This week I’ll be moving out of my apartment to move to the west loop of Chicago. To celebrate I had some friends over for some drinks and fajitas. I’m considering starting a taco push cart in Chicago and wanted to use this night as a test. For the menu I had
Menu:
Honey-Lime Marinaded Chicken Fajitas
Soy-Lime Marinaded Steak Fajitas
Sauces
Bois Boudran
Chicken Hot Sauce
Habenero Hot Sauce w/ tomato base
Some of these recipes I made for the first time but most were from/inspired by great cookbooks I’ve collected over the years. Kenji Lopez of Serious Eats, Heston Blumenthal, and Maxime Bilet and Nathan Myhrvold.
For the drinks I recently decided to step up my game by following Dave Arnold’s excellent book Liquid Intelligence.
Drink Menu:
Blender Margarita with Yellow Chartreuse
Frozen Daiquiri
Overall everyone enjoyed the food but had some feedback. I had no medium hot sauce for my guests and should make something in between habanero and the Bois Boudran. Next time I’m going to try an ancho chile, jalapeno salsa. I used a sous vide for the chicken and everyone loved it. The sous vide makes it real easy to cook perfectly done meats while not risking overcooking.
The concept for the push cart is 1 guy, a blowtorch, and a cooler. Coolers work great for a cheap sous vide — thanks Kenji Lopez! This is reassuring that I can prepare this quality of food with such a minimalist setup. In follow up posts I’ll update this with links to recipes and some thoughts for new directions you can take things.