Carne y Pablano Quesadilla

I enjoy preparing my own food, usually in a large cast iron pan.

I call one of my favorites “Carne y Pablano” because I cook “chop meat” with Pablano chiles as well as other vegetables, such as onion, garlic, carrots, fresh turneric (which I add to everything) and maybe maitake mushrooms (frozen, from Woodstock), red pepper, plum tomato, parsnips and/or whatever I find in the fridge.

The cooking process starts with adding diced onion, carrots and chiles to a hot, well-oiled cast iron pan.  I use only EVOO or ghee; ghee is preferred because EVOO tends to smoke too much at medium high.  Once they’re cooked, I’ll add the garlic and mushrooms.  I don’t put the garlic in the pan at the very beginning because it will burn and turn bitter.  And the mushrooms would get tough.

After a minute I’ll turn the heat all the way up and add the beef.  I break it up and turn it continuously until it turns from red to pink.  Then I turn off the heat, and mix in about a teaspoon of sea salt, half that of fresh-cracked black pepper and a very small pinch of cayenne pepper powder.  Chopped plum tomato goes in now, too, if available.

This tastes great on its own.  But then today I had some organic corn tortillas and cheddar cheese, so I made a Quesadilla.  After it was assembled and melted shut, I spread Mother-in-Law's fermented gochujang garlic chile sauce¹ on top and then drizzled a spiral of Kewpie mayonnaise.²

This is one of the most awesome creations I’ve ever made.

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¹ https://milkimchi.com/pages/pantry-staples

² https://www.kewpie.com/en/products/mayonnaise/