Layering stuff on my lasagna

Fusion.  Can I call it that?

I’m making a bastardization of a Pizza Margherita kind of, sort of only with lasagna.  Does that qualify as fusion?  Fusion sounds hip, cool and so not like what my Aunt Lupita would call “cochinadas” which basically means a mess or pig slop, I’m not sure what.  It’s what we always called our little cooking experiments.

I bought some beautiful organic basil the other day and wanted to make pesto, but didn’t have any pinenuts or any other kind of nuts, so I stuck it in the fridge.  Yesterday, I was out at Walmart doing some shopping for a science project and I found some ridiculously priced Ricotta which always gets me thinking of lasagna.  An idea for something started forming in my head.  I adore Pizza Margherita or Margarita (however you want to spell it).  It’s pizza made with fresh basil, slices of tomato and mozzerella.  Kind of like a Capresi salad which I also love on bread. So why not lasagna?  Béa over at La Tartine Gourmand makes an astoundingly delish (I’ve made it several times) green lasagna so why not something pesto-ish? I bought lasagna noodles.  Wasn’t in the mood to make my own this time since this is an experiment in extreme cochinada-making.

I assembled my ingredients in my head.  I’d chiffonade the basil to really bruise it and get the full flavor, then mince garlic and mix the two together.  I’d add olive oil and sea salt and just let it sit there for a couple of hours marinating itself.  The tomatoes i decided to roast because I wasn’t sure if they would do well in the lasagna if not. I wanted them smokey not juicy if that makes sense.  As I was working this out in my head, I decided to also roast some onions with the tomatoes in the oven.

I didn’t have mozzarella and was going to run out and get some, but found some pepper Jack cheese tucked away.  Why not?  It would cut through all that sweetness with a little spice and bite and I AM Latina.  Hey they sprinkle chili flakes on pizza don’t they?  Total justification.

So I made it, cooking noodles, layering pasta, scooping cheese, delicately adding tomatoes and onions, spreading my basil mixture.  I put it in a casserole dish with a lid on it and stuck it in the oven at 350.  In less than five minutes, the house smelled INSANE.  I literally wanted to bite the air.

You know you want some.

It worked!  The result was rich, creamy goodness with that wonderful blend of tomato and basil that I love in a pizza or caprese salad.  What would I do differently?  Next time I’m making the pasta dough myself and roasting the tomatoes and onions just a bit longer.  Other than that, not a thing.

Gina’s Lasagna Margherita

3 cups of basil, chopped in a chiffonade

4-5 cloves of garlic, finely minced

1/4 olive oil

1 large white onion, cut into rings

4-6 large Roma tomatoes, sliced

sea salt to taste

Ricotta cheese

Parmesan cheese (a handful sprinkled on each layer)

Monterey Jack, pepper Jack or Mozzarella cheese (depends on how much cheese you want)

Lasagna noodles

Fresh basil leaves for garnish

Chiffonade the basil and mince the garlic.  Mix together with about a teaspoon of sea salt and the olive oil.  Let stand for about 20 minutes.  Set aside.

Slice the onions and tomatoes.  Sprinkle with oilve oil and roast in a hot oven (350 degrees) for about 20 minutes or until nicely browned and caramelized.  Let cool and set aside.

Cook the lasagna noodles according to instructions on box or recipe. Drain.

Place a layer of noodles in the bottom of a baking dish.  Spread with basil mixture.

Sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese,

Layer on onions and tomatoes evenly.

Scoop on Ricotta cheese.  Add Jack or Mozzarella.

Drizzle a little of the olive oil from the basil onto the cheese and add a little more basil.

Repeat till you get to the top.

On the top layer, cover with either the Jack or Mozarella cheese as well as a few onions and tomatoes.

Cover and bake for 30-45 minutes until cheese is bubbly and melted.

Garnish with fresh basil leaves and serve.

This goes great with a chilled Prosecco.

Se acabo.

What is it about menudo?

If you’re a Chicano or Mexican, chances are you think its the cure-all for la cruda (hangover).  I’ve read that this is a folktale with no substantiated proof of its validity as a cure for the common hangover.  Still, millions of Mexicans would beg to differ and Juanita’s still sells cans and cans of the stuff.

I can see why it would work.  Dehydration is key in a hangover.  Your body is dried out from the alcohol and it makes your head pound and you’re feeling nauseous and ill.  Ok, so bring in the menudo which is essentially, a soup aka water. The water content alone would help you to start feeling better as did that shower you probably took before leaving the house in search of menudo.

But what about the rest?

There’s chili in menudo – not just the chili you cook into it, but also the red pepper flakes you shake liberally onto it and the salsa you scoop into it from the bowl on the table.  Vitamin C is in chili.  That’s gotta help.  What about the onions and garlic that went into it?  Or the freshly chopped raw onion you put on top?  The oregano which is high in antioxidants.  Hippocrates used it as an antiseptic and Mexican abuelas have used it for upset stomachs.  What about that lemon or lime you’re squeezing all over your bowl? More Vitamin C and more liquid.  No wonder you feel better.

