Huitlacocha AKA Cuitlacocha AKA Smut Corn Breakfast Burrito

It's pretty amazing what humans can eat. It's even more amazing that we can take so many seemingly gross things and make them tasty. More amazing still is our ability to take a gross thing, which is objectively rotten, infected, or otherwise spoiled and sell it for an inflated price. Welcome, friends, to the world of smut corn!

Smut corn starts out its life like any other ear of corn until, one day, it's infected with a charming little fungal disease called "ustilago maydis", which enters the ovaries of the corn and replaces the kernels with big, mushroomy tumors. The name "huitlacocha" roughly translates to "sleeping shit". So, these are sleeping shit corn ovarian tumors. Nom nom nom! It's important to harvest smut corn before the fungus runs its course because, near the end of it's life cycle, the tumors are filled with spores, which hurts the texture and flavor of the tumors, and sanity of everyone within a 20 foot radius, unless they pass a DC 25 will check. Of course, as an avid consumer of hot dogs, my disgust is purely playful. There's also no way that this could be grosser than raisins. BTW, you'll have left over smut corn since this recipe is too big for one burrito so either refrigerate the excess or have some friends (or enemies) over and a make a day of it. Depending on tortilla size and how full they are, you could probably make somewhere between 4 and 8 burritos.

You need:
A can of smut corn
A small onion, 2 cloves of garlic and some serrano chilies. 
Eggs
Tortilla
Salsa
Oil

Cost: $10 - $20 because a can of smut corn cost me $7.99. This (sleeping) shit is EXPENSIVE unless you live right near where they cultivate it or you have your own little plot of diseased corn. Oh, by the way, smut corn does occur (I was gonna say "grow" but "occur" seems more appropriate) in the US but it's almost always thrown away; there have been targeted efforts here to eradicate ustilago maydis. What don't Big Pharma and the corn magnates want us to know??

Chop up your veggies and heat a few tablespoons oil in a skillet over medium heat. Sautee the onion and garlic until the onion is translucent, which should take about 3 or 4 minutes. Add the diced chilies and sautee them for another minute or two. 

Doesn't that look nice?

Now add your smut corn.

Huh, I see where the name comes from now.

Stir it constantly for about 6 minutes. If you over cook these things, they get slimy. The only thing worse than tumors in your burrito is slimy tumors in your burrito, amirite? Take that off the heat and set it aside.

Here's what an individual tumor looks like.Fans of Final Fantasy X might find this vaguely familiar.

Beer bottle is for scale.

Just for a quick break from the unrelenting horror, here is a picture of my room mate's cat, chilling in a box which we have dubbed The Dread Fort, along with his second in command, Moose Bolton:

The sign reads "No Girls Allowed". It's his man cave, you see.

Anyway, in another pan, melt some butter. In a bowl, beat two eggs and add seasoning to your taste. Transfer the eggs to the skillet, add a few large spoonfuls of the smut corn mixture, and quickly scramble the eggs.

Transfer that to a tortilla, add a nice big dollop of salsa and wrap that bitch up.

Huh, not bad by itself. Kinda like spicy, mushroomy, black beans. It's awesome as a burrito filling! The texture is very soft, the closest comparison I can give is refried beans, but it's not as thick and sticky. When you bite into a tumor, it's kind of like a sauteed onion filled with a mushroomy and almost kinda cheesey thick cream inside of it. It's better than black beans actually and it's delicious with the eggs. Wow, if you get the chance to have smut corn in a burrito or quesedilla, fucking go for it. I devoured this thing. I just wish it were cheaper here. Lesson learned I guess: maybe if someone compares someone or something to shit, they only mean aesthetically. Stay queer!

Stir Fried Pineapple and Seafood Rice

I was in San Diego two weeks ago and all I could think about was seafood. You see, the climate reminded me of northern Florida a lot, which made me start craving Floribbean food. For those of you not familiar with that, it’s a style of cooking which is basically a fusion of Floridian and Caribbean cuisine.  It has a heavy focus on cooking poultry and/or seafood with fresh citrus fruit, and loads of spices. Luckily, my friend Emi bestowed some canned squid and octopus upon me. In the interest of trying things I haven’t before, I’ve decided to make fried rice with it.  BTW, the thing I haven’t tried before is making fried rice. I’ve had squid and octopus many times.   I don’t really have loads of spices, but I do have a fresh pineapple and several kinds of canned seafood. This should offset my cravings ever so slightly. NOTE: Floribbean cuisine relies very heavily on fresh ingredients, so this is about as close to real Floribbean as canned spaghetti is to authentic Italian. Not nearly as good, but it’ll do if you’re really jonesing and can’t do better at the moment.

