Jalapeno cheese bun recipe for a proper Texas burger

When I first moved to New York, I was struck by the presence of what was called a Texas burger. At first I was thrilled, curious as to what it could contain—guacamole, jalapenos or salsa all seemed like reasonable guesses. But I was wrong. In New York, a Texas burger means that it’s topped with a fried egg. A fried egg? Now that doesn’t really say Texas to me—does it say Texas to you?

For almost 15 years, I’ve pondered this burger. You may find burgers in Texas that have a fried egg on them, of course, but it’s definitely the exception not the norm. When I think of the burgers I grew up with, I think about a thick patty topped with cheese, lettuce (preferably crunchy iceberg), tomatoes, onions and dill pickle slices, nestled between a bun spread with mustard and mayonnaise. And perhaps you’ll throw on some jalapenos if you’re feeling racy.



Of course, Texas being a large and diverse place there are variations on our burgers. On some Texas burgers you may find refried beans and corn chips, or cream cheese with jalapenos, or guacamole and bacon or perhaps a hearty dollop of chile con queso. All of these additions, however, still remind me of our native cuisine. But the fried egg? Not so much.

This isn’t to say that we don’t put fried eggs on foods. Take West Texas stacked enchiladas, which are made creamy and rich with the addition of a runny, fried egg on top of a mountain of corn tortillas, chili gravy and cheese. (Actually, that could make for a good burger—a patty topped with Longhorn cheddar, chili gravy with some refried beans spread on the bun.) But nope, in New York the fried-egg Texas burger doesn’t come dressed that way. Heck, I’ve even seen a so-called Texas burger come with fried egg, barbecue sauce and blue cheese crumbles, which, being in polite company, we will not discuss my reaction to this insult to the good name of Texas.

Texas Monthly recently published its top 50 burgers in the state and when I was reading the list, I was struck by how many places now sandwich their beef patty on a homemade jalapeno cheese bun. Now we’re talking! While the quality of the meat is what makes for a great hamburger, the bun is also a very important part of the equation. And as Alison Cook wrote in 1983, “If Texans hold any truth to be self-evident, it is that there is nothing that would not be improved by the addition of a little jalapeno.”



No stranger to making jalapeno cheese bread, I decided to make my own jalapeno cheese buns. I went for a soft, egg-rich bread like my cemita rolls and just threw in some fresh diced jalapenos and a mess of shredded cheddar cheese. The buns were sturdy yet tender with enough flavor from the chiles and cheese to make them pleasant eating just on their own. But pair the buns with a thick juicy beef patty, some iceberg lettuce, mayonnaise, mustard, red onion and sliced dill pickles and you have yourself my perfect version of a Texas burger.

I've told you mine and now I'm curious: what’s your perfect Texas burger?

Jalapeno cheese buns
Ingredients:
2 cups (9 oz.) all-purpose or bread flour, plus 1/2 cup for kneading
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon (or one packet) of yeast
1/2 cup buttermilk, heated to 110 degrees
1/4 cup canola oil
1 egg room temperature
2 jalapenos, stems and seeds removed and diced
3/4 cup shredded longhorn cheddar

Method:
Mix together the 2 cups of flour, salt, sugar, and yeast. Beat the egg with the oil and then add the warm buttermilk. Stir the liquid into the dry ingredients and mix well.

Let dough rest for 15 minutes and then add the jalapenos and shredded cheddar. Spread a 1/2 cup of flour on a clean surface and knead dough for five minutes or until it comes together. Note that the dough will be a little sticky.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover it and let it rise until it’s doubled in size, about an hour and a half.

Depending on how large you want your rolls to be, divide the dough into eight or four balls and let them rest, covered for 15 minutes.

To shape the rolls, take each ball and then flatten it so it looks like a disc.

Place each roll a few inches apart on a parchment-paper lined baking sheet. Cover the baking sheet and let the rolls rise for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake the rolls for 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Note: Bread only lasts a day, but freezes well.

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Sour cream chicken enchiladas recipe

When I was in college, on Saturday afternoons a large group of us would celebrate the weekend by going to lunch at the local Tex-Mex restaurant. We’d toast the weekend with tall glasses of iced tea and salty chips dipped in salsa, and as we were in North Texas, most of us would order the house special—sour cream chicken enchiladas.

Tex-Mex is the large umbrella phrase that covers what people have determined to be Americanized Mexican food, but it’s a very broad term as a Tex-Mex plate found in North Texas will be very different than a Tex-Mex plate found near the Gulf. This is what I discovered when I went to college in the small town of Sherman near the Oklahoma border. Green sauce was gone, with sour-cream based enchilada sauce to be found in its place. Different, yes, but just as satisfying.



