rancho_gordo

I've been to many a chile-field and I've yet to see a thin cloth or anything protecting the chiles, which is why a wipe with a damp paper towel is always a good idea!

I think you're going to be very busy! But vale la pena! I was looking through OaG and found DK's recipe for chilecaldo, which I had in Cuicatlan. It's a great dish, if you're so inspired. The chilhuacles were used some stage between fresh and dried and served whole in the bowl.

We're all infidels here when it comes to cooking beans. I do everything from pressure cooker to cooking in clay pots. Most people who work here start as soakers and end up never soaking and just going ahead and cooking. Beans are very forgiving. Re the Parsons method, I've done it and they've come out great. I did it once and it didn't work on beans I know for a fact were fresh and I tend not to trust it anymore, although I know it's kind of silly. I also think clean up is much harder if you bake the beans in a lecruset in the oven. I do soak if I think about it and my preferred method is in clay. But there are no absolutes with beans. I'm afraid this is kind of a non-answer, isn't it?

This was in a home so it's kind of cheating, but if you find yourself in the Cañada area, Chile Caldo is incredible. It's a stew with beef and pork, hunks of squash (called Tamala) and fresh runner beans eating like green beans. The whole mess is around chilhuacle chiles, parially dried and it's a masterpiece. it's also unusual to have the flesh of the squash used. Most recipes call for just the seeds. But squash hunks in a clear chile broth is worth exploring. This was unusual as it was roasted and peeled eggplant. I've never seen it in Mexico but it was all over Cuicatlan and the region. This was mashed a bit and they added fresh chilhuacles! On the street, quesdillas with that great Oaxacan quesillo inside. Going south, to Putla, possibly the best dish of my year, Masita de Chivo. It's nixtamal very couraly ground and added to this guajillo/pulla base with shredded goat. The corn starch is released and it's almost gelatinous. I still am dreaming about it. On the Costa Chica of Guerrero, the coffee was Nescafe so we had cocos for breakfast. Later, in Pto Escondido, a mixed seafood platter mojo de ajo. <burp> Excuse me!!!!!

This is a little awkward for me to comment here, but I wanted to clarify: I can't speak to Maine but in most of the country, commercial beans can be quite old. Many years old, in fact. And that's a huge factor in how they cook and taste. The yield on heirlooms is much lower than for commodity beans and they tend to cost more to grow. We don't grow cannellini beans. We grow runner cannellini which are not even in the same family. Our pintos are an heirloom variety and we have lots of people who are dubious- and then they eat them.

I've done it a few times. I have a pot called a fiasco, which you can see on top of the stove. I've done this twice with very good results. It's small and the top is so narrow, you can only use small beans. I think the original idea was to use a wine bottle, al fiasco. I've done it with clay bean pots but they always seem to need a little help. I'd start those on top while the fire was roaring and then put it in the embers throughout the night. Embers alone doesn't make it. Awhile back, I did cook this tagine on a very slow, rainy day and it was incredible: I ended up heating the pita on the top, as well!

Wasn't sure where to post this, but last night I made polenta in a clay pot. 3 cups water and 1 cup polenta, pat of butter. I mixed it as well as i could then put the whole pot, covered, in the embers of a dying fire. In the morning, the polenta had made a solid cake and pulled away easily from the sides with little residue. I cut it in wedges, smothered it in beans and parma cheese and had a merry little breakfast.

We're importing heirloom corn for tortilla production and I've considered offering it but I'm really concerned that people will confuse it with the prepared hominy and just try and cook it. We also grow a variety originally form Jalisco, here in California. Do you think there's a consumer market for it?

I had a surprise supply of really fresh, organic Mexican pumpkin seeds so i've been playing around with pepita recipes. What a great sauce! I mostly used the Mole Verde from Alicia Gironella's Larousse de la Cocina mexicana and I think I'm smitten. The sauce is basically roasted pepitas, tomatillos, garlic, onion, radish greens, romaine leaves, epazote, parsley, chiles. She calls for sesame seeds but I didn't have any. I served this for lunch yesterday, with plain rice and a salad of nopales, tomatoes and queso fresco.

I've also tried a faro pasta. Sometimes, wheat is popular for a reason. Not that it matters, but that Verti book was published a few times and Costeña just slapped their logo on a special edition. I have another Spanish and English version, neither with the sponsorship.

Fany Gerson, who wrote My Sweet Mexico and Paletas, will be signing books at the Rancho Gordo store in Napa this Saturday from 2p-5pm. We'll also have Brian Streeter from Cakebread Cellars (author of the Cakebread Cellars American Harvest Cookbook) and we'll have snacks and Cakebread wine. Free and of course you can just come and meet Fany and Brian. Both are muy swell folks. 1924 Yajome Street.

To have someone come up to you and say their own country barely values what you do and thank you for coming all this way to validate what I do is pretty powerful. I think they were pretty overwhelmed. And they were a pretty hip group but it's still an eye opener to eat Mexican food in Mexico. The pancita was a challenge and I'm not a huge tripe lover (I'll eat it but I don't love it) but this was delicious. I think everyone tried it, along with the pulque and the pulque with tuna. The pulques were a bigger hit than the pancita. My pretend Mexican mother (I'm an unofficial Hijo de Chabela) was disappointed that the pancita wasn't spicy enough but I suspect they did that for the gringo guests. The liver was the best part. This meal had no nopales but we ate them at least once every day, to the point that one guest, when offered a pickled nopalito at Contramar said, I'm officially sick of cactus paddles! Part of this was because we were with people who process xoconstle (sour prickly pears) and lovers of nopales. The best nopal dish was a salad with the cactus cut into many teeny little squares, all perfect, bathed in olive oil and queso fresco.