You need:

Olive oil

Squid canned in its own ink

Octopus canned in hot sauce

Oysters canned in oil

A pineapple or can of pineapple chunks

Rice (I used a basmati rice medley)

Soy sauce

Any spices that you think will taste good.

Cost: $1 0- $20

Steam about 3 cups of rice and set it aside.

Hull, skin, and dice up about half of a pineapple or more depending on your taste. 

Heat about 3 tablespoons of oil in a pan over medium heat, and add the rice, stirring frequently to keep it from sticking.  After about two minutes, add the pineapple and continue to stir for about another two minutes.

Add the oysters. If you have large oysters then cut them up a bit with the spatula.

Now add the squid…

and the octopus.

Add about 2 table spoons of soy sauce and continue to stir fry it until the pineapple is hot throughout.

The rice itself is good. It’s a tad softer than I wanted it, but I like the texture. The soy sauce combined well with the squid ink. The pineapple adds a nice bit of texture to the dish and keeps the flavor dynamic. The octopus tastes good but it’s a bit chewy. That is normal for canned octopus though, so it’s not really unexpected.  The squid is tender, flavorful, and blends nicely with the other flavors, as does the oyster. Adding a little hot sauce makes it even better. That oughta hold me over for a little bit. Stay queer!

Fried Chicken Hearts

I find myself increasingly open to trying organ meats. I was hesitant about the tripe, I was slightly apprehensive about the tongue, and when I saw a package of chicken hearts I excitedly purchased it without a second thought.

Really, who could resist?

Since this is something I’ve never cooked before, I’ll go to my old standby and fry them up.

You need:

Scallions

Garlic

Chicken Hearts

Oil

Total: $1 - $10

Coarsely chop as many scallions and garlic cloves you’d like. I used three of each.

Sautee them in oil until the scallions and garlic start to brown slightly.

Add the hearts. Stir occasionally, to turn the hearts and keep the veggies from sticking to the bottom of the pan.  You want the hearts to turn dark brown.

It’s like a fatty piece of dark meat, only it’s a bit hard to bite through. Cardiovascular muscle is pretty dense and these feel almost like they have a sausage casing over them. It's not half bad, especially if you like dark meat. I even made a sandwich with it.  There is the slight disadvantage of my girlfriend refusing to kiss me, but that shouldn’t affect you because I’d punch you if you kissed her anyway. Despite devouring the hearts of an entire farm of chickens, I'm not sure if I absorbed any of their power. Hopefully I’ll gain their strength and courage in addition to what I have already, and not as a complete substitution. Stay queer!

Lengua

Lengua is a Mexican beef dish.  Wanna see what part of the cow it uses?

That pan is about 10 inches across.

You know, I had tongue once before.  I visited my best friend in Philly recently and she was kind enough to buy me a quarter pound of sliced beef tongue from a deli. It smelled like a mix of pastrami and cat food.  Tasted alright though.

Unfortunately, girlfriend is not currently available to be traumatized. Luckily, my good friend Emi, who is also a vegetarian, has opted to be present during the bulk of its preparation. Lucky thing too. Half of the fun of this blog is inflicting it on others.  Of course, this is one of MY friends we’re talking about here.  They don't horrify easily and they tend to bounce back quickly. As I began prep we bantered about how the cow probably wanted to be an actress when she grew up, and had a loving family, and was going to go to college before it was all tragically cut short. Naturally, I held it in front of my mouth while standing very close to Emi as she was looking at something else and made a loud, throaty “BLULULULUAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG” sound when she noticed me. You know, the usual stuff people do when cooking. You know, I can't help but notice that the taste buds are pretty prominent.  You could feel them through the packaging.  By the way, if you’re a tongue aficionado and the color of the tongue seems a bit off, it’s because it was pre-smoked, not raw.

You need:

Beef tongue

5 Green chilis: I used serrano peppers

2 cans of corn

4 roma tomatoes

A small white or yellow onion

4 cloves of garlic

Total cost: $20 - $30 

Before you do anything else, you have to boil the tongue for 40-50 minutes per pound.  Why?  Because you need to skin it, of course!  Who ever heard of eating the skin on a cow tongue?  That would just be gross. By the way Emi noted that it smells like hot dogs.  As it boiled the smell became more and more prominent, until it filled every inch of my tiny, studio apartment.  Infer from that what you will. When it's done, set the tongue aside to cool for a few minutes.

Now skin it.  I thought this would be difficult, but you can actually just peel it off with your fingers.  It comes off very easily.

Now thinly slice the tongue.  The meat is very tender and easy to cut, so this only takes a minute.  You can chop it more finely if your skillet isn’t big enough. 

