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Picadillo



Great grandma may have cooked a fabulous all American home cooked meal last night, but tonight I was requested to make Picadillo.  Picadillo is a Tex-Mex cuisine upon which I have been eating before teeth.  Seriously, one does not need teeth to eat this meal.  It is smokey in flavor, filling, and dumb simple.  All one needs is time.  As with all good meals, the longer is melds, the better the flavors.

This recipe is close to my original stand by but the requested was to include tomatoes.  Tomatoes are a cooks preference.  I am more of a meat and potatoes only but I am also not one to turn down picadillo with tomatoes.  That would just be plain dumb. In trying new recipes, I vowed to try not to modify any recipe too much.  Note the word TOO much.  Until this meal, I feel as though I was sticking to those guidelines.  Today's meals threw all rules out the window.  Ingredients and their suggested quantities were the same.  It was in the cooking process where the instructions varied, alot.  As in massively.  Really, I don't even know why I used the recipe at all.

Modifications Made: Salsa
Making salsa and adding to picadillo is the quick and flavorless way to cook.  Instead all of these ingredients were added to the cooking process as a whole unit.

Modification Made: Picadillo

Ingredients:
2 lbs venison ground
1 yellow onion, diced
4 tablespoons of garlic
2 cans Original Rotel
2 cubes Knorr Caldo de Tomate
2 russet potatoes, diced large
2 heaping tablespoon comino
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
4 cups water
salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:
Brown onions alongside ground venison.  Once browned, all the other ingredients and simmer on low until potatoes are cooked.  Adjust seasonings and water as see fit.

Scaled for Likability: Great
Picadillo is one of those cook and leave it meals.  Almost crock-pot in methods.  More like stew. Once the meat is browned, the flavors cook until desired tenderness of potatoes are met.  The larger the potatoes, the longer the cook time.  If smaller potatoes breakdown into the meat, it just makes the meat thicker in consistency.  Thick enough to place inside a tortilla!  Delish.  Easily adjustable to large scale and open to many ingredient variations, picadillo at the heart is just ground beef, potatoes, and comino flavorings.  After that, the sky's the limit.

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