Ingredient Spotlight – Experiments in my New World Kitchen and Garden

The Sorana Bean. From Tuscany, With Love

Last autumn I was in Italy for the first time in way too long. This was the funny time when we all thought this covid thing was waning and we were heading back to normal. Weren’t we cute?

Regular followers of Rancho Gordo know of our love and admiration for the amazing Judy Witts Francini. She is a powerhouse of knowledge about the Italian kitchen and nothing makes her happier than sharing her secrets. She has many.

Judy arranged for me to meet with some members of the cooperative that is keeping the Sorana bean production going. Unable to meet our demands with Italian production, we of course grew their seed on the West Coast and market them as Marcella, to honor the Italian producers (and my hero, Marcella Hazan).

We have space here so we just let the bean plants grow as they will. Sorano is very limited (which is why they can’t increase production) and every inch is maximized.

Judy and I met each other in Firenze in the early 1980s. She was just starting out with her tours and classes and I was a clueless but well-fed tourist. I’d end up moving to Milano in 1988 and actually became the host of a radio show, Mister Lucky Cocktail, for a local jazz station.

In the states, almost every aspect of bean production is automated. Not in Sorana! Here Maurizio goes down every row with a little garden scooter and handpicks the beans and tosses them into a bucket for threshing later.

We use a moisture meter to decide when to harvest. Rita explains to me that they just make sure they are well-dried before storing. They would rather overdry them a bit in order to avoid molding beans since most Italians soak their beans anyway.

I was a little nervous to meet Rita and Maurizio as we were growing their beans stateside, but they were fine with that. There is a terroir that can’t be replicated and we didn’t call them Sorana , so there was no confusion.

I think there was a little disbelief that someone would match their passion for beans but we’ve become fast friends and I can’t wait to visit them again.

Afterward, we went to the local restaurant, Ristorante da Carla, to enjoy the fruits of their labor. All the beans are cooked al fiasco, which is in a glass carafe with a narrow top that cooks the beans perfectly.

The highlight was the beans served over a piece of toast that had been thoroughly saturated with fabulous Tuscan olive oil, topped with a piece of lardo, which is cured pork fat (not the same as lard), which on its own isn’t so appealing, but gently melting over warm beans is a thing to be remembered always.

In case you had doubts, Bean People are the best people!

If you are considering a trip to Italy, you would be well-served by getting in touch with Judy. She can arrange to help you get to Sorana, as well as anywhere in Italia that you fancy, and really, for me having Judy sitting across a dinner table means I’ll eat well, have some laughs, and remember why Italy is one of my favorite places on the planet.

Divina Cucina on the web (with contact information)

These great photos were taken by artist Kelly Borsheim, someone as nice as she is talented.

Happy Harvest: Frijolon Gris

It has been a long time since I played in the garden. I have not been a good steward of my land and as we got busier and busier over the holiday season, I left my precious Oaxacan runner beans to fend for themselves. We experienced a very wet season, followed by several nights with freezing temperatures and the mornings have been foggy. You would have thought my forgotten bean crop would be a goner, but you’d be wrong.

Mid-February and this is my harvest.

I looked and I saw a few funky pods. When I opened them, the beans were fine. I ran into the house to get my incredibly wonderful ayate de ixtle, which is a large harvesting sheet, perfect for beans, made from the fiber of the maguey plant. This prized piece is from Hidalgo and takes hours to make. It’s especially clever because you can fold up the four corners and wear it like a backpack and not lose a single bean.

Dirt and dust can slip through but the harvest remains intact.

I picked the obvious pods but the more I picked, the more I found. They are good at hiding and once you get the rhythm of their growth patterns, you find a lot of them.

The pods looked very funky and many of them split open as I threw them unto the ayate. You can see that I was also harvesting a little borage with its pretty flowers.

You can pick up the ayate from the four sides and make a sack. I hung this and hit it with a stick and the rest of the beans came popping out of their pods. When you open the ayate de ixtle back up, you can easily pick up the spent pods and these will obviously go into the compost bin. The beans remaining are amazingly clean.

This is a shot of the plant last October. You can eat the flowers raw or cooked.

The bean is Frijolon Gris, a grey runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus) from Oaxaca that clearly has acclimated to Northern California. The hummingbirds love it and they were nice enough to leave me a lot of beans. I also suspect that many of the early beans fell into the soil and they’ll be naturalized but I’ll keep some of these for planting in the spring, just in case. I would guess you would have similar results with any of the runner beans, like Scarlet Runners, Ayocote Negro, etc. but these are particularly pretty. Lacking an authentic ayate de ixtle, I bet you would have great results with an old sheet.

