Mexican Regional – Page 2

Carne de res con col – Chiapan Beef & Cabbage

Combining a cheap cut of beef with cabbage might seem like peasant food, and in many places, it is just that. Relegating it as such, however, absolutely diminishes the delightful flavors and textures such a dish provides. It is, in fact, worthy of many experiments. Carne de res con col, from the Mexican state of Chiapas, is a stellar example.

I came across this recipe years ago, through Diana Kennedy’s Essential Cuisines of Mexico. Therein she describes eating this one morning in the market in Tapachula, Chiapas, a city way down in the southwest corner of the state. One might raise an eyebrow at eating carne de res con col for breakfast, but I wouldn’t – on a fresh tortilla, this is heaven at any time of day.

Such a dish makes perfect sense in a Chiapas market. More than half its people work in agriculture, with cacao and coffee the heavy hitters – Chiapas is the second largest cacao producer, and roughly 60% of Mexico’s coffee comes from there.

Chiapan cuisine focuses more on the indigenous than many Mexican states do, with chiles, cacao, beans, avocados and foraged plants, herbs, and mushrooms at the fore. While game makes up a solid part of a rural Chiapan diet, Spanish influence is felt in larger towns and cities. There, beef, pork, and chicken are found, with beef far and away the most popular.

Employing cabbage as a major note in a dish isn’t unique, or odd at all for that matter. Cabbage happens to be quite good for us – it’s rich in vitamins C, most of the important B’s, A, K, as well as several trace minerals and omega 3 fatty acids.

It’s also delicious, and there’s a lovely variety to choose from. There’s the ubiquitous red and green, savoy, napa, bok choy, and of course, Brussels sprouts, just for starters. In Spanish, it’s called Col or Repollo, and it’s grown and eaten widely. Just like New England boiled dinner, bubble and squeak, lions head, or southern smothered cabbage, dishes combining cabbage and meat are savored worldwide.

In Mexican regional cooking, cabbage comes into play for everything from tacos to stew, and soup to cabbage rolls. I love carne de res con col because cabbage plays a major role, and it really delivers.

The name translates as beef with cabbage, giving away almost nothing while suggesting quite a bit. Make it once and you’ll get hooked. Change nothing but the cabbage and it’ll be a whole new thing. You can use any cut of beef you like, so it’s perfect for leftovers. I highly recommend ground meat – it integrates best.

Chiapan cuisine does not use as heavy a hand with chiles as most other Mexican regions do – though that’s not to say that they don’t like heat – they do. Their signature chile is the chile de siete caldos, the seven broth chile, implying that one of those bad boys has the horsepower to ignite seven batches of whatever.

Chiapan seasoning tends toward warmer, sweeter notes, like cinnamon, pineapple, raisins, pears, pumpkin seeds common in dishes and sauces. There’s German influence there too, in the beer and the coffee, and in some local cured meats – which opens another interesting avenue of recipe development.

This version is what I do, after Diana Kennedy’s introduction, and a subsequent take on the dish by Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo, wherein he introduced beans, (of course he did!) You can and should make a version to call your own.

This is a large batch, meant to produce ample leftovers. While the cabbage won’t be crisp the next day, it will still lend itself wonderfully to a sauced rice dish, soup, stew, or chimi’s. You can halve this without changing ratios if you prefer.

If you use something other than ground beef, dice it so it will cook evenly with the other ingredients.

I like white beans in mine for their ability to soak up flavors, but here again, a change will bring something new altogether – Blacks or pintos or anything from Rancho Gordo would be great.

A deep skillet is a great cooking vessel for this – Kennedy didn’t say what the version she had was cooked in, but if I had to guess, I’d give a clay comal over charcoal the nod. As you’ll see from my image, a wok works great as well. Just make sure whatever you use is large enough to allow you to stir freely, and that the ingredients aren’t crowded – the dish counts on the liquids being evenly distributed and absorbed.

Finally, to really nail the dish, you want to make a paste of the garlic, salt, and peppercorns. The proper tools for this are a molcajete and tejolote, the traditional Mexican stone mortar and pestle – as with those who swear that proper guacamole requires these, I’d tell you this one does too.

Urban Carne de Res con Col

1 1/2 Pounds Beef

1 head Cabbage

2 Roma Tomatoes

1 small sweet Onion

2 Hatch or Anaheim Chiles

1 Cup cooked Beans

4-6 fat cloves fresh Garlic

3/4 Cup Stock (beef, chicken or veggie are all fine)

2 Tablespoons Avocado Oil

1/2 Cup fresh Celery Leaf (original recipe uses cilantro, which is wonderful too)

8 Black Peppercorns

2 teaspoons Salt

Trim and peel garlic.

If you don’t have a molcajete, combine salt and peppercorns in a spice blender, and grind to a powder. Crush, then mince the garlic, and combine all three ingredients in a small bowl.

If you have the molcajete, add garlic, salt, and peppercorns and process into a paste.

Add the spice paste to your beef.

Swirl 2 tablespoons of stock around in your molcajete (or bowl) to loosen up anything left in there, then add that to the meat mixture.

Massage the mix well by hand to fully incorporate, then set aside to marry while you prep everything else.

End trim and dice tomatoes.

Trim, peel and dice onion – you want a packed 1/2 cup.

Trim and dice chiles.

Chiffonade celery leaf or cilantro.

In a heavy skillet over medium heat, add the oil and allow to heat through.

Add onion and chiles, a pinch of salt and a couple twists of pepper. Sauté until the onion turns translucent, about 2 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, stir to incorporate, and continue sautéing until the tomato juice is largely absorbed, about 2 minutes.

