Recipe: The Homeless

The breakfast taco... This is what put me on the map!   Literally.

The classic that I made for many o'family on our walk and I made it this morning and I almost forgot how damn tasty it is.  And simple to make.

Fry up four slices of bacon.  Slather one side of tortilla with cream cheese.  Add a layer of refried beans on top seasoned with my own Mexican blend, CBD 17. 

Then diced green chiles and cheese.  I prefer pepper Jack for a little heat or a blend. Stuff it with the bacon, fold over like a taco and fry it in the grease.  Once it's nice and golden on both sides, top it with sour cream, more cheese, and salsa.  

Hell yeah, that's The Homeless.  

God Bless El Guapo

He's a puppet, he's been on a promotional tour for six months.  Who can blame him?

Long Wharf New Haven

Yesterday we spent the early afternoon sampling the predominately Spanish influenced cuisine at the Long Wharf food trucks. 

I've oft griped of the paucity of authentic Tex-Mex-ish food in the Northeast but apparently, I was looking in the wrong place.  

But you can't blame me.  Who would've thought that the home to Yale University could also be home to anything real and unpretentious?  But since I walked through New Haven, it now makes sense.  

Beyond and beneath the ivy walls, it's a predominately blue collar, salt-of-the-earth port town, not unlike so many on the old Boston Post Road in Connecticut. Full of color, flavor, and people who, if they only have $10 to spend on food, demand that it's down and outright authentic.  

I found that in a row of food trucks along Long Wharf CT.  When I posted this photo on my FB page, someone remarked that they passed by it for 16 years and never stopped for reasons which elude me.  

Look, I'm a foodie and an anti-foodie all rolled up in a Big Dog bun but for Christsakes - support your local culinary community.  And if a sense of social responsibility doesn't convince you, take a gander at that gigantic torta mexican styled cuban sammich.    

And the carnitas, and the alambre with cactus taco, too.  

Chef Lucky: Clinton350

Clinton 350.  Wow. What a great event.  So proud of the people in my hometown for coming out and celebrating the birthday of our great town.  And boy, did they come out!!

I do believe the Ladies of Clinton enjoyed watching Chef Big Dog sing, dance and shake the maracas each time a "Booty" Tattie was ordered.  We kept people smiling all day long.  Our tent was the most festive looking and the most fun!  The queue, the feedback and repeat customers proved that our Tatties were the best food there.

Thanks to all the Clinton folks who came out, the Food trucks who kept feeding us, and my favorite neighboring concession, John at the Bartenders Express, who kept the Magic Margaritas appearing on our freezer.

Lastly, and most importantly, thanks to the Chef for the amazing job he did frying and entertaining.  You make me proud!

--------

CBD's Notes 1: It was a great day indeed and I filmed a few hours of the historic occasion for what comes next. 

CBD's Notes 2: It's now the 'Shake Murphy's Booty Tattie' accompanied with the Maracas!

CBD's Notes 3:  Thanks for making me do this festival Chef Lucky

Magic Margaritas

Yesterday, at the Clinton 350, was the first time I truly felt like a Chef.  Yes, I've been cooking my heart and soul out since I started this culinary adventure in April, concocting new recipes and concepts to keep us on the cut, and at the Connecticut Wine Festival and the Celtic Rock, the customers loved, loved our tatties.  

But Clinton 350 was an entirely new experience I just wasn't prepared for.

First of all, I freely admit I was less than enthused about going.  The competition was fierce for a small town festival, from BBQ to burgers, French fries, lobster rolls, pizza, and grilled cheese in giant food trucks I suspected we'd get lost since after all, we're just 2 guys with a fryer and a crazy, Tequila drinking Mexican marionette.  

But I got schooled!

I can't recall the exact inflection point in my perspective Saturday but everyone there was so receptive to our culinary concept and we were warmly and well received early on in the day.  So we started frying up tatties for our fellow chefs to share the love, love we have for food and they reciprocated in sharing their wicked good wares.  

The first was The Cheese Truck out of New Haven.  If you're anywhere within a 100 mile radius, their Avocado Bacon grilled cheese sammich is so frikkin good and it has this mustard seed relish that ties the whole dish together like the Dude's rug to his living room.  

