Katie Meadow

So I made my version of Sopa Tarasca last night. The beans were soaked for about 4 or 5 hours first. White onion, a little bit of minced carrot and then garlic was sauteed in bacon fat, then the drained beans were added to coat and 6 or 7 cups of chicken stock. The beans were boiled for 5 minutes, then turned down very low. I added Oregano Indio, fresh thyme and a couple of small dried red chiles, and a bay leaf. While the beans were cooking I roasted some really nice canned tomatoes from Dirty Girl Produce that I bought at the farmers' market recently. After roasting I mashed the tomatoes up with their juices and a generous amount of chile paste made from New Mexico chiles. I had to add a lot, because for some reason these chiles were very mild. I sauteed another half onion, some garlic, dumped in the tomato chile mix and some salt, warmed it up and set it aside. After two hours I added some more salt and the chile mixture to the beans, simmered the pot another 15 minutes and considered it done. I forgot to buy any corn tortillas, so I served it with queso fresco, chopped cilantro, crema and a little raw white onion. Excellent with toppings. I'm sorry my chile wasn't hotter. The Bolita beans were very tasty, but they had more of a potatoey texture than I expected. I think I would have been just as happy using my Rattlers, but I like this technique of adding tomatoes toward the end; it is a different flavor than if the tomato is added at the beginning with the broth.

I don't believe I've ever knowingly eaten olive loaf. If they sold it at Barney Greengrass my parents must have either been clueless or careful to avoid it. I had to google it just to see a picture. Yes, it does look vaguely familiar with pimento-stuffed green olives, so I must have seen it in my peripheral vision once or many times. It seems there are two camps when it comes to nostalgia for olive loaf: those who swear by it on rye with mustard, and then this guy, although since his concussion he may not be very reliable. http://blogs.poughkeepsiejournal.com/bobmillersmusings/2011/05/29/olive-loaf-anyone/

Okay, I haven't had a first date in 30 years, but here's what I remember from first date meals. Don't overdo it on the rich sauce or red meat or the cheese or cream. First dates are usually--especially if you are cooking for someone--not the most relaxed events. Meals heavy in animal protein that are accompanied by dense red wines do not always leave one feeling witty or light on one's feet. And can the anchovies, unless you already know this person really well. Just a personal and somewhat different take on this.

Just back from an expedition to my local supermercado and noticed for the first time they are selling peruanos and flor de mayos in bulk. Dunno if I just missed them before, or if selling them in barrels alongside Pintos is a new thing for them. Anyway, two questions: is there a diference between peruanos and mayacobas, or are they essentially the same bean? How do you like to use them? Would they be good for refritos?

EatNopales, I'll let you know what I do and how it turns out at the end of the week. My beans are never fatty, since I defat my stock--whether pork or chicken--before using it. My plan is now to add roasted tomatoes and garlic at the end, along with the chile rojo and salt, for the last ten or fifteen minutes of cooking. In a traditional Tarasca, when is the chile added? Looks like from a variety of pix that a dried chile is added whole. Can't wait to try something new! Country, you might try the Rebosero beans. I've used them in place of Pintos (when I couldn't get my precious Rattlers.) They are very nice, and might be a good taste test along side RG Pintos and grocery shelf beans.

EatNopales, what would make the recipe something other than pre-hispanic? And another question: I notice that most recipes for Sopa Tarasca call for adding the onion and tomatoes after the beans are cooked. Typically when I make a pot of beans, be it for red beans 'n rice or a more New Mexican style, I saute the onions and garlic, etc. first, then add the beans and then the stock, whether chicken or ham based, so the beans cook in the stock rather than in plain water. If I am using tomatoes (I usually don't) I would think to add them along with the stock, or at least early on. Does this particular Michoacan soup get its character from adding tomatoes late in the game, which I can imagine would be a fresher taste?

EatNopales you've given me a good idea. Never had Sopa Tarasca, but I looked up some recipes and it sounds yummy. One of my dream trips is to go to Patzcuaro for Day of the Dead. Since I have some red chile paste in the freezer that I made with anchos and guajillos and plenty of chicken broth in there as well, I'm going to make my own deconstructed version of Sopa Tarasca. By deconstructed I just mean I prefer to leave the beans whole rather than blending them up, but I will use the traditional tomato, with fried tortilla strips and some queso fresco for garnish.

