Monday, January 12, 2009

Light Tex-Mex

I believe this whole meal started with a crisp, fresh head of green cabbage. We only have one more pick-up in our fall/winter CSA subscription, and I’m trying to make good and interesting use of these vegetables. I remembered a jalapeno corn slaw from Robb Walsh and David Garrido’s Nuevo Tex-Mex, and that inspired another look through that fantastic, little book. This book includes everything from drinks to desserts, and it never disappoints. There are salsas, sauces, enchiladas, huevos, tacos, appetizers, rice variations, and sweets. To make a light meal with the slaw as a side, I was thinking of roasted salmon with a spicy sauce and maybe some simple but flavorful rice. I’ll post more about the slaw later, and today I’ll show the Ancho-Tomatillo Sauce and Mexican Mint Marigold Rice that I chose.

I realize the sauce looks mole-like, and I just prepared a mole a couple of weeks ago, but it’s different, it really is. First, this is much less involved. Onion, garlic, tomatillos, anchos, guajillos, and serranos are sautéed together with some broth and lemon juice. Once the dried chiles are somewhat reconstituted, all is pureed with cilantro and strained. The sauce is then re-heated in olive oil and seasoned to taste. I usually skip straining, but I’m glad I did it here. The sauce became velvety smooth, and the last re-heating with oil step made it even more so. The complex spice and sweetness and the layers of mole flavor are not part of this sauce. Instead, this sauce is more of a punch of piquant chile heat, rounded earthy chile flavor, with slight tangy undertones. The resulting dish was all about the sauce with the roasted coho salmon serving merely as a delivery system for it. A lighter fish would have disappeared all together, but the salmon performed adequately.

The spicy sauce required a quiet, calming companion like rice, and the Mexican mint marigold variation was lovely here. Mex. mint marigold, tagetes lucida, is an herb that grows easily here in Texas with an anise scent and flavor. Tarragon doesn’t fare so well in our heat and humidity, so it makes a very good substitution. It’s a low-maintenance, compact, perennial and produces little, yellow flowers in the fall. Its slender leaves are easily pulled from its stems, and a tablespoon of chopped leaves were added to the finished rice. First, onion, garlic, and chopped serrano were sautéed with the rice before water and butter were added. That adds a lot of flavor and a near nuttiness, and sautéing the rice in oil prevents the grains from sticking together once cooked. Tossing in the chopped herb added a subtle bit of freshness and barely there anise.

In the end, I got what just I wanted: big flavor, some serious spicy heat, an interesting rice dish, and cool, refreshing, crunchy slaw, all in a light meal.


12 comments:

  1. That sauce looks great. You have me curious about Mexican Mint now. I'll have to see if I can find it up here. Have a great week!

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  2. The sauce looks wonderful. Great ingredients!

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  3. Everyone else is right. The color of that sauce is awesome. Looks packed with flavor.

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  4. Fantastic looking meal and I'm so intrigued by the sauce! :O :D

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  5. i've been wanting to try making my own mole for awhile now. i never would have thought to pair it with salmon. this looks delicious.

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  6. light tex mex seems like an oxymoron. :)
    terrific dish, lisa--i adore the fatty-fat mexican foods, but i'd enjoy this too, with less guilt. :)

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  7. you can do no wrong with salmon, in my book - that looks so fat and succulent.

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  8. The mole sauce looks amazing!! I'm a huge salmon fan. You don't see it much in tex mex though. :Looks good to me!

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  9. Very interesting and good looking sauce. The meal looks very light and appetizing.

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  10. Sometimes I skip straining too when it comes to sauces like this and regret it afterwards. It really does make a difference

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  11. what a great combination. Sounds delicious.

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  12. That Tex-Mex salmon sure sounds good.

    One of my favorite things to do with left over salmon is to make some fish tacos and wash it down with a cerveza!

    Taco Fish La Paz in Guadalajara, Mexico has a stand on Avenida La Paz in Guadalajara sounds like ‘Taco Nirvana’.

    My experience in Mexico is that some of the best places to eat are those that are off the beaten path that the locals frequent.

    I’ve been looking for good places to eat in Guadalajara and Taco Fish La Paz in Guadalajara sounds like just the place.

    Fortunately, I live in Ajijic, Jalisco so the trip is a short one.

    My mouth is watering,

    Gracias!

    http://discoverlakechapalamexico.blog.com/places%20to%20eat/
    That Tex-Mex salmon sure sounds good.

    One of my favorite things to do with left over salmon is to make some fish tacos and wash it down with a cerveza!

    Taco Fish La Paz in Guadalajara, Mexico has a stand on Avenida La Paz in Guadalajara sounds like ‘Taco Nirvana’.

    My experience in Mexico is that some of the best places to eat are those that are off the beaten path that the locals frequent.

    I’ve been looking for good places to eat in Guadalajara and Taco Fish La Paz in Guadalajara sounds like just the place.

    Fortunately, I live in Ajijic, Jalisco so the trip is a short one.

    My mouth is watering,

    Gracias!

    Joe Chapala
    Casa Preciosa Ajijic, Mexico

    Casa Preciosa Ajijic, Mexico

    ReplyDelete

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