Next up was Fryborg whose concept is the age old French fry with a side of some serious freakiness.  We sampled their fried egg fries with Sriracha Mayo and it was all kinds of good.  

It was great to be in the presence of fellow chefs, Chef Jonathan with Fryborg, Chef Jason the Cheeseman, Chef Benjamin with Cowabunga, who are all trying to create a wholly unique and new culinary experience.  And to get their feedback on our Tex-Mex Tatties.  

The pursuit of and path to greatness in whatever your life endeavor, is paved with self doubt and uncertainty but for the first time I felt like I was part of a community and, although still small and new to it, that I have earned a seat at the table.   

And a drink! 

We also fried up some tatties for the lovely ladies with Bartenders Express and towards the end of service, two Margaritas magically appeared on top of our freezer.  And they kept coming!  

We suspect that the proprietor, John, was the clandestine culprit.  Maybe he wanted to keep us hydrated  or maybe he fancied Chef Lucky - I'll post her version of yesterday's festivities in the next blog.   

But that figuratively and literally topped off the evening and the end to a great event and season for Tex-Mex Tatties by Chef Big Dog.  Thanks to everyone for a successful and enlightening day. 

My duties as a philanthropist kick in next week as the Executive Director of 2 Million Dogs, Ginger Morgan, comes up to New England and we have some cancer studies to fund.  After that, we're traveling to the Twin Cities for VCS and then on to Chicago for their Puppy Up! Walk.   

But I'll be cooking and creating throughout our travels.  Stay tuned for what comes next from Chef Big Dog!

It'll be magic

Clinton 350

No, that's NOT how many interns Bill has...  nevermind.

It's the sesquarcentennial (Jeez - even I had to look that one up) in Clinton Connecticut this weekend and si, si, Senor, El Guapo and his Tex Mex Tatties will be there!  

This Saturday from noon-ish to ten-ish, Chef Big Dog and Chef Lucky will be at the Clinton 350 Festival, celebrating the anniversary of their township from 1663 - 2013.  

FYI - that's 50 in dog years.  Since I was born in the Year of the Dog and at 42, I should have my own sasquatchial...sexquintupligus...siestadelfuego.... Yep, I'm an idiot.  

Idiot or savant, every great celebration deserves to be honored and I'm thinking about what should be the chef special for this historic, beautiful, Norman Rockwellesque, New England fishing town that the fuzzybutts and I walked through.  

At our last one, the crazy punk kilt fest, everyone loved, loved the Chef Specials: my Tex Mex interpretations on Bangers and Mash, Shepherd's Pie, and my Irish Whisky Habanero sauce.  

This is me tooting my horn.  

Toots to the left.  Ideas for a Chef Special to the right....

Boudica

Late last nite I was looking for inspiration for a tattie tooled specifically for the Celtic Rock Festival next weekend and I recalled reading long ago about a fierce female warrior and queen of the Iceni, a Celtic Tribe.  

Her husband killed, her daughters raped, and publicly flogged, Boudica bitched slapped in several battles the Roman Empire so badly Nero considered tucking tail and running back home.  

Basically she was a bad ass even though she eventually lost the rebellion against the Romans. The photo nearby is a statue of her on a chariot in London.

There seems to be some question as to the spelling of her name but consensus with pronunciation 'boo-tick-ah'.  

In honor of this Celtic queen, Chef Big Dog's special this week is the Booty Tattie and the recipe I'm using is a traditional Irish dish, the Dublin Coddle.  And  true to the origin of its name, the sausage and bacon and potatoes will be braised in Guinness, the beer sponsor of the festival.  

Come out to the Celtic Rock Fest Saturday, August 24th at the Newport Yachting Center for some Booty and some Tatties! 

The Infamous El Guapo

Meet the Infamous El Guapo, the official mascot of Tex-Mex Tatties.  

He's kinda creepy, he's a puppet, and he enjoys long walks on the beach brandishing a pistola.

We don't know much about his past but we can assume that his white shirt, black sequined pants, and sombrero, he may have been a mariachi at some point.  

Because hell yeah, El Guapo can party (shown in nearby photo with Chef Big Dog).  