The inevitable question is probably how to get the beans or the ayate de ixtle and for now, sadly, the answer has to be whipping out your passport and going on a Mexican adventure. Now that the COVID crisis is easing, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate.

Posole or Pozole? A Rose By Any Other Name

Recently on Twitter, the very talented Pati Jinich wrote that she was irked by the word posole. “It is Pozole with a Z!!!! Posole is nothing, nada!! Posole equals not Pozole. Sorry and good night.”, she wrote. Now I admire Patti a lot but I think she got this one wrong, along with many of her enthusiastic followers who were quick to throw posole under the bus.

My response was: “Posole is an old tradition from the US Southwest. It refers to the grain and the final dish. It’s hundreds of years old and to deny this is to deny how indigenous cultures refused to stagnate. ”

I understand that good Mexican food is under siege and its advocates have to stand their ground. How many chefs are discovering tacos and are eager to share their new love (and “interesting” new spins) on food that many of us discovered long ago? The talented Ina Garten created a dish that might be delicious and it might have corn in it, but it’s not pozole by anyone’s standards other than hers. Taco Bell created a snack called a chalupa and it has nothing to do with the well-established Poblano treat that has been called a chalupa for generations. As writer Javier Cabral writes, “Adding black beans and lime juice to things do not automatically make it Mexican.”

I was once in the lovely town of San Miguel de Allende with a group of fellow gringo tourists. San Miguel is a very unusual town with an exceptionally large ex-pat US population. Or should I say, US immigrant population? Whatever it is, whether you like SMA or not, it’s not very typical. One woman insisted that a bowl of guacamole and chips was a proper way to start a meal in Mexico. I suggested that she may want to start her meal this way, but it’s not all the common, and in fact, I’d never observed Mexicans doing this. She asked the waiter if she could order this and he, of course, brought out a big bowl of chips and guacamole and she turned to me and said, “See! They do this here.” I had to bite my tongue.

I have to watch my own behavior, as well. Clearly, I am obsessed with Mexican food and culture and even though I travel there often, I am aware of my own tourist status and try to avoid speaking in absolutes. I would love to be considered someone who is helping the situation more than hurting it. I don’t want to be another attack on traditional Mexican culture that will need to be defended by someone who knows more.

With all of this, I understand being irked by posole. But this isn’t like a chalupa. This tradition from the American southwest has been around for generations and has morphed into its own thing, including taking freshly cooked nixtamal and drying it for use later, a very clever technique not used by the Mexicans who came up with the very clever technique of making nixtamal. And I would argue even further that this product is superior to the canned hominy most everyone uses instead of making fresh nixtamal. If you want to start a cause, it should be against canned hominy, which has almost no flavor and provides a texture not unlike chicken cartilage.

In New Mexico, posole refers to both the grain and the final dish. It’s a much more casual ingredient than in Mexico. A bowl of posole in a chile sauce is a common side dish. Huntley Dent says in his seminal book, The Feast of Santa Fe, that the difference between everyday posole and feast-day posole is the amount of pork. Everyday posole is a thing. It’s not Mexican but it’s from the same roots and I think it should be embraced as an example of indigenous cultures adapting, creating, and celebrating nixtamal.

When I announced that I was writing a book on pozole, one commenter scolded me for adding pork and told me I should stick to pozole’s pre-colonial roots. Well, if I were to follow her advice, I’d have had to use the flesh of my captured soldiers for protein and I’m just not up for that. Corn and nixtamal have made their way far further north and south than their Mesoamerican origins. It’s bound to change and watching the journey is part of the fun.

Did I mention my new book? Never one to pass up an opportunity when it’s knocking, my next book, The Rancho Gordo Pozole Book, comes out this November.

Summer Heirloom Bean Casserole (Shhhh….It’s almost all from leftovers)

First I will tell you that I meant to make Deb Perelman’s Pizza Beans. This Smitten Kitchen recipe has been one of the most talked-about and produced recipes I’ve ever known. Members of our Bean Club make it constantly and collectively they’ve made it a classic. I have to admit that I’ve never made it.

Last weekend I was determined to try it, especially knowing that I had a batch of Royal Corona beans sitting in my fridge. I dutifully printed out Deb’s recipe and bought the needed ingredients at my grocery store.

As it turns out, we suffered an immense heatwave and some weekends are for fun in the kitchen and some weekends are for not moving much off the couch. You can guess where I’m going here.

