Mojo
Mojo, pronounced “mo-ho,” is a sauce/marinade that orginated in the Canary Islands, but is most often seen in Cuban and Caribbean cuisine. It is extremely versatile, I use it as a marinade for grilled fish and poultry. It will keep in the refrigerator for about two weeks, and is also good as a finishing sauce. At its most basic, a mojo consists of oil, garlic, and some sort of spice, usually cumin or chilis. Cubans are responsible for the addition of citrus, and this recipe is along those lines. A traditional cuban mojo would use sour orange, but since this is typically not available, I use a combination of orange juice and lime juice. You could simply combine all the ingrediants in the list and blend in a processor or blender, but heating the oil and simmering the sauce results in a better release of flavors.
I’m also a big fan of this because it demonstrates interesting food chemistry, which I will probably talk about in more depth at some point in the future. The result of this dish is an emulsion, which I always think are cool. An emulsion is a uniform mixture of two unmixable liquids. Here, the oil and the juice, another example might be a vinegarette. But vinegarettes and other dressings are temporary emulsions, they need to be shaken before each use. Permanent emulsions will maintain their consistency over time. Two classic examples of emulsions are mayonaisse which is basically oil, vinegar, and eggs and hollandaise sauce (melted butter and water) you might say that water isn’t in a hollandaise, eggs are. You’d be correct, but the reason hollandaise stays thick is because it is an emulsion between the melted butter and the water in the eggs. There is a little more chemistry that is needed for a more detailed description, I’ll save that for the next recipe that has an emulsion.
BTW, it is this kind of stuff that makes cooking interesting to me. I’m actually more interested in techique and the hows and whys than I am in the creative aspect of cooking.
Source - unfortunately, I don’t remember.
INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup garlic, cut in a rough, large dice
1/2 cup onion, cut in a rough, large dice
2 cups, Orange Juice
1/2 cup, lime juice
1/2 cup olive oil
Kosher salt
Pepper
Cumin
Oregano
Cilantro
DIRECTIONS
Combine the first four ingrediants. In a sauté or sauce pan, heat the oil to smoking. Here is where you need to be very careful. Add the first four ingrediants to the hot oil. I like to use a sauté pan since it allows me to tilt the pan and move the oil away from me, then I can slowly add the liquid to the pan without much spatter. Simmer the sauce for about 5 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend in a processor. The sauce should have some texture to it, don’t take it to a pureé, but it shouldn’t be too chunky either.
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yeah. I don’t usually put that much effort into things. It probably would work, and it would probably be good.
Now, mojo can be used as a straight hot sauce, and if I were using it for that, I would add chilis and roasting the cumin would probably be worth the trouble. But for the marinade, I don’t need that complex of a sauce, most of the subtle flavors that would come from roasting “true,” whole spice would probably be lost over an open flame. So for a marinade, I would skip it. But if I was making a sauce, I might do that, and make a large enough batch for multiple applications.
I generally don’t put that much effort into my cooking, unless I am drinking all day to go along with it and someone else is responsible for my kids, like say Tanel…
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Sounds great, I’ll have to check this out. Have you thought about using whole cumin, roasting it, and then grinding it? I wonder what that would do to the flavor. Isn’t coriander a very Caribbean spice? Would you think that it would work in here as well?