MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.06
Title: Tucson Tostadas
Categories: Appetizers, Southwest, Usenet
Yield: 6 Servings
3 md Flour tortillas *
1/2 lb Oaxaca cheese; shredded
1/2 lb Monterey jack cheese;
- shredded
1/3 lb Anejo cheese; grated
1/2 lb Poblano peppers; sliced
1/4 c Fresh cilantro;
- chopped fine
Lard or oil; for frying
* Buy the largest flour tortillas that will fit in your biggest
frying pan.
Preheat oven to 350°F. If you are using fresh poblanos, roast them
and remove their skins and seeds, If you are using canned poblanos,
wash and drain them. Slice the peppers into thin decorative slices.
In a big frying pan, fry a tortilla in lard or oil until it is
golden brown. Remove to paper towels, drain well, then place on a
baking sheet or pizza pan. Although lard is bad for you, the grim
truth is that tortillas taste very much better when they have been
fried in lard. Live dangerously.
When the tortilla has cooled and hardened, cover it with a thin
layer of Oaxaca cheese, then with the jack cheese. Crumble anejo on
top of those layers, then sprinkle finely-chopped coriander on top
of that.
Arrange the pepper slices in a geometric pattern on top of the
cheeses. Bake for 5 minutes, or until the cheese has melted but not
browned. Remove from the oven, and use a pizza cutter to slice into
individual portions. Serve immediately.
Notes:
* A toasted cheese tortilla snack popular in southern Arizona--I
first discovered this recipe in 1978 when I went to Tucson to visit my
prospective in-laws. Such visits are often tense; Loretta's parents
knew that I liked Mexican food, so they took me to their favorite
restaurant, Casa Molina. The appetizer, a toasted cheese tostada, was
so good that I forgot my nervousness and just chowed down on serving
after serving. I think that her parents remembered from that visit
more about my appetite than my personality.
I tried several times to make Tucson tostadas, but they always ended
up tasting like pizza. Then a recipe appeared in the April 1986
issue of Sunset magazine, and after reading it, I was able to
reconstruct this replica of the Tostada Casa Molina. The secret is
to use Mexican cheeses.
* Oaxaca (pronounced "oh-HOCK-a") cheese is a Mexican string cheese.
You can substitute any Mexican cheese marked "asadero" (melting
cheese). If you're desperate, you can use Armenian mozzarella, which
has the right texture but the wrong flavor. Monterey jack is a bland
American cheddar; you can substitute good-quality Muenster.
* Anejo cheese is somewhat like Parmesan, dry and crumbly. You can
substitute Mexican cotija cheese, but that is probably pointless,
because a store that carries cotija will probably also carry anejo.
Fresh-ground parmesan will do in a pinch, though it is not the right
flavor. In one of my many attempts to get this recipe right, I tried
a mixture of Greek feta and cow's-milk romano cheese. It tasted very
interesting, though not at all authentic.
: Difficulty: easy once you have found the ingredients.
: Time: 10 minutes each.
: Precision: no need to measure.
: Brian Reid
: DEC Western Research Laboratory, Palo Alto, Calif., USA
:
[email protected] {ihnp4,ucbvax,decvax,sun,pyramid}!decwrl!reid
: Copyright (C) 1986 USENET Community Trust
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