Experiments in my New World Kitchen and Garden

Purslane

Summer_350

I first encountered purslane in the books of Diana Kennedy. In Spanish, it’s known as verdolagas and often teamed with pork and tomatillos for what must be a tangy stew that I’ve never tried. I found it in my garden when I took up tomato-growing and was pleased that the succulent weed came up so easily by the root. Once I identified it as purslane, I took the weeds to the farmers market where I was thrilled to see I could get $3 a pound for my waste! All of my purslane customers were Mexican or Indian and they were very grateful to see the vegetable for sale.

Purslane is a succulent but it’s soft. You can add it to a salad, but not very often. It’s a very particular taste and I think you’ll get tired of it pretty fast. I like to saute it with onion, garlic and serrano chiles and then use it as a filling for tacos, or if I’m ambitious, tamales. It’s actually delicious like this, not just a healthy weed. Did you know purslane has Omega 3 oils in it? Who needs the mercury in fish?

The purslane is dying back with the cold but there still is plenty here. If you don’t see it, ask a grower at your farmers market if they can bring you some.

Purslane009

Sardines and avocado

I had a similar plate of this in Mexico City this last Spring but Paula Wolfert has a similar version in her book The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen. It works as a light dinner or an appetizer plate. The ingredients are: canned sardines, sliced avocado, large white runner beans in a simple vinaigrette, thin red onion rings, pickled jalapeño peppers and a small stack of mini tortillas. You could also use good tortilla chips or even bread.

If you find a good brand of domestic sardines, let me know. The European sardines always seem to be packed in better oil.

Cascabel chile sauce

This is one of the easiest salsas imaginable. It’s nutty and
has a very mild heat. I’ve been putting it in a squeeze bottle and smothering
my eggs with it. Last night I used it with a little beer to de-glaze a pan
that had turkey cutlets frying in it earlier.

Take about 10 cascabel chiles and remove the stems and seeds,
reserving the seeds. Toast on a hot comal or grill untul gently toasted.
Don’t let them burn or they will be bitter and inedible but if you don’t
toast them they will have a raw, inpleasant taste. Remove the toasted chiles
and place them in a blender jar. Now toast the reserved seeds until brown.
Add these to the jar, along with 2 cloves of garlic, a little salt and about
3/4 cup of water. Blend well, adding more water if needed. Allow to stand
for a few minutes so it can thicken up. You can add a little water if it’s
too thick. It’s that simple.

Dinner Party inspired by Frida and Diego.

I used to be a fairly good host but life took over and I tend to take the easy way out these days. One pot, not too much time, not too much trouble. Maybe you will join me in questioning my sanity. What’s the point of working so hard if not to also enjoy breaking bread (or fresh corn tortillas) with dear friends, new friends and loved ones? Am I working six days a week in order to “enjoy” a Trader Joe’s frozen pizza and declare it “not bad, considering”? I want to see the people I like across my table and I want to feed them the food I love, grown as much as possible from my gardens here in Napa. I will have a dinner party at least monthly. I will re-join the human race!

Inspired by the book Frida’s Fiestas (I hate the title but it’s a great book), I commenced with my new life as a host.

The original menu was this:
Snapper Soup
Corn Pudding
Chiles in Cream
Stuffed Chayotes
Flag Rice
Chiles in Walnut Sauce
Lime Filled with Coconut
Prickly pears with anise
Jamaica flower water
Rice water
Lime water

This was too ambitious with out a staff so my modified plan was this:
Snapper Soup
Stuffed Chayotes
Flag Rice
Chiles Rellenos
Prickly pears with anise
Jamaica flower water

I like the drama of chiles in nogada but the reality is it’s too rich and
the payoff isn’t there for me. My plan was to do simple Chile rellenos
with cheese a tomato broth instead.

On the day of the party, I left work at about 2pm and went to the fishmonger here in Napa (Ospry)
and it was a joke. I asked for snapper and some heads. They don’t have
heads. Today? No. Ever. Ok….. How about bones? All he had was
monkfish. I felt it was going to be too different so I passed. I then
asked for fresh sardines, knowing he wouldn’t have them and wanting to
be a little mean. I looked around, confused, as if
I were in a butcher shop. I ended up boiling some cactus for a dish
that was never made and used the boiling water instead of tap water for
the soup. I imagine the viscosity added a little something but I don’t
know.

The recipe calls for 6 serranos. I used 3-4 and it was plenty hot.

The rest of the shopping I did at Vallergas, our great market here in Napa.
They had pretty good poblanos, chayotes and lots of key limes. I bought
a chicken as well.With the chicken, I decided to dump the chile
rellenos and make up a chicken dish. The meal was almost nothing like
the one in the book.

I just loved spending the rest of the afternoon cooking with no email, no TV, no radio and just me and the
food. I had to really think things out as I was pretty rusty beyond a
one-dish meal for myself or something like tacos for the kids. But it
was a gas.

Everything was going as planned. Joan arrived on time and everyone else was late so I sent her out to the beanfield to collect some bean flowers (Flor de frijol)
from the Black runner beans that were blossoming but not producing many
pods. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them but a meal at
Rancho Gordo without some form of beans was unthinkable.