Then there’s the fat.  That cow’s stomach that is so chewy, soft and delicious is coating your insides and settling your tummy.  So while I’m no scientist, I say menudo works.  If you don’t have a pot of menudo at home, the simple act of going out for it gives you exercise and gets your blood pumping, chasing that hangover away.

Me, I just love it for its complexity of tastes and textures.  That bitterness of the oregano, sharp bite of the raw onion, the rolled up corn tortilla I dip into it with its taste of char, the bite of the nixtamal or hominy, the chewiness of the panza, the slow burn of the chili and the citrusy freshness of the lemon all combine to make me a very happy girl.  My Uncle Adam would spend every New Year’s Eve perfecting his menudo and I was always a happy taste tester.

What Latino kid doesn’t like menudo?  We grow up picking out the stomach and asking our mothers and grandmothers to only put in the corn; nixtamal soaked over night until it blossoms then cooked into the menudo.  Little by little, the panza or stomach makes its way down our throats and we start putting more of it into our bowl, delighting in the chewiness mixed with the melty soft parts.  As kids, we might sneer and get grossed out by the pata, a pig’s foot neatly quartered by the carnicero (butcher) but menudo isn’t menudo without the pata.  We grow up demanding a piece of the previously despised pata in our bowls, sticking up proudly in a mountain of nixtamal.

At the table, you see the men sucking the bones clean with gusto.  The women are more dainty about it but all the same, they want that fatty, piggy feet goodness.  Everyone seasons their menudo differently.  Tio Nacho over there likes a LOT of oregano, Tia Fulana likes more onion than most, me; sitting on the end over there has a pile of squeezed lemons on the napkin next to me because  I like it sour.

Menudo, that peasant dish made of castoff cow and pig parts is truly el rey (the king) on Sundays in Latino houses and restaurants.  What’s your favorite part of a bowl of menudo?

*The FDA requires that I disclose that this is NOT a cure.  I am NOT prescribing menudo as a cure for a hangover. I’m just pondering…that’s all.  Menudo is food, not medicine.  Sabes? 

Antojida.

I love that word. An antojo is a craving.  Being antojida means you are seriously jonesing for something yummy.  Today, for no apparent reason I got one of those completely random antojos for some chicken flautas with guacamole, sour cream, Spanish rice, and some salsa.  I was working on something, so I kept pushing off the images floating in my head till finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.  I put down the laptop, put on my shoes, put up my hair, grabbed my handbag and ran out the door.  Grocery list?  Pfft.  I knew exactly what I wanted.

• Chicken
• Tortillas
• Chipotles en escabeche
• chiles gueritos
• tomatoes
• avocados
• fresh thyme
• sour cream

I ran into the market (I do everything fast) and grabbed one of those little hand baskets.  I was in and out of the market in ten minutes and home in another five.  I did notice it was a gorgeous day in Southern California, but I didn’t linger to enjoy it.  I was on a flauta mission.  I couldn’t make up my mind which salsa I wanted more, so I made them both.

For the flautas:

Boil the chicken with sprigs of fresh thyme, two cloves of garlic, a quarter of an onion and some sea salt to taste.  Today, I used breast filets rather than a whole chicken because I was in a hurry.

Once the chicken is cooked, pull out the pieces and let cool.  Once cool, shred into strips.  Reserve the cooking liquid/broth.

Heat corn tortillas right over the flame or on a comal (griddle).  They won’t roll if they are cold.

Fill a heavy skillet half way with cooking oil and heat on medium.

Add some of the shredded chicken.  Not too much or your flautas will be unwieldy and too thick.  Think flute-like and elegant.  That’s what flauta means – flute.  Roll the tortilla up tight.  You can use toothpicks to hold them together.  I don’t. I use tongs and put them directly into the hot oil, one at a time.

Let the flautas brown completely on both sides until the tortilla is golden brown and crip.

Drain on a plate with paper towels to absorb the oil.

Serve with salsa, guacamole, sour cream and rice.

They look mild, but they are HOT!

For the salsa de chile guerito:

4 chile gueritos (yellow chiles)

2 cloves of garlic

4 Roma tomatoes

1/4 of an onion

salt to taste

cilantro

Boil the chiles, onion, garlic and tomatoes in a heavy sauce pan until very soft.  Keep in mind that yellow chiles are HOT.  They look mild, but don’t let that pale yellow color fool you.  If you don’t like heat, dial it back and use two chiles instead of the four I use.

Strain and cool, reserving the water.

Peel the tomatoes and chiles.

In a molcajete (blenders make it foamy and the texture is all wrong so if you don’t have a molcajete, try a potato ricer), crush the chiles, onions, tomatoes, and garlic until you have a smooth yet rather chunky mixtures.  Add in some of the water that the chiles cooked in until you get the consistency you want.

Add salt to taste (alternatively use Knorr Pollo) and cilantro leaves.

