cornbread

I have always enjoyed cornbread. I love the texture and flavor of the corn meal, even better with plenty of honey butter to spread on top. I never made a cornbread until about two weeks ago. The Kitchenista (@MissAngelaDavis) posted a very straight forward and very delicious thread and recipe related to cornbread here. Since then I have made 3 of them!


Following her suggestion, I used various ingredients to mix-in to the cornbread to give it some different flavors.  Below is a bacon, scallion and Chihuahua cheese cornbread:

Yesterday, I decided to branch out.  I bought a container of fresh cubed pineapple from the store. Initially I got it to snack on, then I really craved pineapple upside-down cake. Then I thought why not pineapple upside-down cornbread? So here we are a pineapple upside-down cornbread:

It was delicious, you definitely get the pineapple but the bread is still very much savory. I had it with pulled pork and beans. I'm sure I will have many more ideas with this easy and tasty batter recipe.

Puerco Guisado en Leche con Frijoles, Rajas y Chochoyotes

In a previous post, I made pork shoulder braised in a milk steeped with toasted ancho and pasilla chiles.  I definitely ate a lot of this as is, but I wanted to incorporate such a delicious preparation into it's own dish.  This is the result: Ancho-Pasilla Milk Braised Pork with slow cooked beans, rajas, chochoyotes, and carrot escabeche:

The idea for this dish centered originally on the pork and the desire to make chochoyotes with some sort of rich sauce or soup.  Chochoyotes are basically masa dumplings that are used in soups or for sopping up various delicious moles and braising liquids.  For mine, I combined masa harina, cotija cheese, and water.  Usually a fat like lard is used, I think I would add some, but the cheese provided some richness.  I took small balls of the masa and while holding them in one hand, I pressed them with the thumb of the other to give them the shape.  After this was done, I boiled in some water for a couple of minutes until they started floating to the surface.  To finish this component, I cooked through in a pan with homemade beans in its own broth.

The next component I prepared were the rajas. Rajas are simply poblano peppers that are roasted and cut into strips.  I like to roast them over an open flame, turning when the side touching the flame begins to blacken and blister, like below.  After achieving this on as many surfaces as possible, I placed the poblanos in a plastic bag to steam for about 15 minutes, I then peeled them, sliced into strips and sautéed with some onion and garlic.

The final component involved something acidic and crisp to balance out some of the richness in this dish.  I made carrot escabeche which is a quick pickle that involves heating vinegar and pouring over sliced vegetables.  In a jar, I combined carrots I cut into sticks, garlic, and toasted pasilla that I broke up into pieces.  I added salt, pepper and bay leaf before pouring simmering white vinegar until covered.  I sealed the jar and placed in the refrigerator to cool.  This can be eaten when cooled, it doesn't ferment like regular pickles.  This is what it looked like after a day:

Now that I had all my parts together I began to put it all together.  I put the chochoyotes with beans on the plate first, making sure to spoon some of the bean broth over top, next the layer of rajas, and finally a few pieces of the ancho-pasilla milk braised pork from the day before.  I spooned some of the gravy from the pork over top as well. The milky gravy was delicious with all the other components and it all came together very nicely.  Finally, I placed some carrot escabeche on the side to crunch on in between bites, this worked well with the richer elements in the dish.  I was very pleased with how this dish came out and made notes on the preparation of the chochoyotes and rajas which I will share in following posts.

Skillet Corn

Over the weekend, I went to the farmer's market to pick up some vegetables.  I wasn't sure what to get but I saw they had sweet corn.  It seemed a few weeks early, but I love sweet corn and I grabbed some ears in the hopes that it was sweet and not starchy.   Thankfully it was very crisp and sweet so I ate one as is.  Someone suggested I make skillet corn which is something I never heard of.  After making it the first time, I thought of it as really good creamed corn with the kernels still intact and crisp.  It is definitely delicious and I was craving it again tonight.

Most recipes for skillet corn just have it as a side or a simple dish you just eat from a bowl.  I wanted it to be dinner, so I topped it with pico de gallo that I made with tomatoes from the same market, sliced avocado and a poached egg.

I began by removing the kernels from 4 ears of corn.  I set the cobs to the side so that I can scrape the whole surface with a butterknife to get all the corny goodness.

I technically didn't use a skillet, but I did put a few tablespoons of olive oil in a pot.  To this I added about half a small onion, 2 cloves of garlic and half a chile serrano (someone sent me a picture of some jalapeño corn bread and it sounded good).

