Happy May, and Happy Margarita Week! It’s year two for the tequila-fest that Kate over at Hola Jalapeno puts together in celebration of Cinco de Mayo. Last year, I contributed these Sparkling Lemongrass Ginger Margaritas. I was still feeling very inspired by all the amazing Vietnamese, Japanese, and Chinese food we ate while in Asia, so it was only natural to work some of my favorite Asian aromatics into a traditionally Mexican drink.

For this year, I dialed things back a little bit. It can sometimes feel like I’m constantly trying to outdo myself when I come up with recipes. I want the recipes on this blog to be creative and inspiring – I’m not here to write about super simple recipes or cooking basics. However, simple doesn’t always mean tired and overdone. Simple recipes can be a wonderful way to let the flavor of an incredible ingredient shine through. Think burrata cheese, high quality olive oil, and perfectly crunchy sourdough. So while last year’s contribution to Kate’s Margarita Week was exotic and new, this year I’m keeping it simple with Passion Fruit Margaritas. Just a perfect, balanced drink that lets the passion fruit sing accompanied by high quality tequila.

I developed a crush on passion fruit during my first few trips to Colombia two years ago, and since then it’s blossomed into a burning romance. Whilst I burn through some of my food obsessions in a month or two (like when you fall in love with a new song and play it non-stop for two weeks, only to realize that you never want to hear it again after that), others are a slow build. Passion fruit is one that’s here for the long haul. It’s so wonderfully tangy and fragrant, the perfect complement for desserts and drinks. I daydream about the passion fruit gelato at Santini in Portugal, and I can slurp down a fresh passion fruit juice in minutes.

The only downside to my love for passion fruit is the cost. Passion fruit are hard to find and exorbitantly expensive in Boston, running $2 a piece (if anyone in Boston has tips for where to get them cheaper, please share! I’ll bring you a margarita). This might be the only drink I’ve ever made that cost more to make at home than it would have to order at a restaurant.  At least I had a lightbulb moment when reading this post by A House in the Hills that you can grow passion fruit (obviously). True, it typically grows in subtropical places like Colombia and Australia. But we’ve tried lemon trees and avocado trees and olive trees, so why not give passion fruit vines a try? One day we’ll live in California/Portugal/Mexico where we belong. Until then, I’ll be forking out the cash to get fresh passion fruit for my margaritas and desserts.

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Passion Fruit Margaritas

Makes 3-4 margaritas.

• 6 fresh passion fruit
• 1 lime, plus more for garnish.
• 4 teaspoons sugar
• 4 oz. white tequila
• 2 oz. orange liqueur
• ice
• coarse sea salt, for rimming glasses

1. Cut the passion fruit in half, being careful not to spill the juice out of the center. Scrape the pulp and juice into a small food processor. Pulse 2-3 times just to loosen the seeds from the pulp. Pour through a strainer into a bowl, separating the juice from the seeds.
2. Cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice into the bowl with the passion fruit juice. Add the sugar and stir to thoroughly combine.
3. For each drink, add the following ingredients to a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice: 1 oz tequila, 1/2 oz orange liqueur, 1 oz passion fruit juice mixture. Shake vigorously for 20 seconds, then strain into a salt-rimmed glass. Add a few passion fruit seeds and a slice of lime for garnish. Serve immediately.

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I am a lover of tequila. Like, I am the person at the end of the night asking if we can do tequila shots, not because I am hammered and making poor decisions, but because I genuinely like the way tequila tastes. Especially with lime and salt, and if I get to clink glasses with a bunch of friends, all the better. Trevor and I even went to a tequila tasting dinner once, although sipping room temperature tequila from champagne glasses was a little much, even for me.

My friends all know that I love tequila, and I also happen to have very polite, very generous friends, so every time we throw a party, we end up with at least one more bottle of tequila. We now have 4 mostly full bottles (and that’s down from 5 only because Trevor just finished off a lingering bottle a few weeks back), which is arguably too much tequila. If I ever make any new friends, I think I’ll tell them that I love vodka, just to even out my collection. (Although I absolutely don’t love vodka. 90% of the vodka I’ve ever purchased has gone into make Penne alla Vodka. The other 10% was probably consumed in the form of jello shots.) To be fair to myself and Trevor and our drinking habits, we also have 5 open bottles of Whiskey/Bourbon and 7 bottles of rum (5 of which are Captain Morgan from the campaign we did with them two years ago), so we might just be booze-hoarders. Perhaps after I finish the 5-month long project of cleaning out my closet, I should move on to cleaning out the liquor cabinet. For which the obvious thing to do is throw a massive party, except now all our friends are old and mostly drink wine and beer. But I’m digressing, let’s get back to tequila.

