Category: In the kitchen

Yet another of the beautiful cazuelas from the beautiful Christopher Ann made it’s way on to my table recently. I don’t know if you can quite tell from the photo but this one is huge. And it’s shallow so I would think the real advantage would be lots of evaporation for a richer, reduced sauce.  The dish gently simmered for several minutes after removing it from heat and placing it on the table.

Take chicken thighs and gently poach them in water that’s been seasoned with aromatic vegetables like onions, celery, carrot, etc. Allow the cooked thighs to cool in the water (now stock) while you prepare the sauce.

The sauce is simple 3 parts Ancho chiles to 1 part Guajillo chiles. After toasting the dry chiles on a comal, soak them in warm water for about 20 minutes. Add the chiles and some soaking water to a blender, along with white onion, garlic, cumin, cinnamon, clove and Mexican oregano. When well blended, push the thick sauce through a fine mesh sieve with the back of a wooden spoon, leaving behind any seeds or skins. This step isn’t necessary if you’re using only Anchos, but Guajillo chiles have a thick skin and you really need to do this step. You can also use a food mill. Do this  right into the cazuela, or pot you’re cooking in, after you heat up a spoonful or so of lard or olive oil.

Fry the thick sauce for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly as it splatters.  Slowly thin the chile sauce with some of the chicken poaching liquid until you have your desired consistency. Add the poached chicken pieces and allow to cook for about 10 more minutes. Check for salt and splash with pineapple or rice vinegar right before serving. Unlike breasts, thighs are very forgiving so you can leave this to simmer on very low for quite some time.  I think bone-in thighs are superior to the boneless variety.

So we sampled the Pebbles this weekend at the farmers market and they were a big hit. They are dense like a Pinquito and meaty like a Black Nightfall.

As usual, I just sauteed some onion, garlic, celery and carrot in olive oil until soft, then added the soaked beans and gently simmered until cooked after bringing them to a hard boil. I used 2 teaspoons of salt for a pound of beans, after they were soft.

The blog system was down yesterday so I didn’t get a chance to do something new but with tomate verde showing up in the garden and the market, it’s a good time to revist this salsa. These purple tomatillos are called Milpero and they’ve naturalized here in Napa. You may find them at your farmers market.  – Steve

You could easily heat this salsa up and poach a nice fish or thin it out with a little wine or stock and cook a chicken breast.

Take these ingredients and place them on a medium high
comal or skillet: 2 slices of red onion, 2 cloves of unpeeled garlic, 2
serrano chiles and some tomatillos in their husks.

Allow them to roast and get soft. The onions will start to
caramelize. Flip the onions when they’re done and move the other
ingredients around to cook evenly.

As the ingredients finish, place them in a bowl to cool down and to
collect any juices that may run. The tomatillos will start to get soft
and hiss as they finish.
As the vegetables cool, peel the
tomatillo and garlic skins. You can pull off any excess skin from the
chiles but don’t waste a lot of energy on it.

Chop the onions fine and set aside. You can grind the onions with
the rest of the ingredients but I like to add them in the end for a
more interesting texture. Chop the chiles and the halve the tomatillos.

You can mix the salsa in a food processor but here I’m using my
molcajete. Starting with just the garlic, chopped chiles and salt,
grind the ingredients to a paste.

Add the tomatillos and start grinding until they mixture is somewhat
smooth. This is a real pleasure. Grinding in the molcajete feels great
and provides a texture you just can’t get from a food processor.

When you get a texture you like, add the juice of a key lime (or
small Persian lime). Add about a 1/4 teaspoon of ground cumin. If you
are like me, you will add more because more is better. Right? Wrong! It
shouldn’t taste like cumin in the final dish. Just this pinch adds a
beautiful rich nuance and any more is too much. Try it my way and add
more later if I am wrong. You can also add cilantro but I didn’t feel
like it so I didn’t. Add the chopped onions and then mix well. You may
need to add some salt. You are finished and I am hungry.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the way I cook. I get frustrated when I don’t have access to avocado leaves to make Oaxacan black beans or Tarbais beans for a French cassoulet or some other exotic ingredient. But what is easy to forget is the bounty I do have and how easy it is to incorporate these ingredients into what I eat daily.

Cactus remains an obsession but what about venison? I know lots of hunters, there are too many deer and the meat is good. Why not explore this meat a little more?

Joan, who is Our Lady of Operations here at Rancho Gordo, and her brother are both hunters. I’d rather drink muddy water than spend a long, boring day going after animals with a gun but it takes all kinds. I’ll volunteer to cook! Anyway, Joan gave me a venison chop, which I pounded and then seared quickly. It was done in minutes, if not less. I put the venison on top of a previously grilled cactus paddle and then smothered the whole thing in guajillo chile sauce, topped with a small handful of cotija cheese. For good measure, I splashed some of my pineapple vinegar on as well.

This was great and I especially like that it was virtually free with all the ingredients coming from the nearby land. And it’s got me thinking. How many things am I overlooking? Maybe a deer stew with purslane? Cactus salads with miners lettuce? I find the whole concept romantic and so much more appealing than shopping at a traditional grocery store where the meat has a diaper and a plastic body bag.

A lot of my gardening friends find themselves overwhelmed with summer squash but I manage to eat all the zucchini and calabacitas that come my way. For me, the bounty problem comes to a head with cucumbers. I like a nice cucumber salad  but it would be all I eat if I used every last cucumber that comes my way.

Here’s a refreshing twist that will remind you a bit of a watermelon agua fresca. Peel cucumbers and add them to a blender with some sugar and lime. Fill with water and blend well. Adjust the flavor by adding a little more water if you need to. It’s that easy and one less cucumber goes to the compost pile!

I’ve always loved chilaca chiles and I grab them whenever I find them fresh. They’re long and skinny and rather thin skinned but you still want to roast and peel them before using them. When dried, they’re called pasillas, and the dried form is equally delicious, just completely different.

Diana Kennedy, in her book My Mexico, has a good snack using the fresh chiles.  After roasting them, you clean them and shred them with your hands. Toss the chiles with some raw, chopped onion, some cotija cheese and a bit of lime juice. It’s makes a great taco filling but you could also serve as a garnish for any grilled steaks.

If you have trouble finding the chile, try shopping in stores that cater to expats of Michoacan and you’ll probably have better luck. Kennedy suggests substituting poblanos, which you’ll need cut with a knife rather than shred, and they’re just as good, but different. With poblanos, I like to add some chopped epazote to give it a little edge.