Mmm, 'snakes in a pot! Just curious, Andie, have you cooked the Rattlesnakes you got recently from Purcell? I made my first batch the other day and think they are really great. Better even than I remembered. And I received my latest order from RG with beans I've never had before: Mayacobas, Baby Limas and Bolitas. It will be interesting to see how the Bolitas fare in a straight up Mexican preparation, where I would otherwise use a Pinto or, nowadays, Rattlers. Also included were my two oreganos, and I'm planning to use the Indio in my Bolita beans. That is if I don't smoke it all first. Wow, talk about a sensation when you first open the jar. It's positively....ceremonial. About cornbread. To me, saying there is an authentic cornbread is rather like saying there is an authentic white bread. My latest twist on my own cornbread recipe is to sub a small amount of buckwheat for either the corn meal or the white flour. Yes, I do use some AP white flour in my corn bread.

Okay, this is funny. Two days ago I placed an order for beans and both kinds of oregano; it must have been a while since my last order, because I only just noticed the indio. Side by side taste test when they arrive. Often old beans really look old--gloomy or dusty inside the package, or sometimes there is a kind of whitish film on them. I wouldn't be at all surprised if beans sat around getting dusty in a bin for months in a warehouse and were then packed in plastic bags, only to sit on a grocery store shelf for another six months. If you are buying beans in plastic packages, if the package itself is dusty enough so you can't really get a good look at the beans inside, that's a good reason to stay away from them as far as I'm concerned. In all my orders from RG or Purcell I have only gotten beans that didn't seem really fresh once, and that was an order of red kidneys from Purcell, a year or two ago. I'm curious about Camellia beans. Does anyone have a good mail order source for them, some place with a good track record for fresh products?

To those who have never ordered RG beans: remember that the shipping is flat rate no matter the weight of the merchandise. You will pay the same shipping and handling charge for 2 lbs. as for 20 lbs. Get some friends to go in with you on an order and split the shipping--it does make a difference. And to further my dubious credibility as a shill for RG, order a jar of Mexican oregano. There are upscale spices that cost plenty more this, so it isn't a bad deal. I have tried buying Mexican oregano for cheaper at a variety of Mexican markets in my area, but it pales in comparison.

I can attest to the greatness of Claire Robinson's recipe--I have made it. The full recipe is easy to find on line. I use natural salted Adams chunky peanut butter to make these cookies, and golden brown sugar. I think it would be a shame to use Jif or other sweetened pb for these. Really it's just peanut butter and sugar masquerading as a cookie. And they are so easy you could make them in your sleep. Especially if you are on Ambien, in which case the only way you will know you made them is the depleted jar you find on the counter the next morning.

I suppose something could be determined by comparing canned red kidney beans to canned pintos or canned black beans, but the murky flat flavor of canned beans makes any taste test suspect. The best way to compare beans and find out which are your favorites or which go best in certain dishes is to use good quality fresh dried beans. I love certain beans and find others to be a bore, either in taste or texture or both. For many years living in New Mexico I ate nothing but Pinto beans. Now I have several other types that are my favorites. Pintos are wonderful for refried beans because they are actually a very soft bean and get rather melty. If you like a firm bean that holds its shape, there are plenty of other choices. In most all bean dishes that specify pintos I now use Rattlesnakes or pink beans. I hated red kidney beans when all I knew was canned or improperly cooked beans. Now they are one of my favorites; they hold their shape well, and have a wonderful texture and flavor. I buy the dark red kidney beans from Purcell Mountain farms, and they are excellent. I haven't tried those Southern iconic Camellia beans, but I would like to. I am guessing that in the south there is high turnover, so perhaps they are fresher there even though they are bagged. Unless you buy beans where other people buy lots of them, getting stale ones is to be expected. Good Mother Stallard are also one of my favorites. Black beans have a very distinct flavor and they hold their shape well, but they take a longer time to cook than some other beans. My experience is that they are often undercooked, especially when used in salads. I keep my beans in jars, and try not to buy more than I can use in three or four months; since we cook a pot of beans almost once a week, they are gone before they get stale.

Made a couple of opportunistic buys this morning that will be used next Sunday to make my Turkey Gumbo. One is a smoked turkey wing, and the other is a couple of smoked duck sausages that looked good. Can I keep these smoked meats in the fridge for the next week or should they go into the freezer?