When Kate from Hola Jalapeño reached out about participating in an enticing-sounding event called Margarita Week, I was on board for all sorts of reasons. One, I love margaritas. Two, not gonna lie, I was really thrilled to finally be included in one of those fun online blogger events that I see happen all the time but never get invited to. Three, Kate is super sweet and has been leaving nice comments on my blog forever, which always reminds me how bad I am about the friendliness part of blogging. Four, I thought that if I could make enough margaritas, maybe I could kick another bottle of tequila. This was a win-win-win situation.

My contribution to Margarita Week is this Asian-inspired Sparkling Lemongrass-Ginger Margarita. It’s loosely inspired by a Lemongrass-Ginger Hot Toddy that we had several times at one of our favorite restaurants in Hong Kong, Chôm Chôm. I will definitely be sharing that hot toddy with you in the future, but since I’m hoping hot toddy weather is behind us until next fall, we’re doing it in margarita form for now. This has a fragrant lemongrass-ginger syrup, tequila, spicy fresh ginger beer, and an utterly addictive sugar-salt-lemon-ginger rim. Once you have the lemongrass-ginger syrup in your fridge, it takes all of 60 seconds to put these together.

For lots more margaritas, be sure to check out Kate’s Margarita Week page, as well as some of the totally gorgeous drinks below (I’ll keep updating as the week goes on, so check back for more tequila). If you join in on the fun, be sure to use the #MargaritaWeek hashtag!

• Mexicana Margarita from Vanilla and Bean
• Elderflower Margarita from Autumn Makes and Does
• Broiled Grapefruit Margarita from The Cookie Rookie
• Strawberry Rhubarb Margarita from Nutmeg Nanny
• Mint Cucumber & Smoky Jalapeno Margarita from She Eats
• Honey Margarita from Sweet Life Bake
• Frozen Peach and Chambord Mezcal Margarita from Holly & Flora
• Fresh Ginger Margarita from Always Order Dessert

Sparkling Lemongrass-Ginger Margaritas

Serves 4.

• 2 stalks lemongrass
• 1 c. plus 2 TBS sugar
• 1 c. water
• 1 1/2 inches fresh ginger root, peeled and cut into slices
• juice of 1 lemon
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp freshly grated ginger
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 8 oz. tequila
• 2 bottles ginger beer, cold
• ice to serve

1. Make the syrup. Use a serrated knife to cut the lemongrass into pieces about 1 inch long. You will only be using the juicier, white part of the lemongrass, not the dry green end. I usually use about 2/3 of a fresh lemongrass stalk. Add the lemongrass, 1 cup of the sugar, the water, and the ginger root slices to a small saucepan. Bring to a gentle simmer, then simmer on medium-low until the syrup is fragrant and the lemongrass and ginger are soft, about 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Strain the syrup into a clean glass jar, discarding the leftover lemongrass and ginger. Set aside. (After making margaritas, store any leftover syrup in the fridge)
2. Combine the remaining 2 TBS sugar, lemon zest, grated ginger, and sea salt in a small bowl and mix together until evenly combined. Rub one of the used lemon rinds around the rim of each glass you are using to moisten the rim, then dip the glasses one by one into the sugar-salt mixture, pressing the sides of the glass against the bowl to create a sugar-salt rim.
3. Add 2 TBS of the lemongrass-ginger syrup and 2 ounces of tequila to each glass, being careful not to disturb the sugar rim. Add 2-3 ice cubes and use a long spoon to give the drink a stir. Top the drink up with cold ginger beer and serve immediately.

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The Book: Mexico: The Cookbook is the latest in Phaidon’s line of beautiful, country-specific recipe compendiums. I reviewed Thailand: The Cookbook earlier this year, and was excited to see that a Peruvian book will be released in the spring. All of these books offer a very different experience than most of the cookbooks being released today. They’re short on prose – no recipe headnotes or historical sidebars – and while the pictures that are included are lovely, they’re not the focus of the books. What these books lack in personality, however, they make up for with sheer thoroughness – Mexico clocks in at over 600 recipes. That volume of recipes means that there will definitely be something new and different to try for everyone who picks up this book. Besides the comprehensiveness, the biggest draw of these books for me is the authenticity – each recipe is tied to a specific region of the country and uses very traditional ingredients and techniques. In the kitchen, that translates to authentic home-style dishes and a deeper understanding of how different cooking techniques can truly open up new flavors. I was a little frustrated with the quality of editing in this book. While I’m sure it’s a massive project to edit a book with 600+ recipes in it, I tried four different recipes for this post and all of them had issues with clarity of instruction and ingredients, to the point of listing ingredients that are never used, and, the opposite, calling for ingredients that aren’t listed. Confident cooks will be fine adapting as they go, but just a warning to those who get frustrated by a lack of clarity in recipes. Other than that, I’m excited to have added this book to my shelf, and I’m sure it will be one of my primary references for Mexican home-cooking.