If you make my version and you like it, please let’s give credit to Smitten Kitchen. If not, it’s all my fault for being lazy. Actually, it would be hard to fault either version.

Another wonderful aspect of this dish was that the ingredients were mostly leftovers. I had made the beans the day before. The cherry tomatoes were left from my CSA delivery and the jar of Trader Joe’s roasted red peppers was opened for a “session” of goat cheese and Ak-Mak crackers earlier in the week. I bought the mozzarella to make Deb’s version (I normally buy the wet, fresh kind) but the parma was already on hand in the fridge. Sometimes it pays to lack ambition.

This was perfect with a green salad. Carb-shy friends who miss pizza will especially appreciate this meal.

Summer Heirloom Bean Casserole

2 cups cooked Rancho Gordo Royal Corona beans, drained
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup roasted red peppers, chopped roughly
4 sprigs of thyme, leaves stripped and stems discarded
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup mozzarella cheese (low moisture, not fresh), grated
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 475F. Mix the beans, tomatoes, peppers, thyme, salt, pepper, and olive oil together and pour into an oven-safe casserole. Top with the two kinds of cheese.

Bake for 20 minutes. The top should be browned and the beans bubbling.

Note: If you have a larger casserole, you may need additional cheese to cover the whole dish. I don’t think many will complain about extra cheese.

Pasta e Fagioli a la Omnivore (or Il Nostro Caro Angelo)

Is this not a thing of beauty? A bowl of cranberry (Borlotti) beans with homemade pasta in a sauce of bean broth, chicken broth, and vegetables. It’s moist and delicious but not at all soupy. A perfect balance of beans, pasta, and inspiration.

Angelo with my son, Nico, before a failed, but fun, turkey hunt.

Last week Angelo Gorro of Omnivore Salt (and sauces, etc) came by for a visit and pulled out all the stops with his own pasta, his own salume, his own sausage and of course his own salt.

The variations on pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans) are endless. I have yet to meet one that I haven’t liked. You just know it was created to deal with leftovers. Or to feed a crowd on a budget.

The “Il Nostro Caro Angelo” in the title refers to a Lucio Battisti song. The poor Italians always have to suffer through my enthusiasm for their pop music. It’s fun until I’ve had a few and insist on singing. Here’s a nice version by Mina.

Out of season, canned tomatoes are fine. Angelo had found a can of cherry tomatoes and these were great. Along with the onions and garlic, he sauted a lot of celery.

One of my favorite people, Sarah Londsdale, played photographer for the day. Most of these photos are hers.

You probably know about the salt. The Sicilia sauce was new to me. It’s tomato-based and versatile. On a whim, I drained a cup of the beans and then added a spoonful of the Sicilia sauce and it was perfect. I think white beans would be just as satisfying, just different. Lots of people ask me for “recipes” and here’s a new one: Beans and this sauce. Ta-da!

Exact measurements aren’t possible. Angelo added the cooked pasta to the soffritto and then added the beans. Then he’d add more beans and more pasta until the combination was just right.

My favorite commercial pasta is Baia Pasta. Owner Renato Sardo also dropped by with his daughter for the big dish.

These are Angelo’s notes. If you’ve made pasta e fagioli before, this should be fairly straightforward. If you haven’t, don’t hesitate to download our Pasta e Fagioli Manifesto, including the Baia Pasta version.

As if the afternoon weren’t perfect enough, Angelo left me with some more of his pasta. Posso toccare il cielo con un dito.

Flageolet Salad with Lemon, Radishes, and Oven-Roasted Tomatoes.

A vegan salad to be enjoyed on its own or served with traditional Easter dishes.

I don’t think of Easter as an inspirtational meal but that’s changing. I grew up with industrial hams in cans and lots of bad chocolate. I was invited to my friends’ Easter celebration and when I heard that there’d be both ham and lamb, a lemony vegan side dish seemed in order.

Raw, they have almost no taste. Roasted in a low oven, they become delicious jewels.

It’s clearly too early for good tomatoes but I’ve been craving them after the long winter, which seemed to end overnight here in Northern California. Cherry tomatoes sliced in half, dusted with salt and pepper, drizzled with olive oil, and then topped with fresh time went into the 250F oven for just about an hour.

You can use them in beans, salads, and even pasta.

They don’t compare to in-season tomatoes but they’re terrific. Use them like sun-dried tomatoes in salads, pasta, and of course, with beans. I left the thyme stems in as long as possible but be sure to pick them out before serving.

