rancho_gordo

New results: Pressure cooker, using the Flan Magico recipe and slow release. It came out fine and exactly what one would expect. The slow release is the real trick. I think 25 minutes might be too much but it's probably a matter of taste. Next step is Flan Magico in a water bath, just to know the differences. My hunch is I prefer a more Euro verison, like Bayless, but we'll see. Right now, I only have this one of her as a chick. She's the weirdest and possibly the stupidest and most feral. I'll try and get a recent shot. She has weird whiskers! She is the blonde. No jokes, please. Organic chicken feed and then lots of scraps. Countless tortillas, old salad, tomatoes in season. We have a prolific persimmon tree and I really hate them so the girls get the bulk of that fruit. Will look in to flax! Has anyone tried the flan napolitano yet? Comon! I don't want to get fat all by myself!

You got it, sister. Stateside, canned hominy (slaked dried corn) is called pozole and the dish/stew is also known as pozole. If it's from the southwest, it's more often than not spelled posole (despite what the SF Chronicle article says). Southwestern posole that you buy dry is already slaked. In the Mexican markets, you buy dry maiz para pozole which must be soaked and slaked. Just to screw things up, you can also buy canned pozole stew, but that hasn't been mentioned on this thread yet. ...and that's what love is all about!

Is this a set up???? Yes, I just started mail order via Local Harvest, and soon (within 2 weeks) directly through my site. There's a link from my first page, about halfway down. Honestly folks, it's not a set up!!! Most corn you find in Mexican stores needs to be slaked- you must soak it in lime and then remove the skins. Mine is more southwestern and all the work has been done for you. Soak and simmer. So even if you had a Mexican store near you, it wouldn't be a much help.

I'm not sure what it is! It doesn't look like a kernal of corn?

Aside from my being featured in it, this really is a great aritcle from the San Francisco Chronicle. Posole tames the partying with hearty flavors of home Canned hominy has a rubberiness and guminess that I thought was part of hominy. It's not! The real deal is much better.

I forgot about those! Here's a New World twist on the tortilla by Pilar Sanchez of Pilar here in Napa: Spanish Tortilla with Nopales

Apacio: Yes, I think you are right and that's why the Bayless recipe worked better for me than the original Kennedy. Is that what the lid is for? I thought it was to keep the top (bottom?) moist but I really didn't know. I just love a gadget! re: Quick release or slow release in a pressure cooker: It's not Quick release! Even with the lid, the caramel spilled out and all the water was brown in the pressure cooker. I followed Caroline's Magico recipe with 1 cup sweetened condensed and one cup regular milk. I added no additional sugar and it was plenty sweet. 4 whole eggs. Next I'll try it in the pressure cooker again, this time with slow release. Then I'll try the Bayless in the pressure cooker. I think it's actually a little easier with water bath in the oven. In the pressure cooker, by the time you heat up enough water to reach the sides of the flan mold, it takes a good long time to build up the correct pressure. And if you have to do a slow release, you haven't saved any time, really. But maybe the thrill is the denser texture. Caroline: The one in the pic is a Barred Rock. We have four of those, plus a black Australorp and an Araucana (blue eggs!). None rare but all pretty fun and good layers! I was told if they didn't start laying by Xmas, they probably wouldn't lay until Spring. Surprise! They are very prolific, even with the cold and short days. It's still a thrill to go out to the henhouse and find several little surprises waiting for me. And between the chickens and composting, I have hardly a bucket of trash each week!

Thanks so much! You are very generous and I hope you'll introduce yourself if you find me at a market again. I'm blushing! The cookbook would be fun- the restaurant NEVER!!!! Especially after reading eGullet for a year! But I think you should try making pozole. It's not so hard and the feeling you get from eating your own food feels better than paying the check at a mediocre restaurant. Thanks again!

It's LOVE, M-L, simple pure unadulterated LOVE! Is that sooooo wrong???!!!????

I do not sell flavored tortillas!!!! <<gasping for breath>> There aren't any flavored tortillas at the ferry building that I know of. Rancho Gordo (machine made from corn, water, lime, nothing else, made the evening before) and Primavera, which are the very thick hand made tortillas. These are excellent but very thick and different than the more common thinner ones. I don't know of any flour tortillas available. In Marin, it's Rancho Gordo (as above) and what I think you might be thinking of, Santa Fe tortillas. These are flour tortillas flavored with chipotle, lime, tomato, etc. La Palma has handmade tortillas but I think they are inedible. Far too thick and heavy. But it is fun to watch the ladies make them in the back. But be sure and pick up some of their freshly rendered manteca from the carnitas drippings. You will thank me!!! Casa Lucas down the street is a busy place and has all the local brands in one place if you want to try them. I used to like a brand called Gran d'Oro but I don't know if they're still around.

