This is the kind of food that I enjoy making with family and friends who love to cook. I set out small stations for filling and rolling the cabbage rolls and then cook them together in a large pot. And when I need to do this by myself, it is still one of the most relaxing ways to pull my attention away from the everyday hustle and bustle of life.
If you end up with extra filling for whatever reason (maybe you got tired of making the rolls; I’ve been there and done that), then make the cigar-shaped logs and bread them using the same technique and breading mix used for the Golden Za’atar Onion Rings and present them as vegetarian croquettes to your dinner guests.
What Santibañez wants cooks to realize, he told me, is this: "There is a very important textural thing to guacamole -- we never really mush up the avocado. You want to feel everything." He crushes only enough of the avocado to warrant it consideration as a dip rather than a salad, but leaves the rest of the cubes intact, bathing them in the vividly flavored chile sauce, "a bit like salad properly dressed in vinaigrette," he writes. Recipe adapted slightly from Truly Mexican (Wiley, 2011). —Genius Recipes
Cabeza--or beef cheek--tacos are some of the best things this planet has to offer as food.
Sophie Coe, my guru when it comes to early Meso-American cooking, in her masterpiece, America's First Cuisines, tells us that the tomatillo (also known in Mexico as "miltomate," "tomate verde," or simply "tomate") was likely the most-consumed "tomatl" (Nahuatl for a general class of plump fruit) in pre-Columbian times. Yes, more than the "jitomate" or red, ripe tomato to us English speakers. That explains, I think, why a mouthful of tomatillo salsa transports you straight to Mexico. It is the gustatory essence of the country - a gleaming contour of fresh green spiciness, herbal perfume and zest.