Mornings here are cold. It’s a fact. Cold mornings deserve Midnight black beans and bacon for breakfast, don’t you think?
Is that a plop of sour cream in there? Good idea.
Now the day can begin.
Category: Ingredient Spotlight
Taking Vanilla Ice Cream to the “Next Level”
As I typed “next level” I cringed a little. It’s a phrase that’s turning into a cliche, isn’t it? Oh well, I’m not above anything so I think I’ll use it here.
What are you looking at is some premium vanilla ice cream and a Milano cookie (chosen by my son Nico. I think would have done the Bordeaux cookies instead.) The twist is I followed the lead of the pastry chef at Meadwood Resort here in Napa Valley and made a sauce of about 1 part piloncillo and 2 parts plantain vinegar. It sounds weird but think of balsamic vinegar on strawberries. It’s odd but it works.
Of course, our piloncillo is made using no sulpher and comes in a more than handy granular form. We distribute the plantain vinegar from Veracruz and it’s become a kitchen staple for a lot of you. I think adding dessert to the list makes it essential.
Breakfast at Home
Back home from Chicago, I’m greeted with a completely different kind of cold. Not as extreme and easily tamed by a good breakfast, I love traveling but I’m happy to be home.
These are our Midnight black beans, cooked in an evening without soaking, in a clay pot. This morning I heated them up with a healthy blob of sour cream and enjoyed them with a blue corn tortilla. I may be nuts but I think the blue corn torillas have an almost clove-like flavor. Not overwhelming but a perfect match to the black beans.
Blue Corn Tortilla Tacos with Potatoes and Chorizo
Last Saturday, we gave La Palma some of our heirloom blue corn from Quetretero to make tortillas. This is all part of our Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc Project where we source heirloom beans and corn from indigenous farmers in Mexico and the results have been delicious.
The flavor was good but the texture was out of this world. The blue corn seems to melt in your mouth. I quickly boiled up some potatoes and while they were cooking, heated up some delicious chorizo from the Fatted Calf. I tossed them together and then added some hot tepin chile powder I had on hand and had a swell dinner. You might think the potatoes and tortillas would be to much starch but the potatoes are creamy and the whole mess is one indulgent love fest.
Wild Rice Salad with Xoconostle and Pine Nuts
This recipe was in our January newsletter. You can sign up for it using the form on the left, if you’d like. This salad was a huge hit and I keep getting asked for copies, so here you are.
You may be surprised but I read Everyday Food each month. It’s not haute cuisine but it’s a great source for inspiration when you are faced with the “What to cook for dinner” dilemma. They recently had a Wild Rice with Dried Fruit and Nuts side dish and I decided to noodle around with the recipe and came up with the following. I thought it was delicious and my kids ate it all with no prompting. i think it would make a fine stuffing for poblano or bell peppers. Everyday Food notes the original goes well as a side dish with roasted chicken, turkey, or braised pork shoulder but I think it stands on its own.
Ingredients
Serves 4 to 6.
4 scallions
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 1/4 cup Rancho Gordo wild rice
2 tablespoons Stivalet Banana Vinegar
1/4 cup Xoxoc sweet dried xoconostle
1/4 cup Xoxoc sweet dehydrated xoconostle
1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted
1.Thinly slice scallions, separating white and green parts. In a medium saucepan, heat olive oil over medium-high. Add scallion whites and cook, stirring often, until soft, 3 minutes; season with salt and pepper. Add wild rice and 2 cups of water and bring to a rapid boil. Reduce heat to a bare simmer, cover and let cook for an hour.
2. Meanwhile, cut up the dried xoconostle pieces into small bite-sized pieces. Kitchen scissors are idea. Then, in a small saucepan, combine vinegar, dried xoconostle, and 2 tablespoons water. Bring to a boil over medium-high. Reduce to a simmer and cook until vinegar is almost absorbed, 3 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and add rice mixture, scallion greens, and whole pine nuts. Stir well to combine and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Alubia Blanca
Have you tried these yet? They’re part of the Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc Project and they’re that rare bean that makes you sit up and take notice the minute you taste them.
Even though they come from Mexico, when cooked with mirepoix and olive oil, you would swear you’re in Tuscany. You can replace any small white bean and come out a winner. I think they’re even better than the elusuve Zolfino bean. Try a classic fagioli all’uccelletto and I think you’ll be hooked, too.
Huauzontle for Breakfast
Last week I was in Mexico for a party and i was lucky enough to be a guest at the ex-hacienda that Yunuen and Gabriel, my partners at Xoxoc, live in. It's in the heart of Hidalgo and this time of year, it's a bit chilly and pretty much stays that way throughout the day, but it is winter, so you kind of have to get over it, if you know what I mean.
The pay off for the cold is that it's Christmas and Christmas can be very nice!
The other guests were two wonderful Mayan cooks from Merida who market their spice and recado paste line as Semiilas de Dioses. They take the hard to find chiles and spices and toast them just so and then package them so all we have to do is dillute them. It's all very clever and delicious! I'll have more on them later.
We all met in the morning for breakfast. I was expecting pan dulces (sweet breads) and maybe eggs but Antonio, Gabriel's brother, had made an elaborate casserole of huauzontle, a weird edible thing related to quinoa but you eat the plant instead of the seed. I've always seen it battered and fried so it was fun to try it in this rich tomato sauce.
The stems are very woody and on some of them you have to place the whoe thing in your mouth and grab the good stuff with your teeth as you pull out the empty stem. It was a great dish and you know how it was made, I'd appreciate your sharing it with us. I was too busy drinking coffee and trying to warm up to see how Antonio made it.
With wild greens, heirloom beans and a handmade tortilla, it was a pretty swell breakfast.
One of the Reasons I Love Napa
There are dozens of reasons why I love living in Napa, almost none of them involving wine. My fellow Napans make great neighbors and when there's a call for a party, you know the food is going to be incredible.
In other communities, I often hear about how beans are a winter food. "It's bean weather!" they say as they fight off the chills. Napa now joins India and Mexico in knowing that there is no such thing as a bean season, or that it's always bean weather.
A recent party illustrates my point. We had barbecue of all sorts, vegetables, tortillas, beer and of course, two types of beans. I feel at home among my people!
Mermalada de Xoconostle
The sour prickly pear known as xoconostle continues to take over the world as we know it with this new marmalade-style jam from my business partners (and good friends) at Xoxoc.
Made from the fruit of the xoconostle and sugar (nada mas!), the jam is sour, sweet and yet never bitter. It has a vaguely tropical taste, which is odd for a desert plant, but I think it ‘s easy to agree that it’s delicious and different.
We sell the jam here in our store in Napa and of course online for shipping anywhere in the United States.
Other blog entries on xoconostle:
A Luncheon to Remember
Xoconostle
Sour Prickly Pears in Napa
Snowcap Beans
Finally, after several attempts, we have a good crop of the rather famous Snowcap bean. Not a lot, but enough to save some seed and offer the extra here. They’re one of the prettiest beans of all, I must say!
They look like cranberry beans dipped in white chocolate! They’re big and bold and when cooked, taste not unlike potatoes, but the texture is silky smooth. Odd and unusual!
Snowcaps at the Rancho Gordo site.
All of the pots are from BRAM Cookware in Sonoma, by the by.