Salsa de chile guerito

For the salsa de chipotle con lima (Chipotle salsa with lime):

1 can of chipotles in escabeche

cilantro

chicken broth

salt to taste

two cooked chile gueritos

two cooked Roma tomatoes

2 cloves of garlic, minced

juice of fresh limes (about 1/8 cup)

Peel the cooked tomatoes and chiles and crush in a molcajete or using a potato ricer.  Pour into a bowl, adding the minced garlic.  In the molcajete, crush the canned chipotles until you have a thick paste.  Add that into the bowl with the tomatoes and chiles, using some chicken broth to thin it out a little.  Add salt to taste and some fresh cilantro (about a handful). Add the lime juice and stir to mix well.

Hot, smoky, tangy and oh so yum!

For the guacamole:

This is super simple guacamole.  The purist kind.  All you do is mash avocados and put them into a bowl.  You don’t want any other flavorings, not even salt.  The salsas you serve and the chicken itself will provide lots of flavor so leave the avocado pure.  That’s it!

Time to dig in!

]]> http://donalupeskitchen.com/2011/12/chicken-flautas-with-two-kinds-of-salsa/feed/ 0 http://donalupeskitchen.com/2011/07/ewww-cactus/ http://donalupeskitchen.com/2011/07/ewww-cactus/#comments Sun, 17 Jul 2011 02:02:13 +0000 Gina Ruiz http://donalupeskitchen.com/?p=1020

Nopales con tortas de camaron

Ewwwwwwww cactus!

Is that what you are thinking?  It’s a reaction I get often when I speak longingly of cactus in salads, or in scrambled eggs, or in red mole sauce with pork or, one of my favorites; nopales con tortas de camaron.  Go ahead and think ewww, that leaves more delicious nopales (cactus) for me.

Growing up, nopales were an almost daily part of my meals as were beans and rice.  My grandfather, Papa was very proud of his towering nopale plants that stood in his back garden against the garage wall.  The sun hit strong there and the nopales grew and grew.  I loved going out back with him, both of us armed with pinsas (tongs), a long knife and a plastic bag.  Papa showed me how to slice carefully at an angle so a new cactus paddle would grow in place of the one I cut.  I’d pinch one end with the tongs and carefully slice then drop it gingerly into my bag.  Often, he’d let one or two fall to the floor and when I looked up at him, he’d say in that raspy voice of his “Para que crescen mas.”  So that more could grow.  That’s all it took, you’d drop a cactus paddle into the dry earth and before you knew it, a cactus plant was born and competing with its brothers for the sun against the pale, wooden garage wall.

Once we had our ration of nopales we’d take them to my grandma and then more fun would start.  She’d carefully lay out cut open paper bags on the old patio table outside and bring out her sharpest knives.  Papa would look at them critically, occasionally taking out his sharpening stone and working on them till they met his high standards.  Grandma would smile that special smile she kept just for him when he handed her the newly sharpened knife and get to work.  She’d hand me a small knife and a cactus paddle with the biggest thorns to remove (bigger is easier, those small ones will get you), so that I could learn the fine art of removing thorns from cactus.  It IS an art form.  Have you ever seen a Latina woman remove thorns from cactus?  It’s fast, intense and they never get stuck.  My grandmother could have a pile of those cleaned in no time, while I struggled with my one paddle.  Eventually, I learned and got good at it but nowhere near my grandmother’s artistry.

Once they were stripped of thorns, my grandmother washed the nopales and put them into a large pan of water with a whole quartered onion and brought them to a rolling boil till they were just tender and had changed color.  She’d let them cool, then drain and rinse with cold water.  For days afterwards we’d have them scrambled into eggs for breakfast, in salad if it were summertime and sometimes she’d make her delicious red chile sauce and serve them with crispy bits of pork.

Now, I cheat.  I buy them peeled and diced whenever I can, but on those rare days that I have time and am missing my grandmother, I take out my sharpest knife, lay out some paper bags and get to work.

Here’s my recipe for Nopales con Tortas de Camaron (Cactus with Shrimp Cakes)

About 2 cups of diced nopales, cooked

1 oz. Chile California

1 bay leaf

2 tbsp. Knorr Pollo

Water or chicken broth

3 tbsps. Flour (you can add more or less depending on how thick you like it)

1 oz. Shrimp powder

2 egg whites

2 egg yolks

Cooking oil

Drain the cooked nopales and set aside.

In a heavy frying pan or sauce pan, brown the flour, whisking to make sure it doesn’t burn.  Add the bay leaf and chile California when the flour is nicely browned.  Keep whisking adding in hot water or chicken broth till you have a nice gravy-like consistency.  Add Knorr pollo to taste and let simmer, whisking occasionally for about ten minutes.  If it gets too thick, add a little more broth or water.

Turn off the heat and set aside, covered.

In a large frying pan, add oil about half way up and heat on medium flame.