Now get your veggies ready!  In a skillet, roast the peppers over medium heat until the sides are charred.  The more charred it is, the easier it is to skin them.  Take them off of the heat, let them cool off a bit and rub the skin off.  If you’re using very hot peppers, or doubt your manual dexterity you should wear gloves to keep oil from getting under your nails because that shit is ridiculously painful. I once got datil pepper oil under my thumb nail and I thought it was going to melt off. Now cut off the tops and coarsely chop the peppers.  If you want your lengua to be spicier, leave the seeds in.  Now thinly slice the onion, mince the garlic, and coarsely shop the tomatoes.  Get your cans of corn ready as well.

Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Transfer the peppers, garlic, and onion into the pan. Cook until the onions are translucent.

Add the beef tongue.  Cook for an additional 10 minutes to brown the meat.

Add the tomatoes, and cook them until they’re soft.  5 minutes should do it.

Finally, add drain and add the corn.  Cook for another 5 minutes or so to heat it. My skillet was not nearly big enough for this.

It tastes a bit like bland beef, but the fat gives it a hint of sweetness that's a bit like pork.  The slight heat from the peppers is quite nice and the firm texture of the corn compliments the tenderness of the beef. All of the meat and veggies absorbed some of the oil from the hot peppers, so the heat is nice and even, without being too strong.  All of the ingredients complement each other very nicely. This is really excellent.  I’m sure your average American meat-eater would love this as long as you don’t tell them it has tongue in it. That apparently works for hot dogs.  Stay queer!

Spicy Cornbread and Stuffing

Thanks to the kindness of one of my close friends (thanks, Mik!) we venture once more to Ass Kickin’ territory. I love stuffing, and what better way to ring in the new year than with some fire hole! (Ask a friend who eats a lot of spicy food.  They’ll explain that one to you) 

Fire hole: everyone's problem

You need:

Cornbread mix 

2 eggs

2 cups of milk

A third of a cup of butter or margarine

¾ of a cup of cheddar cheese

Total cost: $10 - $20

Melt the butter and mix it ina  bowl with the cornbread mix, eggs, milk, and cheese.  Like last time, I added the entire packet of ground habanero, much to the dismay of my girlfriend.  At least we both agreed that the batter smells wonderful.

Put it in the fridge for 15 minutes.  Stir and transfer to a baking pan.

Cook it at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes.  It’s done when a toothpick or knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Eating two pieces of this was a struggle.  At time of writing, it's one of the hottest things I’ve ever tasted, and I LOVE IT.  Girlfriend can’t handle it and is a bit pissed at me for adding all of the pepper.  It was totally worth it, more for me!  It’s not a flavorful as the beer bread because the heat comes really fast and strong, so it kind of drowns out the taste of the bread itself.  If you’re lucky, you’ll get a hint of cheese. It tastes very good with butter, which also dulls the heat somewhat.  From what I can tell so far, the cornbread itself is tasty.  I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, but it ain’t sweet.  Now to make the stuffing!

You need:

A pan of the bread

Water or chicken broth (unless you’re dating a vegetarian, in which case you will be forced to use vegetable broth L )

½ cup of butter

Celery

A small onion

Total cost: roughly an additional 5 bucks.

Break the bread up into little pieces and finely chop a cup of celery and 4 tablespoons of onion.

Melt the butter in a pan and saute the veggies in it until they’re tender.

Take it off the heat and mix in the water or broth.  The recipe called for a ¼ cup, but I like my stuffing to be moist so I added a full cup.

Now mix the contents of the pan with the bread and toss it lightly.

It’s still very hot, but a bit less so and it takes a second to hit you.  You can taste the bread more now and it’s pretty damn good.  Girlfriend enjoys it too!  I’d love to try it with some chicken, or turkey.  I feel like this would be a hit at a barbecue. Stay queer!

Spicy Crab and Pineapple Omlette

I was going to do something Halloween-themed, since it’s my favorite holiday.  Unfortunately, my schedule has been more crazy than usual.  In fact, I actually made the dish for this post over a week ago, I just haven’t had the time to write something up. Expect something Halloween-themed (or at least filled with candy) next week.

I decided to try a little crossover of Caribbean and omelette this time. Caribbean often combines fruit and seafood to delicious effect. I see no reason why it shouldn't be a part of breakfast.

You need:

Crab (canned is fine): 3.29

Cheese: 1.79

Eggs: 1.79

Salt and pepper to your taste

Hot sauce: 1.29

Total cost:  Less than 10 bucks.

More seafood, more omlettes, as it should be.  It may seem like I’m being lazy and cheap, but that’s just because I am.  Now, this recipe is very similar to the eelmlette, but there is a fundamental difference.   Step 2 of the eelmlette is “add eel”, whereas step two of this recipe is “Add pineapple hot sauce, cheese and crab.”.  You will notice that none of those things are eel.  (We will ignore for now that the eel wasn’t actually eel either.)

Ok.  Step 1: Start making an omlette.

Step 2: Add pineapple hot sauce, cheese and crab.