Turn heat up to medium high, and add the beef. Stir well to incorporate and sauté until most of the raw red color is cooked out.

Add the cabbage, beans, and celery leaf or cilantro and stir to incorporate and heat through a bit, about 1-2 minutes.

Add the stock, stir to incorporate, and reduce heat to medium low.

Simmer until the mixture is fully combined and coated, moist but not wet, about 8-10 minutes.

Serve with fresh tortillas, and whatever else you like, but you won’t need much of anything else except cervesa frio.

Chile Relleno Casserole for Christy

Tribal Sister and avid follower Christy sent me this a while back –

Can you enlighten me about ratios/proportions in a dish I make? I frequently make a chile rellenos casserole because I have lots of poblanos and it’s an easy dish that can be spicey or mild. Every time I look at various recipes I can never decide what I should do about ratios in the egg-milk part. Basically, it’s a layer of poblano, topped with a protein, cheese and then covered with a mix of eggs, milk, and flour. Sometimes baking powder is added and usually additional cheese is added to the mixture before pouring over. I am looking for that sweet spot where it’s not too eggy–not a quiche or frittata–but not too watery. The poblanos need to shine through. Maybe you can explain the dynamics of this to me so I can fix some proportions in my mind – an inquiring mind wishes to know!

Chris further related that the ratios she’d found varied from 1/2 cups to 2 cup of milk, anywhere from 2 to 8 eggs, and 2 tablespoons to 1/2 cup of flour – She happens to be a Phd Archeologist and a hell of a fine cook, so no wonder that wild a statistical swing rocked her boat a bit!

I gave her letter another read, and doing so revealed more problems with this potential recipe than just the egg/milk ratio. I’ve made plenty of rellenos in several regional styles, but had never tackled relleno casserole, so naturally, I was hooked. What followed was an interesting lesson in recipe development that I thought would be fun to share here.

The exercise begins with the problem Chris wants fixed – 1. what ratio of egg/milk/flour will yield a relleno casserole that most closely duplicates a solo relleno, and 2. One that’s not too watery, and 3. one that lets the chile be foremost in the taste profile.

Next comes the further issues I identified in her notes, namely – 1. Why are some cooks adding baking powder, and 2. Why is the egg/milk/flour mixture being added last? Those two things needed to be thought out and addressed as well.

A look at a bunch of recipes revealed exactly what frustrates Chris – All over the place, and generally very eggy – way more of a frittata/quiche-like thing than any relleno variant I’m aware of. Why that happens is anyone’s guess – either preference or an assumption that things need to be done that way to work out, is mine.

To decide what to do took some reflection on the parent dish, the noble chile relleno. While there are variations in filling and coating, one thing remains true – Virtually all variations honor the chile and make it forward in the overall taste profile of the dish. Fillings might be anything from just cheese, to meat, meat and cheese, veggies, and combinations thereof.

Rellenos are shallow fried, and coatings vary from none to fairly fluffy mixes reminiscent of tempura. In between, you might find just egg and cornmeal, egg and flour, and the well known three stage dredge of egg/milk/flour. The fluffy coating variants explain where the baking powder option in some casseroles comes from – it’s deployed to help produce a light and airy coating – as such, it really has no place in a casserole – it’s not going to do what it’s intended to in this dish.

Next question for me was, is some form of egg/milk/flour mix necessary? My immediate answer was yes, because there is a place for the flavor note, and maybe just a hint of crunch that a proper mix and volume would offer, if deployed properly – and pouring whatever coating mix is used on top of a casserole is not the right place to deploy it. What that leads to is permeating everything throughout the casserole with an eggy mix, yielding exactly what Chris and I don’t want.

The coating mix should be on the bottom of the dish, where direct and latent heat will allow a thin layer to crisp up a bit, emulating the solo relleno. And the rest of the mix should go atop of the poblano layers, right where it should be for taste and effect, and about midway through the casserole. Finally, the volume of coating mix shouldn’t be excessive – it should be just enough to coat the poblanos.

As for watery casserole, the culprit there is going to be meat and veggies that don’t get properly prepared to work in the dish – the poblanos need to be thoroughly blistered, which does take appreciable moisture out of them without drying them out. Any other veggies need to be sautéed long enough to reduce their moisture content as well. I think milk of any kind will add too much water to the mix, so issued cream. Eggs needs to be fresh, or they too will add excess moisture. Finally, crappy chorizo and/or cheese will add water to the mix, so avoid those outright.

So, what else to put in there? To me, just meat, cheese and chiles is kinda pedestrian in a casserole – I want veggies, too. I settled on onion, garlic, some hot chiles, and tomato – all of those show up in various relleno recipes, so they’re spot on here, too.

Initially, I told Chris I was going to think of the proper ratio as a gravy, and as fate would have it, that was wrong. Working this recipe up to the point where everyone in the house said ‘damn,’ and the leftovers were better than the first night took three tries to get right.

The first swing suffered from too much batter, and lousy chorizo. The second one was OK, but watery – it suffered from old poblanos, and too much water in the veggie mix. All this was solved in v. 3.0 with fresh, local chorizo seco, proper pre-sautéing of most of the veggie mix, and physically squeezing excess juice out of the fresh tomatoes.

For chorizo seco, (the drier, often spicier cousin of the regular stuff), and good Mexican cheeses, (I used a 50%-50% blend of Oaxaca and Asadero cheeses for the dish), I’ll bet dimes to dollars there’s a good Latin grocery or two near you. If that’s not the case, I’ll recommend 90%-10% ground beef with homemade chorizo seasoning, (also provided herein) – that’ll give you the flavor without excess grease. For cheese, I’d go with 50%-50% Monterey Jack and Sharp Cheddar. Finally, your poblanos gotta be fat and sassy – a thick, juicy chile is an absolute must for this dish.

