Food Memories - Grandpa's Picadillo

Picadillo

I haven't posted anything for a while mostly because I have been so busy, but over the weekend my wife asked me to cook for some friends and I decided that this was the perfect time to write another post about my food memories. While I looked forward to cooking for our friends I wasn't invited. Well I was invited but movie night with "the girls" isn't my thing...

For movie night my wife planned tostadas. While it can be a classic Mexican dish I gave it the spin my Grandfather (Papi) taught me, that spin is to "make each dish your own."

Classically picadillo is ground meat with a sauce with bits of bell peppers, olives and what are generally considered warm spices like cloves, cumin, and coriander. My version is a little different I am not a big fan of bell peppers and my wife is not a big fan of olives. That is the biggest part of making a recipe your own, finding a way to add in the things you like or replace the things you might not like.

My version of picadillo uses potatoes to add a little filler to the dish, another change was the use of oregano and red pepper flakes for the seasoning. The technique of cooking the tomato paste in preparing the sauce for the picadillo is relatively simple but is also the key to developing flavor in the dish.

That being said, this is not the healthiest dish and it's not something that we eat on a daily basis. While this post is not about the tostada dish as a whole the picadillo is the star of the dish. Everything else, the guacamole, salsa, cheese, sour cream, Mexican crema casera, all of that is something you can pick and choose. But the picadillo can be unique to each cook. Part of this post comes from the fact that some people think that if it's not the way their grandmother or mother made it, its not right. There are some things where this is so true. Home-cooked dishes are the times you can give things a little twist. After all when you make something your own you are more likely to cook it again. At the same time, when you make it your own you can inspire others to cook and make each dish their own!

Ingredients

2 1/2 lbs ground beef
6-8 medium white or red potatoes medium dice
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium white onion finely chopped
4 - 6 cloves of garlic crushed
6 oz tomato paste
1 small jar of capers, drained
1 qt beef stock
2 -4 cups of water
2 tbsp oregano
1/2 tsp red pepper flake
3-4 dashes Worcestershire sauce
Salt to taste

Directions

Sauté the onions and garlic in 1 1/2 tbsps the olive oil, lightly salt the onions and garlic, this will add a layer and depth of flavor. Once complete set aside, and brown ground beef. Drain the fat from the beef and set aside. Add remainder of olive oil and return onions and garlic to the pan and add red pepper flakes just barely toasting the red pepper. Add tomato paste to cook the raw flavor out of the tomatoes. Now you can add the beef stock, oregano and Worcestershire sauce and bring the sauce to a simmer. Return the ground beef to the pot and add the potatoes to the mixture.

Let the picadillo simmer and add about 1 cup of the water, bring to a simmer, keeping an eye that the water is cooked into the sauce and absorbed by the potatoes as they cook. Keep stirring every few minutes. Continue adding water and checking if the potatoes are done. Depending on how large you cut your potatoes you will need to cook them a bit longer adding more water.

Once the potatoes are finished cooking, add drained capers to the picadillo and taste for salt.

The Dish

Once you have finished the picadillo you can use this for more than just tostada's, when we were kids this was my Papi's go to dish, this became a filling for tortas, enchiladas, or just something to put on the plate next to the beans and rice eaten with tortillas.

Anytime Papi stepped into the kitchen I remember my Grandma would call his food "pig slop," but to us kids the pigs wished they ate as good as we did. Through his dishes Papi opened a world of cooking to me that I will always enjoy. He made me try dishes as a kid that I probably would never have tried he reminded me all of the time that just because someone cooks differently doesn't make it wrong, and he awakened in me a desire to share with others the gift he shared with me. It all started in his kitchen standing on a milk crate learning how to make a simple breakfast for the family.