the morning after

Migas is apparently one hell of a hang over food. It's quite handy too that it's made from a bunch of leftovers.

It apparently originated in Austin, Texas, but has spread to the surrounding area. And it's so fabulous a meal that I've decided to spread it even further. And while it is a handy morning after breakfast, it's also good to have for dinner before the drinks begin.

Migas typically starts with day-old tortillas, chopped and fried in oil, but if you don't have fresh tortillas, or if you're really not in the mood to deal with the extra step, tortilla chips (particularly the broken up ones in the bottom of the bag) will work just fine. Just as leftover pico de gallo will work in place of spending time chopping onions and jalapenos first thing in the morning.

Holy hell, I am lazy.

Sometimes I even surprise myself.

Migas

What You Need

• 2-3 fresh corn tortillas
• 2 tbsp peanut oil (or some other oil with a high smoke point)

OR

• 1/2 c broken pieces of tortilla chips

-

• 1/2 jalapeno
• 1/4 onion
• 1/2 tomato
• cilantro

OR

• about 1/2 c of pico de gallo

-

• 4 eggs
• 1/4 c milk or cream
• bacon, ham or sausage
• 1/2 c cheddar or monteray jack cheese
• more cilantro if you have it

What you Gotta Do

If you're feeling up to the extra step, and have fresh tortillas handy, chop them into pieces. Shape isn't that big a deal, but they should be relatively small. Bite sized. 

In a shallow pan over medium high, heat the oil until is starts to shimmer, then sprinkle in the tortillas. Fry them until they're golden then fish them out of the oil and set them on some paper towels while you do more stuff.

If you're using fresh veggies, now's the time to chop them. Diced fairly small. If you've got pico de gallo (or salsa, in a pinch) leftover from last night's festiviites, you can hold onto it for now.

Drain most of the oil from the pan. Or, drain it all and replace it with bacon fat.

If you're using fresh veggies, you're going to want to sautee them in the fat for a bit. Just enough to take the crunch off.

While those are cooking crack the eggs into a bowl and add the milk or cream.

Beat them together until they're starting to get a little foamy. Or, until you decide you're too tired to keep beating them, which ever comes first. Depends on how hungover lazy you are.

Pour the eggs into the pan with the veggies. If you don't already have veggies in the pan, add them now.

The reason you don't have to pre cook the pico: pico de gallo uses a combination of lime juice (acid) and salt to break down the cell walls of the veggies. This is a similar process to what cooking does. Same thing happens in ceviche, which I do not recommend for breakfast while hung over.

Add the meat now too. I had ham, but whatever your fave breakfast meat is will work.

Stir this all around until the egg is mostly set.

Sprinkle on the tortillas.

And then the cheese.

Turn the heat off and cover the pan so the cheese will melt.

While the cheese is melting, warm up the rest of the tortillas (I layer mine with damp paper towels and nuke em for a few seconds), and mash the leftover beans. This step is of course optional, but a pretty typical way to serve migas.

Yes, I had tortillas, and yes I still used the chips. I did say "if you're really not in the mood to deal with the extra step." I wasn't in the mood. Well...

Serve your migas with warmed tortiallas and beans, and some seriously strong coffee.

What's your favourite morning after food?

I Like Big Butts

Big pork butts, that is. Which strangely, is not meat from the posterior of a pig. Pork butt comes from the shoulder. Unlike a rump roast of beef which really is cow butt.

