A flavor trip to the real Mexico.

Recently, I hace discovered a new favorite taqueria, El Cochinito Contento in Redmond Oregon.

A small Mexican market on 6th, tucked in it's back corner by the butcher counter is a little taqueria, that serves some absolutely fantastic, and really authentic tacos and menudo that is simply to die for. The taco selection is a smörgåsbord of nasty bits, from tongue, to tripas, to cabeza, my personal favorite. Fatty, tender head meats on a warm corn tortilla with some chopped onion and cilantro, all it needs is a little squirt of lime to be one of the best things I've ever eaten. For the less adventurous, there's also some fantastic adovada, azada, and al pastor as well.

And the best part? Tacos are a mere $1.50 each. The amazing menudo, which takes me two sittings to finish? $5.50. It's an absolute steal, for some of the best damn REAL Mexican food you'll find short of travelling there.

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The other night I found myself with a strange craving for fish. I don't often eat seafood these days, largely because I've been quite broke, and any sort of seafood has a tendency to cost an arm and a leg.

But the power of one of my strange cravings is not to be trifled with, and rather than find myself fighting off said craving for the literal weeks it was likely to linger, I instead wound up going to the nearby Safeway to take a look at their seafood stock, hoping actually that they had gotten a share of the massive shipments of smelt that the Redmond Safeway has been getting of late.

They did not turn out to have any such, but they did have some surprisingly nice, surprisingly fresh, sole, which I acquired immediately, and then set about wandering through the store, trying to come up with a recipe for it. Wandering through the "ethnic food" aisle, I somehow hit upon the concept of poaching it in some kind of green salsa.

A brief perusal of my available options in the store, led me to promptly check out, and rush over to the Colima Market to acquire some real ingredients, in the form of two tomatillos, one each of pasilla and Anaheim peppers, two limes, cilantro, shrimp boullion, and bistek.

A sudden flash of inspiration on the way back home led to me swinging back by the Safeway for a can of coconut milk for which I was horridly over charged, and a can of Jumex mango nectar.

Once home, the tomatillos and the peppers were roughly chopped and tossed in the food processor, along with the juice of both limes, a healthy dose of cilantro, a sprinkling of bistek, salt, pepper, and Tapatio. this all got pulsed until very finely chopped but not quite pureed, essentially making a nice mild tomatillo salsa.

This then went into a saute pan, along with the coconut milk, a cube of the shrimp bouillion, more bistek and tapatio, a splash of the mango nectar, and salt and pepper. Into the resulting liquid went about 3/4 to 1 lb of sole fillets, on a high flame until the liquid just started to simmer, then reduced to a very low flame, covered, and them simmered for about 15 minutes, then removed from the flame and let to set for another 10 while the rice I intended to serve it over finished cooking.

For the rice, I made a 2 cup helping, substituting some of the liquid for half a lime's juice and some more of the mango nectar, and also adding a touch more bistek, tapatio, a couple whole sprigs of cilantro, and some salt and pepper. This gets brought to a boil and then covered and reduced to a very low flame for about 20 minutes, then taken off the flame and left to sit for about 10 minutes with the lid still on.

Once it's all done, fluff the rice with a fork, serve some out over the plate, and then top with sole and the left over cooking liquid.

The sole is positively melt in you mouth tender, and the sauce is tangy, sweet, savory, all at once, and almost no trace of heat surprisingly enough.

It was a great meal, and my dining companion said it was the closest to Yucatan style cuisine he's had since living there.