One pound of dry beans yields about six cups of cooked. Make them a day ahead so they can cool and you’ll have one more thing done the day you serve them.

It’s not a bad idea to make sure beans ahead of time. Bring them to room temperature before you strain them and be sure to save the liquid for another meal. Take care that the beans are well-salted. Things tend to need a bit more when they’re served room temperature or cold.

Recipe: Flageolet Salad with Lemon, Radishes, and Oven-Roasted Tomatoes
6 cups cooked Rancho Gordo Flageolet beans, cooked (from one pound dried)
1 medium red onion, chopped fine
1 bunch Italian parsley, chopped fine
1 bunch radishes, cleaned and sliced thin with a mandolin or vegetable peeler
12 ounces cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
5 sprigs thyme, leaves stripped from stems
olive oil
1 ½ lemons for juicing
salt
pepper

Heat the oven to 250F. Arrange the tomatoes, cut side up, on an ungreased baking tray. Add the thyme leaves to the tomatoes, along with a little salt. Add the stems and any leftover thyme and then drizzle a light dose of olive oil over the tomatoes. Cook for about an hour until the tomatoes are slightly shriveled but not dry. Allow to cool and then roughly chop them.

Toss the beans with the tomatoes, onion, parsley, and olive oil. Add the juice of one lemon and check for tartness. It should be very lemony. Add more lemon juice as needed.

Salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, add the radish slices and more parsley, if desired. Optionally, you can garnish with a lemon slice.

Pepitas are Everything

I’ve always liked roasted pumpkin seeds, but I’ve mostly enjoyed them when they’ve “stayed in their lane,” with dishes like pipian and Sikil Pak. Lately, I’ve been putting them on everything, and they add gravitas to the most boring dish that is remarkable.

Buy the raw, shelled variety and then briefly pan roast them. A salad is an obvious new home but keep experimenting. I had some wild arugula from my CSA box. I added some cassoulet beans and olive oil and then topped the whole thing off with some pepitas. I couldn’t have been happier.

You need to be judicious. Too many and it’s too much of a good thing. Start with a spoonful and keep adding them until you’re happy. They won’t be the star of the dish but the make the original better than it would have been without them.

Kitchen Object Fetish No.3: Steel Pans from Santa Barbara Forge

I’ve loved my old cast iron skillets but they are a little clumsy to use. They’re heavy and they take a good long time to heat up. I’m not throwing them away, but I have been straying. A few years ago I started buying pieces from Blu Skillet Ironware and I’ve loved the pans. The problem is the company has become too successful and good for them, but to get a pan, you have to enter a lottery. I’m too old.

The handle stays cool to the touch when you cook stovetop.

A friend told me about Santa Barbara Forge and as a fan of Spanish Revival architecture and style, I want them to make everything go for me. The things they produce are just amazing. I have a wish-list ready for them. Now they’re taking their ironwork skills and making hand-forged skillets and their sense of design is replicated in each pan.

Cooking cauliflower “rice” in brown butter.

I love all my pans but I dare say this is now my favorite. I love that you can see the hammer marks and the pan is substantial but not as cumbersome as cast iron. Someone made this. Not a machine in China but someone who loves what they do. And being as superficial as I am, they just look great and that’s important, too.

I’m sorry but there’s not much cooler looking than this pan.

At home, we’ve been searing a lot lately. Take a chop or chicken breast, sear it on all sides and then let it finish in the oven. As the meat rests, deglaze the pan, make a quick sauce and warm up your beans. Add a salad and there’s dinner. You wouldn’t want to do this in a toxic non-stick and the clean up with a traditional metal pan would be a mess. The carbon steel from Santa Barbara Forge is perfect. The pan goes right into the oven after browning the meat on your stovetop. And the deglazing does most of the cleanup. Check out the book Searing Inspiration for more on this technique.

The pan loses its blue color but only looks better than more you use it.

You can get the pans online and if you’re lucky enough to be in Santa Barbara, there’s an open house on 4/13/19 from 12n to 4pm.

The ended up being the cauliflower “rice” with spinach and beans cooked with some pancetta.

For what it’s worth, I’m not really into influencer marketing. I like to support fellow entrepreneurs when they do excellent work. I purchased this pan myself and have loved telling everyone about the company.

Guest Post: Julia’s Preserved Meyer Lemon Relish

The two Meyer lemon trees in our backyard went crazy this winter. My family has been enjoying the harvest in every way that we can, and handing them out to friends by the bushel. (Okay, I don’t actually know what a bushel is, but thought it sounded cool and homestead-y.)