The Food: The team behind Mexico: The Cookbook, has joined forces with the folks at Casa Noble tequila to promote a great cookbook and a great tequila in one shot (no pun intended). Casa Noble offers crystal, anejo, and reposado tequilas, in addition to single-barrel versions of their anejo and reposado. All the tequilas are produced using traditional methods, and aged in French white oak to create a complexity of flavor that elevates the drink above most lower-end brands. Since tequila is my drink of choice most any night, I was eager to try a new brand and do a little boozy cooking. Although tequila tasting is definitely not an art I’ve mastered, I did take a few little sips (not shots, I promise!) of the reposado without anything to distract from the tequila itself – it’s very smooth, and I picked up a certain fruitiness while Trevor got mostly vanilla. The tasting notes also mention chocolate, citrus, and butter, but I don’t think my tequila palate is advanced enough to pick up on those.

There are about a dozen recipes in this book that call for tequila, including an amazing-sounding recipe for shrimp marinated in sangria and tequila then served in mole sauce, and a tequila-based drink I’d never heard of before, the lagartija. But the recipe that was calling my name the strongest last weekend was the Slow-Cooked Pork in Tequila. It’s a fairly simple recipe, calling for pork butt and ribs to be cooked slowly on the stove-top in a chili sauce, then finished up with a quick simmer in tequila. The book recommends serving it with “Pot Beans” and rice, so I made both those recipes as well. And even though it may not be traditional, I decided to make a Michoacan Avocado Salsa to serve with the pork and rice and beans, for a little punch of brightness and color. The combination of the four dishes? Phenomenal. I’m not exaggerating. It was everything I crave in good Mexican food – a little heat, a rich sauce, a certain heartiness, and brightness from the salsa. It tasted like something I could have eaten for dinner in a hole-in-the-wall family restaurant, cooked by a little old abuela. I was particularly enamored with the beans, which could not have been simpler but were incredibly creamy and flavorful. This meal left me so excited to keep cooking from this book – loving four out of four recipes is a pretty good hit rate.

The Giveaway: Casa Noble and Phaidon have generously offered to give away an additional copy of Mexico: The Cookbook, to one Katie at the Kitchen Door reader. To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment below, telling me about your favorite cooking/eating experience involving either tequila or authentic Mexican cuisine (or both!). By entering the giveaway, you are agreeing to the official rules:

• No purchase necessary
• Void where prohibited
• One entry per household, and only entries addressing the question above will be considered!
• The sponsors of this giveaway are Phaidon and Casa Noble.
• The estimated retail value of the book is $50
• The odds of winning will depend on the number of entries received
• This contest is only open to U.S. Citizens over the age of 18
• The contest will open today, December 10th, 2014 at posting time, and will close at 11PM EST on Friday, December 19th, 2014
• One winner will be selected randomly and contacted via email (so please leave an accurate email address!). If I do not hear from the winner within 48 hours, the winner forfeits their prize and an alternate winner will be chosen.
• I will post the winner here by Friday, January 2nd, 2015

Recipe Shortlist: Duck in Green Pumpkin Seed Sauce; Short Ribs in Chili and Coffee Sauce; Lamb in Cider Sauce; Goat Stew; Green Chile Soup with Corn; Divorced Eggs; Tuna with Chipotle Crust; Plantain-Stuffed Chiles; Corn Cake with Eggnog Sauce; Mexican Bloody Mary; Caramel Gelatin with Drunken Sauce

Disclaimer: I received a copy of Mexico: The Cookbook, a bottle of tequila, and reimbursement for ingredients from Casa Noble and Phaidon. I was not otherwise compensated for this review and all opinions are honest and my own.

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Slow-Cooked Pork in Tequila

Recipe adapted from Mexico: The Cookbook. Serves 6.

Note: I’ve written the recipe as we’ve made it, which used significantly less chiles than the original, which called for 200g. I’ve also included some other notes and clarifications that aren’t in the original.

