Corn Tostadas

Alright so anyone who lives south of here might think I’m kind of a quack to get excited about finding corn tostadas in the supermarket. Well I am. Very excited. I mean there are more and more “authentic” Mexican products readily available to the masses. We here in Canada don’t have the privilege of being able to shop on mexigrocer.com. So I make do with having my mother in law send me Mexican products whenever they do their yearly trip down there. I’ve got corn husks and Maseca waiting to become tamales but now only sitting in the pantry (which I’ll have to talk about someday soon because we moved yet again and I’ve got a whole bunch of cool food-related features about my new apartment). The dulce de leche treats sent to us from Mexico have disappeared a long time ago though.

In the picture above you can also see another joyful discovery I made while shopping at my local Sobey’s. Mrs. Renfro's Hot Habanero Salsa is the first salsa readily available north of the Canadian border here that says it’s hot and actually delivers. I mean all other salsa beside this one look like ketchup. This salsa has balls. I really wish I had a hot sauce store in Moncton here. I need some readily available chilihead fixings. Oh well.

As far as hot sauce go, however, the four you see on the table there are what is available here in my neck of the woods. Cholula (Mexican flavour over kick), Tabasco Habanero and Chipotle sauces, and finally a Louisiana style hot sauce I find best in jambalaya. Nothing overly fancy. Nothing to scorch your whole digestive tract. But you work with what you got. You know.
Finally, I grilled a pork roast to round off my tostada toppings. During the cooking of this roast I also used my BBQ smoke box for the first time. So with cherry wood smoke curling around it at a nice gentle heat, the pork became something worth writing about. So that’s what I’m doing. Talking about the tostadas I ate and all the beautiful food that makes life worth living. If only everything had a spicy kick to it I’m sure that I’d want to live forever.

Smoked Herring Sandwich

Looking at this photo some of you might think that it looks delicious. "Doest mine eyes see pickled onions?" you may wonder. "And smoked herring! How delightful!" Well to think such thoughts might be right in certain circumstances but not here. No, this sandwich was a class-A dissapointment. It's not the flavour pairings; that is to say that it's flavour failure is none of my fault. No the fault here lies in the quality of the fish.

Truth be told, the appropriate name for this fish would be "oversalted herring" and not "smoked herring". I'm sure herring is delicious but the amount of salt here was quite literally disgusting. Like when there's so much salt that you're getting the sweats, there's a problem.

If, however, you do find good quality smoked herring or pickled herring or canned herring, here is what I recommend you pair it with to make a fabulous sandwich: 1) a good quality dark rye bread; 2) strong russion style or honey dijon mustard; 3) onions pickled in malt vinegar England style. With strong flavours come other strong flavours to make a strongly flavoured whole. The trick is to make everything shine and not put anything in there that would simply go totally unnoticed. It's robust cooking. Thump your chest and call yourself Bif. Har. Har. Har.