The sour cream enchiladas were stuffed with shredded chicken that had been spiced with generous amounts of salt and black pepper, a simple blend that still had flavor. The sauce itself was a creamy blend of sour cream and chicken broth. A few pickled jalapenos were added, yet they provided more color than fire, as all that cream mitigated any heat. But what this sauce lacked in piquancy, it made up for it in creamy comfort and a taste so smooth I’d always order an extra bowl on the side.

My love for these enchiladas is firmly embedded into those four years I was in college—I hadn’t eaten them before and I hadn’t eaten them since. While my tastes have changed since then, I am still a fool for sour cream (give me a spoon and a carton and I’ll be eating myself silly in no time) so I decided to revisit this North Texas classic.

After following what was purported to be a close approximation of this restaurant’s recipe, I was struck by how bland the sour cream sauce was—I couldn’t believe I used to love it so much! I tried punching it up with some cayenne, garlic and cumin, but it was still too flat for me—it needed some tang. I was afraid limejuice would curdle the sauce, so I pureed it with some roasted tomatillos instead.



I took another bite. I wasn’t bored this time! In fact this sauce was a nod to two long-ago favorites as it was the marriage of my Houston green sauce with my North Texas sour-cream sauce. But I shouldn’t have been too surprised. I mean, I’ve certainly changed since I was 18 so why couldn’t my sour cream sauce change as well? And if I do say so myself, we’re both much improved by the changes made through the years.

Sour cream chicken enchiladas
Ingredients:
For the filling:
Four boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 medium-sized onion, diced (about 3/4 of a cup)

For the sour cream sauce:
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Serrano chiles, diced
2 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of flour
2 cups of chicken broth
2 cups of sour cream
1 teaspoon of cumin
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
8 fresh tomatillos, husks removed and cut in half or one 10 oz. can of tomatillos
Dash of cayenne
Salt and pepper to taste

For the enchiladas
12 corn tortillas
1 tablespoon of canola oil
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Sprinkle the chicken breasts on each side with the salt and black pepper. In a large cast-iron set on medium heat, and cook the chicken breasts on each side for three minutes. Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. When the chicken is done, take the chicken out of the oven and let cool. Then shred with two forks. Keep the oven on as you’ll be using it again.

While the chicken is baking, in a pot melt the butter. Throw in the diced Serrano chiles and cook until soft, about three or four minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook for another minute. Add the flour and cook for one more minute. Pour the chicken broth into the pot, and whisking constantly cook until chicken broth has thickened. Stir in the sour cream, cumin, cayenne and cilantro. Remove from heat.

If using fresh tomatillos, place them under the broiler on a foil-lined sheet and cook on each side until blackened, about four minutes per side. Place in a blender along with the sour cream sauce and puree into smooth. If using canned tomatillos, skip the broiler step and just place them in the blender with the sour cream sauce and proceed.

Heat the canola oil in a skillet and cook the corn tortillas on each side a couple of minutes until soft. Wrap in a cloth to keep warm as you continue to cook all 12.

To assemble the enchiladas, pour one cup of the sour cream sauce in the bottom of a casserole pan. Take each corn tortilla and place in the middle 1/3 cup of shredded chicken, 1 teaspoon of diced onions and 1 tablespoon of cheese (I’m not usually this scientific but if you’ve never made them before and desire exact measurements this would be it!).

Roll the tortillas around the filling and place the rolled tortillas seam side down in the casserole dish. Cover the enchiladas with the remaining sauce and cheese and bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until top is brown and bubbling.

Serve topped with chopped cilantro. Makes 12 enchiladas.

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Rain makes ancho chile applesauce

I went apple picking in Connecticut with my mom last weekend. It wasn’t the first time I’d picked apples—we have apple trees at the family farm and every August they need to be harvested. (Though this year, some creature ate all the apples so there weren't any for us to eat.) But it was the first time I’d been apple picking in New England.

When we arrived at the farm, I was struck by how the air was fragrant with apples, made prominent by the recent rains. My mom said, “I wish there was a way to photograph this smell so I could keep it with me forever.”

And everyone was so happy! The orchards were filled with teenagers, young families, grandparents and little kids, with nary a frown to be found. While ostensibly, apple picking could be construed as work, it’s definitely joyful work. Is it because apples are so round and cute? Or is it because apples are the hallmark of a new season? I don’t know, but having pulled vegetables out of the ground and plucked apples from trees, I can attest from personal experience that apple picking is definitely the superior farm task.



My mom was in Connecticut for a job interview. This is a very important job that I hope she gets, but at the same time I have mixed feelings about it as it would mean she would have to move away from Texas. And as my brother and dad have moved away from Texas, too, I told her that I just might have to move back home so someone in our immediate family would still live there. Of course, this would be highly ironic since if she does move to Connecticut she will only be a train ride away. She wasn’t pleased with this bit of information.

