This is a recipe I learned at Maria Bonita in Berlin. I certainly didn't expect to learn about Mexican cuisine while in Germany, especially what I am told was pretty authentic. Anyway, I did and I would like to pass on some of these recipes. "Rajas con Crema" means something like "Slivers with Cream." "Raya" or "Ralla" means "stripes" but I seem to remember a certain coworker of mine using that word to refer to lines of cocaine rather indiscreetly. This is a vegetarian dish but but no means a light one.
A short ingredient list: One red Pepper, one green Pepper, one sweet onion, a couple cloves of garlic, A couple chilis (i think these are jalepenos shown), some oil for cooking, some white cheese (cheddar or Monterrey Jack), and a half-pint of cream. These ingredients are all essential but the ratio is really up to you - you may want a spicier dish in which case you can up the chili content or use a hotter variety of chili. You can use yellow bell peppers too but thems shits it expensive.
Ok so cut everything up in to strips as the name suggests, which I guess blogger thinks will be easier for you to understand if this picture is loaded vertically.
Get a medium-sized pan nice and hot, and drop about 2 tablespoons of oil in and let that heat up, and then just throw errythang in the pan. It'll all shrink with cooking time so don't worry too much about contact with the pan. Give it a couple minutes before you season the veggies with salt and pepper, and then cover and reduce the heat to lowish.
A nice way to heat up your tortillas.
Once you get to about here your veggies are nice and soft and have a little bit of that fried flavor and the onion are halfway caramelized and so a little sweet, in this case a cast-iron pan really helps. It's time to add the cream and cheese!
With the heat still pretty low, pour in the half pint of cream, you may want to reserve some in case the mix thickens too much after you add the cheese and you want to thin it back out just a little. I would also suggest grating the cheese before this step so that you can quickly add the cheese before the cream reduces. You want this to be as cheesy as possible without gumming up too much! Once the cream is in, start adding cheese gradually and stirring it in.
Keep stirring the cheese in until it gets like...velveeta thick. And its ready to serve! This dish is tasty but not the prettiest thing to look at, I suggest rolling it up in flour tortillas with refried beans. Try it with some HFCS-free mexican coke (hehe).