In a mixing bowl whisk two egg whites until stiff.  Think meringue.  When stiff peaks form, slowly whisk in the egg yolks one at a time.  Shake in the shrimp power while still whisking little by little. If you do it all at once, your batter will go flat.

With a spoon, scoop up tablespoon sized dollops of the batter and carefully slide into the hot oil.  They will puff up quickly so only do a few at a time.  Taking a spatula or slotted spoon, turn them over once and let brown.  Scoop out and drain on paper towels or brown paper bags.  They will flatten a bit so don’t freak if they do.

Once they are all done, stir the nopales into the chile sauce and heat for about 8 minutes.  One by one add the shrimp tortas into the nopale mixture then serve.  If you have a greedy son named Phillip, watch those tortas because they WILL disappear off the paper where they are draining long before you can get them into the chile.  This is where a good smack on the hand or a chancletaso comes in handy, although at twenty-nine he’d still rather get his hand smacked than miss an opportunity to filch tortas from the plate.

Serve with rice, beans and freshly made tortillas.

It’s been crazy hot here in L.A., but that’s usual for July. My meals have been light, cold, crunchy and not cooked. Things like tostadas de atun, sandwiches, fruit or even ice cream have made their way onto my table. I had the ice cream for breakfast one particularly hot day. Hey, there’s milk in it! Don’t judge me.

Today, finally the heat broke and I wanted real food. Something that wasn’t too much trouble but also satisfying. I was craving Mexican food. Wandering round the kitchen I spotted a half of a package of *pre-made tostada shells left over from the ceviche the other day and my mouth watered thinking about the tostadas my grandmother would make. I found already cooked beans, boiled some boneless, skinless chicken with some herbs, onion and garlic then shredded it and I had the makings for tostadas.

Before too long, I served up plates of tostadas to everyone and the happy crunches made me smile. Not my grandmother’s tostadas, because we were out of a thing or two, but delicious all the same.

Chicken and Bean Tostadas

Shredded chicken
Grated cheese
Shredded lettuce
Chopped chiles gueritos
Diced tomatoes
Diced onions
Re-fried beans (por favor, not out of a can)
Tostada shells
Tapatio sauce or other hot sauce

Spread the beans over the tostada shell and sprinkle with cheese. Top with chicken then start piling on the rest. I usually put tons of toppings in bowls so that everyone can pick out what they like and make them Lucha Libre style. We like to put cheese on the hot beans so it melts and then top them off with more cheese. You can add any other ingredients you like, e.g., avocado slices, sour cream, cilantro, different types of chiles, salsa, etc. Go wild!

*If it hadn’t been July in L.A. After a long, hot week I would have fried the tostada shells myself but thank God I live in a neighborhood that has great tortillas and tostada shells that taste homemade because the market has a tortilleria in it.

I haven’t made gorditas in years and I’m not quite sure why.  I always loved them as a kid and their open faced counterpart, the sope or sopito.  Thick corn tortillas cooked on a griddle, then sliced open, deep fried and stuffed full of meat, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa and cheese was heaven on a plate.  Hearty and delicious fare that filled me up and made me sleepy afterwards.  I love all the textures and flavors of them, the crispy thickness of the dense corn tortilla, the chewiness of meat, the soft beans and the freshness of the cold vegetables.  My mouth is watering writing this and I’ve just finished one!  And yes, I am laughing at myself…

Gorditas can be filled with just about anything.  Beans, meat, chicharrones in green chile – the possibilities and variations are endless.  Today I am making them stuffed with ground pork, refried beans with cheese and the chopped tomato, onion and cilantro mix I love so much.  I made salsa de molcajete too and I know my son Phillip will add a dollop of crema and sprinkle his with a little queso cotija like he always does.  Any way you have them, they are so good.  Decadent good.
Some of that decadence comes from LARD.  Yes, that’s right I said LARD.  Look, you can add vegetable shortening or olive oil or whatever you like to try and make a healthier alternative and it will work, even be good but there is no substitute for the piggy taste of lard.  You don’t make gorditas every day, heck I haven’t made them in years so my philosophy is this: if you’re gonna do it – do it up right.  Use the lard!  It’s just a bit and sure, it will clog  your arteries a bit but add a bit more chile to burn it out.  Live a little and then put away the recipe for a year or two.

My grandmother made gorditas like no one else could.  Her swift hands made fast work of forming them while some of us used a tortilla press to get them perfectly round and of equal thickness.  Her hands worked gracefully, almost in musical rhythm and she never missed a beat.  Her gorditas were perfectly round, all uniform in size and all of the same thickness.  I still can’t do that, though I get the taste just right.  Watching her was like watching a magician and I would sit on my little red chair with my elbows on the table, chin in hands just admiring and daydreaming of the day I’d be standing at that stove making perfect bits of delicious roundness.

Well, I never could get them as perfect as hers anymore than I can get all the peel off an orange in one long curl like she did but they sure taste like hers and eating them again makes me all the more determined to get it right next time without using a tortilla press.  Some things never change though and when I see my grandchildren watching me at the stove, I know they are daydreaming of being the one at the stove making magic.

