On the Road – Page 21 – Experiments in my New World Kitchen and Garden

Molletes for Breakfast

I’m not crazy for sweet breakfasts in general and in Mexico, I have to admit, I don’t care much for their pastries. I don’t despise them, but knowing there’s something else savory available, I tend to go for that.

While my traveling companions are enjoying perfectly nice pancakes or sweet breads, I like to go for the molletes. These are generally white rolls with some of the filling scooped out to make way for a slather of refried beans. They’re then topped with cheese and broiled until the cheese is bubbling. Of course, like most good things in New Spain, they’re served with a searing salsa guaranteed to wake you up. You are now prepared for the day.

Next: Molletes a la Rancho Gordo

Beef Tacos in Jalisco

This last spring, I was visiting my friends Maria and Isidro at their home in Jalisco, Mexico. They were great hosts and it was really different than visits to their home here in Napa.

Maria loves to cook and talk about food. Everyday, the tortilla man came by with a package of fresh tortillas and she laughed at how fast they seemed to go with me visiting. Isidro likes to forage and trade fruit, cactus paddles and citrus and Maria incorporates them into the meals. They tended to eat a lot of vegetables, chicken and some beef but no pork. On the table at every meal was her salsa made from de Arbol chiles and it was memorably hot.

I talk a lot about tacos and on some level, think almost anything fits on a warm tortilla, but the traditional dishes are there for a reason and Maria likes to make these beef tacos. It was casual but hardly haphazard.

Each tortilla had a scoop of ground beef, some coleslaw, a few beans and salsa. The slaw was the perfect counterpoint to the hot salsa and the beans and beef gave the tacos body. Cold beers were always nearby for obvious reasons.

Rancho Gordo at Hearth

I have very specific ideas about how beans should be cooked and served and nothing delights me more than being proved wrong. Or at least surprised.

This glorious plate is roasted sturgeon, Rancho Gordo beans, bacon, smoked garlic and sage, as enjoyed by one of my regular blog destinations, The Spamwise Chronicles. It’s a dish I wouldn’t have come up with in a million years and it looks beyond delicious.

Hearth is located at 403 East 12th Street in the East Village and it’s somewhat of an institution among my online friends. I’m tickled that my beans are on the summer menu.

Photo: The Spamwise Chronicles

Bean Fields of Caifornia

Last week I met a new farmer just outside of the delta who is interested in growing for Rancho Gordo.

It’s kind of funny because at my trial gardens in Napa, I have lovely rows of beans and redwoods and some flowers but the reality of commercial bean growing is so much different. You need acreage and machines and it’s not all that glamorous, by most standards, yet I get so excited about the possibility of another acre in California going to beans.

This particular farm is in just outside of Walnut Grove and is certified organic. For you localvores, it’s about 60 miles from Napa and 75 miles to San Francisco. In addition to one of the cranberry beans, this farm will grow organic, non-GMO starch corn for pozole/posole, hominy and nixtamalized masa for tortillas and tamales.

Carneros Heritage Fest: Where Sonoma and Napa Meet

I took a rare Saturday off on June 2nd to attend and be a "celebrity" judge at the 2nd Annual Carneros Heritage Fest. What a gas!

The party, hosted by the Carneros Wine Alliance, is held at the Donum Estate in the Carneros Valley, a gorgeous, windy spot where Napa meets Sonoma.

Chef Marc Rasic, who runs Google’s Euro restaurant, had grilled lamb along with lamb burgers, plus Rancho Gordo scarlet runner beans, salads and more. The area wineries all poured their best wines and music was provided by the Back Burner Blues Band, featuring local favorite Joey Altman on guitar.

The food was great and wine were great but another part of the event was watching the trained border collies herd goats in dead silence.

Their trainers were around and happy to answer all our ignorant questions. What was amazing is seeing the dogs come back just beat and tired but constantly watching the goats and their trainers to see if they’d have another chance to go back out.

I go to a lot of "wine country events" and they range from bad Great Gatsby-inspired snoozefests to pedestrian to actually fun. The really good ones are rare and you sometimes feel like you’re living in a white wine commercial. This is one of the good ones! The mood was relaxed, the food was good and the wine was delicious.

As an added bonus, I got to be one of six judges for a lamb cook-off between Clint Cook (Mac Hotel), Preston Dishman (The General’s Daughter), Janine Falvo (The Lodge at Sonoma), Graham Jones (Regusci Winery) and Matt Mermod (Bleaux Mognolia). The dishes were all great and being a judge isn’t easy. My fellow judges included Joey Altman (Food TV/Bay Cafe), Chris Blanchard (REDD), Kimball Jones (The Carneros Inn), Bill Niman (Niman Ranch), and Marc Rasic (Euro at Google).

All in all, a perfect day, except for poor Joan, who had to do the market all by herself.

Ayacote Beans from Cholula

Two of my favorite friends, Sharon Peters and Connie Green, were traveling through Mexico and were kind enough to keep their eyes peeled for interesting beans for the Rancho Gordo trial gardens.

