6 beefsteak tomatoes (about 4 pounds) 4 garlic cloves, peeled 2 tablespoons neutral oil, such as grapeseed or canola 1 white onion, peeled and sliced into thin rings
For the Chiles: 12 ounces queso fresco or low-moisture melting cheese, such as mozzarella
For the Batter: Canola oil, for frying
Preparation
Prepare the tomato salsa: Put a large pot of water on to boil. When the water starts to bubble, add the serrano chiles and whole tomatoes, and turn down the heat. After 10 minutes of low simmering, strain.
Add the serranos, garlic and 1 teaspoon salt to a blender with 1/2 cup water, and purée until smooth. Add the tomatoes, then purée until almost totally smooth. (Some larger pieces of tomato are fine, and give the salsa texture
What to Cook This Weekend
Chiles Rellenos.Credit.Heami Lee for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Amy Wilson.
April 23, 2021, 10:30 a.m. ET
Good morning. Alexa Weibel brought us a terrific recipe she adapted from the chef Tony Tan’s “Hong Kong: Food City,” for spicy won tons with chile oil. They’re Cantonese in origin, so less mouth-numbingly fiery than their Sichuan cousins, and remind me of a dish served at Chef Yu, a Cantonese restaurant in the Garment District of Manhattan that labels the dumplings, confusingly, as “Szechuan won ton with red hot pepper oil.”
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“Lake Mendocino is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to California’s drought,” State Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) said Wednesday, standing on a dry lakebed with the brown shores of the more-than-half-empty reservoir in the background. “The alarm is sounding and it couldn’t be louder.”
Under normal conditions for this time of the year, more than 40 feet of water would rise over the lunar-looking section of lakebed where McGuire stood with Gov. Gavin Newsom.
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With drought conditions affecting much of the West, California is far from unique in respect to current water issues. But on the heels of a second dry winter, the drought situation is particularly acute in Mendocino and Sonoma counties, because the local water supply is dependent on rainfall in the Russian River watershed.
To understand how deeply tamal culture runs through California, you have to know why Enrique Zaragoza and his cellmates collected bags of Chili Cheese Fritos from the Centinela State Prison commissary.
Crushed into a soft, umami-rich powder, then hydrated to form a grainy mash, the chips stood in for masa. Using a piece of plastic, the men pressed and rolled it around a snack pack of cheddar and Chata-brand chilorio, building makeshift, contraband pork tamales to mark holidays in their cells.
âIt was something to look forward to,â said Zaragoza, who is no longer incarcerated, and recently ground corn by hand to make tamales at home. âIt was the food that made us come back to ourselves.â