So here’s the meal:
Shots of tequila and mezcal and cold beers with a few little appetizers like
olives, radishes and some pumpkins seeds that I’d toasted on the comal
with a little oil and garlic clove.

The bean flowers become gorditas with chorizo from Fatted Calf. The flowers have a nutty sprout taste and I am queer for them. This was last minute inspiration and I wish the photos did the dish justice.

The snapper soup was easy enough. Snapper plus aromatics sauteed in lard. Oink and splash!

For the main course, I ended up roasting the poblano chiles, then peeling
them, then blending them with about a cup of crema Mexicana and a cup
of the chicken’s poaching liquid. I then sauteed some onions and
garlic, added the sauce and then gently reheated the chicken pieces.
This was all done in a black ceramic chamba pot.

The recipe for chayote squash sounded less than appealing to me but I
thought I’d give it a go. I don’t like raisins and olives together but
I am a fool. This was delicious and wasn’t anything like I imagined.

So the meal was fun, the crowd was appreciative and I learned a lot of new
things. For dessert, from the book, I doused some sliced prickly pears
from my cactus with Sambuca Romano and chilled. Wow! Another surprise.
The two flavors become a third.

Finally, Joan was nice enough to bring some cheeses to go with the pears that
have been falling off our tree for about a week. Just a perfect way to
end a good evening.

I forgot to make the rice and the agua fresca. I quickly heated up some tortillas and no one was the wiser.

Chilaquiles with poached eggs

Sunday mornings I normally feel pretty out of it after doing the farmers
market in San Francisco on Saturdays. A fellow vendor described it as
“market hangover” and I know exactly what she means. Once I spent the
whole day in bed watching bad TV and the longer I did the less I could
move. And the worse I felt. Good food is a motivator to get out of bed.
This morning I made chilaquiles.

Early this week my friend Grant was over to film some cooking demos for the website
so I had some extra chile sauce made from anchos and guajillos.

Basic Chile Sauce
Clean and the toast on a hot dry skillet 4 ancho chiles and 2 guajillos. Soak
in warm water for about 20 minutes and then place the chiles in a
blender with enough of the soaking liquid to keep the blades moving.
Add a small chopped onion, Mexican oregano and some garlic. Blend well
and the fry in some fat for 5 minutes. Thin with chicken stock or water
and cook another 15 minutes or so. Add salt as needed and a touch of
sugar oif the sauce is bitter.

For the chilaquiles, I started by poaching 2 eggs in a the chile sauce.

I removed the eggs with a slotted spoon and set them aside. I then added
the tortilla chips and cooked them until they were soft and pliable.

On a plate, I added the tortilla pieces and grated cotija cheese, added
the poached eggs and then drizzled the whole thing with a little crema
Mexicana. Some cilantro for green

Excellent Sunday morning fare. I later discovered I had an avocado. Damn.

Dealing with prickly pears

My cactus has gone nuts this year and I have dozens and dozens of prickly
pears and a constant stream of paddles. I’m thinking of selling the
pears at market but how do you clean them?

After a little web research, it seems that a culinary torch works best. I had pretty good luck with a burner from my range.

One of the sites suggested water afterwards and the stinging in my hands makes me think this is right.

But whatever the pain, it’s worth it. You can eat the tuna, seeds and all, and it’s a great snack.
You can also blend it with water, a little sugar and some lime for an agua fresca.

Vacacita beans

I bought about a pound of beans called Vacacita in Mexico City this
spring.

I planted them very late here in Napa (July 1) but they came up
by the 8th.

The plants are as healthy as can be and there are some white blossoms but
so far no beans. I don’t think they’re going to produce. I have some
back up seed for next year when hopefully I can start earlier. The
few flowers will be eaten so it’s not a total wash.

Tacos from chiles, nopales and beans

Leftovers met and became tacos. Red Nightfall beans with some Ancho chile sauce and previously cooked nopales. Hand pressed tortillas and a dash of crema. Is cream fattening? Just asking.

Leftover chile sauce

I had lots of chile sauce leftover and I’m getting obsessive with the technique of
poaching eggs in chile sauce, I did it again for breakfast. I thinned
out the chile sauce with chicken stock but I’m beginning to suspect
water would have been fine. I added some previously cooked nopales
(cactus paddles) and when the brew was simmering, I gently cracked two
eggs into the pan.

I’m liking this technique more and more. I also liked the fully cooked
cactus. There was some tooth to it but it is soft and I think better a
little less al dente.

Now my question is: Is this just huevos ahogadas?

Bean flowers

People don’t tend to know how beautiful bean flowers are. Let’s put an end to that right now!

These were the last to germinate but the first to bloom. They are a
Tarahumara Tekomari runner bean (which is kind of funny as they are
known for being such good runners themselves.)

These are Black runner beans. So far I haven’t seen much of a yield and now
that the rain is starting I think it’s really time to explore more
cooking with bean flowers.

This is a red bean called Taos. It was a healthy plant all sumnmer and we
got a good yield from it. The pods and beans are both red but the
flowers are white.