Urban’s Chile Relleno Casserole

5-6 large, fresh Poblano Chiles

1 Pound fresh Chorizo Seco (or alternative- see above)

1 Pound Melting Cheese Blend, (see above)

1 small yellow Onion

2-3 hot Chiles (Jalapeño, Fresno, or Serrano)

3 cloves fresh Garlic

1 teaspoon Mexican Oregano

2 Roma Tomatoes

1/2 Cup 1/2 & 1/2

2 Eggs

2 Tablespoons All Purpose Flour

1 Tablespoon Avocado Oil

Kosher Salt

Ground Black Pepper

Place poblanos on a baking pan under a broiler, 2 rack spots from top.

Blister poblanos, turning regularly to make sure they’re evenly seared.

Remove from oven and allow to cool enough to handle.

Peel, end trim and dice 1 packed cup of onion and the hot chiles.

Peel, end trim and mince garlic.

Slice tomatoes in half, end trim, gut, and dice.

Uncase chorizo, or prep alt. beef (see below for seasoning)

Grate cheeses and combine.

Combine cream, eggs and flour in a small mixing bowl, and whisk vigorously to fully incorporate.

In a sauté pan over medium heat, add a tablespoon of avocado oil and allow to heat through. Add onion, hot chiles, garlic, and oregano, a pinch of salt and a few twists of pepper.

Sauté until onions start to turn translucent, about 3-4 minutes. Remove veggie mix from heat and transfer to a small mixing bowl to cool.

Gently remove blistered skins from poblanos, then cut poblanos in half down the natural sides, leaving nice big slabs of chile.

In sauté pan over medium heat, add chorizo or beef and sauté, stirring steadily, until roughly 3/4 cooked through. If you’re using beef, add 2-4 tablespoons of chorizo seasoning to 1 pound of beef and cook. Transfer to a mixing bowl, discarding any excess liquid.

Set up your mise en place in prep for assembly.

Preheat oven to 350° F and set a rack with a baking sheet in the middle slot.

In a large casserole dish (9” x 11” or thereabouts), pour a thin layer of the coating mix, and swirl to evenly cover the bottom of the dish.

Lay down a solid layer of poblanos over the coating mix.

Add the chorizo or beef and spread in an even layer.

Add about half the cheese blend and spread evenly.

Add second layer of poblanos, covering completely.

Pour the rest of the coating mix onto the second poblano layer, to even;y cover the filling.

Add the sautéed veggies and spread evenly.

Hand squeeze any excess juice out of the diced tomatoes, and spread evenly.

Add the rest of the cheese blend and spread evenly.

Bake at 350° for 45 minutes, until topping cheese is bubbling and nicely browned.

Remove from oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes.

Serve over a bed of cabbage and lettuce, and maybe a few other renegade veggies, with ice cold cerveza Mexicana, and maybe some fresh tortilla chips to chase the naughty bits with.

Urban’s Go To Mexican Chorizo Seasoning

2 Tablespoons Granulated Garlic

2 Tablespoons Red Hatch Chile Powder

1 Tablespoon Smoked Paprika

2 teaspoons Sweet Paprika

2 teaspoons Mexican Oregano

2 teaspoons Smoked Salt

1 teaspoon Cumin Seed

1 teaspoon ground Black Pepper

Grind any and all whole spices to a smooth powder, then combine all ingredients.

Store in clean glass with a airtight lid, out of direct sunlight.

Chimichangas Über Alles

Ah, the noble chimichanga. Noble? Noble?! Yes, you read that right – here’s a little ode to one of the best damn vehicles for leftovers there is. Sure, we might assume it’s a mongrel member of the Fake Mex Food Club, designed only to fool gringoes into a simulacrum of adventurous eating – but I think we’d be dead wrong.

There’s a raft of origin stories for the chimi, all based in U.S. Tex Mex bastions. Whether it’s the owner of El Charro in Tucson accidentally dropping a burrito in the deep fat frier and uttering a Mexican curse that lead to the naming of the dish, or Woody Johnson of Macayo’s in Phoenix experimenting back in ‘46, they’re likely all a bit of a tall tale. You can bet dimes to dollars they originated in Mexico.

Fill a flour tortilla with frijoles, queso, picadillo, adobada, machaca, seca, pollo, fish or shellfish – that’s the root of a chimichanga. The name probably is a thinly veiled gringo teaser, but who cares when they’re delicious?

Great chimis needn’t be bad for you. You can bake, or as I prefer, shallow fry to crisp and then finish in the oven – that marries the delightful crunch of a crisp tortilla with a perfect hot filling, and avoids the hassle and greasiness of deep frying. What you choose to stuff with will also have obvious bearing on how healthy your finished dish is.

Chimis are perfect for repurposing leftovers. While a traditional stuffing theme will certainly be a nod to Mexican staples, you can make them out anything you want – green chicken curry chimi? Hell yes. Stuff one with veggies, rice, beans and cheese, and you’ve got a delicious, healthy dish. From chicken wings to char siu pork, or firm tofu to refried beans, your imagination is the limit.

