How To Make Taco Salad

Unless you're really good friends with them, you probably wouldn't serve franks and beans to dinner guests.[1] And unless you're hosting a party for kids, your wife may not let you make tuna puffs or BP&J. But some things, no matter how much you love it, you have to admit to yourself that it just doesn't look good enough to serve to anyone else.

I'd like to believe this salad doesn't fall into that last category, but looking at the pictures I've got to say I'd be a little suspicious of it if someone else offered it to me. I could probably "fix" that by assembling it like a "normal" salad: lettuce on the bottom, then toppings, then dressing on top. But this is how I've eaten it ever since my aunt first served it to me out of a zip-top bag at a picnic when I was eight years old. So I'm not changing it.

Ingredients

Taco meat

1 pound ground beef
1 can (12 ounces) plain tomato sauce
1/4 cup chili powder (or taco seasoning)
3 cloves garlic (optional)

Salad

1 head iceberg lettuce
1/2 pound sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 large onion (about 1/2 cup diced)
4 Roma tomatoes (about 1/2 cup diced)
1-1/2 cups thousand island dressing
5 ounces (about half a medium bag) corn chips

Directions

Brown the ground beef in a frying pan with some salt, breaking the beef up as much as possible. (The same was as in the chili dog chili sauce recipe.) Add the garlic and chili powder (or taco seasoning) and the tomato sauce.





Cook until everything is heated through, then remove from heat and allow to cool while you prepare the salad.

Dice the onion.



Cut the tomatoes into quarters and remove the seeds. Slice the meaty part lengthwise into thin strips.



Then finish dicing the tomatoes.



(Hmm, I think I need to do a post on dicing tomatoes ... )

Core and chop the lettuce.




If I really wanted to be strict with my mise en place, I'd shred the cheese into a bowl, but I had left it out too long by this time. When you shred warm cheese, it tends to start sticking right back together if you put it all in one big pile. So I shredded it right onto the lettuce.



I didn't use that entire block of cheese. That's about three-quarters of a pound, and I used a bit more than half of it.

Add the tomato and onion.



Toss everything together a little, then add the thousand island dressing.



Look at your bowl and realize that yes, you should have used the biggest bowl for this. (Damn, I hate when I do this.) The bowl can't just be big enough to hold everything, it has to be big enough to mix it around easily. When you're mixing, you generally want a bowl at least twice as big as you'd need just to hold all the ingredients.

Once you've got it in a big enough bowl, toss the salad until it is well coated with the dressing. Then add the corn chips.



(This is not product placement. You can't see what brand that is. These are not the corn chips you are looking for ... )

Add the taco meat and stir to combine.



You want to do the corn chips and taco meat last. Otherwise the chips will get soggy, and the warm meat will melt the cheese. If you're not going to be serving this right away, let the meat cool all the way before adding it, and don't include the chips. Bring the salad in a zip-top bag or a bowl with a tight lid, and add the chips when you're ready to serve.



And that's it.

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1 Why is that, anyway? Why do we try to impress strangers, we'll at least straigten up for friends, but if we're just serving family they're lucky if we're not still in pajamas? I can't remeber where I got this line, but we'll spend money we don't have buying stuff we don't need to impress people we don't like.

If you have any recipes that you love to eat, but won't serve to guests, tell me about it in the comments below. I want to do a whole roundup of "too good for guests" meals.

How To Make Chili Sauce For Chili Dogs

With apologies to Samuel Clemens, the difference between a hot dog and a chili dog is like the difference between a lightning-bug and the lightning. A hot dog is something you eat because you're hungry. A chili dog is a meal. But, just like most canned foods, the chili you get in a can isn't worth the time it takes to toss it in the microwave. (Oh, umm ... don't actually toss the can in the microwave. That's not what I meant. That would be bad.)

This chili is not the same as what you'd put on nachos, or eat on its own. First the primary flavor is onion, not tomato or pepper. Second, and more important, is that the meat has to be broken up much finer than normal chili. It has to be chopped fine enough to spread almost like a condiment.

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Ingredients

1 pound ground beef
1 large onion (about one pound)
1/2 cup chili powder (or chile powder [1])
6 tablespoons tomato paste
salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

Brown the ground beef with a few teaspoons of salt over high heat, making sure to crumble it very small.