Step 3: Finish making omlette.  

Those of you who live in temperate, sub-tropical or tropical areas with access to the ocean will probably be totally unsurprised to hear that hot sauce, crab, and pineapple all taste very nice together.  Those of you who do not, are allergic to shellfish or who scream like a little girl who just stepped on a worm when presented with any cuisine more exotic than a corndog, may be a bit surprised.  (Also, if you’re in the latter category then kindly fuck off back to mommy’s kitchen.  This blog is for those of us who ate sandwiches with the crust on as kids and like our orange juice with extra pulp, bitch!)  The pineapple gives you a nice little burst of juice whenever you bite into a chunk and mixes quite nicely with the hot sauce and cheese, although the pineapple juice can make it a little runny.  I like the texture of the crab meat and the flavor is pretty subtle.  I guess I just didn’t use enough crab.  Also, it made my girlfriend throw up in her mouth. It’s her own fault though, she’s a vegetarian and she watched me make it, so she should have known better.  That’ll teach her to be supportive!  So yeah, sorry for the lateness and brevity.  I just finished with my midterms and I have a proposal due tomorrow. (The cash monies!  I needs them so bad!)  Happy Halloween everyone!  Eat loads of candy, get drunk, and stay queer!

Eelmelette

I continue my campaign of destruction against the young and unborn this week.  Why?  Because I found this in a grocery store:

 

You don't see that every day.  Also, it’s supposed to be spicy.  Good enough for me.  What better way to try them out than to smother them in congealed milk and lovingly wrap them up in a layer of chicken menstruation?  They look kind of like giant pin worms.

 

You need:

Eggs

Cheese

Baby eel

Total: $1 - $10

I usually don’t add milk to omlettes.  The chef in Deep Blue Sea discourages it at one point in the film, and any black, comedy relief character who manages to survive in a film about giant, monster sharks probably knows what’s up.  That’s not why I usually don’t use milk, it’s just that you can’t argue with that kind of logic.

So yeah, here we go.

STEP 1: Start to make an omlette.

STEP 2: Add eel.

STEP 3: Finish making the omlette.

It seems that more and more of my posts contain foods that conceal horrible secrets. Unfortunately, my pics got deleted.

It has a weak sweet and fishy flavor but it tastes really good with the cheese and some red pepper.  The texture isn’t weird or nasty at all.  They feel sort of like soft, short pieces of cooked spaghetti.  I thought actually having one in my mouth would feel gross or something but it’s really fine. 'Twas a fine eelmlette indeed.

Ok, confession time: it’s not REALLY eel.  It’s “Eelbroods of Surimi”.  Surimi is made of fish, there’s no eel in it.  Interestingly enough it lists “natural aroma of eel and ink” in the ingredients though.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s still weird. Besides, why spoil the illusion before the very end of the post?  Where’s the fun in that?  Also, I bought it before I realized that, so there’s that too,  Stay queer!

Fish Cake Scramble

You can apparently buy Asian fish cakes in the form of a long, thin loaf, kind of like a pepperoni.

 

 Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have bought this if I hadn’t seen Suicide Club for the first time recently.  (There’s a scene where a woman is chopping up something that looks similar to this.)

"Mommy's funny."

It’s precooked so you can eat it cold. It tastes a bit like imitation crab, which makes sense because they’re both made from pollock.  (Isn’t it weird that I think that Pollock tastes like imitation crab and not the other way around?  That’s weird to me.)  The texture is dry and kinda grainy.  Nothing special on its own, but whatever.

As with almost all of my other posts, I don’t really know what to do with it.  I do, however, know that I could go for a tofu scramble, so some scrambled fish cake surely wouldn’t be amiss.

You need:

Fish cake

Cooking oil

Barbecue sauce

Whatever veggies you like

Optional: cheyenne pepper:

Total cost: $10 - $20

Heat some oil in  skillet at medium temperature.  Cut up about 7 oz of the fish cake and remove the casing, if need be.   

Then you can just knead it with your hands a bit to break it up.  

Chop up whatever veggies you want.  

Pictured: 2 mushrooms, a brussel sprout and about an ounce of onion.

Mix the veggies and fish cake together and add cheyenne pepper to your taste.  Transfer the mixture to the pan and saute until the veggies are tender.  Add barbecue sauce to your taste during frying.  Basically it’s done when the veggies are.

Weird but good.  It’s got the soft texture of lox, but the barbecue sauce and onion sort of interact with the fish flavor to make it taste a bit like pickled herring. The brussel sprouts have a very subtle flavor that works surprisingly well with the dish and the mushrooms add a nice bit of texture to it.  Not bad for a first try.I’d also like to thank my girlfriend for doing the photography for this post (even if she did voice her disgust every step of the way and initially reacted to my blog with shock and horror).  Stay queer!