I just went to another party in Hidalgo, again with the barbacoa. It's just great. I took a group of 13 of my customers to meet the bean farmers who use a horse and plow and only grow a few heirloom varieties. They were shocked and thrilled that people would come from so far to see what they do. I was a really fun and delicious day. First, the consume, which is the aromatics and water under the meat that have been cooking all night. Then the meat and tortillas, ready for a good table salsa. Finally, the pancita, which is more broth, this time with chile sauce, and chopped offal. It sounds gross but it was very easy to like.

I think what's frustrating is that some of us try and be good children and eat everything to make our parents proud. It turns out it was hard at first and then we realized that being exposed to all kinds of good food is pretty cool and then you travel and it seems that all the super cool people keep an open mind and try and eat everything. Then you meet a person with "special needs". This is not the same thing as someone with a nut allergy that closes their throat, or a celiac who will be up all night if exposed to gluten (or a young child not gaining any weight) or even someone who chooses not to eat meat. These people seem indulgent, strident and occasionally like a nut job. The way they go on is almost like they have an eating disorder. In fact, I suspect it might be. They probably are in the minority but they are so loud and they suck so much air out of the room that the poor people who are just trying to get by are shorted. Most of us try and be pleasant and eat everything and show our appreciation. Somewhere they got the message that being picky is the same thing as being discriminating. It isn't. I mentioned this situation on another thread where I spend a lot of time with a gluten free person who was insisting we spend thousands to insure we had a gluten free warehouse. This might make sense until another gluten free person pointed out that beans need to be rinsed and any trace of gluten would go down the sink. Now when I meet these people I ask what they would do and I still meet people who wouldn't touch our beans and for this is the mark of "special needs" it's useless to deal rationally with someone like this. You can't win. So i have sympathy all around. If people are coming off as cold, you have to consider what most of us have been exposed to.

This has been great. The food looks delicious and I have a feeling we could follow you for three more weeks and never eat the same thing twice and still learn more about Mexican history and society. Bravo!

It wasn't my intent! Or was it? So this is Lola's? I'd heard it was in Petaluma but now I'm figuring out it was Petamula Road and maybe i wasn't listening. It's incredible. Is it easy to get to off the freeway? I hear there's an incredible superstore in Vallejo as well. Not Lola's but something else. We are lucky.

Here's a shot of xoconostle I took in Guanajuato. Inside. The seeds are all together, unlike with regular tunas. I think there are many varieties, just like with tunas.

Rancho Gordo sounds fascinating! I can't wait to learn more about them! (Sorry. It can't be helped.) The pots we have in the store or they can be mail ordered from Bram in Sonoma when we get our next shipment. The Zarcos are a favorite but we are running low. We will get them again next harvest.

We revisited the Oaxacan pasilla salsa this weekend. I did decide I'd use the molcajete and this proved irresistible to my 10 year old son, Nico. "Please, Papa!" I was a little worried about the mess but he did fine and has a much better grinding technique than i did. Making it in the blender is fine but it's with chiles and tomatillos that you really get the importance of the molcajete. (Or maybe I'm trying to justify why I have 4 and a metate). Anyway, it's incredible. The pasillas are so particular and funkier than a regular chipotle. We used the salsa for dinner in the beans and then the next morning over eggs. We also made DK's cascabel salsa which is a really crowd pleaser, especially for kids who want to like things spicy but don't really dig the heat quite yet. We also had some sauteed chantrelles. it was a good eating type of weekend.

I made the porridge with 1 cup amaranth and 2 parts water and didn't let it cool down very much as I was impatient to get eating. Fried was better but no grease was good as well.

Your friend sounds incredible. What a warm, wonderful soul he mush have!!!! I wonder if I had enough water in the amaranth and I wonder if i cooked it long enough. Anyway, it was delicious. Why is my batter so much lighter than yours? I did add tequisquite and they did behave more like a regular pancake. I also added my requeson mix. I am addicted to this stuff. I also tried with varying degrees of oil, all different and all good. This will be a new standard in my kitchen and I bet the kids would love it. Imagine the nutrition, as well!

I made mine last night. They were delicious but they didn't look much like yours. I'll post photos later. I think my batter was thicker somehow. My amaranth porridge was almost a paste. I added eggs and Maseca dry. I liked them better when I cooked them at a higher heat. They had a gossamer crunch on the outside but even when saturated with sauce they had a great texture. First I had them with requeson (ricotta) that had been fried with serrano, epazote, onion and garlic (a trick I learned in Hidalgo as a tabletop addition to beans). This was sublime. Later I had them with some leftover chile/pork thing I'd made on the weekend, but then also with a bit of the requeson. Even with the heavy sauce the pancakes were great. You need an award, EatNopales! Or at least a big thank you. And I think gluten-free folks would agree.

Just sayin': Ouch! Give me an old fashioned hair shirt any day! I saw them in Veracruz and I think the Yucatan where they would add dozens of little holes on a large thin tortilla-sized round of masa and then throw it on hot clay pots. They were delicious.

Wow and wow again. I never know what to do with the amaranth other than porridge and occasionally in soups, like quinoa. I'm told it has more protein than quinoa and is much easier to grow (as home gardeners all know). I don't know this to be a fact but I have heard that the commercial method to pop it is not very healthy and it's better to use a hot comal, which is nearly impossible for a novice to do without burning. I'd also heard that the Aztecs mixed it with agave syrup and made figurines of the Spanish and would chomp on them in front of them but this may be a fancy story. I can't wait to try this this week. Mil GRACIAS, brother.

I was surprised to have it in the Yucatan after years of having it elsewhere and it was much more subtle and nuanced. The leaves were as important to the flavor as the achiote recado.