La Verdad taco battle royal: steak v. lengua, pescado v. chorizo

My spring project: trying all the taco options at La Verdad until one emerges victorious.

It's crazy that I'd only been to La Verdad once, considering how close it is to Fenway Park (and by extension, my office).

One side is a restaurant, which would be a nicer place to sit outside were it not for the fact that you're looking at the utilitarian grunge of Lansdowne Street; the other side is a cozy, bright, four-table cafe/takeout counter.





The taquería menu is small and perfectly formed (this is only part of it):



But how to decide which tacos to order? Yaaagh! The only correct action would be to work through all of them and find a favorite.

Thus begins my project.

That first visit, I went for a carne asada and a lengua.

Carne asada:



Skirt steak was fantastic, juicy and well seasoned, though the accompanying spicy sauce (made with chiles de arbol) was a little more picante than I like, and overwhelmed the subtleness of the lovely meat. (Mind you, this from someone who doesn't put dressing on salad because she wants to be able to taste greens, not Italian Ranch.)

Lengua:



The tongue was well done but a little bland; in this case, the salsa arbol helped (though, again, perhaps a little too enthusiastically). Diced red onion gave a nice crunch.

Winner: Taco de carne asada

This week, I went back to try a couple more: pescado y chorizo



(Given my salad-dressing preferences, you can probably guess which one is the winner.)

Fish:



What you see above isn't fish; it's a wedge of cabbage leaf covered in salsa and a spicy mayonnaise. Hidden below a couple of these was a small but lovely piece of flaky fried fish—could have been cod or hake, I couldn't tell—which almost made up for the extravagance of sauces.

Chorizo:



A fantastically salty, greasy, out-of-a-can chorizo, mixed with cubed potato and finished with a bright fistful of fresh cilantro. A mark of greatness: when I lifted the taco out of its box, there was a puddle of neon-orange achiote oil.

Oh, I think we have a decision.

Winner: Taco de chorizo y papas.

I should also make mention here of the tortillas themselves. While I waited for my order, I got to watch one of the kitchen staff empty a bag of masa flour into a bowl, add water, and start blending the two together by hand. A stack of freshly pressed tortillas sat on the workstation next to her. And they are, by the way, fantastic.

More to come.

The curd tart disappears

If you grew up in the north of England, your mum (and her mum, and maybe her mum) had a Be-Ro Home Recipes book, which was the Bible for basic bakery.

My mum has used the recipes for so long that she doesn't even need the book any more. It's all in her head.

It's a great no-nonsense resource for traditional pastries and puddings: pork pie, dropped scones, bakewell tart (an almond/ground-rice cake over a jam filling), toffee pudding (first ingredient: suet. Don't start), and the ultimate Christmas cake.

I have two: the 38th and 40th editions. Neither has a publication date. Only one has a barcode.




Check the not-very-PC photo of the woman passing on womanly skills to the girl while the boy looks on with satisfaction.



"I will make an obedient helpmeet!"

Anyway, back to the point.

For Easter, I decided to dip into the book and make something I hadn't eaten since I was a kid: curd tart. It's a very simple cheesecake variation; though the traditional method uses curd (which not even WholeFoods carries), it's often made with cottage cheese.

Stop going "Ewwww!" Just be patient.

Curd tart recipe
6oz short pastry

1 cup cottage cheese
4 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons currants
1 egg
1.5oz butter, melted
cinnamon and nutmeg
(I also added a little lemon zest)

Line a shallow dish with the pastry. Mix all other ingredients together. Bake at 425F for 15-20 minutes.





It's not dense like cheesecake; it's more like a ricotta dessert, with just enough of the nutmeg/raisin/creamy combination to feel traditionally English without it freaking anyone out. No lard here.

I noticed, though, that the curd tart recipe was in the 38th ed. of the book, but not in the most recent one. Pineapple upside-down cake was also missing (replaced by upside-down peach and butterscotch pudding—eww!). As was the toffee pudding and the malted fruit loaf.

Replacing them were a coconut lime loaf, a "monster-faced pizza" and the dubiously named Sticky Blobs.

It's not often I shed a tear for the passing of tradition. And I understand food trends shift and change. Still, I'm sad that recipes I grew up with are archived in favor of exotic flavor combinations and fun foods for kids. They're not even on the Be-Ro website's recipe list.

My 38th edition lost its staples a while ago; the cover is spotted with dry dough and the pages are stained and warped. But I'll hang on to it for as long as it's legible.

Belgian sugar waffle @ home

After the epiphanic discovery of the Belgian sugar waffle at Mr. Crepe in Davis Square, I realized three things:

a) I needed to eat more of them
b) I might not get another opportunity to do so
c) I'd better find a recipe and learn how to make my own.

The authentic Liège waffle is made with a yeast dough, which means it needs at least an hour to rise, which would require me rising an hour earlier to start breakfast. Um, no.

There are a lot of recipes out there, but as I'm not a seasoned baker (thanks, crappy oven!), I wanted to find something that specifically called for an overnight proofing session, rather than guessing whether it would work.

So I went with this one (ignore the terrible page layout).

The key to making real proper Belgian sugar waffles is the secret ingredient: pearl sugar. It's essentially regular sugar pressed into larger chunks, so it doesn't melt and burn under high heat. It's also hard to find: IKEA carries it, as do some online stores.

But that didn't help me: I needed it nownownow!!

So I improvised with crystallized sugar coffee sticks that had been in the back of the cupboard for years. Once I'd collected the sugar, bashed it with a rolling pin and mixed it into the dough, I figured it would work pretty well.



As you can see, the dough is sticky, which made dividing it into single-serve portions a challenge. I quickly realized it was better to go with small dollops so they didn't ooze out of the waffle iron.







So, okay, not as pretty as the Belgian sugar waffles at Mr. Crepe. And I underestimated the Big Sugar quantity, so there weren't quite enough nuggets of sweet crunchiness.

But overall, not bad for a first attempt. And the recipe yielded 12 waffles, which meant enough left over to freeze for subsequent breakfasts.

Just need to find me some real pearl sugar ...