Perhaps the venerable institution known as eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters would like to send me around the world, or even Mexico, to document beans. I'd be honored!!!! For the record, here's the Bayo I got in the Yucatan: and here is what they referred to as Bayo Blanco: and for the curious, here is the Alubia: So this thread starts out with me making the Tarascan soup (Kennedy bean version) with a cranberry bean. I can tell you it was great. Since then I've been experimenting and you can generally acheive agreat results for soup using 1/3 pureed beans, 1/3 tomatoes and 1/3 chicken stock. Onion, garlic and oregano all help the cause. Top off with fried tortilla strips and call it soup!

Googling a bit for Huevos Reales, I found this translation! The yolks are fought on the verge of cord until they are clear and thick. The dust is added to them to hornear and second pluses are fought. Moldecitos for panqué are smeared with grease with mantequilla. A spoonful of paste in each moldecito is placed and they put in the furnace preheated to 180° C during 10 minutes. When they are ready, they remove from the molds, they sour with a possesor, they are placed in a Plato deep, are decorated with the almonds, the pinions and a pasita in the center. The rest of the pasitas and the almonds are added to the honey, with which the real eggs bathe. The honey: they are put to boil all the ingredients until they take a consistency from light honey. I love computers! Gotta go and fight some yolks now.

Well, the Bayless recipe, from Authentic Mexican was near perfect. I did leave a stick of canela in the milk as it was reducing and it was nice but I'd probably leave it out next time. Tasted too much like Christmas. OK, Caroline, next time it's in the pressure cooker and with sweetened condensed milk. Do I do a quick release under running water or the slow release?

So in essence, the whole thing is silly. They both have beautiful things to see, wine and good food. They both also have a lot of inbred hillbillies who are feeling displaced. They both have ugly suburban sides and they have lots of new money along with the old (although I'd say Napa's is a little older!) I will say that perhaps Sonoma is easier to enjoy as a casual tourist whereas in Napa it really pays to know someone. I don't ever recall seeing a parade of limos or hummers in either place except maybe on a weekend during crush. But really, gently ask someone from Sonoma a little something about Napa and you will get a sneer, a snippy remark or a jealous tantrum. It's the weirdest thing.

5 new eggs today! Time to try ut another recipe. 4 eggs and 6 additional yolks. 1 quart of reduced milk and only 1/2 a cup of sugar. This wan't bad but just a bit too eggy for me. I'm quivering just thinking about it! Recipes , please! Meringues I'm ok with but the other two..... I'll get there but I want to master the old fashioned way first. I see recipes all over the map. Some ask for sweetened condensed milk and others call for evaporated milk. Some call for whole milk while others want milk and cream. I've tried Kennedy and now I have Bayless open and will give him a try unless one of you gets back to this thread lickety split. I have lots of eggs coming so there's plenty of room for mistakes and experiments. Has anyone tried a stick of canela while reducing the milk? Here's one of my girls in action!!! Hey Jaymes- weren't you visiting when she was just a chick????

I hope the spirit of gentle ribbing is taken on this subject. However, as far as towns go, I think Sonoman is pretty great. The square, the mission, the shopping (which stradles a fine line between tourist and locals needs- and on the whole the locals win), etc. Sonoma is pretty, historic and compelling. Napa now has two huge Targets!!!!! Whatta concept! There was/is a similar rivalry between SF and LA. Angelenos loved SF and coming up for a weekend in the "cute" city while San Franciscans loathed most everything about LA and Southern CA.

Yes! See the world-famous chip on the shoulder of all Sonomans before venturing into Napa! Sorry. Another local joke! Seriously, I much prefer Sonoma and parts of Sonoma county to Napa in many ways but there's a self-inflicted inferioriity complex among lots of the residents. It's very odd to me as they are such completely different places. In fairness, things like Food TV's Gordon Elliot broadcasting from the town of Petaluma (in Sonoma County) announcing, "I'm here in Petaluma in the heart of the beautiful Napa Valley!" don't help.

I'm proud to say my six chicken have come into their majority and now are laying bewtween 4-5 eggs a day, despite the cold and shorter days. I can't keep up with consumption and thought I'd try and master flan, which seems easy enough. I made Diana Kennedy's recipe and I like it but it's a bit too eggy, even for me. Do you have any egg/milk ratios you like? I reduced the milk but have heard condensed milk works well too. I want to really master the clasic and I'm not so interested in kooky variations just yet. La Kennedy seems to be saying to use a water bath unless you have a flan mold. In Mexico a few years ago, I picked up a flan thing with a locking lid. Do I avoid the water bath if I use this contraption? Is it any better than any other kind of cookware?

