October
31
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Halloween Surprise! Los Pollos Hermanos Tortas
Yep, since this is my costume this year . . .
. . . today’s Sandwich Surprise is a tribute to Breaking Bad (RIP): a Los Pollos Hermanos-inspired torta.
In honor of Gustavo Fring’s “piquant” and “zesty” Chilean fried chicken made for a Mexican clientele, I filled tortillas with shredded spicy fried chicken and melted Monterey Jack, and topped them with a traditional Chilean fresh minced pepper condiment called pebre.
I heated and puffed up each of the tortillas — made in New Mexico! — in a hot dry skillet.
For the fried chicken, I went to Los Pollos Popeye-os and bought a mix of spicy white and dark meat. I didn’t go too spicy with the pebre, for which I used fresh Serrano and little hot red peppers that look like habañeros, but are slightly under jalapeño-hot. Click here for my pebre recipe.
I Sandwich Surprised my buddies in a bimonthly, low-stakes, dealer’s choice poker game, like Chris . . .
. . . who said, “Popeye’s is my all-time favorite! I’m definitely eating another one of these, whether I have to make it myself or not.”
“This is great, thanks!” said Will.
And here’s our host, Johnny Bear:
along with Hodge (that’s Ray — who had two tortas, yay — in the background) . . .
. . . who graciously did not let on what the score of Game 6 was because I was DVRing it — even though we were pulling for different teams. (Yay!)
A SIDE OF SURPRISE
A couple of this week’s Sandwich Surprisees shared lessons they learned this week.
“Don’t play poker with people who are better than you,” said Chris.
“And I learned I’m not any good at Omaha Hi-Lo,” said Ray.
And Tortuga served up some organic almond-flavored “meth” using a well-tested rock candy recipe from Elizabeth LaBau at SugarHero.com and almond extract.
Mmm, meth. Yeah, science!
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4 medium red and/or yellow onions
3 T. minced garlic
9 T. finely minced mix of fresh Serrano peppers and little hot red peppers, with seeds removed from 2/3 of the batch (or to taste)
3 T. red wine vinegar
4 T. olive oil
Juice of 2 limes
1.5 c. minced cilantro (I included stems)
Salt and pepper to taste
Finely chop the onions. Mix in the garlic, cilantro, minced hot peppers, vinegar and lime juice.
Salt and pepper to taste — I used two big pinches of Pink Australian sea salt and a couple twists of the pepper grinder.
This amount of pebre is enough for about 20 tortas.
sandwich surprise! 