferred), then I seared them in a cast iron skillet over high heat, and transferred them to the oven to continue cooking.

Once the chicken was cooked through and has rested for a bit, I chopped it up into chunks and plated it along with some lavash (flatbread), hummus, and a yogurt sauce (pretty much a tzaziki sauce).

The first bite was just about as good as my very first bite of chicken doner all those months ago. My husband and I piled the chicken onto the lavash and topped it with the hummus and yogurt to make a delicious gyro-esqu wrap. No matter how you eat it – in a wrap, on rice, on lettuce, and by itself. It is always delicious!

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