When you’re ready to stuff your chimis, layer ingredients in ratios that yield a harmonious blend – there’s no hard and fast rule, it’s all what floats your boat. How much to stuff is largely dependent on the size and elasticity of your chosen tortilla, but avoid overstuffing to a silly degree – that just leads to filling leaking out during cooking, or gods forbid, to CCSF – That’s Catastrophic Chimichanga Structural Failure – and nobody wants to see that…

The typical mix is beans, rice, veggies and cheese, and another protein if you have something that needs to get used. For veggies, you can’t go wrong with onion, garlic, chile, and tomato, but any mix is fine – you can sauté them prior to assembly, but if you go with my two step method, you don’t need to.

For a traditional version, Mexican cheeses are what you want – Asadero, Chihuahua, Manchego, or Oaxaca for filling, and Queso Blanco, Cotija, or Enchilado for topping would be great choices – and they’re easier to find these days with the flowering of local Latin groceries.

If you’ve attempted chimis and exacted less than stellar results, it’ll come as no surprise that there are techniques you need to employ to achieve consistent and attractive results – and yeah, it matters – we eat with our eyes, ya know. There are four points of order to avoid a frustratingly sloppy chimi, and they’re as follows.

1. Fresh tortillas are your best option – they’re far more pliable and tastier than store bought stuff. Pliability is critical to a successful chimi, so if you’re using store bought, here’s your solution – wrap them in a clean, lightly moistened kitchen towel, put them on a plate, and then microwave for 30 seconds – that’ll give you fairly flexible tortillas to work with. Works great for burritos, too.

2. Get your mise en place together, and set out a generously sized station for assembly. Having everything portioned into bowls makes the process more efficient, less frustrating, and far less messy.

3. The tuck – how to properly stuff eludes a lot of folks, so don’t feel bad if you’re one of ‘em. Think of the tortilla as an unfolded envelope – you want to stuff the lower middle section of the tortilla, leaving room on both sides, some below, and a bit more than that above. Next, fold the bottom over your fillings, then the sides over the bottom, and finally, bring the top flap over all, and you’re there. You can seal with a little egg wash, but once you get the hang of it, you won’t need it. Line them up, prepped for cooking.

4. As mentioned above, I firmly believe you’ll get the most consistent flavor blend and crunch from a two step cooking process – a quick shallow fry, then a quick bake. That’ll also give you ingredients that are thoroughly heated through – something often lacking in the deep fried version.

It’s a simple deal – preheat your oven to 350° F, then heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium high heat until the oil shimmers. Add chimis two at a time, and fry them just long enough to get a golden brown crust on the tortillas, flipping with a spatula to get every side done. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment, and bake for 20 minutes, and you’re done.

Top chimis with whatever you like – crema, pico de gallo, salsa, lime wedges, cilantro, fresh tomato or onion. Fresh greens make a perfect bedding – we do mixed lettuces and cabbage – use what you like best. Serve ‘em with an ice cold Mexican beer and enjoy.

Serious Vinegar

What is vinegar, anyway? Truth be told, it’s nothing more than spoiled booze in some form or another. While pedestrian vinegar is plentiful and cheap, there’re two things you notice right away when you check out the good stuff in stores – the bottles are small and the prices are really high. What better reason would you need to make your own?

Great vinegars, from Aceto Balsamico de Modena and Vinagre de Shiraz to Zhenjiang and Sukang Baombang, are legendary for a reason, imbued with amazing depth and flavor. These gems power everything from dressings and marinades, gastrique and finishing notes, to soups, stews and much more. If you’re pickling, distilled white or generic cider vinegars are fine, but when you need something special for all that stuff I just mentioned, it’s time to get cracking in your home kitchen.

If you want to get technical, vinegar is a suspended solution of acetic acid in liquid, usually in the 5% to 9% range for culinary use. It’s been around for as long as humans have been making booze, which means something over 5000 years. Pretty much anything you can ferment can be made into vinegar, and that’s good news, because the vast majority of those options are delicious.

Distilled white vinegar, (AKA spirit vinegar or white vinegar), isn’t actually distilled – it’s made from neutral grain spirits – so you can make a vodka, gin or rum based vinegar too. Cider vinegar comes from just that, and with the recent explosion in local cider production, consider how many amazing variants of that you can make – how about a blackberry ginger or blood orange version? Hell yes.

Malt vinegar? Comes from beer – you can convert any bottle or can of beer, ale, stout, or porter into pretty amazing stuff. Wine vinegar? Your cellar and local store is the limit, which means a bunch of options. Any and all of these will be far better than what you can buy, and incredibly easy to make. And we haven’t even talked about fruit yet.

Almost anything with a decent sugar content can be fermented into booze and then vinegar. 5000 years ago, they used dates and palm sap. Today, pretty much any fruit you can think of is used. Two of my favorites in this regard are pineapple and banana, (actually plantain). Both are Mexican specialties, used from Veracruz to the Yucatán for fish, adobado, guisado, salsa, and much more. They’re subtle and delicious, but they’re hard to find and often out of stock, which is what lead to this post. Friends and I thought, why not take a swing at it? We did, the results rocked, and again, it’s easy and fun, (and perfectly safe I’ll add), so I’m sharing it here.

Making home vinegar from scratch is a two stage process, (but really just one long one, broken into two processes.) You don’t actually have to do much, other than monitor what’s happening and make sure everything is going right. If you’re making vinegar from something alcoholic, it’s simpler yet.

Many folks get a bit freaked about about fermenting because it’s ‘dealing with bacteria.’ Approached sensibly, it’s nothing to be worried about. What we employ to make vinegar at home are naturally occurring, beneficial fungus and bacteria – You’d have to be a troglodyte to not have heard all the buzz about good microbes, bacteria, yeast, and the like in recent years – it’s vital to our health, and what we’re using here plays for the right team.

