The Best Ways to Peel & Chop Garlic (And the Worst) | Epicurious

Professional Chef-instructor Frank Proto demonstrates 16 ways to peel, chop, smash, grate, and slice garlic like a pro. From fine slices to grating on a microplane, Frank explains how preparing the garlic for your recipe directly impacts its intensity in the dish - and how to understand which one is best for every situation.

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Do You Love a Taco Salad??

A taco salad is a Tex-Mex dish that combines ingredients used in Tex-Mex tacos. The dish originated in Texas during the 1960s.

Ingredients

The salad is served with a fried flour tortilla shell stuffed with shredded iceberg lettuce and topped with diced tomatoes, shredded Cheddar cheese, sour cream, guacamole, and salsa. The salad is topped with taco meat (ground beef), seasoned shredded chicken or beans and/or Spanish rice for vegetarians.

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FAIRFIELD

3334 N. Texas Street, Suite B

Fairfield, CA 94533

707-428-1496/ph

VACAVILLE

2040 Harbison Drive, Suite F

Vacaville, CA 95688

707-447-1120/ph

Tostadas?

Just like stale bread can be made palatable as toast, a stale tortilla can be repurposed as a tostada by frying it in boiling oil until it becomes golden, rigid, and crunchy. Commercial tostadas are similar in taste and consistency to tortilla chips.

Tostadas are a standalone dish in Mexico and the American Southwest, and are also served as a companion to various Mexican foods, mostly seafood and stews, such as menudo, birria and pozole. Tostadas can be found across Mexico.

Toppings for tostadas are mostly the same as those used for tacos: a base layer of beans, cheese, sour cream, chopped lettuce, sliced onions, and salsa, which is then topped with diced and fried meat, usually chicken or pork, and also beef. They are also popular with seafood such as tuna, shrimp, crab, chopped octopus, and ceviche. Vegetarian tostadas, while not as common, can also be found. Due to the fragile nature of a tostada, the main topping (usually beans or cream) must be pasty enough to stay on; this keeps the other toppings or garnishes from falling off while being eaten. The Oaxaca region is known for its large tlayuda tostada, which is the size of a pizza and sometimes topped with fried chapulines (a variety of grasshopper).

Tostadas can be an appetizer ("botana"), cut into small triangles to make tortilla chips to dip into salsa, guacamole, beans, cream, cream cheese or served with chile con queso. This version of the tostada has its origins both in the totopos de maiz and the New Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine. Commercial tortilla chips, sometimes known as nachos, are also commonly sold in stores and supermarkets.

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FAIRFIELD

3334 N. Texas Street, Suite B

Fairfield, CA 94533

707-428-1496/ph

VACAVILLE

2040 Harbison Drive, Suite F

Vacaville, CA 95688

707-447-1120/ph

The Best Ways Cut Onions (And The Worst) | Epicurious

Professional chef and culinary instructor Frank Proto returns with another Epicurious 101 class, this time demonstrating his preferred techniques for peeling and cutting onions. Whether you're after a finely diced pile for pico de gallo or slivered half-moons for a soup, chef Frank shows your all the best (and worst) ways to get the job done.

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FAIRFIELD

3334 N. Texas Street, Suite B

Fairfield, CA 94533

707-428-1496/ph

VACAVILLE

2040 Harbison Drive, Suite F

Vacaville, CA 95688

707-447-1120/ph

What is Mexican Rice?

Mexican rice (sometimes referred to as Spanish rice or red rice in Tex-Mex cuisine), also known as arroz a la mexicana, arroz mexicano, or arroz rojo in Spanish, is a Mexican side dish made from white rice, tomato, garlic, onion, and perhaps other ingredients. Mexican rice is almost always eaten as a complement to other dishes such as mole, refried beans, rotisserie chicken, carne asada, picadillo, tacos, fried fish, fried chicken, chiles rellenos, or vegetable soup.

Mexican-style rice is especially popular in central and northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. It is eaten year-round and is one of the most common preparations in Mexican cuisine.

