Saturday, September 29, 2012

The State of Chilaquiles in Austin, Texas.

30 chilaquiles. (Click this image only if you have a gigantic monitor.) © Ryan Schierling
(FGHD editor's note: This post has been superceded – with an added 35 plates of chilaquiles – by The *New* State of Chilaquiles in Austin, Texas.)

As a lot of you know, we've been on a epic, epicurean quest – a grand gustatory gamble with breaking the fast deep in the heart of Texas.

We've been scouring Austin for the very best chilaquiles it has to offer. We've torn apart the town, top to bottom, for more than a year sampling both highbrow and humble versions of this traditional Mexican dish. 

There are no shortage of restaurants offering up their take on what shouldn't really be more than crisp fresh-fried tortilla chips (totopos) simmered with a red or green sauce until just slightly softened, crowned with a pair of properly-cooked eggs. With such a simple preparation, you'd think it would be difficult to screw up this classic.

We weren't looking for haute cuisine a la Mexicana, we just wanted an honest, reliable, simple Sunday morning comfort-food breakfast at a joint where everyone might eventually know us (and our broken Spanish).

There were standouts, certainly, but just as often there were store-bought chips, soggy and swimming in sub-par sauces, eggs that were under-cooked, over-cooked or not even offered as an option. There were some surprises, and there were some disappointments. 

There were also some stunningly brilliant breakfasts. 

If a restaurant presented only one sauce option for chilaquiles, Julie and I would typically order the same dish. If a restaurant had both verde (green) and rojo (red), we'd order one of each. The majority of the time, we'd order eggs over-easy. If we knew the eggs were going to be happy eggs (see $9 chilaquiles), I'd go for sunny-side-up. Beans, potatoes and accoutrements (if available) were taken into consideration, as was the coffee or aguas frescas. The overall experience was key, but really, it all came down to the chilaquiles. 

We've done our due diligence, and now, we humbly present to you five establishments that Julie and I both agreed have the finest chilaquiles in Austin (along with one restaurant from each of us that we feel should be included as well). These are our favorites, the places we return to time and time again. 

These chilaquiles are the best of the best

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

(Anything but) Basic Vegetable Soup.

Vegetable soup with grilled Brie sandwich. © Ryan Schierling

It was September of 2005 – not even winter yet – and I had some crazy horrible flu paired with a ripping sore throat. I'm convinced my mother saved my life by insisting I go to the doctor. She had a hunch it was strep, so she gets credit for that crud not progressing into heart or kidney damage which could have killed me dead.

When I was finally feeling human enough to trade in my fuzzy slippers for proper shoes, I got a visit from my friend Jane. It was from her I learned of this magical vegetable soup she used to ward all manner of evil illness in her household. I had to know more.

The recipe she shared has become a Fall and Winter staple in our home. It is the perfect combination of root vegetables, aromatics and greens, all suspended in a savory "chicken soup will cure all that ails you" kind of broth.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Cookies for grown-ups.

Thumbprint cookies. Some with adult beverages. © Ryan Schierling
It's that after-school milk-and-cookies time of year again, or so I am informed by all the social media pointing back-to-school. Are "kids coming home to milk and cookies" a thing of the past? Is that even still a thing these days? These questions are purely rhetorical, though, because when I think of back-to-school, I really think of parents. Parents relieved to be back into the school year routine, exasperated by the frenetic depth of activities loading their little one's schedules, or just happy to have a few quiet morning moments alone.

I think of parents who need cookies. So, deserving kidful friends, these cookies are for just for you.

The first time I shared these sweet little thumbprint cookies at work, a certain lovely lady christened them "grown-up cookies." I loved that – especially because she wasn't particularly referring to the amaretto flavor in the one she was eating, just the fact that they were something beyond the ubiquitous flavors of chocolate or peanut butter.

Now, don't get me wrong; filling thumbprint cookies with jam or jelly is standard operating procedure. It's not difficult, and even a little bit of messy fun shaping the cool dough and filling them. Where these little gems part from the usual company is by using a soft sugar cookie-type dough in lieu of the more traditional shortbread, and the addition of more nuanced filling flavor profiles. In this week's case, that nuance is courtesy of some embellishment from the liquor cabinet.

For old time's sake, though, there's a variation as retro as your vintage Winnie the Pooh lunch box and a longtime favorite of mine (strawberry rosewater) that the kids can enjoy altogether legally. 

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Making something out of nearly nothing.

 Native American fry bread with agave nectar and powdered sugar. © Ryan Schierling
It's our first day back home from a five-day trip out of town and the conversation over morning coffee, naturally, turns to plans for dinner. We have the day to regroup in our own kitchen, investigate the contents of the refrigerator and make the best of anything that needs to be used lest it expire. It seems to me the kind of day that warrants a homemade flatbread upon which to clean out the fridge. As I assess the contents of the pantry and freestyle plausible topping combinations, Ryan is running through a mental list of flatbread-type options. A short time later we are collaborating to make preparations for Native American fry bread with a trio of toppings. 

Well... four, if you count the dessert version you're seeing at the top of the post which is drizzled with agave nectar and dusted with confectioners' sugar. Sugar-christened fried bread is an end-of-summer southwestern-county fair staple, but it isn't where we started. It's where we ended our meal. Let me go back to the beginning.... 

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