Ok, Ok,. I can't stand it anymore. I CONFESS!!!!!! In the late 70s and early 80s, we used to go for dim sum a lot in Chinatown (SF). I loved the food but decided the cost was too high for such little plates. In those days, at the end of the meal, they would count up the empty plates and charge by number and size. So I had a gal pal with a large bag and we'd just empty a number of those little plates into her purse. Nowdays, they use a little rubber stamp and stamp as they serve. This wan't me, but I remember when Nob Hill was actually fancy and fun and we used to dress up in our best vintage clothes and go cocktailing. This was also in the 80s, long before the lounge movement and at the height of cocaine consumption, so we thought ourselves very fancy and avant garde. One night we invited a friend who was out of our set but seemed so eager, we thought what the hell. We started in the Redwood Room and then made our way for a drink at every good bar until we hit the pinnacle, L'Etoile in the Huntington Hotel. the pianist Peter Mintun was a local celeb and on any night you'd see Allistair Cook or Kitty Carlisle or some another dinosaur celeb (my favorite type) looking for a dry gin martini. It was very intimate and swank and the place to go as far as I was concerned. The problem was this new friend was getting sloshed en route and I had a reputation! She would exclaim that we were the modern round table and she was Dorothy Parker and, and, and.... (here she'd stumble because she didn't actually know the names of any other round table participants). I was livid. She kept getting louder and drunker and her mid-Atlantic accent kept getting stronger. We left when she spilled a drink on herself and made our way upstairs to the coat check. She sat down as she waited for us to get our things and all of a sudden I heard a big crash. She had passed out and her purse had opened and all of the contents came spilling on the floor, including ashtrays from literally everyplace we had been. I say: Where there's a swill, there's a sway!

QUOTE(carp @ Jan 4 2005, 01:40 PM) QUOTE(Neal J. Brown @ Jan 5 2005, 08:51 AM) Well, where are the Mexicans beyond Emeril using a hal-i-pee-no pepper? Where are the blacks beyond Al Roker dressing up like a pilgrim? Where are the Asians beyond Rachel Ray exclaiming, "Oh wow! I wish you could smell this cilantro!"? The KKK comment is a bit much but it is lilly white and as boring as watching a boil grow. That Unwrapped is a hit is very disturbing to me. A show where the spotlight product is obviously paying to be featured and footage of how machines add a wrapper help explain American politics.

Next trip!!!!!!

I was a guest or I would never have picked the place, but as far as food goes, I found it up and down the "Riviera Maya". I was with Euro in-laws and they liked the place very much. The most horrific was Playa del Carmen, packed, nasty and loaded with fajitas. Unlike the rest of Mexico, which I find filled with all kinds of tourists, this area was full of East Coasters and Europeans. I like both, don't get me wrong, but again, my general impression was they were after cheap sun more than anything. from jaymes: Try $50!!!!! I drew the line and refused to go. esperanza wrote: I'm no expert but I would guess it's true. We were in Akumal Sud which is newer and full of insane McMansions (McHaciendas?) cramped next to each other, so close you could hear the strains of classic rock and vintage disco at the same time, in stereo, from opposite neighbors. I had brought music by Lucha Reyes, some danzon and Jorge Negrete but felt is was deperately out of place in this Mexico! But it is pretty, the water mild and the ruins are thrilling and it's not the wet soggy mess that is Northern California.

I tell people who buy my beans that the gas is a "gift with purchase". Beans are one thing but the sunchokes- it's almost insane! Maybe if you eat them more often....

Well, the trip was fun but the area has changed a lot. It is very difficult to get Mexican food!!! I realize I was in a tourist area but almost everywhere that seemed to have potential ended up being fair or nasty. Flour tortillas, fajitas and french fries were the standard. We stopped at a small roadside restaurant and the owners apologized profusely that all they had was Mexican food and fully expected us to leave. It's a very weird situation. I ate pibil a lot but the habanero/onion pickle I remember is now almost always just onions. The first time I got it I asked for some hot sauce. I loaded it on to my dish but then realized it was simply pureed green habaneros and nothing more. Yowza! It was like getting high and after that nothing was hot enough. Another disturbing trend is the supermarket. We were in Akumel, just north of Tulum and we couldn't find an alternative to the supermarket for the fisrt week. The vegetables are even worse than supermarket vegetables in the states and yet the stores were full of locals. Nothing had any flavor and I was oversalting everything to compensate! Finally we discovered a very good fishmonger who suggested a greengrocer and things looked up. From them we got to have chaya, romeritos, nopales and beans, beans, beans! I finally tried real Mexican Bayo, nothing like what I grew. Also found what they called Bayo Blanco, very similar to a runner cannellini. I'm curious if they're easier to grow. Flor de Mayo were everywhere but the real find was a small off-white bean called Alubia. Everyone went nuts for this bean, especially the non-bean eaters. it's delicate and light and a perfect vehicle for sauce. There's a gummy Navy bean called Rice and this is everything that bean should be. Also out of this world was a local chile call X-Katic, a twisted light green chile. I brought back seeds from some good samples and hope to grow it here. We ate a local squash that was small and green and had a very textured orange flesh and small seeds. It almost seemed a cross between a summer and winter squash. I kept asking the name but all they would call it was "calabaza'. I pressed for the type but they looked at me like I was nuts. I found it in the supermarket and it was marked Calabaza Locale. I saved the seeds but they seemed to ferment on the trip home and don't have high hopes for them. Anyway, these are a few thoughts. It's such an interesting region but I had the feeling that most of the visitors just wanted sun and a beach and it could have been anywhere in the Carribean. It was high season and the weather was super so I guess it's natural. But I want my Mexico!!!!! Next trip: Valladolid!

Again, they are harder to grow and not artificially subsidized. That's why they are more expensive. And a better value.