When we are rich in Meyer lemons, I usually make a batch of preserved lemons using a method that a friend shared with me, which came from her Persian family recipe vault. They are super secretive about the recipe—she’s one of my best friends and I had to pry it out of her—so I won’t get into specifics, but the gist is that you dry lemon slices in the sun with a bunch of salt, then you preserve them in olive oil. They are incredible, but a little labor-intensive. And they require sunshine, which we do not have at the moment in rainy Northern California.

So, I decided to try a different method this time, where you let the lemons sit in salt and their own juices until the rind becomes soft and flavorful. I found many recipes for this method, and they all seemed quite similar. I used the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving as a general guide.

My twist on the basic recipe is that I’ve front-loaded the work of chopping the preserved peel every time you want to use it. Once the preserved lemons were ready, I threw the rinds into the food processor and now I have a chunky relish that I can, and do, spoon on nearly anything: a bowl of beans and greens (of course), soups, salads, sauces, marinades, dips. The options are endless! Last week, my husband and I splurged on fresh Dungeness crab and he stirred a spoonful of the relish into the melted butter that we used for dipping. Wow. Just wow.

Note: A little of this stuff goes a long way. When you’re adding it to a dish, start off with less than you think you’ll want. You can always add more if it’s not enough.

Preserved Lemon Relish

12 organic lemons, preferably Meyer lemons (about 3 pounds)
1/2 cup sea salt
One quart jar or 2 pint jars
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil (optional)

Sterilize the jar(s) by boiling in hot water for 10 minutes. Keep hot until ready to use. Wash the lid(s) and band(s) with warm, soapy water.
Juice 6 of the lemons. You should end up with about 1 1/2 cups lemon juice.
Wash the remaining 6 lemons well, then pat dry. Cut a thin slice off the stem end of each lemon. Starting with the cut end, cut each lemon into 4 quarters, leaving the bottom end connected by about half-inch of fruit.
Pour 1 tablespoon of the salt into the bottom of the sterilized jar(s). Hold one lemon over the jar, fan open the lemon quarters, and pour about 1 tablespoon of salt into the middle. Rub in the salt a bit so it adheres. Place the lemon in the jar and repeat with the remaining lemons and salt, packing the lemons tightly into the jar(s). I was able to fit 6 lemons into a quart-size canning jar. Cover with any remaining salt.
Fill the jar(s) with the lemon juice. The juice should reach to about 1/2 inch of the top. Add more if it doesn’t. Add the lid and screw the band on tightly.
Store the jar(s) of lemons in a cool, dark place, or in the refrigerator, for about 2 weeks. Shake the jar(s) every day or two to evenly distribute the salt.
After about 2 weeks, the lemon rinds should be soft and ready to use.
To make the relish, remove and discard the pulp and membrane from each lemon. Place the lemon rinds in a food processor and pour in about half of the liquid left in the jar. Pulse until the rinds are roughly chopped. You can add more liquid if you like, or discard it, or save it for another use. You can also chop the rinds by hand if you don’t have a food processor available.
At this point, I divided the lemon relish among smaller (sterilized) jars so I could share some with friends. You could also return it to the original jar and keep it all for yourself (which I probably should have done). If you like, you can top with olive oil to mellow out the flavor.
Store in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.

Julia Newberry is General Manager of Rancho Gordo and is the co-author of The Rancho Gordo Vegetarian Kitchen (Rancho Gordo Press, 2017)

Experiments with Garbanzos, Spinach and Smoked Paprika

There was about a cup of garbanzos and a cup of their broth sitting in the refrigerator. I was starving. Well, quite hungry. I added some frozen spinach, olive oil and a teaspoon of our new Smoked Spanish Pimenton Paprika. Once heated through, a drizzle of my best olive oil and a scant squeeze of lemon. Holy cow.

There was a moment when I thought to add some rendered pancetta for body and substance but I didn’t feel like dirtying another pan. Hush! I’m confessing. I will say there was no need to worry. The pimenton adds a little smokiness and good olive oil makes most everything substantial. There is a temptation to add even more pimenton but a teaspoon is perfect. I am not the biggest spinach fan so I only had frozen on hand. I don’t dislike it but I prefer it when other people make things with it. I plopped some of the frozen spinach into the simmering garbanzos and waited while they made friends. I reached for the parmesan but thought, so far so good, let’s make this vegan. The lemon was the kicker.

I absolutely loved this.