I spoke with my friends about making a xoconostle salsa and according to them, I got most of it right except when it came to the skins.
Apparently at least in Hidalgo, they also incorporate the skins into the salsa when they are pounding it with the molcajete. They tactfully said my version would be good but it would be a little odd not to incorporate the roasted skins as well. Another reason to slowly roast and rotate and not allow them to burn.
Back to the Mexican grocery store!
I used to make this a lot when I first had chickens and for no reason it's fallen out of favor.
1-2-3 and it's done. The tomato sauce is 14 ounces or so (about half of a large can) of whole peeled tomatoes. Obviously at the end of summer I'd be using good tomatoes from the garden or farmers market. Add the tomatoes and some of the liquid to a blender jar and then add 2 serrano chiles, one half a white onion, a very small bunch of cilantro and salt. Blend well and then "fry" the sauce in a saucepan with a spoonful of olive oil. Cook for about 10 minutes. You may need to add a little water. It's delicious and you can use leftover sauce for chile relleno or entomatados, which are like enchiladas but they use tomatoes instead of chiles as the base of the sauce.
My friends in Mexico have made their careers from xoconostle at Xoxoc. I've always liked them but they seemed so exotic and destined for trips to Mexico that I've ignored them. Then one fine day a friend brought some into our store in Napa. He'd bought them at the local Mexican grocery store! It was like a miracle. And the good news is they keep coming! Unlike regular prickly pears, or tunas, these sour prickly pears last for months when kept cool. I see them all the time now in Mexican stores and I've become very framilair with them.
Most recipes call for a gentle, long roasting. I roast mine on a clay comal, carefully rolling them around until they're brown and roasted. I warn you, the smell is wonderful.
Keep dry roasting them until they become almost soft. It's as if they've given up. Try not to burn them as it makes harvesting their flesh that much harder.
After roasting and cooling, I slice them in half. You can see that the seeds are in the center and easy to scoop out as opposed to regular tunas. Their seeds are dispersed throughout the fruit and in general, you just eat them instead of fighting to get rid of them. They're like little rocks and it's weird but you do get used to it soon.
This weekend I made an omelet filled with this simple goat cheese filling.
Roasted pine nuts, Mexican oregano and goat cheese. Ta-da! It was great.
From French Tarbais seed, we present Classic Cassoulet beans.
It's been a long time coming but here they are. We won't call them Tarbais because they weren't grown in Tarbes, France but we will declare them exquisite and ideal for a winter's cassoulet.
I have many British friends who can go nostalgically on and on about beans on toast. I think you take some canned beans and pour them over buttered white bread. I'm sure if you have it enough times, it may be good.
I pan-toasted a piece of glorious Della Fattoria bread, lightly buttered it and gently piled on Red Nightfall beans, which are soon to make their magical reappearance at Rancho Gordo. The truth is any good bean will do, especially if it's a leftover and you whip up this dish quickly. So after the bread and warmed beans, I drizzled my very best expensive olive oil over them. What a treat! And with homemade beans, the bean broth will be soaked up by the bread. With canned beans, you need to rinse them to get all the nasty muck off of them. Canned beans! What an idea.
I came across the ever lovely Heidi Swanson’s post about a kale and rice bowl and thought it sounded very smart. And inspiring. So I made up my own.
While the rice cooked (brown, natch!), I sauteed some onion and garlic in a clay cazuela and when they were translucent, I threw in a cleaned, trimmed, wet bunch of dinosaur kale. Then I added about a cup of white bean leftovers, which were almost a puree as they were the very bottom of the batch. This cooked down and proved to be a fine match for the rice. A great weeknight meal.
Chef Jose Garces has a nice, newish book out called The Latin Road Home. It follows his journey through several Latin American countries and features recipes that mean something to him. It’s very personal and even though I’ve cooked very little from it, I love leafing through the recipes and planning a leap from my beloved Mexican food.
