The northern part of Mexico is where the “Mex” in “Tex-Mex” comes from.  It has saguaro cactus, flour tortillas, and John Marston in act II of Read Dead Redemption.  It does NOT have Clint Eastwood or Lee Van Cleef.  That’s Italy, and we already did that.

It also has a great deal of cattle, so for this episode we’re making the classic dish of carne asada, which literally just means “grilled beef”.  There’s a million recipes for this, so we turned to the inimitable Kenji Lopez-Alt, who did a whole pile of science to come up with his.

This means that the ingredient list was not 100% traditional.

Dried chiles – check. Citrus juices – check. Olive oil – Sure, why not? Soy sauce? Fish Sauce?

We’ve never said we’re making the traditional VERSIONS of recipes on here – just that we’re making food vaguely from the region.  And the soy sauce and fish sauce here just serve to bring out more umami in the meat.  We’ll allow it.

The actual process is quite simple. You basically shove EVERYTHING in a blender, done, now you have a salsa.

Separate out half of that to use as a topping later, and then take the other half and dump in more salt than is comfortable.  That’s your marinade.  But what are we marinating?  By going over to our nearby Whole Foods instead of the neighborhood grocer, I managed to locate skirt steak, which is a classic cut for this dish.

And with the steak marinating, it was time to go get some more hot chocolate, which you can check out over on my Instagram.  Or you could, if I were to post a link.

Once it was time to cook, we fired up the grill, and I got to once again marvel at the view from our balcony.

“But wait!”, you ask. “What’s the deal with the corn?”

I’m glad you asked me that, fictional narrative device person who is once again adequately serving their role in the construction of this essay.

For our second dish, we’re making elotes, better known as “Mexican street corn.”  It’s actually pretty simple – you grill corn until charred, and then you dip it in a savory sauce consisting of mayonnaise, salty cheese of some kind, and what ever other herbs and or seasonings you choose. It is absolutely addictive if you’ve not tried it.

And once everything was cooked, dinner was served!

OK look – at this point, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to ANYONE that Mexican food is delicious, right? Mexican food is delicious. We all know that.

So lets take a second and think about the immigrants FROM Mexico, and everywhere else in the world who are being actively terrorized all across the US at the moment. Leigh and I are fortunate enough to have made our way to Canada and achieved citizenship, but that’s a direct result of our privilege, and we try very hard not to forget that.

Every time you sit down for a quiet, undisturbed meal, try to allow a thought for those who CAN’T do so without worrying that there will be a pounding at the door from the current US administration’s jackbooted Gestapo.

Do what you can to help, but the absolute, absolute minimum you can do is not turn away.

Even on a stupid blog about two idiots making dinner.

Next time, the Federated States of Micronesia.

Recipes:
Carne Asada
Elotes