Carnitas

Carnitas means “little meats” in Español and I presume that’s because by the time it’s done cooking, you’re faced with a big pot of tender, tiny shreds of garlicky pork meat, perfect for filling tacos. Native to the state of Michoacán, traditional carnitas are covered in lard and cooked down for hours. Because a huge…

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Fried Plantains (Tostones!)

Plantains to me are a marvelous fruit. Over two weeks, they transform upon your countertop from immature and hard and green to ripe and black and soft and squish. When green, they are nearly as hard as a turnip and covered in leathery skin attached to the flesh on a cellular level as if by…

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Spatchcock Chicken

Spatchcock Chicken How-to Video (scroll down for printable recipe) How on earth spatchcocked chicken has escaped me so far in life I may never know, but now that we’ve been introduced I think I shall stay by spatchcock chicken’s side forevermore. Spatchcocking is not only a hilarious word to say aloud, it also produces a…

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Homemade Chicken Stock

Homemade Chicken Stock Recipe

Making your own chicken stock is easy, healthy, and budget-friendly! It’s a great way to use vegetable scraps and get the most out of your chicken dinner. What I do is save my onion, celery, carrot, parsley, and garlic trimmings in a bag in the freezer. Sometimes I include green bean ends, potato peels, and…

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Creamy Hatch Chili Sauce

Creamy Hatch Chili Sauce - Hilah Cooking

I’m not sure it’s possible to explain to you how delicious and also how hot this sauce is. It is so delicious that we have been putting it on ALL of our food the past few days. I’m talkin’ chicken tacos, carnitas, steamed broccoli, salmon patties, green beans, eggs, taco salad, tostones. Really, everything except…

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Learn to Cook: Oils

This is the third in a series of answer posts to reader-submitted questions. Some of these posts may be incorporated into the revised edition of the Learn to Cook book. If I’ve left out any information, or if anything is unclear, please tell me in the comments section so that I can amend this post. Thank…

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Learn To Cook: Easy Sauces

This is the second in a series of answer posts to reader-submitted questions. Some of these posts may be incorporated into the revised edition of the Learn to Cook book. “Sauces! I can get by making meat and veggies, but I have no idea how to throw together a quick sauce to jazz it up…

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Spicy Thai Kale Chips

So we’re doing this “Health Thing” for the month of August. No alcohol, no dairy, no sugar, no gluten. Good God almighty, what the hell are we thinking?! Actually, so far it’s pretty awesome. And that’s coming from a couple of booze hounds. The first three days, and I’m embarrassed to admit this, we had…

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