Our meal this week was inspired by an appetizer we had at Barrel 135. Ben took one bite of the Mexican elote flat bread, and declared we should make it for Ben’s Day Wednesday.
I did my best to recreate what we ate, but I have never actually had elotes (grilled Mexican street corn) so our recipe is one part guess, one part innovation, one part laziness, and one part accident. Results? Delicious.
The day before, I stirred up our favorite no-knead overnight pizza dough, and pulled a pound of sausage out of the freezer to defrost in the fridge.
Pizza/Flatbread Dough
3 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 1/2 cups water
Mix all ingredients, cover and let rise 8-24 hours. When ready to use, place dough on floured board and let it rest while preparing other ingredients.
On Sunday, we started by making Chorizo. Though Wegmans has Spanish chorizo, which is texturally more like a hard salami, I’ve never found Mexican Chorizo, so we made our own. I was shocked and dismayed to find that what I had defrosted was not ground pork, but rather, ground turkey. Apparently, I had not done adequate contact tracing. I made the executive decision to keep that knowledge to myself. In our house, though all of our offspring are ostensibly adults, we still reference Dr. Seuss, and say, “Keep the Yottle in the Bottle,” when information is to be dispensed on a need-to-know basis. How could it be that for the second week in a row, Ben was betrayed by ground turkey? Don’t get me wrong. He can channel his inner pilgrim, and he knows his way around a turkey drumstick, but when it comes to sausage? There is an implied social contract, and possibly a moral imperative, that sausage must contain pig of some ilk. Am I wrong? As I write this, Ben is unaware that the beloved chorizo, was actually comprised of turkey. I won’t tell if you don’t.
Mexican Chorizo
2 dried ancho chiles (stemmed and seeded)
2 dried guajillo Chile peppers (stemmed and seeded)
4 cloves garlic
1 onion, sliced
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
1 pound sausage
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Toast dried chiles in a cast iron skillet over medium low heat for about 4 minutes. Boil some water in a small sauce pan and submerge chiles in hot water. Let soak until very tender, at least 15 minutes.
Drain chiles and place in blender, along with all other ingredients except sausage. Blend until smooth, adding a teaspoon or two of water, if necessary, until smooth paste forms. Mix paste with sausage.
Heat oil in heavy skillet over medium, and place chorizo in skillet. Stir and cook until cooked through.
Corn Sauce
3 cobs of fresh sweet corn, husked, with kernels cut off, divided
2 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons cotija cheese (That was aspirational. We used pecorino Romano.)
Salt and pepper to taste
Reserve about one-fourth of the corn, but blend everything else in a blender to form a smooth sauce. If you’re not lazy, grill the corn first.
Mexican Elote Pizza
Dough (see above)
Chorizo (see above)
Corn Sauce (see above)
Reserved Corn kernels
1/2 pound pepper jack cheese
Cilantro
Lime wedges
Preheat oven to 500º with baking stone(s) inside. Stretch dough into three flatbread shapes that fit your baking stones/sheets.
Pull the piping hot stone out of the oven and plop the stretched dough on it, taking care not to scald yourself on the stone. Pour and spread some of the corn sauce over the dough. Next, dob the chorizo on. Finally, distribute remaining corn kernels and cheese. Bake at 500º for 8-10 minutes, until cheese is bubbly and beginning to brown. Remove from oven, garnish generously with cilantro, and squeeze lime juice over each flatbread. Cut into wedges and eat like a hipster.