When you live in New York City, you have very limited storage space. My mom has been gracious enough to store both a large trunk filled with all sorts of grade-school mementoes (photos, yearbooks and old papers) and my library of children’s books ever since I moved out the house many, many years ago. But she told me this weekend that if she got the job that I’d have to reclaim these items as she would probably downsize. I was speechless—where would I put all this stuff?

As you can probably gather, I’m going through a bit of a crisis by her possible move. OK, so it’s not really a serious crisis—I just have issues with change, even if it’s for the best. But no matter, I needed some solace from all this news.



If my mom moves to Connecticut, one of the books I will be reintroducing into my library is an old childhood favorite, “Rain Makes Applesauce.” But despite my love for this book, for some reason I'd never made applesauce.

When I returned home, I took a few of my apples and threw them in a pot with some spices, ancho chile powder and lemon zest. For a first-time attempt, it was pretty darn good. And while I'm a bit anxious not knowing how this Connecticut story will end, at least as I ate my applesauce I felt content and warm.

Ancho chile applesauce
Ingredients:
5 medium-sized apples, peeled, cored and diced (most varieties are great as sauce and feel free to mix varities)
1 teaspoon ancho chile powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 cup of water
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
Pinch of Cayenne

Method:
Place the apples, ancho chile powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, lemon zest and water in a pot, and cook on medium-low heat, stirring occasionally.

After about half an hour, the apples should be cooked down to almost mush. Stir in the sugars, vanilla, cayenne and salt and cook on low for five minutes.

Makes 4-6 servings
.
Notes: If you use really sweet apples, such as Honeycrisp, Fujis or Galas, you might find you don’t need as much sugar. I used more-tart Winesap and Liberty apples, which is why I used this amount of sugar.

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Homemade cheese: queso blanco

What if I told you that making cheese required nothing more than a gallon of milk, a few limes and a cheese-cloth—would you believe me? OK, you might want to use a thermometer if you’re feeling scientific, but you don’t have to use one. Yep, with as much effort as it takes to go to the store, you can soon impress your friends with your homemade queso blanco.

After reading about Barbara Kingsolver’s cheese-making adventure in “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” I knew it was something I definitely wanted to try—she made it sound so easy! But as I started doing research on making cheese, I realized that there were certain ingredients I would need to make most of the cheeses I wanted to create. Strange ingredients—such as rennet, calcium chloride, tartaric acid and mesophilic culture—that you won’t find at your local supermarket.



You can order these supplies online, but when I’m bitten by a bug I require instant gratification. And I was determined to make cheese right at that moment.

Enter queso blanco. This simple cheese doesn’t call for those other ingredients. And while the end result may not be as creamy as Brie, as smoky as Gouda or as nutty as Manchego—the end result is still recognizably cheese and a darn tasty one at that.

Now, queso blanco won’t melt, but you can slice it and fry it in your skillet, crumble it into your refried beans, wrap bacon around it and bake it, spread it on crusty bread or toss it with some vegetables and salsa. Because it’s not aged, it has a neutral flavor like mozzarella, but I like to add herbs, spices and chiles to punch it up a bit.



And if you’re anything like me, you’ll be completely intrigued with making cheese and will order the supplies to take it to the next level. So yes, if you were wondering, that is indeed a packet of rennet on my counter.

Queso blanco
Ingredients:
One gallon of whole milk, can use pasteurized or raw but don't use ultrapasteurized
1/2 cup of lime juice (about four limes) or 1/4 cup of white vinegar
Salt to taste

Method:
Heat the milk in a non-aluminum pot on medium-low heat for about 10 minutes or until it looks like it’s just about to boil (but don’t let it boil!). If you’re using a thermometer, the temperature should be 185 degrees.

Add the lime juice. The curds will separate from the whey and the mixture will look grainy, kind of like you’ve just thrown a bunch of corn meal into a pot of skim milk. Let it simmer for a couple of minutes.

Pour the pot’s contents into a cheesecloth-lined colander and let it drain for a couple of minutes. (If you want to save the whey so you can use it to make ricotta, feed your plants or add a bit of protein to your morning oatmeal, place the colander over a pot.)

Sprinkle the curds with salt (you can go saltier than you normally would as a lot of the salt will drain from the cheese as it dries). Now is the time to add any herbs, spices and/or chopped chiles.

Gather the curds in the center, tie the cheesecloth’s ends and hang the cloth on the faucet so it can drain for a few hours. I like to drain it for at least four hours, overnight if I’m patient.

Untie the cheesecloth, and look at that gorgeous white ball. You’ve made about 16 ounces of
cheese! It keeps in the refrigerator for as long as the milk would have kept, so please check your expiration date.

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