Tip 1: When work working with fresh herbs like rosemary or thyme, you should typically leave the stems or any woody parts out. I find that the easiest way to separate the leaves from the stem is to hold the sprig at the very end with one hand and then slide my fingers down towards the base, working opposite the direction the leaves grow. They’ll fall right off. See the photo to the left!

Tip 2: If you wind up with extra herbs, unless you plan to use them right away, don’t put them back in the fridge. They go mold or get slimy very quickly. Instead, tie a bunch together with a string and hang it from a hook or thumb tack in your kitchen to dry. They smell and look great and will come in useful some time if you don’t have anything fresh around.

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Tip: The Differences Between Spanish & Mexican Chorizos

If you have a paella recipe that you’re just dying to try out, and it calls for chorizo, don’t make the mistake of buying the chorizo that’s commonly found in most California grocery stores. These sausages are not the same thing. While both are very tasty meats similarities stop with the spelling. They’re even pronouced differently. Mexicans pronounce their z like an English letter ’s’. Spaniards pronounce it like a soft ‘th’ , as in bath.

Mexican chorizo is quite spicy and generally made of pork, but can also contain beef, goat or havalina. It’s cooked outside the casing and has a very similar consistency to ground beef. I like to get it at my favorite Mexican grocery stores although it’s available in the meat section of most super markets. You can also make it yourself. It’s delicious cooked into beans or eggs.

Spanish chorizo is similar to linguica. This salt-cured sausage made of pork, is seasoned with paprika, garlic and other spices. It can be eaten as is or cooked into paellas and many other Spanish recipes. Spanish chorizo comes in a variety of styles and levels of spiciness. I usually buy several packages and keep it in my freezer. It will keep in the freezer almost indefinitely

There are als other varieties of chorizos that come from Argentina, Uruguay and the Phillipines (longaniza), each quite distinct from eachother.

Keep watching this blog and I’ll be sure to post recipes containing both.

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M&D Ring of Fire Hot Sauce

I’m so excited! My package from Mike & Diane’s Ring of Fire Hot Sauce just arrived in the mail. Steve and I were visiting San Diego this winter and happened to pick up a bottle of their Garden Fresh Chile Sauce at a touristy hot sauce shop in Seaport Village. Wow! It really knocked my socks off. It wasn’t all vinegary like most bottled sauces. It tasted fresh, like I made it in my own kitchen. So I simply had to order more.

I got a bottle of their Tomatillo Roasted Garlic Sauce which is quite tasty! I can’t wait to try it over some breakfast potatoes. I also bought a bottle of the Original Habañero Hot Sauce. You can really taste the serrano peppers in there. This one is a little more vinegary but still delicious! I can tell I’ll be cooking up spicy food this week!

The sauces are a little pricey at $8.75 bottle, but they’re 12.5 oz bottles and the quality of the ingredients really stands out when you taste these products. The box came with a hand written thank you card—nice touch—and some freebies: M&D Ring of Fire Jerky, a magnet, and a “travel bottle”. Cute.

I am going to make one tiny little nit. My hot sauce was shipped in a ton of old fashioned pink foam peanuts. Not only are those messy to unpack, more importantly, they’re environmentally awful. I’d like to see them use more responsible packing materials.

All in all, I’m still pretty impressed with these delicious sauces. The quality and care put into making them really stands out. Now go out and grab a bottle of two!

http://www.mikeanddianes.com/

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I recently dined at Zuppa, 2007 winner of the San Francisco Boss of the Sauce competition where I was introduced to the best thing since bacon: speck. I was so excited after dinner that I got on the phone and called all my bacon fanatic friends to tell them I’d met bacon’s match.

Also called Speck dell’Alto Adige, it is a delightful thinly sliced Italian meat that has characteristics of both bacon and prosciutto. The wikipedia entry on speck says that this meat has been around since the fourteenth century. It’s both salt-cured and wood smoked and comes from the hind-leg of the pig.

We tried it by itself as an appetizer and for an entrée I had roasted quail wrapped in speck. My toes curled! I’d never even heard of this fabulous treat, but it was definitely love at first bite.

Since then, I’ve been on the look-out for a pound of speck. I hear that they sell it at Lucca. I’ll keep you updated once I get my hands on some. I’ll certainly blog my kitchen experiments with it!

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