Saturday was Cinco de Mayo, a popular day of celebration in states with a large Mexican population. It’s the celebration of winning a battle against the French in the 1800’s – I am rather ignorant of that area of history and geography. When Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were surrounded by the Bolivian army, I was confused. I though Bolivia was in Eastern Europe, and I couldn’t why they’d traveled all that way. Then again, I only recently realised that the Sundance organisation (TV channel, studio, cinema chain) was started by Robert Redford, and named after his famous role.
Anyway, to celebrate the day, and just as an excuse, we had a bunch of friends over, and we made Carne Asada tacos, which is marinated sliced steak. We found a recipe online and got to work. We found the recipe on About.com, which is weird in itself – About.com is a bizarre aggregator of information with multiple editors, in much the same way as the Huffington Post is a link-baiting, pseudoscience-peddling, horseshit-riddled parody of journalism.
We got a load of skirt steak – a cheaper, tougher cut, which is why you marinade it for hours and then slice it across the grain. Then I whipped up the marinade, which consisted of various citrus juices, tabasco, onion, tequila, and garlic. Once the meat was in there, we left it for about six hours.
The other theme of the party was tequila tasting. The guests brought several bottles, none of which I’d heard of, except one which I think was featured in Entourage once. Once people arrived, I fired up the grill and got the meat going while Cassie laid out the tortillas, guacamole, chopped cilantro (aka coriander leaves, which Cassie hates), onion, sour cream and various other goodies. Various people commented on the strangeness of an Englishman cooking Mexican food in California. Doesn’t seem so strange to me.
Once the Carne Asada was cooked, I sliced it up and we all tucked in. It was pretty good, if I say so myself. Tangy, with a little kick, and the sharpness of the citrus. Very nice. Everyone was very complementary, which is nice.
OK. Then we started tasting the various tequilas, and I have to admit I’m unable to relate the full story from here on. The tequilas were all very tasty and interesting, I’m sure. I slept on the sofa – or at least I woke on the sofa at 3am.
Sunday morning I was just able to overdress and walk down to the village and pick up coffee, lox bagels and doughnuts (hangover breakfast of champions). Sunday was a much more subdued day. We had tacos again in the evening to use up the guac, cream and tortillas.
Of course, what always happens with these parties is that we ended up with a load of booze in the fridge and elsewhere. We’ll just have to have another party soon.