• 50g mixed dried chiles (preferably a mix of cascabel, ancho, and jalapeno)
• 3 TBS of canola oil, duck fat, or lard
• 1 1/2 lb. pork butt, diced into 1 inch cubes
• 1 1/2 lb. pork ribs, meat cut from bones and diced into 1 inch cubes
• sea salt, to taste
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 large white onion, cut into chunks
• 4 TBS tequila
• white rice, to serve
• prepared pinto beans, to serve
• Michoacan Avocado Salsa, to serve (recipe below)

1. Boil a pot of water and pour about 3 cups of boiling water over the chiles in a heatproof bowl. Let steep until chiles are soft and water is a deep red, about 15 minutes.
2. Heat the oil or fat in a large saucepan. Add the pork butt and pork rib meat and cook over medium-high heat, stirring and turning frequently until evenly browned. Season with salt.
3. Place the chiles, the chile soaking water, the cumin seeds, oregano, garlic, and onion into a blender and blend on high until smooth. Strain into a bowl, then add the sauce to the pork. Reduce heat to low, cover the pan, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour, or until the meat is tender and has absorbed most of the sauce. If the sauce begins to look dry at any point, add water.
4. Add the tequila to the pan and continue to simmer, without the lid, for another 10 minutes. Remove from heat and serve with rice, beans, and avocado salsa.

Michoacan Avocado Salsa

Recipe adapted from Mexico: The Cookbook. Makes about 1 cup.

• 3 tomatillos, papery husks and stems removed
• 3 serrano chiles
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 large avocado, peeled and pitted
• 2 TBS finely chopped cilantro
• sea salt, to taste

1. Remove the seeds from 2 of the chiles and the stems from all 3. Put the tomatillos and chiles into a small saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and use a slotted spoon to transfer the tomatillos and the chiles to a food processor. Add the garlic to the food processor and process until combined. Add the avocado flesh to the food processor and process until smooth. Stir in the cilantro and season to taste with salt.

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A day with two different drinking holidays occurring simultaneously is a good day.  Especially when you’ve had the week I’ve had (which involved multiple nights working past 9, as well as multiple nights with cereal for dinner.  Not ideal.)  Personally, my preference falls towards the tequila-drenched holiday rather than the more upstanding mint julep-y one, but if you’re celebrating both, more power to you.  Although I’d recommend starting with the mint juleps before moving on to the tastebud killing tequila shots.

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My dad told me that since my birthday week is over, I can’t write any more posts about it.  So this post will have to be not about  the event for which I threw this party, but rather about the party itself, which could’ve been for any old reason, really.  It could’ve been an early Cinco de Mayo party, or a Mother’s Day party to which I didn’t invite my mother.  Or even a “just because it’s grilling season” party.

Anyway, last Saturday I threw a party at my house, and we ate and drank and it was very fun, and the food was very good, so I thought I’d share some recipes and pictures.  The culinary theme was Mexican, so we had tequila-marinated steak tacos with pickled red onions and queso fresco, spicy chipotle cream dip, fried avocados, sangria, and margaritas.  It was a beautiful Saturday night, so we sat outside in the garden, and my roommate hung up the outdoor lights that signify summer is coming, and Trevor grilled, and it was a great way to spend a night.  Even though it did require most of Sunday to recover from the events that took place after the party, which included stops at a few more party locations, more than a few more drinks, a little dancing, and waking up at my friend’s Newbury St apartment on Sunday morning surrounded by marathoners.  And let me tell you, waking up in last night’s clothes and stumbling out into a street filled with people gearing up to run 26 miles the next day does not make you feel like a successful person.  But it was pretty funny.  All in all, the evening was well worth the recovery.

The steak tacos were definitely the gastronomic highlight of the evening (well, besides the tequila shots, but I can’t very well share a recipe for tequila shots).  It’s a very simple recipe from Antojitos, which is one of my all-time favorite cookbooks (full review and more recipes here).  You just briefly marinate skirt steak in tequila, olive oil, lime juice, and onion, then grill until medium, rest, slice, and serve with your favorite taco fixings.  The marinade and grilling results in a very tender and flavorful steak for such an inexpensive cut of beef.  We served them with guacamole, queso fresco, chipotle crema, and pickled red onions, and they were delish.

Grilling season!  Summertime!  Get excited for it.

Tequila-and-Lime-Marinated Skirt Steak Tacos

Recipe from Antojitos.  Serves 6.

• 2 lbs skirt steak, fat trimmed
• 1 c. olive oil
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1/2 c. tequila
• 1/4 c. fresh lime juice (2-3 limes)
• 1 TBS sugar
• 1 TBS kosher salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 12 small tortillas
• 1 recipe pickled red onions (recipe below)
• 1 recipe chipotle crema
• 2 avocados, diced
• 1 c. crumbled queso fresco

Quick Pickled Red Onions

Recipe adapted from Antojitos.  Serves 6.

