Chef Special for July 20th - Miss Faye's Chicken Fajita Tatties

Last night cancer struck close to home once again.  Ginger Morgan, the Executive Director of the foundation I started, 2 Million Dogs, lost her beloved Miss Faye to a brain tumor.  I got to know her in Memphis when my own son, Murphy, was losing his battle with nasal cancer.  She was sweet like a Southern belle and had a penchant for stealing my pizza crust.  

This week's chef special is in honor of her spirit, Miss Faye's Chicken Fajita Tatties.  

Marinate Me

It's hard, maybe impossible to fuck up a marinade.  Unless you're Brad Pitt in Fight Club and piss in it.  

Just remember the mnemonic.  Sweet, heat, acid and oil. 'SHAO'. 

But perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is that meat must be macerated. Beef doesn't accept marinade unless you make it make it and there are three ways to do so.   Salt rub or brine solution are the first two ways.  

The third is using a natural enzyme and to the best of my knowledge there are only two: papain from the papaya fruit and bromelain from pineapple.  Macerating meat is essential to the marinating process or else whatever you're marinating it in will go down a 1/16th of an inch or less. 

I studied biology in college and they had a mnemonic for the order of taxonomy.  Mine was Kinky Positions Can Only Facilitate Gungus Schmuck.  Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species.  

Shag Happy Ass Often.  Sweet Heat Acid and Oil and you'll make the perfect marinade everytime.  

Chef Special for July 6th: Fish Taco Tatties

Fish Taco Tatties

Abutting our booth at Aquidneck Market is The Local Catch and I've been eyeing their good looking fish for a couple of weeks now.

Fish tacos I love, love and over the years I've refined a recipe that everyone seems to love, too.  The problem is, I've never combined it with a starch into a fried patty.  

First the two pounds of haddock were put into my Asian marinade (photo nearby) for an hour and then I diced up Mexican peppers and onions and roasted corn and for the potato mix, I created a soy, sesame oil, Sriracha sour cream sauce to complement the delicate flavor of the fish.  

Tonight, I'll batter the tatties in Panko and white and black sesame seeds and then once fried, I'll top them with a cabbage salad and my spicy Asian mayo.  Tomorrow marks our fifth market and how you can make it out to see us!

Puppy Up & Chow Down! 

Sweet Heat Acid and Oil

Being a chef for the first time in my, ahem -cough, cough, late 30s is an interesting journey.  

I taught myself Latin late in life because it wasn't offered in the rural school in my home town.  Still a student of language but one of my favorite phrases is 'Res Ipsa Loquitor'.  The thing speaks for itself.  

That's what food is to me.  It needs no explanation.  

And all you need is those four ingredients.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  

How To Make a Tattie

The question we get most often aside from 'what is a Tattie' is 'how do you make them?'  

Let's take The Vegetarian, one of our five savory Tatties.  The first step is making the black bean salsa.  I refined my recipe this week because I wanted not only to have an option for vegetarians but that it was as good if not better than the others.  And it was our best seller this weekend.  

The sweet corn I roasted in the husk and then lightly charred on the grill to caramelize the sugars in the kernels.  The second addition to the veggie tattie this week is my own chef special sauce which is kind of a deconstructed picante that brings out the fresh flavors from the cilantro, onions, beans and other ingredients.  

Once the flavors have developed to my satisfaction, it's time to add the black bean salsa to our potato mix and form them into cakes in our mini-muffin tins (top left photo).  They are then frozen for 24 hours, removed, and battered.  Our breading is a blend of pepitas, or roasted pumpkin seeds, Panko, bread crumbs, Doritos, and Chef Big Dog's seasoning which consists of 17 spices and herbs.  

When they are breaded (photo on the right), they're returned to the freezer until the market and deep fried to order.  The fried Tatties are then topped with a pico de gallo salad and one of our four sauces.  

What I've tried to achieve when I created this new tapas concept, the Tex-Mex Tattie, is multiple layers of flavors and textures in one bite.  

One of the reasons I'm posting part of our process is we've already heard about a few chefs trying to reproduce our recipes for their own menu.  Whenever you do something unique and singularly special, that's bound to happen.  So I thought, let's make it easier for them and in the process, hopefully we will inspire and encourage others who have original ideas.  

