Spicy Mexican Pork Soft Tortillas

Today since kitchen responsibilities at Castle Black fell on to me tonight, I decided that if you're in the NightWatch you can deal with a bit of hotness and spice added to your life, so I went for a Mexican style dish, obviously I took my liberties.

Anyway, the basics are for this dish are, some pork meat, I used some lean steaks that I cut into small slices, garlic, red onions, mexican kidney beans, a fajita spice mix plus come added cumin and coriander, red peppers and some yellow ones to add some color and vitamins, plus some soft taco shells and some hot salsa for final garnish.

First of all I cut the meat into very small slices, chopped the onions, sliced a couple of pieces of garlic, put the meat in a bowl and then added the seasonings.

Above is the pork with all the seasoning, kept it for a good couple of hours in the fridge so the spices would get through the meat and really leave a taste behind (which they did).

After seasoning the meat, I proceeded on chopping the extra onions, garlic and red and yellow peppers.

Afterwards I put the meat with some pre-heated butter in a deep pan

I let the pork release its water and cook for a bit before adding the peppers.

Here is the pork with the addition of peppers and Mexican chili beans, I have to admit that the beans came from a can, I washed them off as I feel the sauce in the can would have ruined my home made one.

Here's a photo of the other things needed, the hot sauce to add last and the soft tacos for serving.

Then after a few hours of slow cooking it's just a matter of your choice of drink, mainstream stout or Italian microbrewery Amber Ale (my choice).

Here's my choice:

Now a photo of the final result, the soft tacos, heated in the oven for a while, with all the fillings inside. It was hot, it was good, but most of all it wasn't boring.

So that's it, easy to make dish, very good, good with beer.

Till next time...

Grandmas like it HOT

Since it's only a few days away until my grandma's birthday, I don't how how old she'll be, but I know she was born around 1931, so a finer mind than mine might be able to pull off the calculation.

Anyway since I never usually do any presents, this year I decided to change trend, since the years are passing and she has always been the best grandma one could hope for(still remember those WWII stories of cat eating and German raids).

Instead of just buying some random garbage as present, you know the little flower pot, that strawberry plant you see at the supermarket that already looks half dead, I decided to make something, as I feel that something made is more true and means much much more.

Especially for grandparents, who were born before this consumerist society had gotten hold.

I decided to try again my chili and herbs olive oil concoction that I made several weeks ago, which given the Google Analytics has proved fairly popular among the few of you who click on this blog.

I couldn't find a bottle that was as cool as that I used the last time, a Japanese whiskey bottle, but I still found a good one in the wine cellar below the house. Obviously you have clean it, I filled it with boiling water, let sit, and repeat for three times. The temperature of the water should take away most germs, I hope anyway.

That's the bottle in the cleaning process.

Then here come the ingredients:

First some sun dried chillies, laurel leaf and garlic.

Then some rosemary and more chillies.

Obviously both the rosemary and the laurel come from the garden, on top is the rosemary, below the laurel.

Here is the finished product, bottle well filled up Italian extra virgin olive oil, I also added some black pepper from Cote D'Ivoire and some red berries, that we usually use as seasoning on roasted meats here in Italy, the berries have quite an interesting taste, spicy, yet not in the same way you'd expect chili, as they are more related to pepper.

Here its ready to be stacked away until me nan's birthday.

Here's the bottle sitting down before it can be tasted, better to keep it protected from direct light, the previous photos under the sun, were just for showing how nice the colors, the green and red look together with the oil inside the bottle. 

So I hope grandma likes it hot, she's got to be well pleased she's not Wayne Rooney's nan or else his idea of a birthday present might be more in line with this.

Until next time, have fun, experiment, keep it foolish. 

Nintendo Hype Means I have New Cheap Ways of Improving my Wall

So today I was doing some errands in town, hyper exciting things like checking my tyres and refueling my car. In the afternoon I hopped over to the mall and while on my out I just had to stop at Game Stop.

First of all since I still hadn't seen a Nintendo Switch in person and given it's been days since it's been out days, I felt guilty and left out, so I went in but the queue of teenagers was too much, so I only managed a far away glance at the new console.

However in the Discount bin, I discovered this gem.

Yes Nintendo puzzle-like carton squares, which I originally thought I would use as beer mats.

However once I got them home and unpacked them, noting there were 20 of them, including characters, obstacles, bricks and other of the well known features of the game, I decided to make my own "mosaico" on my wall.

I tried to give it a logic, trying to get it to have an in-game look. Unfortunately I did not have enough pieces to make a bigger scene.

Anyway here's a few details.

That's the whole scene captured from the left, pictured above. 

Here it's from the front, it has to be said, that the photo's don't give it justice it looks much better in real life. 

Anyway a few more shots:

Mushroom-man is one of my favourites, he sorts of has a Eric Cartman look on his face, I love it. 

Mario really going for that mushroom right there, I understand him, I guess Luigi will be drinking his piss like during the Viking times, oh those reality-shifting metabolites, eh 

Mario looking like the boss up there, oh yeah, kicking in yet mate?

That's the top of the scene, Mario ain't gonna give up that massive shroom without a fight.

That's the whole scene with a different colour contrast. So basically thanks to the hype around the Nintendo Switch, if you go bin dipping around game shops you might find some heavily discounted old Nintentdo paraphenalia you might take a liking to. The whole set only set me back 4.99 euros, which isn't much. 

Shroom-man is obviously worried about what will happen when Mario and Luigi run out of the other mushrooms, don't worry fella, just tell them they can suck all the goodies out of you without having to actually eat you. 