But he loves puppies, too.  Look, there's El Guapo with Oliver in Clinton CT.  With his pistola pointed at him.  

But the greatest thing about the Infamous El Guapo, is his palate for authentic Mexican food and that he eats, drinks, and loves the ladies more in one day than Tony Bourdain does in an entire season, that makes him more interesting than that Dos Equis guy.  

"Eat tatties, my friend".  

Next stop. Smorgasburg which will be a curious experience since El Guapo has never been to the city and the mayor, Uncle Mike doesn't like pistolas.  

Smorgasburg

We met a ton of foodies at the Wine Fest who want to help us take our culinary concept to a whole new level and one of the recommendations was the SMORG in Brooklyn, a self-styled Flea and Food Market.  

So this weekend, Chef Lucky and I are heading to the city to explore this seemingly cutting edge culinary community.  

We had to make the tough decision that Tex-Mex Tatties will no longer sell at the Aquidneck Grower's Market.  Much to our surprise, our demographic just wasn't really represented there.  We had a steady stream of loyal customers but not enough to justify the opportunity costs.  Most of the nice folks there are older and in search of bran and oatmeal and not really into fried foods which seems strange since the area is known for some of the best fried seafood in the world.  

Going forward, we're going to allocate our time and energy to New England festivals and perhaps a foodie market like SMORG but they're very selective in their vendors and it's expensive so we're headed there this weekend to check it out to see if it makes sense.  

Postscripts from the Wine Festival

Wow what a weekend.  And what a week!  Our first festival was nothing short of a profound, inspiring, yet humbling experience.   

 

On the production side, I made ten times the amount we have for the farmer's market, almost 1,000 tatties. 

 

I didn't even know until Monday that we'd be at the festival so creating a signature dish at a moment's notice was no easy thing.  But I don't like it easy.  Nothing great ever became so easily. 

 

I wanted the chef special tattie to pair expertly with wine and that's why I used four different types of cheeses.  And the topping I made for it was fruity, a pear, mango and habanero salsa.

 

And they sold like hotcakes I'm happy to report. 

 

But we had a few hiccups on the service side of the fest.  Once the word got out and we had a crowd of eager and anticipating palates, I got schooled on fryers, frozen tatties, and temperature.  Of the only three complaints we had over the hundreds of orders, one was that the center of the tattie was a wee bit cold. 

 

We adjusted and learned from the experience and on Sunday, I was on the fryer for five hours straight.  Several customers came back not once, but twice for 'To Go' orders and many, many wanted to know if we could ship them. 

 

This weekend was a validation of a vision and my desire to do something different, something special.  The lonely, unknown path of creation is only trepid to those afraid of exploration, who can't supplant acceptance with innovation. 

 

Shout out to those who are taking it with me - Fish for finding the fest for us, Dawn for helping us out this weekend, for tatties of course, Ashley for getting out of her comfort zone and selling, and finally, Chef Lucky.  I always joke that her nom de guerre is derived from how fortunate she is to work next to me.  But she held her own this week and I just might keep her. 

 

Chef Big Dog owns the house!

 

 

Where We At?

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Tex-Mex Tatties Coming to Connecticut Wine Fest

We're taking our new tapas concept to the Connecticut Wine Festival in Goshen this weekend to a crowd of several thousand and this is our biggest stage yet. 

 

We've even come up with a Chef's special just for the event - Max's Mushroom Quesadilla, a tattie that consists of wine, cheese, and locally sourced golden oyster mushrooms, topped with a spicy pear salsa. 

 

We hope you can join us for this festive occasion! 

10 Pounds of Mushrooms

Enough to satiate Timothy Leary and Hunter S Thompson at least for a weekend.  Even tho both have passed on to that great trip in the sky.  

But I'm not talking about those type of shrooms.  I'm talking about the Yellow Oyster variety.  

This week I'm making Mushroom Quesadilla Tatties and I just placed an order with the Rhode Island Mushroom Co  Bob & Mike are great and I've toured their mushroom farm and it's nothing short of beautiful and fascinating in a fungal sort of way.  

I aim to do something extraordinary with them.

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.