Mexican warm bubbling flambéed molten cheese and chorizo sausage with tortillas!
Queso fundido is a traditional Mexican appetizer that is a favorite of many people and it is a crowd pleaser. When queso fundido is served in a Mexican restaurant, the lights are dimmed by the table and the hot bubbling queso fundido is dowsed with tequila, then set on fire. The blue flames from the burning alcohol flambé are exciting for customers to see. The first picture of the queso fundido at the top of this page shows the flambé. Many of today's chefs forget the importance of offering entertaining table side food that allows the maitre d', the captain and the waitstaff to become involved with entertaining customers. The restaurant industry is literally an entertainment industry! Any good waitstaff is capable of entertaining and wowing customers with live action food presentations, like setting queso fundido on fire at the table. When customers are entertained and happy, they do tip better. When the tips are good, a good waitstaff stays on the job and they learn more ways to present entertaining food. Great maitre d' service and table side live action presentations are part of classic fine dining, but many of the new breed of ego driven top chefs all seem to not want any any waitstaff member competing for the limelight in their restaurant. Competing? That says it all. A fine dining restaurant that demands that customers bow to an ego fueled chef is pathetic. First of all, free spirit customers bow to nobody. Second of all, a classy restaurant with no live action going on is boring as hell! At many of the new breed of fine dining restaurants, every other word from the brainwashed waitstaff mentions how great thou chef art. Customers could care less, unless they are brainwashed television tube fed babies. Customers want to be entertained and be fed. They do not go to a restaurant just to be forced to worship a chef who found fifteen minutes of fame on television! Customers will be happy to know that these modern chef drama scenes are not standard fare in Mexican restaurants. Top of the line latino restaurants of every kind do have a waitstaff that is well versed in entertaining customers with table side live action presentations of food. The same goes for less formal latino restaurants. Entertaining customers is a tradition in latino restaurants. "Wow! Get ready! The waiter is carrying our queso fundido! This is really going to amaze you guys!" Those are the words of a customer who eagerly awaits to impress his guests at a Mexican restaurant. That is really what restaurant entertainment is all about! Queso fundido is entertaining fun food. Queso fundido has some of its origins in Spain, but it truly is a Mexican specialty. Queso fundido is also called queso flameado and choriado. It takes a good melting cheese that does not easily brown, to make queso fundido. A good melting cheese is usually a fresh cheese with a medium high fat content. The two most popular Mexican cheeses for making queso fundido are queso oaxaca and queso asadero. Queso asadero is kind of like an oaxaca cheese that has not been stretched. It has a mellow sharp flavor with a milky fresh taste. I chose queso asadero for this recipe. I chose beef chorizo for this recipe, because it appeals to a wider range of people than pork chorizo. Mexican style chorizo sausage is uncased and it will not cook firm or solid like a regular Spanish chorizo. Uncased Mexican loose fine ground sausage has a high fat content and the grease must be drained off before it is added to the queso fundido. Chorizo is required for a traditional queso fundido recipe. Some food writers describe a sauce that that the chorizo is cooked in, but any cook knows that good Mexican chorizo is fine on its own. Roasted green chiles or avocado are both traditional garnishes for queso fundido. Adding epazote to the molten cheese is a traditional option. Flour tortillas are almost always referred to as being gringo, but in the region of Mexico where wheat is grown, flour tortillas are served with queso fundido. Everywhere else in Mexico, warm soft corn tortillas are traditionally served with queso fundido. Queso fundido is very easy to make. If a cook can melt cheese, then that cook can make queso fundido. It is as simple as that! The best part is turning the lights down and pouring tequila over the molten cheese, then setting it on fire. Expect to hear some oohs and ahs and applause from quests when the flambé is going on! Just be sure to turn the air conditioning fan on, so the queso fundido entertainment is not interrupted by a fire alarm. Having the tasty queso fundido confiscated by firefighters from fire station #9 would not be a good way to entertain guests!
Chorizo de res: Heat a saute pan over medium heat. Add 5 ounces of Mexican style fine ground uncased beef chorizo sausage. Saute the sausage till it becomes fully cooked. Place the sausage in a strainer to drain off the excess grease. Keep the beef chorizo warm on a stove top. Queso Fundido: Either queso oaxaca or queso asadero can be used for this recipe. Queso asadero was used to make the queso fundido in the pictures. Coarsely chop 8 ounces of queso asadero. Place the cheese in a shallow casserole dish. Place the casserole dish on a baking pan. Bake the cheese in a 325º oven, till the cheese melts and till the cheese start to bubble and boil. Note: Do not let the cheese brown! Keep an eye on the cheese. Both queso asadero and queso oaxaca melt quickly. While the cheese is baking, the tortillas can be warmed! Heat a griddle over medium heat. Grill both sides of 8 corn tortillas that are 6" wide, till light brown highlights appear and so the tortillas are still soft. Place the tortillas on a plate and cover then with a dry towel. Keep the tortillas warm on a stove top. After the baked cheese becomes molten and bubbly, remove the pan from the oven. Mound the warm beef chorizo on the center of the hot cheese. Place 1 thin sliced roasted peeled poblano pepper on top of the chorizo. Place the baking pan with the queso fundido under the broiler in the oven to reheat the cheese and to get the cheese to bubble before serving. Presentation: The platter has to be quickly assembled, so the cheese is still bubbling when it is served! Turn the air conditioner fan on, so no fire alarms go off. Always have fire extinguishing material handy, when doing any kind of flambé presentation, in case things get out of control! Place the hot queso fundido casserole dish on a paper doily on a serving platter. Place the warm corn tortillas on the platter. Place the platter on the center of the table. Pour 3 ounces of tequila over the queso fundido. (Be sure that no tequila touches the paper doily or the doily will go up in flames! This fundido presentation should not be a Three Stooges event!) Dim the light and light the tequila on fire. Politely bow, while the amazed guests are applauding! After the fire dies down, turn on the lights and dig in! Queso fundido must be eaten while it is still warm.
Yay! Entertaining queso fundido! Restaurants are not the only place where food can be entertaining. Queso fundido is one of the tastiest fun appetizers of them all! Yum! ... Shawna
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder