Omnivore’s 100: We Like it Raw & Spicy

With venison and nettle tea out of the way, we move on the next foods on the list: Huevos rancheros &  steak tartare. With the help of local ethnic supermarket, GrandMart, huevos rancheros was as simple as frying an egg. Steak tartare, the gourmet raw beef dish, was another matter.

#3 Huevos Rancheros

I was happy to see huevos rancheros on the list.  After spotting versions of it on many a yuppie brunch menu over the years — with mango salsa, on multi-grain toast, with baked tofu — I thought, I’d boil this dish down to its authentic self.  Huevos rancheros was originally served on Mexican ranches to the farmhands as a second breakfast — after eating a lighter meal at dawn.  I found this recipe on simplyrecipes.com that fulfilled my purist requirement: just eggs, corn tortillas and homemade salsa.

The ingredients were a case for GrandMart, the most extensive and inexpensive ethnic market in the DC area. GrandMart does Korean, Chinese, North African and, most importantly in this case, Mexican and Central American. The best part of GrandMart is its amazing selection of fruits and veggies. (Try it for excellent lychees every July.) This includes every imaginable type of pepper, from the scorching chipotles in adobe sauce (one of my favorite ingredients) to mild anaheims. They also have a variety of corn tortillas; I got mine thick and handmade.  

The recipes is easy.  Saute the salsa, brown the tortillas and fry an egg. Be careful not to add too many chipotles, or your salsa will end up — like ours did  – a scorching mix guaranteed to give you an unpleasant case of 10 am heartburn. 

#4 Steak Tartare

I was not so excited about steak tartare. I knew the dish, a gourmet treat in northern and eastern Europe, simply as raw beef.  We found this recipe  online that called for tenderloin. In the comments, the readers hashed out the consequences of eating uncooked meat. “Danger,” proclaimed one commenter. Just a “risk,” wrote another. I figure that we have immune systems and stomach acid for reason. So, in an attempt to get the highest-quality beef, we headed back to Whole Foods.  Buying from Shoppers, Giant or, even worse, GrandMart would be asking for trouble.

The half pound of grass-feed beef tenderloin set us back $13. We cut up the beef into tiny pieces. Many recipes call for ground beef, but a meat grinder is the one kitchen gadget we lack. We served it with a sauce of mustard, capers, anchovies, egg yolk and Worcestershire and rye toast points. I wish I could say it was delicious.

The steak tartare tasted like a wet sponge dipped in mustard. Sigh. What a waste of the highest quality meat I’ve ever purchased. We barely made a dent in the beef, so I packed it away for use in stir fry. What else can you do with with tiny bits of beef? It will be my gourmet chow mein. 

However, I can vouch for Whole Food’s beef.  I woke up the next morning food poisoning free. 

Coming up next: Pho. We try the best place in the DC area.

More from wereoutofhere

• Omnivore’s 100: Alligator tastes like Crocodile
• Omnivore’s 100: Venison down, 99 more to go
• Omnivore’s 100: A brush with bowel-cleaning super tea