Gorditas

For the masa:
2 cups Maseca (corn flour)
1/4 cup white flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/3 tsp of salt
1 1/2 cup of warm water
1/4 cup of lard (or vegetable shortening)

Mix the maseca, the flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl.  Add the lard or shortening and the warm water.  Mix until the dough is smooth and can be formed into a ball.  Divide into balls and keep covered with a damp cloth.

Either using a tortilla press or shaping with your hands, make the gorditas in about a 4 inch diameter about 1/4 inch thick.

Heat the gorditas on a hot griddle or comal until cooked on each side.

Slice each cooked gordita almost to the end but keeping it together, forming a kind of pocket.  Some people don’t make the cut until it’s fried, but I like the insides crispy too.

Deep fry the gorditas in oil  until golden brown and drain on paper towels.

Stuff the pockets with any filling you like.  Beans, shredded beef, carnitas, chicharonnes in green salsa,  queso fresco, scrambled eggs with nopales, etc.

Two Irish Classics

My traditions and culture are solidly Mexican.  I grew up in a Mexican house with Mexican family.  We spoke in Spanish, English and Spanglish.  I still have fond memories of my grandfather saying, “Andale, walkale” which was a funny way of saying hurry up and walk whenever we were going somewhere.  The sounds of boleros and oldies were the music of my growing up and the smells in the kitchen were spicy and sweet.  There is another side of me though – the Irish side.  I am half Irish.  The Mexican is so steeped in me that I rarely give it a thought unless I am cursing my freckles or lighter than the average Mexican skin as it blisters in the hot Los Angeles sun.  I remember I am half Irish when I think of my red-headed, freckled and blue eyed father but I certainly never remember it when I am cooking.

Irish food?  Um..yeah.  My Latina palate requires spices sharp and pungent, my nose needs the scents of chocolate, cinnamon, chiles roasting on a comal, a kitchen redolent with color, sensation, aroma.  Irish food?  Bland, boring, colorless…or so I thought.

When I read this challenge, to create a dish from another culture out of my comfort zone the first thought was oooh Indian!  That thought quickly went out the window as I mentally flipped through countries.  Problem was the most exotic was NOT out of my comfort zone.  There was color, spice, and adventure – all the things I most equate with the food I am most comfortable cooking.  Then it hit me.  Why not use this challenge not only as a chance to push the envelope and challenge myself but also to learn about myself, that other side of the family tree?  Explore my buried roots through the medium of food?

Once decided it felt right.  All I had to do was choose the food.  Beef and Guiness pie?  No. Stew?  Overdone.  Crusty roast lamb (Uaineoil faoi chrusta)?  Colcannon?  Brambrak? No, no, no.  It was getting late.  I was getting frazzled.  Then it hit me just as the idea to cook Irish did.  You want a challenge, girl?  Go simple, uber simple and traditional.  After all, this blog is about traditions, just not Irish ones.  Yet.

Brotchan Foltchep (Leek and Oatmeal Soup) is a creamy, delicious surprise

I settled on an ancient recipe for Brotchan Foltchep (Leek and Oatmeal Soup) with Brown Bread also known as cake.  It was a challenge in many ways.  First of all oatmeal for soup?  Are you kidding me?  That’s for breakfast!  No meat in it?   And, and, and OATMEAL?  Wthout raisins and cinnamon and cream?  Well. there is cream, but it’s not the same.  Then there was the bread.  Oh.  My.  God.  Seriously?  Two tablespoons of butter in about 6 cups of flour?  No eggs.  Stone ground wheat flour.  I was dubious and kept thinking to myself, “this is going to be awful dry.”  I was so tempted to sneak in yeast, sugar, more butter, eggs anything to make that pile of sticky dough a little more like bread.  I swear I slapped my own hand at least three times to keep from trying to “fix it.”  I ended up needing a full cup more buttermilk than the original recipe asked for and it was still very dry.  Another 1/4 cup or so got it feeling right about how the recipe said it should feel.

To get in the spirit of things, I turned on some music.  Believe it or not, I’m a big fan of The Saw Doctors and Juliet Turner.  Turner’s Belfast Central is one of my favorites.  She’s Northern Irish, not where my family is from but her voice is lovely and it helped soothe me.  The Saw Doctors got me dancing and not worrying so much about the brick I was sure my bread would turn out to be.  Being used to kneading dough, it was hard for me to do as little as possible with the Irish bread.  The trick with that is to keep from letting the glutens form so you want to knead as little as possible or it will be tough according to my research.

I had been lucky enough to have had some left over vegetable stock I’d made the other day in the fridge so I didn’t have to make that and it saved me some time which was a relief since I’d left it to the last minute.  As I got into making the soup, it started to make sense to me.  The oatmeal was almost like a roux as it was cooked in butter almost masquerading as flour.  The end result was a hearty, healthy and surprisingly tasty soup with a bit of bright color.  It wasn’t a bit bland!  The brown bread, which was rustic yet light and spread thickly with good Irish butter was a perfect accompaniment.

