Open the book and browse through the pages of information Gert has compiled.
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The Cuisine of
Southwestern USA
by Gert Rausch
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Cuisine of the Southwestern United States is food styled after the rustic cooking of the Southwestern States. It comprises a fusion of recipes for things that might have been eaten by Spanish colonial settlers, cowboys, Native Americans, and Mexicans throughout the post-Columbian era; there is, however, a great diversity in this kind of cuisine throughout the Southwestern states.
Southwestern cuisine is similar to Mexican cuisine but often involves larger cuts of meat, and less use of tripe, brain, and other parts not considered as desirable in the United States. Like Mexican cuisine, it is also known for its use of spices (particularly the chile, or Chili pepper) and accompaniment with beans (frijoles), cooked in a variety of manners. Chili con carne, fajitas, certain kinds of chiles rellenos (stuffed chilis), and various steak-chili combinations are particularly well-known Southwestern foods. Note that "chili" generally refers to a thick stew or soup prepared with beans and meat, while "chile" refers to the peppers that grow in this region and have been eaten for thousands of years by the native people. Recently, several chains of casual dining restaurants specializing in Southwestern cuisine have become popular in the United States.
New Mexican cuisine is known for its dedication to the chile (the official "state question" is "Red or green?", which refers to the preferred color of chiles), most notably the Hatch chile, named for the city in New Mexico where they are grown.
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The cuisine of the American West and Southwest was shaped by prehistoric Native tribes, generations of hardy and resourceful cowboys, as well as the modern Mexican influences. This region's rustic cuisine has some of the spiciest and most colorful American food anywhere.
Authentic Southwestern Food isn't as much a specific set of dishes as it is a way of preparing food and the ingredients that are used. Southwestern Food is a mixture of traditional American cooking with Native American ingredients and a lot of Spanish and Mexican influences. Chief among these ingredients are chili peppers, whether hot of mild, fresh, frozen or ground into a fine powder.
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There are a lot of different kinds of chilies out there and they have a wide range of heat. Now believe it of not, there is a scale for testing the heat of a chili. It's called the Scoville Unit and it uses high pressure liquid chromatography to measure the heat that a chili has. Okay, you don't need to know the science behind it but the scale works like this. At the bottom is the bell pepper the weights in at the bottom of the range with a score of zero. The hottest pepper tested is the Red Savina Habenero which measures 577,000 Scoville Units. So you have an idea of how hot this is the Jalapeno comes in at about 5,000. While many don't consider a Jalapeno to be all that hot, imagine a pepper 100 times hotter. Now that's a hot pepper.
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When you first start looking into the world of chili peppers it is easy to be intimidated. There are a lot of different kinds out there. Your best bet is to start out sticking to recipes, paying special not to the flavor and heat of the chilies you use. From here you can start to learn what you like and what works best. Generally it is best to use fresh chilies because they have the best flavor. You can fire roast peppers to add extra flavor to them. This is a great trick to spice up any dish. Also remember that the seeds and interior membranes of a pepper have more heat. If you want to keep the heat down, remove all this and wash out the chilies.
Of course Southwestern Cooking has a lot more to it than just chilies. Cilantro (leafy Coriander), Pinon Nuts, Pistachios, Tomatillos, Jicama and Limes are all important ingredients. These add the flavors other than heat to many dishes. But the most important flavor is that of the fire. Smoke is very important in Southwestern Cooking, hence the importance of the grill. When it comes to Southwestern Food most people think of Mesquite. Mesquite is a bitter wood and if you are doing anything other than grilling over a hot fire I suggest you use it in moderation. Other woods that are in high supply in the Southwest are pecan, apple and apricot. These are sweeter woods that impart a milder flavor so they are great for adding a little smoke to your grill and to anything you might want to smoke.
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But grill isn't just important for the flavor. This is the traditional method for cooking many Southwestern dishes. Everything from Fajitas to seafood are prepared over a fire. The intense heat and smoke make this style of cooking fun and flavorful. So get some fresh chilies, a couple of good recipes and get grilling.