I then added the corn kernels and cob scrapings to the pot.  I let this cook together on medium high heat for a few minutes, making sure to stir to coat the corn in the mixture.

I then added a tablespoon of flour and mixed it into the corn.  I let this cook together for a few minutes longer before adding water. 

I added about a cup of water, I wanted the corn to be somewhat submerged.  I let this all simmer on low for about 30 minutes.  Some recipes I found said 45, others said 15. I just picked something in between.  I think a reason for a longer cooking time is to get as much corn flavor into the sauce that forms, but I didn't want the corn to get too soft or overcooked.

The acidity and crispness of the pico de gallo was a great contrast to the sweet, slightly creamy corn.  Normal recipes call for butter or bacon to add some richness.  I added the egg with the hope of stirring the yolk into the corn to achieve a similar affect, also because eggs are just really good on things. I added the avocado to add another type of richness to complement the corn and provide another contrast to the pico de gallo.

sweet sweet corn

It is that magical time of year where sweet corn is at its best and I just want to eat it all the time. I picked up a dozen at the Geneva farmers market over the weekend and was excited to eat it. Since corn chowder is one of my favorite soups, I could think of no better way to use it up. I also decided to try something out and make an horchata with sweet corn or what I like to call cornchata :).

I started by making a corn stock which will serve as the basis for both the soup and the drink.  I shucked the corn, discarding only the outer husk and silk.  I set aside the more tender and juicier inner husk which will be part of the stock as well.

I then removed the kernels from each ear of corn.  The corn was so fresh and sweet I found myself just snacking on the kernels as I prepped.  I had to put it away so I could still have enough left for dinner.

To make the corn stock, I placed all the cobs and husks in a large pot and covered with water. I let this come up to a boil, then lowered and simmered for an hour.

This is what the stock looks like after an hour.  It has a yellow and slightly milky quality to it.  The whole kitchen smelled amazing by the time this was done. 

I first got to work on the chowder.  For this I used(more or less):

 1/2 a pound of bacon

3 poblanos, chopped up

1 onion, diced

2 celery stalks, diced

6 cloves of garlic, smashed

4 yellow potatoes, diced

6 cups corn kernels

4 cups corn stock

2 cups chicken stock

3/4 cup milk

1 tbsp of corn starch

salt & pepper

I first fried the bacon to render out some of the fat.  All of the additional ingredients will be fried in the fat as I didn't use butter for this recipe.

After removing the bacon, I added the onion, celery, and garlic and fried until softened. I then poured the corn and chicken stock into the pan along with the potatoes and half of the corn.  I let this simmer for about 15 minutes until the potatoes softened slightly.  I added a slurry of the milk and corn starch and using a stick blender I slightly pulsed the mixture to break up some of the potatoes and corn.  This along with the corn starch will help to thicken the mixture. 

I added the remaining corn kernels and poblanos and let it all simmer together for about 15 more minutes.  Below is the finished product.  I was worried it would not have much flavor since it was pretty white after adding the milk, but simmering the remaining kernels seemed to bring it around.  The soup was delicious, slightly spicy thanks to the poblano and the kernels still had a sweet snap.

On to the cornchata! I began by taking 4 cups of corn kernels and letting it sit in the hot corn stock for about 30 minutes.  The ratio I used was 1 cup of kernels for 1 cup of stock. I then added a couple of teaspoons of ground cinnamon and began to blend.  I was eventually going to strain the mixture through a cheesecloth so I made sure to blend for a while so I could make sure to get as much corn liquefied as possible. It was at this point that I added sugar while it was still warm so that it would dissolve.  The finished drink is pretty refreshing and slightly sweet so I did this to taste, I think I added 2 tablespoons of sugar in the end.

After completely blending, I strained through a cheesecloth. After letting it strain for about 30 min I wrapped up the pulp in the cheese cloth and squeezed out as much of the remaining liquid as possible. Below is the finished product, yellow and milky and slightly rich.  This was very refreshing over ice.  I saved some in a jar to try with some booze over the weekend!

chichilo negro

I have to admit, I have never made mole from scratch and I get asked about from time to time. Meaning "sauce" or "concoction", mole is a laborious dish, involving individual preparation of any combination of chiles, vegetables, spices, herbs, seeds, and nuts which are either toasted, fried, or charred.  These ingredients are then blended together and fried in lard or some other sort of fat and combined with meat broth to coomplete the final sauce.  Though they seem to involve an excessive amount of ingredients, they all meld together to create one unique sauce. I guess it is the complexity of mole that has held me back, but I want to change that.  I want to challenge myself and take the time it requires to make good food. I want to explore and keep learning new things in the kitchen, to really experience these the smells and the sounds of new procedures, and to keep honing my skills.

