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25. Skirt Steak Fajitas With Lime and Black Pepper p.430

As the title suggests these were extremely minimalist fajitas. Just grilled steak seasoned with lime juice and pepper. They are then served with grilled onions tossed with balsamic, and wrapped in tortillas with a a bit of fresh cilantro, salsa, and lime. I grilled some bell peppers along with the onions. The more Tex-Mex fajitas I’m used to add hot peppers, garlic, and cumin to the marinade but I didn’t miss it all. These were really clean tasting fajitas, simple and unfussy. The lime came through more than I thought it might given that it’s only a ten minute marinade. Increasing the time in the marinade might have helped to bring it through even more. Tossing the griled onions in balsamic was a nice touch, adding a hint of sweetness.

I tend to go a bit hog-wild with fajitas, adding beans, cheese, lettuce, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, onions, cucumber or whatever else is around. It rapidly becomes a burrito with some steak inside. I definitely appreciated the restraint of this recipe, they identified a few key flavours and let them shine. I would absolutely recommend this one, and look forward to making it again this summer.

14. Grilled Bell Peppers With Criolla Sauce p. 557

the recipe

I was a big fan of this easy versatile colourful salsa. I made this one in a rustic cabin on a friend’s island in the Laurentian’s. Grilling is the perfect cooking method up there and these peppers turned out really well. Blackening them on the grill brought out loads of smoky flavours, which worked well with the bite in the rest of the salsa.

My version had all kinds of bite. I’m not a great connoisseur of peppers, and we don’t always have a wide selection in Montreal. I couldn’t find Serrano’s so I went with some nice looking scotch bonnets without really knowing the difference. Turns out the difference is about 250,000 Scoville units. I pitched in about one and a half peppers, and it just about took our heads off. After the fire of the first few bites had passed the peppers made the whole dish glow.

I’m not sure what this would have been like with Serrano’s, but the Scotch Bonnets made it memorable. We tossed the leftovers in with a steak and potato hash the next morning which worked exceptionally well. The recipe doesn’t mention letting this sit before serving, but I think giving this at least an hour to come together would be a good plan. Texturally it was all a bit mushy, something to give it a bit of crunch would have been nice. Maybe leaving the onion’s in slightly larger segments would do the trick. I’d also think about substituting the (useless) parsley with some cilantro.