PS: I love tacos. 

Italian Chili and Rosemary Olive Oil

If you have ever travelled to Italy you might have noticed how in Italian restaurants and pizzerias there is an almost complete lack of chili sauces, one of those things you get used to when living in the English speaking world, is that if you sit somewhere for a pizza and ask the waiter for a bit more excitement, he could be bringing a whole tray of sauces, ranging from Louisiana style Tabasco type of hot sauces, to Jamaican Encona types, maybe even Sriracha(well I've had pizza with kebab meat as topping once in London, so everything is possible)

In Italy though what you're most likely to find is "olio piccante" or "olio al peperoncino", depending on the joint you're eating at, it could be very mild, basically olive oil with a couple of chilies thrown in, or it could be a thick paste, extremely powerful and strong.

In this post I'm going for the latter, milder type, as I reckon that if you're eating good pizza, with actual mozzarella and not plastic cheese on top, you require something that will enhance the taste of what you are eating, not burn your mouth like the forests of Laos after a Napalm drop in the late sixties.

First of given that this bottle of condiment will be sitting in your kitchen in clear view and not hidden away in a restaurant, I decided to go for a classy bottle, an empty(my father took one for the team and gave himself the responsibility of emptying the liquid it previously held) bottle of Japanese Nikka Whiskey, an extremely well designed bottle that just had to be re-used somehow.

Above it is in all its glory, next to the very rosemary shrub I have used in the concoction.

Here's the details of the whiskey makers below the bottle, it was apparently some very good whiskey, even though I didn't get to try any.

Next you need the spices, luckily living in a rural area of Italy, we take those things for granted, for instance we have a huge shrub of rosemary growing just outside my bedroom., which given the season even happens to have flowers on it.

Below is a close-up photo I took of the rosemary, before cutting what I needed and thanking the plant for its contribution(I'm a hippy at heart).

Next come the chillies, given what I said before about the oil having to be spicy enough to make a meal more thrilling but not enough to cover the taste of the ingredients, I went for southern Italian chillies, sun dried, obviously organic(you can hear Jamie Oliver wanking himself to death in the distance).

That's the exact amount of chillies I have put in the oil, most of them untouched, a few crushed by hand. It all goes down to how strong of an oil you want, crush them all and you'll get fire oil, leave most of them whole with just a few crushed and it will be inevitably milder to the taste.

Next herb I needed was a leaf of laurel, which again, thanks to the climate, we have a whole tree in the backgarden, here is a close-up photo of the laurel tree before I cut the single leaf I needed.

After gathering all I needed, I took one shot of all the herbs and spices required, below:

Then I added the most important ingredient of all, the olive oil, I used a COOP brand extra virgin oil, I added all the chillies and herbs into the bottle, then slowly poured the oil in with the help of a funnel. Now the oil is obviously the most important ingredient, I don't feel to pontificate, at the end of the day a bottle of extra virgin olive oil here can cost you as low as ten euros, abroad the prices are insane. So really I would suggest at least olive oil of decent quality, Italian, Spanish, Moroccan, Israeli, doesn't matter where from, but 100% olive oil. Seed oil I believe is only good for fast food joints or for deep frying Mars bars in Glasgow. 

Anyway, here is the finished work:

Let sit for at least a couple of weeks before tasting, make sure the oil covers all the spices inside the bottle and for how long will it last? I've read some online sources saying three months, however I'm lead to believe this to be garbage, as things preserved under oil usually last for a very very longtime. 

Try making your own and share your creations, hope you enjoyed my comeback post, it's been long due. 

Neglected Blog - Sorry

I have to admit that I've just started another blog on international affairs and geopolitics, however I noticed how little interest it is generating, both in terms of actual visitors to the page and in the lack of reshares.

This blog, even though I haven't updated it in years still gets regular views that put to shame my latest blogging effort, who could have told, it seems people are more interested in recipes involving ungodly amounts of bacon and homemade hot sauces rather than be bothered reading about Trump's policy towards the Middle East and its potential consequences for peace and stability in the region.

I'm not going to abandon my serious blog, I will persevere and hope that with time a following is built, however I have decided to re-activate this blog, so soon there will be more food experimentation been shared, new recipes and hopefully a few interesting product reviews, I noticed that my instant ramen reviews get many hits on a daily basis even years after they were originally posted.

The last time I was actively taking care of this blog I was living in Melbourne, Aus, and had the fortune of living close by to a number of Asian food stores, especially Korean,  where I could find a variety of different instant ramen to taste and review. Unfortunately here in Italy, it is much harder to access certain foreign products so I will probably have to order my ramen online if I want to review them as those available at the supermarket are the usual big brand products, which are hardly exciting to review.

I will also write down some of the new recipes I've been trying out, made a great lasagna with boar meat instead of beef a while ago, I finally learned how to make the steak and kidney pies I so miss about Britain, the result was excellent, I was never good with pastry and baking but got lucky on the first trial.

Next I will try to make homemade pork pies, which are one of those products that I used to take for granted while living in the UK, never imagined I would miss them so much once back home. They used to be my staple snack while watching footie on a saturday afternoon.

I might also start reviewing another favourite thing of mine which is green tea, especially Japanese matcha, of which I have now a vast supply.

So yeah, stay tuned for more posts and content in the near future, I might also start the random posts about technology, gaming culture and other things people might enjoy reading.

2017 will then witness the resurgence of the Monello Way Blog, onwards and upwards.

By the way that's the link to my other blog, if anyone is interested: https://adifferentoutlookblog.wordpress.com