One of the prettiest is this taupe colored runner bean (ayacote in Mexico) that is quite big. They found it in a market in Cholula.

As usual, I took one cup of the beans, soaked them and then cooked them with onion and garlic that had been sauteed in olive oil. Even soaked, they took a long time to cook but they were pretty nice. A distinct potato texture and thick skin.

Ayacotes are often served with chile sauce so after they were cooked and salted, I added a sauce I’d made earlier from ancho and New Mexican red chiles.

I think they’re good but perhaps not so distinct that we’d grow them out. I have a dozen other runner beans to test.

Sangrita

Drinking well can be such a bother. I like a strong drink now and again but I also like to linger over a drink and not get too drunk. On my last trip to Mexico I discovered how great a shot and a sangrita can be. The shot is invariably tequila and the sangrita is a chaser that can be a spicy tomato mixture or a sweet and spicy citrus drink. There seems to be as many versions as there are bars. I liked almost all of them except for the commercial version which was cloying in its sweetness.

I’ve never made it, and obviously that’s the next step. If you have a recipe I should try, please pass it on and I’ll do the same.

A Taste of Tamales by the Bay

As I mentioned earlier, we participated in a really fun event called A Taste of Tamales by the Bay. Joan and I went more to help a good cause but ended up having a great time and meeting some wonderful people. And the tamales were really fine.

There were tamales in all styles, from the American Southwest to the Yucatan. I particularly loved these bean filled tamales from El Salvador made by the very vivacious Estrellita of Estrellita’s Snacks. Tamales in El Salvador are moister than many of the Mexican ones and Estrellita’s were wrapped in banana leaves.

The whole event was worth it to eat the mole tamales from the famous Huarache Loco, owned by
Veronica Salazar. I love mole as much as I love Frida Kahlo and chipotle chiles but all of these things are being overdone and could use a rest. This tamal was like eating mole for the first time. Magnificent and memorable!

The event went from noon until 4pm and also included Ceja Vineyards and some great wines, 10 Speed Press and a margarita competition. I was lucky enough to be next to the renowned Mateo Granados who is really making his mark in the North Bay with his Yucatecan cuisine. The tamales are moister and softer but the flavors are bolder.

Who made the best tamal? It’s subjective and irrelevant but the prizes went to Mateo Granados and
Veronica Salazar. They both deserved a prize but I didn’t eat anything that wasn’t wonderful the entire day. Here’s a shot of Veronica and Mateo receiving their prizes from judge Augustin Gaytan, a local teacher specializing in Mexican food, often at Ramekins in Sonoma.

I’d encourage you to go to the Benchmark press website and sign up for their newsletter so that you can plan to attend next year. And to learn more about the group, which describes itself as a training and performance development
organization dedicated to increasing the quality and quantity of legal
services to low-income communities.

Cooking Beans for 200

Rancho Gordo agreed to join the Benchmark Institute’s event, A Taste of Tamales by the Bay, and that meant beans for at least 200 people. I had no idea how much to make so I guessed 15 pounds of dry beans. Now, how to make them? I could have done them all in my big industrial roaster/oven thing that looks like a slowcooker from the 1940s but 15 pounds wouldn’t fit in all at once. I eneded up cooking 4 clay pots and one slowcooker batch, thinking the clay really does add something and if I mixed them all up in the end I’d have a pretty great bean dish.

I decided to soak them for three hours and it was fun watching the beans rise and the water level go down. My Brita filter was working overtime.

The different pots all came to a boil at different times but they pretty much agreed among themselves to have the Rio Zape beans fully cooked in about 90 minutes. And they really were great. I can’t help but think that the clay helps the flavor and texture. The crockpot batch had less flavor and a firmer texture but there is no evaporation so it’s hard to know if it’s clay or the open lid that made the other beans so superior.

If you’re curious, 15 pounds ended up yielding 8 gallons of cooked beans, which was about twice as much as we needed.

The event itself was great (I’ll report more on it later) and happily the beans were a big hit.

Breakfast of Champions

I was visiting my friends Maria and Isidro in their little village called Tepehuaje, right on the Lago Chapala and the first morning they asked if I wanted to join them for a pajarete. I had no idea what they were talking about but I wanted to be a good guest. We drove to a small glen where we were greeted by a lot of their friends. About 20 cows were eating and being milked. The women all had little kits with mugs and mysterious bottles. Everyone waited and gossiped but I still wasn’t clear on the concept.

At one point, the man tending the cows gestured to Isidro. Isidro grabbed the mugs from Maria and held them while she dutifully placed a spoonful of instant coffee, a spoonful of sugar and a shot of tequila in each mug. Then Isidro when over to the cow and then finally it dawned on me why everyone was so happy and why my friends start out the day this way. The drink is warm and frothy and I don’t think you need much of an imagination to guess how good it was or what I did for breakfast everyday while I stayed with them.

Aside from the drink, it was a chance for all the neighbors to get together and swap stories. It wasn’t too much different than a café. Only this one smelled like cow turds and there was no attitude or tip jar.