Cinco Margaritas por Cinco de Mayo! If you have been a
faithful food follower here on The Taming
of the Roux, then you may remember that Mexican is one of my favorite types
of cuisine. Mm Mm Yuuuumy! And if you know anything about my education for the
past several years, then you may know that I took 10 long years of Spanish. Can
I speak it fluently? Absolutely not. But Cinco de Mayo is here and I thought,
what a great day for a special edition post here on my blog!
At first I was going to share a recipe I’ve been working on
after being inspired by a mediocre dish at Chili’s. But I still need to work
out the kinks so you’ll have to wait with baited breath and an empty stomach
for that surprise!
Then this cute idea came to mind: 5 different margaritas for
Cinco de Mayo! Don’t worry, I didn’t drink these alone and certainly not in one
sitting. I spread this out over several days and had company.
What you need:
Silver tequila (or blanco, they’re
the same thing). Get a good bottle of it. I cannot stress this enough. Good
tequila makes good margaritas. Cheap tequila tastes really cheap. Now I’m not
telling you to go out and buy top shelf tequila. Something in the middle will
work for mixing margaritas. While Sauza tequila and Camarena are not sippers
they make very good margaritas. They run for about $20.00 which is a whole lot
more affordable than Patron.
Salt or Sugar
LOTS OF LIMES – I must have used 20
limes while preparing for this blog entry. You can use sweetened lime juice or
bottled lime juice as well.
You’ll notice that I garnished all
my margaritas with lime. That’s how I like it but feel free to be creative!
Several of my cooking magazines were devoted to tacos and
margaritas for this month’s editions and I decided to give them a whirl. Five
very tasty whirls!
1 Margarita – Cooking
Light’s Blackberry Margarita
We enjoyed the flavor of this one
but we didn’t follow all of the instructions. This recipe calls for straining
the blended blackberry mixture through a fine sieve lined with cheesecloth…I
didn’t have cheesecloth at hand. The recipe said that straining was optional
but next time we would definitely strain it so those pesky seeds aren’t in the
way. (And aren’t stuck in our teeth.) This is a refreshing and sweet margarita.
You can line it with salt like I did or you can use sugar if you prefer to
sweeten your sips even more.
2 Margarita – Bon
Appetit’s Triple Sec-free Agave Margarita
Bon
Appetit magazine boasted that we wouldn’t miss the usual addition of triple
sec or orange flavored liqueur. Instead of using the triple sec, they called
for light agave syrup (nectar). This can be found in your health foods
or organic section of the grocery store. Its consistency is slightly more
viscous than honey and can be used on pancakes instead of maple syrup if you’re
looking to find other uses for it apart from this delicious margarita! We most
certainly did not miss the triple sec! This recipe is light and refreshing,
really allowing the tequila to shine through. It’s so incredibly simple you
might wonder if it will be any good at first. But once you taste it, I think
you’ll love it too. Make sure you use white tequila and of course you should
like the taste of tequila if you decide to make this one. If not, try one of
the fruity recipes I made this week! :)
3 Margarita – Jumpin’ Margarita
I pick up inexpensive cookbooks
whenever I can…including ones exclusively for cocktails. I have aspirations of
being a bartender. It won’t happen. This margarita happens to come from one of
them and it happened to call for lemonade and margarita mix and sweetened lime
juice…things I don’t usually reach for when making margaritas since I prefer to
keep it simple and fresh. That doesn’t mean we don’t keep those things around
the house just in case! We even made the addition of a splash of limoncello. This
margarita is perfect for those of you who need to cover the taste of alcohol a
little to make it palatable. But hey, I don’t discriminate! Without any
self-control, I probably would have finished the pitcher off by myself.
Just
Cocktails recipe for “Jumping Margaritas”
Serves
1
Slice of lime
Salt
1½ oz tequila
1 oz triple sec
1½ oz margarita mix
½ oz lime juice
3 oz
lemonade
Extra slice
of lime for garnish
Rub margarita glass rim with lime
slice and frost with salt. Mix the next 5 ingredients in shaker filled with
ice; shake well. Strain cocktail into glass. Garnish with a slice of lime.
4 Margarita – Food
Network Magazine’s “Perfect Margaritas”
This month’s edition of Food Network Magazine promised to reveal
the secrets of a “perfect” margarita so we tried it of course. Very simple,
this mixture calls for your traditional ingredients of silver tequila, orange liqueur,
lime juice and then the addition of fine sugar. This was by far the tartest
recipe we tried this week. If you like you margaritas without any frills then
this is the one for you. Make sure you really mix your sugar in until it
dissolves. Perhaps making or using simple syrup would have been a better way to
combine the ingredients for this one.
5 Margarita – Cranberry Margarita
There’s this great Mexican
restaurant a couple towns over from me that makes awesome (and inexpensive)
margaritas! My favorite is what they call a “Rosarita” which has cranberry
juice in it hence the name. (Rosado is pink in Spanish and the color of this
drink matches). I decided to try and make my own version of it.
Renée’s Rosarita
Margarita
Makes 3-4
1 cup silver tequila
¼
cup triple sec
¼
cup cranberry juice
½
cup lime juice (fresh or sweetened depending on what you prefer)
Mix it all up and chill or serve
immediately over ice. (Regardless of whether or not its chilled, serve over
ice. Unless you prefer to make frozen margaritas. My mother always taught me to
drink my margaritas on the rocks but to each his or HER own.)
Because the world looks better through salt-rimmed glasses!
Have a great Cinco de Mayo!
-Renée