That tool I'm using was a gift from my wife. When she gave it to me, I really wanted it to not work. I hate single-purpose kitchen tools, and the only thing this is good for is breaking up ground beef. But boy, does it work for that. My chili dogs were always lumpy before I started using this thing. (See that honey? You were right. Thanks for buying it for me.)

While the beef is browning, dice the onion. Add it to the beef ...



... mix it in, and cook until the onion is soft.



Add the tomato paste.



If you're wondering about why it looks like that, I stored the leftovers from the onion ring dipping sauce by freezing it in an ice cube tray. One tablespoon per cube -- yes, I measured -- makes it super convenient.

And if you notice that's not six tablespoons' worth up in the ingredients picture (very observant of you), that's because the last time I did this recipe it was with tomato sauce instead of paste. I wasn't sure how much I was going to need.

Add the chili powder.



Add enough water to dissolve the paste and stir well. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about five minutes.



And that's it. Now make your hot dog and/or hot sausage.



No, that picture has nothing to do with the recipe. I'm just showing off my mad grillin' skillz. Here's some more:





Man, I love the return of spring.

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1 "Chile powder" is a single type of chile pepper, dried and ground. "Chili powder" is chile powder plus other spices, usually cumin, salt, garlic and others.

Beef Roast

I always keep a vacuum-sealed beef roast in the freezer. (Usually there's a pork roast right next to it.) With two hours notice I can have it on the table. Sure, it's better fresh, but it's an easy thing to keep for emergencies.

As soon as as you decide you're going to make it, put it in the sink -- still in the vacuum pack -- and fill the sink with hot water. Don't worry that you'll cook it. The center will be so cold that the outside will barely get soft. For a really large roast you might need to warm the water up once or twice.

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Ingredients

3 pound beef roast
kosher salt
fresh-ground black pepper

Make sure the roast is up to room temperature before starting. Try to select one with a nice layer of fat on one side. Put that side on top when you roast it, and it will self-baste.



Set the oven to 200° to preheat while you get the roast ready. Coat generously with salt all the way around, including the ends.



Then give it a coat of coarsely ground black pepper ...



all the way around.



Next, insert the probe from your electronic thermometer. Measure the distance to the center of the roast the same way you would with a standing rib roast.



Set the alarm on the thermometer for 120° and put the roast on a rack on a flat pan in the middle of the oven. Pull the roast when the alarm goes off.



Turn the oven up to 500°

Since the next step is going to be high temperature to produce a nice crust, you need to make sure the fat layer doesn't completely curl away. Pin it down with toothpicks every couple of inches around the entire fat layer.



When the oven is up to 500°, put the roast back in and keep an eye on it. You're looking for a good crust, it doesn't matter what the thermometer reads any more. Pull it when it looks good.



Right now, the heat is trying to squeeze all the moisture out. If you pull the thermometer probe, you will lose an unbelievable amount of juice through that tiny little hole. Leave it in for at least 15 minutes, or until you see the temperature start to go down. It will probably keep going up for several minutes as the heat from the outside distributes through the inside.

Now that you've let it rest, slice it thin, across the grain. Only slice as much as you think you'll go through at the current meal. If you have any leftovers, they keep better in one big chunk instead of already sliced.

Reassemble everything on a platter and serve.

White lasagna -- an experiment

This week was going to be ravioli, but I had a lot of mozzarella left after last week's chili-cheese fries. I mentioned to my wife that I'd have to figure out something to put it in, and she suggested I do a lasagna.

Now I had already done that once before. But I wasn't thrilled with how the top came out, because I neglected to cover it for the first half-hour. So this would be my chance to fix that.

But as we were talking about it, my wife mentioned a white lasagna that she used to make in college that everyone thought was great. Figuring that [WARNING: impending understatement!] college students aren't always the most reliable food critics, I decided to look for some recipes.

Wow, there's a lot of them.

There were quite a few that had a white wine sauce, with or without mushrooms. Bunches that had chicken stock. Lots with spinach or peas or other greens in them. But I wanted to go simpler than that. So what follows is an experiment that mostly came out just how I wanted. There are only a couple changes I will make the next time.