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FAIRFIELD

3334 N. Texas Street, Suite B

Fairfield, CA 94533

707-428-1496/ph

VACAVILLE

2040 Harbison Drive, Suite F

Vacaville, CA 95688

707-447-1120/ph

The Taquito

A taquito (Spanish pronunciation: [taˈkito], Spanish for "small taco"), tacos dorados, rolled taco, or flauta (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈflawta], Spanish for "flute") is a Mexican food dish that typically consists of a small rolled-up tortilla that contains filling, including beef, cheese or chicken. The filled tortilla is then crisp-fried or deep-fried. The dish is often topped with condiments such as sour cream and guacamole. Corn tortillas are generally used to make taquitos. The dish is more commonly known as flautas when they are larger than their taquito counterparts, and can be made with either flour or corn tortillas.

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FAIRFIELD
3334 N. Texas Street, Suite B
Fairfield, CA 94533
707-428-1496/ph

VACAVILLE

2040 Harbison Drive, Suite F

Vacaville, CA 95688

707-447-1120/ph

How It's Made: Hot Sauce

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FAIRFIELD

3334 N. Texas Street, Suite B

Fairfield, CA 94533

707-428-1496/ph

VACAVILLE

2040 Harbison Drive, Suite F

Vacaville, CA 95688

707-447-1120/ph

What Do You Know About a Burrito?

A burrito (English: /bəˈriːtoʊ/, Spanish: [buˈrito] (listen)) is a dish in Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine that took form in Ciudad Juárez, consisting of a flour tortilla wrapped into a sealed cylindrical shape around various ingredients. The tortilla is sometimes lightly grilled or steamed to soften it, make it more pliable, and allow it to adhere to itself. Burritos are often eaten by hand, as their tight wrapping keeps the ingredients together. Burritos can also be served "wet", i.e., covered in a savory and spicy sauce, when they would be eaten with a fork and knife.

Burritos are filled with savory ingredients, most often a meat such as beef, chicken, or pork, and often include other ingredients, such as rice, cooked beans (either whole or refried), vegetables, such as lettuce and tomatoes, cheese, and condiments such as salsa, pico de gallo, guacamole, or crema.

Burritos are often contrasted with similar dishes, such as tacos, in which a small hand-sized tortilla is folded in half around the ingredients rather than wrapped and sealed, or with enchiladas, which use corn masa tortillas, and are covered in a savory sauce, to be eaten with a fork and knife.

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FAIRFIELD
3334 N. Texas Street, Suite B
Fairfield, CA 94533
707-428-1496/ph

VACAVILLE

2040 Harbison Drive, Suite F

Vacaville, CA 95688

707-447-1120/ph

Who Loves Refried Beans?

Refried beans (from Spanish: frijoles refritos, lit. 'well-fried beans') is a dish of cooked and mashed beans that is a traditional staple of Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine, although each cuisine has a different approach when making the dish. Refried beans are also popular in many other Latin American countries.

In this dish, after being boiled and then mashed into a paste, the beans are fried or baked, though as they are fried only once, the term "refried" is misleading. As described by Rick Bayless, "they're refritos—not fried again, as you might assume, but 'well fried' or 'intensely fried.

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FAIRFIELD
3334 N. Texas Street, Suite B
Fairfield, CA 94533
707-428-1496/ph

VACAVILLE

2040 Harbison Drive, Suite F

Vacaville, CA 95688

707-447-1120/ph

9 Essential Knife Skills To Master | Epicurious 101

Professional chef and culinary instructor Frank Proto returns with another Epicurious 101 class, this time teaching you each of the knife skills you’ll need to master in order to produce restaurant-quality dishes at home. From chopping and cubing to slicing and dicing, Frank explains it all step-by-step so you can achieve results you never thought possible in your own kitchen.

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FAIRFIELD

3334 N. Texas Street, Suite B

Fairfield, CA 94533

707-428-1496/ph

VACAVILLE

2040 Harbison Drive, Suite F

Vacaville, CA 95688

707-447-1120/ph