Once we have alcohol, Mother is all we need to make vinegar – Mother is a beneficial bacterial culture, an acetobacter to be exact. Mixed with air, it converts alcohol to acetic acid, which is what gives vinegar it’s delightful tang. You can buy Mother from brewing and winemaking shops, or snag some out of the bottom of a bottle of real deal vinegar, (like Bragg’s here in the states), or you can make your own, and then keep that going with each batch you make, (that’s my preferred method). When mother is happy, you’ll see powdery whitish stuff and even gooey ropes forming in your liquid – this is very desirable, so when you see that, you’ve know you’ve done well.

Let’s start with a super easy one, wine vinegar. For wine, here’s how it works – you’ll need some fine mesh cheesecloth – something like a Grade 80 unbleached cloth would be perfect, and a rubber band.

Select a white or red wine you like that’s in the 10% to 12% alcohol range – that’s the sweet spot for mother to do its thing – higher alcohol content just isn’t, and lower will deliver vinegar that won’t be shelf stable for long.

Open a bottle and pour yourself a glass, you deserve it. Like it? Then onward – Decant the rest into a sterilized quart mason jar, (dishwasher clean is fine).

Now drape a patch of cheesecloth over the top and rubber band that sucker down – the ability for the yeast in the air to get to the wine is critical – no air exchange, no vinegar, (and the cheesecloth will keep fruit flies out of the mix too.)

Set the jar in a warm, relatively dry spot out of direct sunlight, and let ‘er rip – the conversion to vinegar can take anywhere from 3 to 8 weeks, so be patient.

Perform a weekly check of your vinegar-to-be. If you see a whitish scum on top of your wine as things progress, and everything smells good, you’re on your way – that’s vinegar mother forming. If you get any kind of dark surface scum and accompanying bad smells, that’s not good – Scoop all that stuff off and keep going.

Taste your product weekly – when it tastes like vinegar and smells good, you’re there. Transfer the stuff to a clean bottle and cork it – Vinegar eats metal, so clean glass bottles and cork is the way to go.

Let it sit for a couple days, then pull the cork. If you get a pop, that’s CO2 escaping, a sign that your vinegar isn’t quite done yet – put cheesecloth over the bottle top and give it another week – that should do the trick.

If you want to speed things up a smidge, add 1/4 cup of mother laden vinegar to the wine and you’re off to the races – it’ll cut the production time notably.

Love malt vinegar? Grab a couple bottles of beer, ale, porter, or stout of your choice, and do what we did with the wine. Because of the lower alcohol content, homemade malt vinegar generally won’t have the long term shelf stability other stuff will – but no biggy – just make it more often.

Want to build the ultimate home malt vinegar? Go find a locally brewed ale or stout in that 10% to 12% alcohol sweet spot – it’ll make amazing, shelf stable, vinegar – bring some of that back to the brewery and turn them on, you’ll likely get a free beer – maybe more if they have a kitchen.

On to vinegar from fruit. When we do this, we’re doing the two step process mentioned earlier – first, we’re gonna make booze, and then turn that into vinegar. You can make vinegar from juice, or macerated fruit, or chunks if you’re lazy like me. Juice or macerated fruit allows yeast more access to the fruit, and your process will go faster, but I find it more fun to be patient and let nature do her thing.

The more fruit you process, the deeper the flavor, but there is a ratio to maintain. I’ve found that filling a half gallon mason jar roughly 2/3 of the way with mashed or chopped fruit and then topping off with fresh water is spot on – I get lots of flavor and aroma with minimal fuss.

If you want to increase the fruit content, you can batch infuse. Fill your jar as described above and let it sit for a week, then decant the liquid into another jar through a strainer to catch the fruit. Refill your first jar with fresh fruit and repeat for another week. Do this three or four times and you’ll get a notably more intense flavor profile. It’s a great process for fruit with a lower sugar content.

Once you’ve got a jar full of fruit and water, cover it with cheesecloth and set it in a warm, quiet spot out of full sunlight – This is the point where that local yeast goes to work making booze for you.

Again, you can certainly add a little mother to help speed up the overall process at this point. Since we’re making booze first, you don’t need as much – 2 tablespoons is plenty.

As we did with wine vinegar production, let things go in one week increments. You’ll not likely see much happening in week one, but by the second or third, expect to see little bubbles forming on jar edges and the surface of your mix – that’s CO2 getting produced as yeast eats sugar and converts it to alcohol.

As you check progress, use your nose, mouth and eyes – By the two to three week point, you should smell a faint whiff of booze coming off your jar, and taste that too. Keep an eye on things, assuring that what you sense is pleasant. Anything dark, stinky, or nasty tasting is not desirable – scoop it off and keep going – the good guys should take over again when you do.

After somewhere in the 3-6 week range, the local yeast will have done its thing, and the process changes from alcohol production to conversion of booze to acetic acid. Taste testing now begins to focus on that desired acidity – we all know what good vinegar tastes like, and how sharp it is, right? If you didn’t answer yes to those last questions, shame on you.

Once you’ve reached the desired state of vinegariness, you’re ready to clarify and bottle. Line a chinois or funnel with cheesecloth and carefully pour your vinegar through into a clean glass jar or mixing bowl. A couple of passes will make sure any fruit goo, seeds, skin, etc doesn’t make it to your finished product.

You’ll see ample evidence of healthy mother production – lots of that powdery white stuff and some gooey, ropy stuff too – as you filter, rest assured that sufficient amounts of mother will make it to your vinegar jars.

Bottle in sanitized glass, with clean cork stoppers. You now have shelf stable, incredibly delicious house made vinegar – what kind will you make next?