And really the best thing to do with a pig's shoulder is to make it into Chili Verde. Green Chili. There are only a few restrictions when making this dish, one of them being that stuff must be green. (except the butt... shoulder... green butts should not be used in this dish)

Hatch chilis are apparently the ideal, but I'm nowhere near New Mexico where they grow, and I was lucky enough to find both tomatillos and Poblanos in the grocery in the same week, so I grabbed all of the tomatillos in the store. All of them. I'm evil like that. Plus, most recipes I'd seen called for a pound, and I had no idea how many tomatillos constitute a pound so I bought them all. (still don't know, I just used all the ones I bought)

Chili Verde

What You Need:

• ¼ cup oil
• 4-4 ½ lbs pork butt
• 2 onions
• 4 coves garlic
• 2 Anaheim peppers
• 2 Poblano peppers
• 2 jalapeno peppers
• 12 tomatillos
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tbsp coriander
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 bunch of cilatnro
• 3 tbsp masa (corn flour)
• 4 cups water or chicken stock
• lime

What You Gotta Do:

Like most chilis, this one starts out with a bunch of chopping. It's really not too bad though, just kinda repetitive since you have to seed and chop a total of at least 8 peppers.

Seeding them is easiest done by cutting around the top of the pepper, then popping the top off. You should get most of the seeds out this way.

I found 2 Anaheim and 4 Poblano, so that's what I used, but feel free to mix it up and use whatever kind you want, as long as they're green.

Chop the onion, garlic, and cilantro as well, then start in on the tomatillos.

First thing you have to do with them, is peel them.

Then, they get a bath to wash off the sticky. They're sticky under that papery stuff, and I think it must be some kind of protective surfactant, because they totally make suds in the water. 

Once you've got them chopped and set aside with the rest of the veg,

it's time to start in on the meat. I always do the meat last so I only have to dirty one cutting board.

First thing to do is trim off the lovely layer of pork fat.

I cut that into chunks

and froze them individually on a bit of plastic, then tossed them into a freezer bag. They're perfect for adding to a nice big pot of beans.

Then trim as much meat as you can off the bone. (I packaged the fat chunks after the trimming)

You start out with a 4 pound butt, but really, once you get it all chopped up, there's nowhere near 4 pounds of meat there. (And there's a naughty joke in there somewhere, I just can't find it)

Heat the oil in a big pot over medium high, and start browning your pork chunks.

It took me about 3 batches to do this. You don't want too much meat in there at once, or it won't brown nicely and leave those yummy little brown bits on the bottom of the pan (which are the whole point of this step).

Once you've got all the meat seared and removed from the pot, you can drain off any excess fat. I'll leave you to define excess for yourself (I didn't drain anything).

Now, most recipes will tell you to start with the onions and cook them for 5 minutes, then add something else and cook for another 5 minutes... to a stew that's going to be simmering for 3 hous.

I did the onion thing, and then added the spices

And then decided there was little point in adding the rest in stages. Hell, I'm no longer convinced the onions need that 5 minute head start.

Dump in your veggies all at once.

You are welcome to give them a few minutes to get acclimatized to their new surroundings (I did), but again: 3 hours. It's not like this is some kind of delicate pastry. It's a freaking stew that's going to be in a pot for the better part of the afternoon.

Now we can dump the pork back in, and toss in the masa along with it.

Some recipes will insists that you pre-toss the meat in the masa, but again, I'm seeing nothing more than extra steps with that. It's all going to end up stirred up together, and the meat is going to cook until it falls apart, so it's not like the masa really neeeeeeds to be on the meat.

Just stir it all together and then add the liquid. Water, broth, stock, or any combination thereof, just make sure you've got about 4 cups of it. I had about a cup of broth in the freezer, so I used it and 3 cups of water.

Bring this to a boil then reduce the heat so that it's just simmering when the lid is on.

And now the fun part.

Go do something else for three hours.

Sure, you can come back and stir from time to time, but that is really your only obligation for the rest of the afternoon.

Me, I did math.

Until the meat was so soft and tender that it fell apart when you pressed it against the wall of the pot with the spoon.

And then keep doing that until the meat is all nice and shreddy.

Then add a squeeze or two of lime.

And serve it with a bit of sour cream, and some chips on the side.

The pot full of chili verde gave me a total of 4 sets of dinner/lunch freezer bags. And it's killing me to not eat them every day for the rest of this week.

What could you eat for dinner every night of the week?