Leeks simmering in oatmeal broth

I think I like this Irish side and intend to explore it further.  I still want to make that carrot pudding, that Apple and Bramble cake with Bushmills custard and the crusty roast lamb.  I may find more surprises along my way and I think I will learn more about myself, that other I hardly know as I wend my rambling way through Southern Ireland via the route of food.

Brown bread with Irish butter

Brotchan Foltchep (Leek and Oatmeal Soup)  – recipe adapted from http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/2kitch/rSoups.html

3 Leeks
1//4 cup of butter
1 cup of Irish oatmeal
2 1/2 cups of vegetable stock
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of mace
Chopped parsley
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Wash the leeks thoroughly and chop into chunks. (Save one chunk and slice into rings as a garnish, if liked: put these aside until the soup is done.)
Melt the butter gently in a saucepan, not allowing it to brown. Add the oatmeal and fry it in the butter, stirring until golden brown. Still stirring, pour in the stock and milk.
Add the chopped leeks, salt, pepper and mace. Bring to a boil; then lower heat and simmer for about 30 minutes, until the broth is thick. Remove from heat, allow to cool slightly, and then either liquidize the soup in a blender or with a “stick mixer”, or push it through a sieve.
Reheat gently without allowing it to boil again. Stir in parsley: serve and garnish with a swirl of cream and / or the previously sliced bits of leek (or stir the cream in when the parsley is added).

Brown Bread recipe adapted from Irish Abroad

4 cups of stone ground wheat flour
2 cups of white flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3 cups of buttermilk
2 tablespoons of butter
Mix the wheat flour throughly with the white flour. Rub the butter into the flours. Add the salt, and soda.
Make a well in the center and gradually mix in the liquid. Stir with a wooden spoon. You may need less, or more liquid – it depends on the absorbent quality of the flour. the dough should be soft but managable. Knead the dough into a ball in the mixing bowl with your floured hands. Put in on a lightly floured baking sheet and with the palm of your hand flatten out in a circle 1 1/2 inches thick. With a knife dipped in flour, make a cross through the center of the bread so that it will easily break into quarters when it is baked.
Bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake a further 15 minutes. If the crust seems too hard, wrap the baked bread in a damp tea cloth. Leave the loaf standing upright until it is cool.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me in Challenge #1.  I’m honored and appreciate it so much.  Voting for Challenge #2 opens on Monday.

I was lucky enough to get into the market early this morning just as the produce guy was putting out a large box of the beautiful orange squash blossoms I’d made quesdillas with the other day. As he opened the box, I could already taste the budin. I bought half the box and gently carried them home and put them in water, covered the delicate blossoms so they wouldn’t wilt and set about assembling my ingredients.

A budin is a pudding, but not that chalky chocolate pudding in cup stuff that I see my grandkids eat on occasion. A Mexican pudding is often savory, always delicious and usually contains ingredients maybe unfamiliar to the American kitchen. This is REAL Mexican food. We are so much more than tacos… oh well that view is rapidly changing so I won’t start ranting mid-post.

Squash flowers need to be used the same day they are bought. They are incredibly delicate and tend to wilt almost immediately. In the grocery store plastic bags from store to home, they can get slightly bruised so they usually sit very carefully on my lap on the way home. It’s important to have all your ingredients together if you’re working with them so that they don’t have time to wilt on you.

Delicate squash flower blossoms

Making the budin is easy, almost effortless to me. It’s a great recipe to listen to some boleros while cooking and just zen out. The brilliant orange of the blossoms mingled with translucent strips of sweet onion give the dish texture but it is oh so light. Like eating a very savory, silky cloud. Que rico! Writing about it makes me want to make another one because of course there’s no more. Squash flower season is very short. A couple of weeks in the spring and another couple at the end of summer signaling the start of autumn. They don’t preserve well that I know of so squash flower budins aren’t made very often and they get gobbled up so fast it’s ridiculous. Make sure to hide yourself an extra slice – it will go fast.

Budin de flor de calabaza/Squash Flower Pudding

6 cups of squash flower blossoms, cleaned and chopped
1 cup of rice flour
1 can of evaporated milk
2 cups of water
1 golden onion, halved then thinly sliced
1/4 cup of butter
4 eggs, beaten
Salt to taste
1 tsp Knorr Suiza
1 1/2 cups of grated Monterey Jack cheese (Note: sometimes I use Comte or Manchego)

Mix the rice flour with the evaporated milk and water in a mixing bowl until smooth, then pour into a heavy pot and heat on low flame stirring constantly until it thickens. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.

In a skillet, fry the onion slices in butter until translucent then add in the chopped flowers. Saute about two minutes and add salt and Knorr Suiza. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.

Mix the flowers and onions into the rice flour mixture until well blended. Mix in the eggs and incorporate well.

Pour into a greased non-metal baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until the budin has risen and a knife pulls out clean.

The budin will sink a little as it cools so don’t worry. That’s normal.