Now for those two fruit versions I promised

Urban’s Vinagre de Piña

If you want this to be muy authentico, you need piloncillo oscuro (dark) sugar – it’s made from pure sugar cane boiled down to a thick syrup and then poured into cone shaped molds, and has far greater depth and nuance of flavor that our brown sugar. It’s readily available at Latin markets and online.

1 ripe Pineapple

1/4 Cup Piloncillo Sugar

2 whole Cloves

Water to fill a half gallon mason jar

Optional: 2 tablespoons vinegar with mother.

Trim top and bottom from the pineapple, the remove all the skin, skim cutting around the outside edges.

Cut pineapple into roughly 2” chunks.

Cut a hunk of piloncillo and microwave for 15 seconds – that should soften it enough to grate or hand crumble.

Add sugar and cloves to a clean half gallon mason jar.

Fill jar half way with fresh water and stir vigorously to dissolve the sugar.

Add pineapple, then top off the water to within roughly 1 1/2” of the top of the jar.

Drape tight cheesecloth over the top of the jar and secure with a rubber band.

Let sit in a warm, quiet spot out of direct sunlight.

See above and follow specifics of the process. Without added mother, the process will take a good 6 to 8 weeks to complete, a bit faster if you live in hot country.

When you can find it, what often is called banana vinegar is no such thing – the real deal made down in Mexico is made with plantains. Sometimes called cooking bananas, plantains come from the same family, but are a far cry from bananas – they’re starchier, seedier, and have a notable lower sugar content, and generally want to be fried, baked, or boiled and topped with something sweet to be truly tasty.

In Veracruz, the Macho Plantain is the one most often used to make vinegar – it’s big, hence the dubious moniker, and gets used for all kinds of dishes – there’s even an empanada dough made from them.

Machos are among the sweeter of the plantains, not as potato like as some. They make a delightfully subtle, nuanced vinegar. They’re also the variety most grown up here in the states, so you can actually find them pretty readily at local Latin groceries, (they’re readily available online as well). My version uses warm spices you’d likely find in a Veracruzano molé.

Urban’s Vinagre de Plátano Macho

6-8 Macho Plantains

1 Cup Piloncillo Sugar

1 whole Star Anise

1” stick Canela

1 whole Clove

Fresh water to fill a half gallon mason jar

Optional: 2 tablespoons vinegar with mother.

Peel, end trim and chop plantains into roughly 2” chunks.

Cut a hunk of piloncillo and microwave for 15 seconds – that should make it soft enough to grate easily.

In a clean half gallon mason jar, combine sugar, star anise, cinnamon, and clove.

Fill jar half way to the top with fresh water and stir vigorously to dissolve the sugar.

Add plantains and top water off to within about 1 1/2” of the top of the jar.

Drape tight cheesecloth over the top of the jar and secure with a rubber band.

Let sit in a warm, quiet spot out of direct sunlight.

See above for specifics throughout the process. Without added mother, the process will take a good 6 to 8 weeks to complete, a bit faster if you live in hot country.

Enfrijoladas, Mexico’s national dish for fantastic leftovers

It’s a fact that there are amazing go-to leftover dishes all over this world. I think that’s because they’re based on food made at home with deep love, and because so many things really are even better the next day. Of course the real beauty of this is the opportunity to clean out the fridge and rummage through the pantry. All that said, the root of such a meal must be truly stellar, and great beans certainly fall into that category, especially when they lead to Enfrijoladas, Mexico’s national dish for fantastic leftovers.

Like many a favorite, claims to the origins of enfrijoladas are many and varied, from all points of the compass down there. While discerning that is nigh on impossible, what we can say is that the dish is very old. To reinforce that point, we need only to take a quick look at Oaxacan cuisine.

Oaxaca is down south a mite, west of the state of Chiapas and south of Puebla state. This area remains a bastion of original Mexican culture, with roughly 50% of the indigenous population there non-Spanish speakers. The geography and climate have allowed pre-Columbian culture to remain relatively healthy, which is a godsend to those striving to better grasp Mexico prior to the arrival of the Spaniards – Recent archeological studies indicate that the first inhabitants arrived over 10,000 years ago.

That antiquity is certainly reflected in the Oaxacan diet, where corn, beans, chiles, chocolate, game, and yes, insects, are staples to this day, with relatively little European influence found therein. Hundreds of mole variants come from here, as do rightfully famous versions of enfrijoladas. Made simply with black beans and potent chiles on lightly fried, fresh corn tortillas, This is a delicious and stunningly complex experience for such a simple dish – And it’s a safe bet they’ve been made this way for a long, long time.

Regardless of origin, the real beauty of making enfrijoladas is that winging it is par for the course. It’s a dish intended to use whatever you find that seems promising to you – So explore, take a risk or three, and see what happens. It’s a safe bet you’ll rarely make the same thing twice, and that’s good, (and of course, if you do strike on a mix that really bowls you over, write it down so you can do it again.)

So, naturally, there’s the bean question. When this posts I know that a bunch of y’all are going to think, ‘I’ve heard of those, but I thought they were supposed to be made with ____ bean.’ You’re not wrong, but the real key to great enfrijoladas is this – You can and should make them with any bean you have. That is, in fact, the great joy of the dish. If they’re really good beans, like Rancho Gordo or other reputable heirloom stuff, they’ll be stunning. I cannot encourage you enough to try a bunch of different beans in this pursuit. Yes, down in Oaxaca, black beans generally rule, but everywhere in Mexico, they grow and eat far more varieties than that.