The recipe I chose to go with to begin my mole journey is from Diana Kennedy's The Art of Mexican Cooking. This book is more a collection of family favorite dishes from different regions of Mexico.  Many of these recipes I have never seen, and are specific to each cook. There are various mole recipes with their own variations and special touches. One of my other goals is to work through this book in it's entirety so I'm also glad to get started on that.

The dish I chose is chichilo negro or black beef stew. It is a darker sauce due to the charring of various of the components and it's traditional use of a black chile, the chilhuacle.  I was not able to find this chile, but Kennedy offers guajillos as an option of which there are plenty here. This mole was also interesting in that it uses primarily beef and some pork.

The cut of beef I used was beef short ribs.  The recipe called for either ribs or brisket.  I definitely want to give brisket a shot for the next time I make this. I also used about a pound of cubed pork shoulder meat.  I placed the beef and pork into a large pot with one chopped onion and 1 crushed clove of garlic.  I added just enough water to cover the meat and let it simmer for about 1 hour.  The resulting liquid will be used as the final component in the mole.

My first group of ingredients to prepare were the chile pasilla, chile guajillo, onion, tomatillos, and garlic.  I prepared the chiles by slicing lengthwise and removing all the seeds.  I saved the seeds as these become a component of the sauce itself.  19 dried chiles can be somewhat tedious but I found with each chile, the process became more familiar and seemed to go a bit more quickly. I heated up a wide skillet over high heat to begin toasting the chiles.

The smell of the chiles as they cooked on the skillet was amazing.  It is a smoky fruity aroma that is just every comforting and welcoming.  I tried to get a decent char on each side.  Actually, Kennedy suggests toasting each side of the guajillo until completely blackened.  I didn't take them this far unfortunately and will probably try getting them darker next time.  I would imagine this adds a bit more of a bitter and smoky flavor of the sauce. The chile in the back is the lone pasilla, the flesh got a bit more tobacco brown as it heated up in the skillet.

After removing from the chiles from the skillet, I rinsed them in cold water, then covered them in hot water for 15 min.  They'll soften during this time, so that they can be blended into the mole.

After I was done with the chiles, I added the onion, unpeeled garlic, and tomatillos to the dry skillet. As with the chiles, the goal was to get somewhat of a char on each side. I got a bit impatient during this step but eventually the vegetables got cooked through after several minutes of turning on the skillet.

I first removed the garlic, notice how the skins get black in certain parts.  The clove just slips right out at this point. The garlic was sweet and sticky but still pungent, I kind of wanted to just eat one at that point.  The tomatillos onions softed and got blackened in places.  I wanted to let these go further but was getting some seriously smoke coming from the skillet.  Next time, I'm going to try a combination of cooking in the skillet on the stove top as well as in the broiler to get more of a consistent roast all around.

I saved the seeds from 1 pasilla and 18 guajillos.  It ultimately didn't seem like a lot considering how much seemed come out of each individual chile.  The recipe called for toasting these until black.  New smells came from the seeds as they cooked, nutty and sweet, it almost smelled like bread was baking. On the other burner, I began toasting a tortilla over an open flame.  As the recipe suggested, I let the tortilla burn until flaming and then tossed on top of the seeds in the pot.

I did this with one more tortilla before dousing in cold water. I let this combination sit for about 5 minutes before draining. Considering that this particular mole doesn't have any other nuts, it seems that the chile seeds would serve this purpose.  I was curious to see how this flavor plays out in the final dish. This along with the other previously roasted ingredients are used to start the base for the mole.

It was interesting to find out that there is a specific type of oregano used for this dish that is Oaxacan oregano.  Apparently this is different from Mexican oregano.  Thankfully, the recipe showed an alternate measurement for the latter.  The other spices and herbs I used were cumin seeds, cloves, allspice, and thyme. The recipe also called for marjoram, which I unfortunately didn't have at the time.

I added all the ingredients except for the chiles in a large pitcher and combined using a stick blender. It was interesting to see the sauce at this point.  It was gray, the color of the seeds and tortillas at the time really showed through.

