Road Trip 2018 - Day Two, Into Texas Hill Country

Today, we covered less distance and spent time wandering. We made our way from Abilene to the San Antonio area focusing that part called the Texas Hill Country. The distances were longer than they looked like on the map. Weather was not in our favor and it was rainy and not ideal for taking pictures. We actually like a number of the towns we saw on our way south before we got to the hill country. Many of the notable towns in the Hill Country area were way too touristy for our taste.

Our first stop was the town of Winters, home of the...

...Fighting Blizzards!

We had had no intention of stopping here but something was going on or had gone on for the main road was festooned with brightly colored ribbons...even though there was practically no one on the street. It was as if they were having a celebration when all of a sudden the alien mother ship arrived and abducted you all.

But it was so colorful and the combination of all the color, the wind and the lack of people, made it a good photo moment.

Next we were in the town of Ballinger (home of the Fighting Bearcats!)

There was some interesting 19th century buildings but what really caught our eye was this grain elevator, which was quiet and almost deserted on this Saturday morning.

It was getting close to 1 PM when we finally got to the gateway to the Hill Country, Junction, Texas.

The Hill Country is BBQ central

Had to have some for lunch

The Pit Master

I was anxious to try this as I have been doing so much smoking

We had brisket and ribs

There was no rub on either

It was clear that they had brined both

The could be sauced if you wanted but I don't like a lot of sauce

Their original sauce is vinegar based but they have a red sauce as well

It was very good

But I have to say that based on this, I think I do a pretty credible job myself

Finally we got to the Hill Country itself

As I mentioned earlier, many of the towns were just too touristy for our taste, but the town of Kerrville (Tivy High School, the Fighting Antlers???) was an exception with a nice set of architecture and a minimum of tourist kitsch.

Tomorrow we will be heading on to Louisiana

Massive Day of Cooking

To fill the need for Southeast Asian food, you need the curry pastes that are the backbone of the flavors one remembers. Thai curry pastes are fairly easy to find. But the commercial ones we've tried have way too much chile heat for our tastes. And finding curry pastes from Cambodia, Malaysia or Indonesia? Forget about it.

So I have taken to making my own pastes and freezing them. Fortunately (as I think I have posted previously) we are blessed with a great Asian supermarket here in Albuquerque and I can get just about everything I need in terms of raw ingredients. I have had to alter some of the recipes to make them work with some of the things we have here.

Integral to this process is an extreme amount of pounding with a mortar and pestle. I had done a lot or research and almost everywhere I looked it said you could not get the same flavors and consistency trying to do things in a food processor. However, I do chop up all of the various components in the food processor prior to going through the pounding process.

The Cast of Characters

Clockwise from the lower left are turmeric root, galangal root, kefir lime leaves, ginger root, lemongrass, garlic (already chopped), shallots (already chopped), and cilantro stems

These provide the basic components for the curry pastes. Not all of them have all these ingredients and their are other additions for the various pastes

I have found that the key to getting the right consistency is to go from drier to wetter and to add one ingredient at a time. So first in goes that salt and any other dried spices. The the drier roots like the galangal. Then maybe the kefir lime leaf. Then the turmeric, the lemongrass and finally the ginger, garlic and shallots in their turn.

Getting chiles to integrate has proven difficult so I use my already processed NM green chile, harissa and sambal to provide the heat component

Sample of a completed paste - the Malaysian paste in this case

Then putting them in small containers - Cambodian Amok paste in this case

In addition to the curry pastes, I also was smoking - a rack of ribs and two chickens to replenish our freezer.

Most of this work (the rub for the ribs, brining the chickens, cleaning and setting up the smoker) were done the day before. All that needs to be done is turn on the smoker and put the meat in when its hot.

If I must say so myself I am really getting the knack of producing good ribs 😏

Tomorrow I will breakdown the chickens, make some stock from the bones, turn the skin into smoked cracklings, which in turn will give me a little smoked chicken fat.

Hope you are eating well too and REMEMBER all those who have sacrificed for our country!