Rancho Gordo is the best way I know to try top shelf heirloom beans – In fact, the ones you’ll see me use herein are a French variety, Mogette de Vendée, that I got from them. I overcooked them for my original intent, but rather than freak out, we froze them and bided our time – When the thought of enfrijoladas came up, we went to the freezer and were off to the races – That’s how great leftovers work, gang.

The heartbeat of enfrijoladas is the sauce and the tortillas, of course. If ever there was a time to make fresh corn tortillas, this would be it, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying the dish – As you’ll see in our pictures, we had store bought stuff that needed to get used, so that’s what we did – It’s all good in the ‘hood.

Your sauce may be nothing more than beans and chiles with some bean broth or stock to thin things out, and if so, it’ll be wonderful – It never hurts to start as a purist, if for no other reason than to fully grasp why this dish is so ubiquitous down south. Again though, this is all about exploring pantry and fridge and using what needs to be used. You’ll see below that our version had quite a bit in the mix – Either end of that spectrum and everything in between is encouraged.

As for filling, nothing more than great cheese is needed, preferably Mexican – Manchego would be a great filling cheese, as would Queso Blanco or Queso Oaxaca, (and Cotija or Queso Fresco would be great for topping). That said, here too the Leftover Rule is in full force – So use what needs to go. If you’ve got proteins, fine, if not, that’s fine too.

Toppings are also up for grabs. Certainly salsa or pico de gallo will go well, as will avocado, crema (Mexican sour cream), cilantro, shredded cabbage, citrus, more diced veggies, maybe a quick pickle of something – Whatever you have that needs to get used.

When preparing the sauce, you may simply add beans and some broth or stock to a pan, mash them to your liking, add some chiles, and call it good, because rustic is very good indeed. If you want or need to add more stuff, then you’ll want to get a blender involved. Either way, this is not a difficult or time consuming dish to make, which is another big reason it’s so popular.

Rustic Enfrijoladas

2-3 Cups of any cooked Bean, hopefully with some broth, (if not, chicken or veggie stock is fine)

9-12 Corn tortillas

Fresh, dried, or ground Chiles

Shredded Cheese for filling and, if desired, topping

Salsa or Pico de Gallo

Crema (or sour cream)

Leftover meat or poultry, if desired

Avocado oil for frying

If using fresh chiles, stem, seed, and fine dice.

Prepare salsa, pico, and other toppings as desired.

If using dried chiles, bring a small sauce pan of water to the boil and then remove from heat. Add however many chiles you desire and allow them to steep for 20-30 minutes until softened. Remove skins, tops, and seeds, and then mince.

In a large skillet over medium heat, add beans and mash by hand to a rough but even paste.

Add enough broth or stock to the beans to achieve the consistency of stew or a thick pasta sauce.

Add chiles to the beans and stir to incorporate.

When the mix is heated through, reduce heat to warm.

In a second skillet over medium high heat, add a tablespoon of avocado oil and heat through.

Fry tortillas just enough to heat them through, but remain flexible.

To serve, add a generous swipe of bean sauce to a warm plate.

grab a tortilla, slather it with a thin layer of beans, and add cheese and any other fillings, then roll it up and place it seam side down on the plate. Repeat to desired serving size, then add a generous spoon or two of bean sauce to the tops of the rolled tortillas.

Serve immediately.

Urban’s Deluxe Enfrijoladas – Again, this is what I had on hand that needed to get used – It’s a guideline, not a rule, so have fun and use what you’ve got.

For the Bean Sauce –

3-4 Cups leftover beans

Bean Broth or Stock

9-12 Corn Tortillas

1+ Chiles of your choice, (I used 3 Serrano’s that needed to go.)

1-2 Tomatoes

3-4 Tomatillos

1/2 medium Onion

3-4 cloves fresh Garlic

1 Tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar

1 Tablespoon dried Guajillo Chile

1/2 teaspoon fine ground Salt

Stem, core and halve veggies, then arrange on a baking sheet.

Place on an upper middle rack in an oven on broil and cook until the skins blister.

Remove from heat and allow to cool enough to handle.

Wrap tortillas in metal foil and toss them into the hot oven to warm up (shouldn’t need any heat after roasting the veggies in there – You just want to warm them a little to encourage the sauce to stick during assembly.)

Add beans, roasted veggies, and vinegar to a blender vessel with a half cup of bean broth or stock. Process into a smooth sauce, adding more liquid as needed, to achieve the consistency of a thick soup or pasta sauce.

Transfer the sauce to a skillet over medium heat.

When the sauce is heated through, add guajillo chile and salt, and stir to incorporate. You may want to add more broth, stock, or seasoning to strike a balance you like.

Turn the heat down to low.

For the filling –

Use any leftover meat, poultry, or what have you, if you wish.

2 Cups of melting cheese

Dice up proteins and add it to a skillet over medium heat with a little stock or broth to moisturize and allow that to heat through.

Shred melting cheese.

For the toppings – Here again, use what you’ve got that needs to go – We went with,

Chopped Tomato

Diced Onion

Chopped Avocado

Chopped Cilantro

A quick pickle of sweet peppers, chiles, onion, cilantro (All veggies fine diced, in 3/4 Cup cider vinegar, 1/4 cup water, pinch of salt, three finger pinch of Mexican oregano.)

Shredded lettuce with sliced radish

Lime Wedges

Crema

Crumbled Queso Cotija

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

For the Big Show –

Preheat oven to 300° F and place a rack in the middle position.

Lightly rub a 9” x 11” baking dish with avocado oil.

Set up an assembly area where you can have your bean sauce and fillings side by side with your baking dish.