I added the chiles a few at a time and blending in between additions.  I think this is because makes it easier to really grind down the chiles and properly combine them into the rest of the mole.  To loosen the sauce as I blended it, I added a bit of broth from boiled chayote and green beans that are later added to the dish.  Once, all the ingredients were combined, I added a couple of tablespoons of lard to a large pot and fried the mole on high.  I scraped the bottom of the pan to make sure it wasn't sticking. After about 25 min the sauce thickens, and the flavors concentrate.

After simmering for about an hour, the beef was tender and the bones easily slid out.  I set these aside along with the pork to cool down.  I later chopped these into large chunks to be later added to the mole.

The second to last component of the dish is a ball of masa that is first blended with some of the beef broth, then added to the mole. The original recipe calls for masa made from cooking dried corn in water and powdered lime.  I hope to make this at some point, but for this recipe, I used masa harina mixed with water. The masa acts as a thickening agent while imparting some additional corn flavor.   After stirring in the masa and broth mixture, I cooked for 5 min, before adding in the remaining beef broth. I added the beef and pork that I chopped earlier, then simmered for an additional 15 minutes.

I served the chichilo negro with white rice that I cooked in vegetable broth along with boiled chayote and green beans.  The sauce was rich and had a nutty taste to it.  It wasn't as spicy as I had expected, but I still got a good touch of heat at the end.  The guajillos added some degree of sweetness that you sometimes expect in a mole as well. Overal it had a wonderful and complex taste.  I definitely got the roasted flavor, but can see that I needed to do a bit more charring during my preparation.

There were various components to this dish, and I felt it was a good introduction to the process involved in creating a mole. I felt that I learned some things I can't quite pinpoint, maybe it was the patience to prepare each individual ingredient.  I also feel a lot of it was tied to the smells that came from each ingredient, or the way the chiles changed texture when they were being toasted then again after being soaked. I was impressed with the flavor the seeds brought to the dish, it is something I never did before, but can definitely see using from now on. It is one of those things I kind of assumed I knew how it would go, until I actually tried it.

Corn and Peach Salad

This is a newer recipe I picked up last year around this time.  A nearby restaurant was serving a salad which included peach, corn, goat cheese, lemon and scallions.  It was excellent and they referenced the farm from which the ingredients came.  It so happened that we were driving by the farm the very next week on a trip to Michigan.  We picked up the same fruit and recreated the salad.

Ever since then this salad has been a popular staple of summer cookouts and family gatherings.  I never new the exact combination that the restaurant used but it has always been enjoyable, fresh and delicious.  Last night I made a slightly updated version that I think is my favorite to date that I would like to share.

For this version I did 2 ears of corn, 2 peaches, 1/4 of a red onion, 1/2 of a chile serrano, goat cheese and a vinaigrette made with lemon, honey and olive oil.  I stripped the corn off of the cob using a knife and cut the peaches into smaller cubes.  I added the thinly sliced onion and minced chile.  To make the vinaigrette I added the juice of two lemons, honey and olive oil with cracked pepper to a jar and shook until combined.  I tossed the salad in my vinaigrette and topped with crumbled goat cheese.  The salad was refreshing and I found it difficult to stop eating, it is really that good.  For dinner last night I served it alongside sincronizadas which are simply quesadillas with ham.

I would recommend incorporating this salad into your summer repertoire.  It goes over very well and is a very fresh and flavorful alternative to a traditional green salad or a slaw.

family cookout!

I went to my parent's house for a cookout with the family today.  There were a few flavors that I have been thinking about that I wanted to try out and offered to make some salads.

The first salad is kind of a take on a Vietnamese green papaya and shrimp salad.  I wanted to incorporate some Mexican flavors, my thinking was that there are a lot of similar flavors that work well between the two cuisines.  To prepare this I combined jicama, shrimp, red bell pepper and scallions which then I tossed in a sauce made from lime juice and agave nectar.  I then added 8 cloves worth of toasted minced garlic for crunch and flavor.  To finish I folded in some sliced avocado.

Next I made a corn salad with flavors similar to an elote.  I first took sweet corn off the cob and blanched for a couple of minutes.  After cooling I added red bell pepper and scallions and lime juice.  To finish I stirred in a bit of mayonnaise and cotija cheese.

Finally I made a fruit salad with chopped mango, pineapple and papaya.  I tossed this in a combination of lime juice and orange juice.  To finished I mixed in some fresh mint.