Chipotle Corn Salsa & Guacamole

If you are living in State College and don't like to cook, the chances are you will be eating some kind of fast food (McDonald's, Burger King, etc), Qdoba, or Chipotle for dinner. Chipotle is certainly at the top of the list on many people's preferences for lunch or dinner, and the only issue is that the restaurant usually has so many people that you have to wait awhile for your food.

Since I don't live downtown, going to Chipotle is kind of a hassle. So I thought, why not make it myself? The only difficulty was that since I don't cook Mexican food often, I was missing a lot of the ingredients. Most of the ingredients that I don't have are the peppers - The recipes call for both red and green jalapeño peppers, poblano chilies, and ancho chilies. So this was definitely a planned dinner with a trip to the grocery store the night before. Also, the steak has to be marinaded overnight, so this is definitely not something to make on the fly.

I had some flank steak in the fridge, so I looked up a carne asada recipe specifically for flank steak. Maybe it's just me, but anytime a recipe calls for vinegar, it freaks me out. I don't especially like the sour taste of vinegar, and the smell scares me. But I followed the recipe and added white vinegar in the marinade, tasted the marinade prior to putting the steak in it.... not bad! All that was left was putting some salt and pepper on the steak before putting them in a hot pan.

I guess it depends on your taste, but I absolutely love the corn salsa and the guacamole from Chipotle, so making them was a must! I could not find red jalapeños for the corn salsa, so I used green jalapeños instead. The most time consuming part of the recipe was cutting the red onions into little tiny bits for both the corn salsa and guacamole. Maybe there is some kind of technique that I am not aware of, but now I am tempted to buy those food choppers to speed up the process. Also, I also learned the hard way not to touch my eyes after chopping peppers and chilies.

I made some Chipotle rice with the dish, warmed up some tortillas, and piled everything together. One thing I do really like is that I could put as little meat as I want, or as much corn salsa and guacamole as I want, in my soft taco. I am one of those people who are too shy to be demanding in restaurants, so I always end up with too much of meat and too little of corn and guacamole. Well, it's a different story in my own kitchen!

Carne Asada Recipe

Serving Size:
Makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients:

2 pounds flank or skirt steak
Olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Marinade
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeño chile pepper, seeded and minced
1 teaspoon freshly ground cumin seed (best to lightly toast the seeds first, then grind them)
1 large handful fresh cilantro, leaves and stems, finely chopped (great flavor in the stems)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 limes, juiced
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup olive oil

Directions:
1. Lay the flank steak in a large non-reactive bowl or baking dish. Combine marinade ingredients and pour the marinade over the steak. Make sure each piece is well coated. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1-4 hours.
2. Preheat your grill over medium-high flame (you can also use a cast iron grill pan on high heat for stove-top cooking). Brush the grates with a little oil to prevent the meat from sticking. Remove the steak from the marinade. If you are cooking indoors, you may want to brush off excess marinade as the bits may burn and smoke on the hot pan. Season both sides of the steak pieces with salt and pepper. Grill the pieces for a few minutes only, on each side, depending on how thin they are, until medium rare to well done, to your preference. You may need to work in batches. Remove the steak pieces to a cutting board and let rest for 5 minutes. Thinly slice the steak across the grain on a diagonal.

(Optional) Serve with warm tortillas (flour or corn). Warm the tortillas for 30 seconds on each side in a dry skillet or on the grill, until toasty and pliable. Alternatively, you can warm tortillas in a microwave: heating just one or two at a time, place tortillas on a paper towel and microwave them for 15 to 20 seconds each on high.

Chipotle Corn Salsa Recipe

Ingredients:

6 Ears Sweet Yellow Corn

2 Poblano Chilies

1/2 Red Onion

2 Red Jalapeños

1/3 Cup Chopped Cilantro

1 Tablespoon Lime Juice

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Directions:

Roast the corn and Poblano chilies on a grill or BBQ and let cool. 

Cut the corn off the cob. 

Dice the Poblano chilies, onion, and red jalapenos. Combine all the ingredients and season to taste.

Chipotle Guacamole Recipe

Ingredients:

2 Hass Avocados

1/2 of a Jalapeno pepper, seeded, and minced

1/4 of a red onion, finely chopped

2 heaping Tablespoons of Cilantro, finely chopped

1/4 of a lime, juiced

1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Combine all of the ingredients into a bowl, and mash together until smooth. 

Add additional lime juice or salt to taste. For extra spicy guacamole, you can leave in the jalepeno seeds!

Chipotle Rice Recipe

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon vegetable oil or butter 

2 tsp. fresh cilantro

2/3 cup white basmati rice

1 cup water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 Lime

Directions:

In a 2-quart heavy saucepan, heat oil or butter over low heat, stirring occasionally until melted. 

Add rice and lime juice, stir for 1 minute. Add water and salt, bring to a full rolling boil. 

At boiling, cover, turn down to simmer over low heat until rice is tender and the water is absorbed (25 min)

Fluff rice with a fork.