Serve with a little creama Mexicana and a salad. Buen provecho!

After all the intense summer heat of the past week, now that it’s finally cooler I have been craving Mexican comfort food. I wanted enfrijoladas, those rich, creamy bean and cheese bits of yummy that melt in your mouth. An enfriolada is something like an enchilada only a bean sauce is used instead of the red or green chile sauce. They can be made with either corn or flour tortillas, but I use flour because they make the dish extra soft and velvety. Enfrijoladas are not only great comfort food, they are very economical. Typically served with enfrijoladas are what we call Chiles Toreados which could mean either toasted chiles or bullfighter style chiles depending on who you’re talking to. Jorge Carbajosa over at Spanish Lesson has a good post on the word here. I use chiles jalapeños and thick slices of onion in mine.  Some people use Salsa Maggi for flavoring but I like Knorr Suissa.   The chiles are sliced into four pieces, toasted in oil along with the onions and then served over the enfrijoladas. My kids would kill me if I dared to take out the seeds since they like it hot and the whole point of toasting the chiles in such a manner is to make them hotter or mas bravos (like a bullfighter) but if you want them milder, go ahead and devein and seed them. The toasted chile flavor will still be fantastic and you’ll still get a bit of spice.

I had a pot of frijoles de la olla all ready, so I set about making my enfrijoladas and showed my roommate David how it was done. The local market was out of panela cheese which is what I typically use, so I ended up using a mixture of Monterey Jack and Queso Fresco. The dish is nothing if not versatile.

We sat down to watch Iron Chef America and have our dinner with the dog doing his typical sad-eyed gaze at us. He knows better than to beg and always gets a treat so what he did next shocked us all. Ozzy leapt and snatched, literally snatched a jalapeno off of David’s plate, gulped it down and ran.

Chiles toreados

It happened so fast we were stunned. Really? Did he just eat a chile? Then he came back and his little tongue was just rapidly licking his lip and I felt so sorry for him, I grabbed some cold queso fresco and fed it to him hoping it would calm the burn. This is where it gets really wacky. The little monster ran away from me and David, who was now pouring him milk and attacked Phillip’s plate stealing three more chile slices in the process. We put away our dinner dishes, kept the jalapenos high and away from him but he was still whining and trying to jump up on countertops after them!

El perro enchilado

My dog is a schnauzer mix and who knows what the heck the other part of him is but we’re certain it’s something Mexican and crazy. We kept trying to feed him milk but Ozzy was almost high from the chili rush and I literally had to hold him down and pour it into him. He was going nuts. I Googled hoping it wasn’t toxic and there wouldn’t be a vet visit in our near future. I kept feeding him cheese till he seemed to calm down, then I put him in bed. He slept quietly all night and woke up just fine but he scared the heck out of us. From now on, Chiles Toreados will be renamed in this house – Perro Enchilados (hot dogs) in his honor. Still shaking our heads over this loco dog who was sniffing at jalapenos this morning but didn’t have a chance to get to them.

Enfrijoladas

1 dozen flour tortillas

Cooked Beans

Milk

Oil for frying

Queso Panela (or Monterey Jack)

One onion, diced

Queso fresco

This recipe doesn’t really call for measurements, but I’ll try and estimate it out. In a large skillet, add about 1 tablespoon of oil and heat. Add in about 4 cups of frijoles de la olla and about a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of milk. Using a potato masher, mash the beans until smooth. Don’t use the masher until the beans are really hot or it won’t be so easy.

Remove from the heat and let cool.

Add to a blender once it’s cool enough and blend until perfectly smooth. Pour back into the skillet and re-heat.

Grate about a pound of cheese, either panela or Monterey Jack and dice the onion finely. Mix the grated cheese and onion together and put into a plate or bowl.

In another skillet heat up enough vegetable or canola oil to dip tortillas in. Using a set of tongs, quickly dip each flour tortilla (or corn if you prefer) into the oil, flipping over to get both sides. You don’t want them to fry to much. Literally about 30 seconds on each.

Once your tortillas are fried, using the tongs quickly dip them in the bean sauce. Try to do this quickly so your tortillas don’t fall apart. Corn tortillas hold up better, but flour ones are my favorite.

One tortilla at a time, place in baking dish, fill with the cheese mixture and roll. I use the tongs because they are usually too hot and delicate for me to adequately do with my hands.

Once all the tortillas are filled and rolled, spoon more bean mixture on top and pop into a hot 350 degree oven for about ten minutes. Just long enough for the cheese to fully melt.

To serve, sprinkle with crumbled queso fresco and top with chiles toreados. We usually have ours with Mexican rice or a salad but they are a filling and delicious meal all on their own.

Chiles Toreados

About 6-10 fresh jalapenos

Oil for frying

Tablespoon Knorr Suissa or Salsa Maggi

1 onion, halved and thickly sliced (optional)

Wash the jalapenos and cut off the ends. Slice down the middle and then again to get four long strips. In a cast iron or other heavy skillet, add just enough oil to coat the pan and heat on medium flame.

