Archive for March, 2008
Pork and Nopalitos Recipe
TO DIE FOR. I’m still dreaming about it now.
Pork and Nopalitos (Cactus) Recipe
Pound/tenderize 4 pork chops
Coat the pork lightly in a mixture of flour, salt, and pepper
In a saucepan with about 2 cups water, add:
12-18 skinny red chiles (chile de arbol)
2 guajillo or ancho chiles (grind these up or food processor it)
3 garlic whole, peeled garlic cloves
1 tsp salt
Simmer on low heat for 20 minutes to rehydrate chiles
Puree mixture for several minutes until the sauce is smooth (will be a little thin, that’s ok)
Take a jar of nopalitos and drain them in a strainer and rinse them thoroughly to remove as much slime as you can.
Add oil to a pan and cook the pork (about 5 minutes on each side)
Add the chile sauce and nopalitos
Simmer for 20 minutes (the sauce will thicken up from the flour on the pork chops)
Serve with lentil and tortillas. 
Chicken And Dumplings, Y’all!
Chicken and Dumplings
Soup:
2/3 cup Bisquick baking mix
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 ½ -to- 3 ½ pound chicken, cut up
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 can (10 ¾ oz each) condensed cream of chicken soup
1 ¼ cups water
3 medium carrots, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
Dumplings (see below)
Mix baking mix, salt and pepper; coat chicken. Heat oil in Dutch oven. Cook chicken in oil until brown on all sides. Remove chicken, drain fat from Dutch oven. Mix soup, water, carrots, and onion in Dutch oven. Place chicken, skin side up, on soup mixture. Cover and heat to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer 40 minutes. Prepare dumplings. 6 servings.
Dumplings:
Mix 2 cups Bisquick baking mix and 2/3 cup milk until soft dough forms. Drop dough by spoonfuls onto boiling mixture; reduce heat (place on top of chicken or veggies where possible so they don’t get soggy). Simmer uncovered 10 minutes; cover and simmer 10 minutes longer. 10-12 dumplings.
(Variation) Herb Dumplings: Mix in 1 teaspoon dried sage leaves with the baking mix.
Chef’s Notes: We got about 6 servings out of this, and I used an extra can of soup. I used less chicken on accident. Add any extra veggies that you’d like to the soup mixture. We made 1 ½ times the dumpling recipe to make sure that everybody got as many as they wanted.