Spread a generous layer of the bean sauce evenly across the baking dish.

Grab a tortilla and either dunk one side into the bean sauce, or use a spoon to do the same while you hold it – Whichever works easier for you.

Add a nice even layer of sauce to the tortilla, then add fillings.

Roll the tortilla up and place it seam side down in the baking pan.

Repeat until you’ve filled the pan.

Add any and all remaining bean sauce to the tops of the tortillas.

You can add more stuff there if you like – Tomato, onion, what have you.

Bake at 300° F for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes.

Go wild.

BTW, none of mine survived contact with the enemy, which is as it should be…

Chile Verde

After the delicious results we enjoyed with carne guisada, it seemed only fair to give green equal time – Chile Verde, of course, the venerable Mexican tomatillo-powered pork stew.

Chile verde is another dish that Tex-Mex lays claim to, and it is such, so long as we understand that it originated on the southern side of things. Verde is native to northern Mexico, traditionally made with pork, sometimes with chicken. It’s another dish that everybody has a favorite of, and that’s why it’s glorious – you get to put your stamp on a version, too.

The heartbeat of chile verde is tomatillo, which contributes that delightful color and absolutely unique flavor. Physalis philadelphica and Physalis ixocarpa are members of the Nightshade family, closer in relations to a gooseberry than they are to tomatoes. They’re native to Mexico and South America, and are truly ancient – In 2017, field scientists found a fossilized tomatillo in Argentina that dated back to 52 million years ago. Raw or cooked, tomatillos are enjoyed widely all over Mexico – especially in chile verde.

The wonderful Mexican aromatic base mix of chiles, onion, and garlic round out the mix on verde, along with just a couple of signature herbs and spices – Mexican oregano and cumin seed.

The pork is usually shoulder, a cut with a decent ratio of fat, but nothing excessive – you want something that can stand up to a few hours cooking.

If you peruse recipes online, you’ll find some things done with this dish that I don’t necessarily cotton to. First off, lots of folks like to roast the tomatillos, onions, and garlic – I don’t, as I’m not looking for a high level of sweetness in my finished product – if you like that, by all means, go for it.

Secondly, relatively few use flour to build some form of roux – what’s often stated is something to the effect that it’s not necessary because of all the pectin in tomatillos – I respectfully disagree. You need a white roux to carry the full mix of flavors you’re going to develop here – without it, things won’t taste quite right, and the general consistency of the dish will not be spot on either.

Verde is pretty easy to make – the effort all goes into the prep. Once that’s done, you can just sit back and enjoy the rich aromas. Our recipe will feed 4-6 folks, or 2-3 with generous leftovers.

Chile Verde de Urbàn

2 – 2 1/2 Pounds Pork Shoulder

2 Cups Chicken Stock

10-12 Tomatillos, (Roughly a pound)

2 medium Onions

2 large Poblano Chiles

3-5 Jalapeño Chiles

2Roma Tomatoes

4 fat cloves Garlic

1/2 bunch fresh Cilantro

4 Tablespoons All Purpose Flour

2 Tablespoons Avocado Oil (vegetable is fine)

1 Tablespoon Mexican Oregano

1 teaspoon ground Cumin

1 teaspoon ground New Mexican Red Chiles

1 teaspoon Salt (sea or kosher is fine)

Black Pepper

For Garnish and service – Fresh tortillas, Pico de Gallo, lime wedges, chopped cilantro, onion, and tomato, or whatever you desire.

Husk and rinse tomatillos. Remove the woody tops and rough chop.

Peel, stem, and rough dice onions.

Peel, stem, devein and deseed chiles, then rough dice.

End trim, smash, and peel garlic, then mince.

End trim and rough dice tomatoes.

Remove the bottom 3” of the cilantro stems, then rough chop the rest.

In a blender or food processor, combine tomatillos, tomatoes and 1 cup of chicken stock. Process until you have a nice, rough mix – You do not need to purée this, just get it broken down and combined.

Trim pork of any excessive fat, then cut into roughly 3/4”cubes.

Toss pork, flour, a three finger pinch of salt, and 6-8 twists of pepper into a paper bag and shake well to thoroughly coat the pork. Transfer to a mixing bowl.

In a cast iron dutch oven over medium heat, add the oil and allow to heat through.

Add onions and chiles to the pan and season lightly with salt and pepper. Sauté until the onions are starting to brown, about 4-6 minutes.

Add garlic, mix to incorporate and sauté until the raw garlic smell dissipates, about 2 minutes.

Transfer sautéed veggies to a mixing bowl and return the pan to the oven.

Toss the pork into the pan. Allow to cook for 3-4 minutes, until a golden brown crust forms. Turn the cubes and repeat until all sides are evenly browned.

Transfer pork to the veggie bowl.

Deglaze pan with the second cup of chicken stock, scraping carefully to fully loosen and incorporate all that gorgeous stuff off the bottom.

Add pork, sautéed veggies, and the tomatillo/tomato blend to the pot, stir to thoroughly incorporate.

Once you establish a simmer, reduce heat to just maintain that. Simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

If things get too thick, add a half cup of stock and stir to incorporate, but remember, it’s a thick stew meant to hold its own in a fresh tortilla.

At the 2 hour mark, add oregano, cumin, and chile powder, then stir to thoroughly incorporate. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed.

Chile verde with fresh tortillas, charro beans, Mexican rice, and pico de gallo

Simmer for another 30 minutes to allow everything to fully marry and develop.

Serve with what you like – we did ours restaurant style, with fresh tortillas, pico de gallo, Mexican rice, and charro beans – it was incredible.