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Ingredients

cheese filling

1 lb ricotta
1/2 lb mozzarella, shredded
1/2 lb provolone, shredded
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 stick (4 tbsp) butter [see note below]
4 large eggs

meat filling

1-1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb Italian sausage
1 medium onion
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp basil pesto
salt and pepper

pasta

1 cup flour
2 large eggs
2 tsp kosher salt

topping

1 cup Parmesan, grated

Directions

The noodles

Start by making the pasta as shown in the previous entry. Roll out the noodles using a pasta roller.



I ended up with eight sheets of pasta, roughly 6 inches wide by about 9-12 inches long, using setting 7 of 8 on my roller. Since I would need three layers about 9 x 13, this is plenty to cover everything with a little overlap, and still have a bit left over. Set all the noodles aside and start on the meat.

The meat

Brown the ground beef and sausage together in a large frying pan with salt and pepper.



While that is going, dice the onion fine and mince the garlic. Once the meat is well browned, drain it very well. The meat needs to be very nearly dried out before baking, or the end result can be soggy. Don't wipe out the pan, though. You'll need just a little fat to sauté the onion and garlic.

Return the meat to the pan, make a space in the center, and add the onion and garlic.



Cover the onion and garlic with meat and cook over low heat for a couple of minutes. Then mix everything and sauté until the onion turns clear. When the onion is finished, add about a quarter cup of water to the pan to deglaze. Don't measure it, just put in enough to barely cover the bottom of the pan. Scrape everything up with your spoon or spatula, and toss everything well. This step adds an amazing amount of flavor back into the meat.

Add the pesto and mix well. Keep it over low heat and stir occasionally until the water has steamed off and the bottom of the pan is dry again, then remove from heat.

The cheese

Melt the butter and pour it into a mixing bowl. You can do this by hand, but I prefer the stand mixer. Add the ricotta and break it up well with a spoon or the mixer.



Add the cream and eggs and blend well on low to medium speed. You don't want to whip the eggs into a meringue.

The assembly

Make a work space where you can put the meat, cheese filling, two bowls of shredded cheese, and lasagna pan all together.



Using a ladle, put enough of the cheese mixture in to cover the bottom of your pan.



Pay attention to how much you need for this step. Scoop the same amount, plus half, into a separate bowl and reserve for the top layer. (With practice, you'll be able to gauge this without reserving any.)

Cover the bottom of the pan with a single layer of noodles. You want the edges to overlap a little bit so they'll stick together when they bake.



Notice that I had to cut several pieces to fill the whole pan. It won't make a difference in the final product as long as you have a good overlap.

Now scoop half the meat into the pan.



Spread it around evenly, then add half the remaining cheese sauce -- assuming you've reserved some for the top layer -- over the meat.



Top with either the mozzarella or the provolone cheese. (I did the mozzarella first, not that you can tell in the pictures.)



Add a second layer of noodles.

For the second layer, I used a different method for loading the fillings. Simply add the cheese sauce into the meat and mix well. Don't scrape the mixing bowl to get every last bit. You'll see why shortly.



Spread this mixture evenly over the noodles.



I tried both ways to compare, and can say that without a doubt this second method is much easier to work with.

Top this with the remaining cheese -- mozzarella or provolone.



Then one last layer of noodles. Try to make this layer as flat as possible so the cheese sauce covers evenly.



Scrape the bottom of the mixing bowl to get the last chunks of ricotta. (I told you I'd come back to it.) Use these to plug gaps between the edges of the noodles and the pan so the sauce doesn't all run down. Cover the top layer of noodles with the reserved cheese sauce.



Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake at 350° for 30 minutes.

I had some pasta left over. While the lasagna was in the oven, I sliced the extras into thin noodles and boiled them up. Add a little butter and give the girls a quick snack while they waited.

After 30 minutes, remove the foil ...



... and top with the Parmesan.



Place under the broiler until the Parmesan is bubbling and starting to turn brown in spots.



This could take several minutes or could be less than 30 seconds, depending on how hot your broiler gets and how close you put the pan.

Remove the pan and allow to cool for 15-20 minutes before slicing. If the cheese inside is still too liquid, the slices will slide apart as you serve them. Still great taste, but not so great presentation.

Next time

I made this with a whole stick of butter. Next time I'll cut that in half. When I removed the foil to add the Parmesan, there was quite a bit of butter bubbling up around the edges of the top layer of noodles.

Also, after deglazing the pan with the meat filling, I didn't cook off enough of the water. For my next lasagna I'm going to try piercing a few holes in the foil to allow more steam to escape.