• 1 red onion, very thinly sliced
• 1 c. fresh lime juice
• 2 jalapeno chilies, seeded and diced
• 1 tsp kosher salt

1. Stir together onion, lime juice, chilies, and salt.  Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 3-5 hours, stirring once or twice, until onions have begun to turn bright pink and have softened somewhat.  Store in a glass jar in the fridge for up to 1 week.  (Flavor will continue to develop over the course of the week).

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I have a cookbook problem.  I’m sure many of you can relate.  I add them to my Amazon cart compulsively.  I read the ones I own as bedtime stories.  I take 10 at a time out from the library and imbibe them, writing down every single recipe I want to try.  I have scans of recipes.  I have pictures of recipes.  I have scribbles of recipes.  I have 20 page word documents full of recipes.  And this isn’t even including the 200+ recipes I have bookmarked online.  I have too many recipes.  I need to stop collecting and start making.  In this vein, I have decided that before I open another cookbook, I must make at least three recipes from each of the books I own, or have photocopied, or have consumed/memorized/retained in any other way.  Hopefully this will go better than the time I banned myself from baking.  Which was only ten days long.  And I couldn’t do it.  Woe.  (By the way the enchiladas in that link are really delicious.)

However, there’s a perk – using cookbooks as intended (i.e. to make and consume food) allows for discovery of exceptional recipes.  And occasionally, a single book may be filled with exceptional recipes.  In which case, it should be highlighted.  On the other hands, some cookbooks have mouthwatering photos and intriguing flavor combinations and all the food turns out super blah/boring/crappy.  These books should also be highlighted, although hopefully with less frequency then the exceptional variety.  Thus, as I go through the 20-odd cookbooks I have collected and 300-plus recipes from them, I will highlight one book per month, for however many months I continue to feel like doing this.

For July, I’m cheating a little and using a cookbook I already wrote about this month – Antojitos.  But it’s one of the good variety, in fact, one of the really good variety, and since I’ve cooked more than 3 recipes from it this month, I think it deserves the spot.  Plus, these mango-grapefruit palomas might be the best drink I’ve ever tasted.  Which may not be that convincing, coming from someone who has just graduated from Franzia, Busch Light, and Pink Panty Punch, but my parents agreed that it was great, and they have considerably more experience.  I couldn’t find the mezcal (a single-distilled tequila) that the recipe calls for, but regular tequila works just fine.  It’s simple enough to put together – frozen mango pureed with citrusy Italian soda, and mixed with Tequila and cilantro (optional) – and the end result is sublime: fizzy, refreshing, not too sweet, fruity, and, duh, there’s tequila in it.  Just this recipe itself might make snagging a copy of this cookbook worthwhile, but there’s a whole lot more to recommend it.  You can see my earlier comments here, but in a nutshell, this book is full of unique and authentic Mexican recipes that are fairly simple to put together and pack a whole lot of flavor.  You won’t find overdone Tex-Mex recipes here, but I can almost guarantee you’ll find something you’ve never heard of before (and that sounds/is delicious), which is pretty much the number 1 thing I look for in a good cookbook.  Now that I sound a little like I’m obsessed with this book, I will lay it to rest, and leave you to get your tequila on.

Mango-Grapefruit Palomas

Adapted from Antojitos.  Serves 4.

• 2 c. frozen mango cubes
• 1 1-liter bottle grapefruit or blood orange italian soda
• 8 oz. tequila
• 4 tsp chopped fresh cilantro (optional)
• ice cubes
• 1 lime
• margarita salt, or 2 TBS kosher salt mixed with 1/2 tsp chile powder for chile salt!

Note: this is more of a flavor as you go sort of recipe, so the quantities used here are approximately what I used to get a drink with the flavor, consistency, and strength that I like.  Feel free to adjust to your taste!

1. In a blender, puree the mango cubes and 2 cups of the grapefruit soda until smooth.  The consistency should be that of a thick applesauce.  Add more soda as needed.
2. Quarter the lime and rim the edge of each glass with its juice.  Roll the glasses on a plate full of margarita salt or chile salt to coat the rim of each glass.  To each glass, add 3 to 4 ice cubes, 2/3 c. mango puree, and 2 oz. (1/4 c.) tequila.  Top off with grapefruit soda, and stir to mix.  Add a tsp of fresh cilantro if desired.  Serve cold and enjoy!

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