This simple salad is featured and I think it would be a good way to use up extra pozole if you have it. I also think some leftover beans would beat the peas as a legume. Obviously there’s a lot of room for experimentation.
Warm Hominy Salad
SERVES 4
Kosher salt
2 lb fresh English peas, shelled
2 cups cooked hominy, drained and rinsed
1 jumbo carrot, peeled and finely diced
½ red onion, finely diced
1 Tbsp minced fresh cilantro
2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced
6 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice (about 2 limes)
TO COOK THE HOMINY: Soak overnight and change the water, covering the grain by at least two inches. Bring to a rapid boil and then reduce heat to maintain a gentle simmer. The hominy is ready when it “explodes” like popcorn or is soft while still maintaining some texture. Drain.
TO PREPARE THE PEAS, bring a saucepan of generously salted water to a boil and prepare an ice bath in a large bowl. Cook the peas in the boiling water just until tender, 2 to 3 minutes. Drain and immediately transfer them to the ice bath to cool. Drain and set aside.
Combine the peas, hominy, carrot, onion, and cilantro in a large bowl and mix well. Stir in the garlic, oil, and lime juice and season to taste with salt. Cover and chill thoroughly before serving.
I was going to make a million dollars on this one. Why not take some of our various prodicts, combine them into a "superfood" breakfast cereal and market it? Adding chia seeds to amaranth and quinoa would be like taking all the "superfood" trends and making a super breakfast food. New studies on xoconostle show serious help in fighting diabetes and heart disease so adding them seemed like a natural. It was all too easy. Until one of my kids tasted it.
"Yuck. Fowl. I don't know what to think of it really. I do not like it." Nico is eleven and I really do respect his taste. He'll try anything and try and like challenging things. This was not one of his favorites.
I found it tolerable, if not fine. It's not pancakes or chilaquiles but for a weekday morning breakfast, I wouldn't complain. Well, let's leave at it's not for everybody. I'll continue eating it and you can, too but you'll have to blend it yourself. Not much of a chore, but I won't be making that million dollars just yet.
Inner Hippie Love Child Breakfast Mix
1/3 cup golden quinoa
1/3 cup amaranth
1/4 cup piloncillo
1/4 cup chia seeds
1/4 dried sweet xocoostle, cut up into small bites
salt
Blend all the ingredients together. If you have superior taste like me, you can double the recipe to have on hand, but you may want to try it once before committing. The ratio of cereal to water is 1:3 so for every part cereal, you want three waters. 1/4 cup dry cereal would need 3/4 cup of water. Mix together and bring to a full boil. Once boiling, reduce heat and stir occasionally for 10 minutes. Cover and remove from heat. (This is when I'd go take a shower.) Stir.
The pieces of xoconostle become soft and pleasantly sour. The amaranth still has that weird but delightful bite. The chia gets lost and the quinoa is still bitter, which may be what Nico was responding to. You can use less piloncillo but I wouldn't. It's breakfast and you're starting a new day. Knock yourself out with a small amount of sweetness.
After a rest, we're back in the Bay Area with our heirloom corn tortillas. We're having them made in nearby Santa Rosa using our corn grown from heirloom Mexican stock (from Jalisco) and from corn we're importing as part of the Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc Project. We only produce them on Thursdays at this point but we're hoping to expand to twice weekly very soon.
I think one of the best ways to enjoy a tortilla is with a quesadilla. I like them best simple and pan-grilled with no oil or fat.
I made some this last weekend with simple button mushrooms and good olive oil. If I'd had fresh epazote, I would have added it.
You can add more cheese, obviously, but I think the tortilla should be the star.
Our tortillas are available at our store here in Napa, on Thursday afternoons, while supply lasts. We nornally sell out by the weekend. Also in Napa we're at the Fatted Calf. In San Francisco, we're at the Fatted Calf, Bi-Rite Market and Bryan's Meat. In Marin, check the Mill Valley Market and Comforts.