Once the oil is hot, add the chiles and onion slices. The oil will pop so be careful. Fry the chiles on both sides until just toasted, not letting them get too dark, then remove the chiles, lower the flame and continue to let the onions cook until well caramelized.

Throw the chiles back in and stir in the Knorr Suissa. Remove from heat and serve over the enfrijoladas.

Try not to have a crazy, jalapeno eating dog around.

Some things are just meant to be simple, delicious and evocative.  My earliest memories of food and cooking always have the gorgeous aroma of beans simmering on my grandmother’s stove.  She made a fresh pot almost every day and the smell is woven into all my memories of her, the house with the creaky wooden floors and the smells of her flowers.

Every time I make a pot, it is like she is right back front and center, larger than life with her gentle little hands, showing me how to pat a tortilla, measure something out for baking, how to chop finely, how to pinch up the sides of a sope and a million other life lessons.  I miss her as keenly over 20 years since she’s been gone from this world as the day I lost her, but the scent of beans cooking in the pot always makes me feel her presence and it comforts me.
Beans seem like simple fare, maybe even bothersome or peasant food to some but to me they are necessary.  They go with just about any meal, are loaded with nutrients, are economical, versatile and filling and I couldn’t imagine life without them.  My favorite though is just out of the pot topped with chopped onion, tomato and cilantro.  It’s like a soup, absolutely delicious and with a freshly made tortilla dipped in, pure ecstasy.

To my mind, nothing is better than that first bowl of beans fresh out of a clay pot before they get re-fried or used for other things like tostadas, burritos, etc.  I still love them however they are cooked, but that first bowl of soupy pinto beans with the bright Mexican flag colors is just special.

I often get asked, “how do your beans come out so good?” or “what did you do to make them so good?” and it always surprises me, because to me beans are beans and no work at all.  I do remember my mother couldn’t make a pot to save her life.  We’d come home from school to the smell of burnt beans permeating the house and think, “Jeez, mom forgot to put water in the beans again.”  That never happened at Grandma’s house.  When I go over the steps in my head to my Grandma Lupe’s perfect pot of beans, its almost zen-like to me.  Maybe other Mexican cooks have different ways of preparing them but I only know hers and they’re always, always perfect so I thought I’d share the steps.

My grandmother never used just pinto beans.  She had this beautiful, big acrylic container my Uncle Adam had made for her that was filled with a mixture of large white beans, kidney beans, pintos, small lima beans, navy beans and pink beans.  The varying colors and sizes were beautiful and to me as a child, like little gems in a treasure box.  I loved sticking my hands into that clear container and picking up handfuls and letting them stream back in.

First step to a pot of good beans is cleaning them.  This is where the zen comes in.  My grandmother would pile in front of me little hills of beans and my job was to carefully inspect each one.  Broken ones, little dirt rocks and ones with the skins peeling were swiftly scooted off into a discard pile.  Good ones went into the keep pile.  I always found it very soothing to sort the beans and still do.

Once you’re done sorting the beans, put the good ones into a colander and wash them throughoughly in warm water then set aside.

In a large pot* fill just about an inch below the rim with cool water and bring to a boil.

Once you have the water at a rolling boil, add salt (no measurements here – depends on taste and how much you are making), two cloves of garlic and one golden onion, peeled and quartered.

Next add the beans and lower the flame/heat to very low.  Cover with a tight fitting lid and let simmer (no peeking) for three hours.  You do need to keep adding boiling water every so often to keep the water level an inch from the rim.  Don’t forget to put water in the beans!!  My grandma always kept a small pot simmering on the back burner so she could add in water and keep the temp the same.

One thing I notice is if you want nice, pink beans you limit the lid lifting.  One of my friends is a compulsive lid-lifter and her beans, while they are delicious come out very dark.  Some weird chemical reaction (oxidation?) happens when you lift the lid.  I’ve also found that people who soak their beans before cooking them also get the dark thing going on.  I am not a fan of soaking them.  Why bother when you can put a pot on in the morning and have delicious beans in the afternoon?

Ok – so everyone is gonna ask but, but, but Gina you didn’t give us measurements and we don’t know how many beans to put in so I’ll attempt to gauge the amount I put in this morning. I’m using a large soup pot (stainless steel because my olla broke and I have to go back to Mexico and buy another one because I’m so not buying an olla from here but you can that’s just me) and it holds 18 cups of water just an inch below the rim, to those 18 cups I put in about 4 cups of beans.  Salt is to taste so no measurement there.  I start with about hmm three tablespoons and go from there.

So that’s it my grandmother’s secret for a perfect pot of beans.  Love, care and some patience.

*When I was growing up, beans were cooked in a clay olla or pot.  Nowadays, there is a concern with the lead content in Mexican ollas so I won’t tell you to use one even though I do.  I love the flavor my olla imparts to the beans.  If you want to use a traditional clay olla, please find one that is lead-free.