Chef Big Dog's Special for July 6th is the Fish Taco Tattie and that'll be my next blog.  

Chef's Special Tattie for June 29th

The Crazy Carnitas Tattie

Carnitas means "little meats" and the traditional Mexican recipe uses pork shoulder but we're using an Eye of Round roast and the shredded beef will be incorporated into the Tattie.  And the spices and flavors are a bit different, too, more reminiscent of barbacoa.  

Left is the Cujillo paste made from the chili pepper, roasted cumin and coriander, cloves, as a whole host of other sweetness.   

I then slather it all over the roast, pan sear it to create a crust and slow cook it for hours in a cilantro,Mexican cinnamon spiced broth.  Baby if that doesn't bring you out to the farmer's market this Saturday, you need a spanking.

Menu

Our menu concept is simple yet sublime:  Choose a Tattie and Choose a Topping:

We have five savory tatties:  The Chipotle Chili con Queso, the King Ranch Dorito, the Vegetarian, the Breakfast Taco, and the weekly Chef Special, and a sweet tattie.  

TATTIES

The Chipotle Chili con Queso.  Onions and peppers and ground beef sauteed in chipotle in adobo sauce.  Added to that, three kinds of Mexican cheeses.

The King Ranch Dorito.  Chicken breasts baked in green chilies, bacon, Ranch dressing, and topped with Doritos and cheese.  Inspired from the famous recipe from the King Ranch in Kingsville, TX

The Vegetarian.  A fresh, crisp black bean salad with roasted and grilled sweet corn, red and sweet onions, bell peppers, cilantro, and roasted garlic with a spicy taco sauce.  

The Breakfast Taco.  Beautiful Chorizo from East Boston, bacon, eggs, green chilies, and a spicy sour cream just like the Taquerias down south make em. 

Chef Special.   Weekly inspirations from Chef Big Dog.  We'll post them here for the upcoming market. 

Chef Lucky's Sweet Tattie.   A special study in subtlety and succulence.  Chef Lucky starts with a potato dough and adds Mexican chocolate, Mexican vanilla and cinnamon that surrounds a chocolate truffle center with bananas caramelized in vanilla and dark rum.  Topped with pecans, confectioners sugar, Mexican cinnamon and bacon.  You've absolutely never had anything like this before.

TOPPINGS

All of the savory Tex-Mex Tatties are topped with a pico de gallo salad and your choice of sauce.  We have four representing the colors of the Irish and Mexican flags:

The White.  Creamy jalapeno Ranch.

The Green.  Cilantro, lime, mint.

The Orange. Spicy Chipotle mayo.

The Red.  Our special taco sauce. 

Our Booth at Aquidneck Growers Market

Chef Lucky and I spent a lot of time and care in selecting the decoration for our booth from the chili pepper and shamrock lights to the serape table runners.  

And if you zoom in on the photo, hanging from the top left of the tent is our mascot El Guapo, the Handsome One.  

Our Story

Tex-Mex Tatties is brought to you by two people who love food, travel, and animals.  We are a locally owned artisan food maker focused on fresh ingredients and tantalizing flavor combinations.  Our Tex-Mex Tatties are made from scratch, using the freshest, locally sourced ingredients from Rhode Island fisherman, and grass-fed beef and vegetable farms. 

Luke Robinson, aka Chef Big Dog, walked 2,300 miles from Austin to Boston for cancer and along the way, he stayed with lots of folks in 16 states. As a native son of Texas, most of the families he met never had authentic Tex-Mex before.  This inspired him to get in their kitchens and cook up some of his favorite recipes.   Living in Newport now and passionate about sharing his experiences, Chef Big Dog has taken a recipe from across the Atlantic and married it with his Texas heritage.

Alongside Luke is his trusty sidekick, Valerie Kodman, aka Lucky, a native New Englander.  The two are bringing the Tex-Mex Tatties to Aquidneck Grower’s Market every Saturday From June 1st until the end of October.

For more information, email us at chef@chefbigdog.com