OK, let’s get this straight: tamale pie isn’t the same thing as tamales. Tamales, both mild and spicy varieties, are also found on every Tex-Mex menu, but they’re most popular during the Christmas season. Stores sell tamales by the dozen during the holidays when it’s popular to bring them to office parties and home get-togethers. …
Fajitas are a favorite “trash to treasure” Tex-Mex treat. Fajitas were a brainstorm of chuckwagon cooks who learned that marinating the tough skirt steak in lime juice broke down the meat into chewable consistency. Sliced in narrow strips and grilled, it is now served with cheese, salsa, and guacamole, and rolled into a flour tortilla.
Texas’s early cowboy cooks knew that not all meat was steak; some of it was tough and even stringy. They used Western ingenuity to turn what could have been waste into dishes that award-winning restaurants are now proud to serve–and the chicken fried steak was born. Chicken fried steak is an ingenious dish, using one …
Gene’s Barbecue Sauce Gene Forsythe from Muldoon was a regular at the Czhilispiel in Flatonia. When he wasn’t making chili, he was making barbecue. “The most important thing after the meat is the sauce,” Gene told us one day after he appeared with us on a San Antonio TV station broadcast, talking as he demonstrated …
German-Style Potato Salad With the strong German heritage of Central Texas, it’s not uncommon to find German style rather than mayonnaise-based salad in many barbecue restaurants. German potato salad is vinegar-based, a hot, tart blend of flavors that make a good complement to barbecue. This recipe comes from Paris’s mother, Carlene Permenter, who prepares the …
The chef of the Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort prepares this Southwestern-style barbecue salad in the restaurant as well as for catered events at the sprawling resort northwest of San Antonio. This recipe was contributed to our Texas Barbecue book. Top photo courtesy Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort and Spa
Southfork’s Smoked Baked Potato Salad J.R. may be gone from television, but he remains in the memories of Texans who make the pilgrimage to Southfork Ranch. Located north Dallas, the branch used for the outdoor scenes in the series in now open to the public. The restaurant there, named appropriately enough “Miss Ellie’s Kitchen,” serves …