David, I love those fried shallots that come in the plastic jar. Excellent idea to dress up green beans--I'm going to do that at my first opportunity. (Somehow my own childhood Thanksgiving escaped the green bean casserole, but I have indeed been served it as a guest at various holidays.) One of my favorite uses for fried shallots is as a mix-in or topping for an Asian-style coleslaw, added right before serving.

Sold. But just out of curiosity, if the roux continues to darken after it is off the heat, and if overcooking or burning is such an obvious danger, why not take the roux off the heat before it reaches the stage you desire, and let it finish itself off? Maybe I will find out the answer when I cook my first real roux. Thanks for the sensible responses!

We have no room for a buffet, so passing is our only option as well. We are often 12 to 15 people, and the table itself is barely visible. To further advance the cause of chaos, my MIL thinks an unwieldy display of fall branches, leaves and what not is essential, thus eliminating useful square footage. Last year she forgot to bring anything for her centerpiece, so my husband went dumpster diving in the neighbor's green bin and found some lovely trimmings! Okay, not exactly lovely, but no one even noticed. It's a messy affair since some like to start passing clockwise and others like to go counter, some like to grab and others are more reserved. In addition, there is always a vegetarian entree that is too hot, too heavy and too goopy to pass, so that stays in it's place and if you want some you have to pass down your plate. Sometimes the wrong plate comes back. If all the meat-eaters would sit at one end of the table things might be a little bit simpler, but my FIL, who now eats turkey but didn't used to, anchors the vegetarian end of the table. Inevitable, when the table is being cleared, someone notices a dish they had no idea was on the table. I consider things are going well if the food on my plate is still warm, but usually by the time we all start eating we are pretty well lubricated and my in-laws don't seem to care if their food isn't hot. They are just glad there's plenty of it and the faces still look familiar. Mmm, those root chips sound yummy! How do you make them, Chris?

Never made a gumbo, but I'm already bored with Thanksgiving and thinking ahead to the weekend after. Traditionally I make turkey soup, as my pre-nup specifies that I get the carcass every year, plus a reasonable amount of meat to take home (it's mostly dark meat after we give my MIL her due.) Too bad my teenage nephews are starting to outnumber the vegetarians--they are really cutting into my take. But this year I'm feeling ambitious; pictures of spicy turkey gumbo over beautiful white rice are calling to me. I've been scanning this thread and reading other recipes from various places and pretty much have an idea how a gumbo comes together, but I have one technique question that has to do with the roux and adding the elements of the trinity. All my cooking instincts tell me to saute the trinity in oil or bacon fat or whatever until softened and flavorful, and THEN add it to the finished roux. But many of the southern recipes I've looked at just dump the chopped raw trinity right into the roux and then cook that down for a few minutes more. John Besh adds just the onions to the roux first and cooks it another ten minutes, then adds the celery and green pepper after that when the next bunch of ingredients is added. Is there some flavor advantage to doing this? I can't imagine why. It just isn't what I would think to do.

Yes, they got them in a couple of months ago. I'm about to place another order as well, along with dark red kidney beans. I use rattlers for everything I used to use pinto beans. They take a little longer to cook, but hold their shape better and have a richer flavor. Pintos might be the best if you were making refried beans, though. In case you haven't tried them, I think Purcell carries the best kidney beans I've ever tasted. I've had the organic and the non-organic, and both are excellent. I'm pretty sure I couldn't tell them apart in a side-by-side tasting, but if organic matters to you and you are willing to pay a little more per pound, Purcell always has them.

Thanks for this great tour, Nikki. Several years ago Calvin Trillin wrote a terrific piece for the New Yorker about eating at the hawker centers that made me desperate to go. Now even more. I love having some visuals! But where is the fish head soup? My most vivid memory of the Trillin article was his description of the fish head, I believe with teeth, sticking nose-up in the pond of soup!

I have been buying wild gulf shrimp for the past couple of years, since they seem to be more available than they used to be here in CA. They have a better texture and taste than the farm raised ones, although as far as I know all of them are frozen and thawed before being sold. That extra goopy pinkish rope seems to happen among the shrimp I get between 25 and 50 percent of the time. Sometimes one batch will have a lot of it, sometimes not; seems very arbitrary. I don't remember this stuff ever being a part of the farm-raised critters from Mexico or wherever those comes from. And its existence by no means precludes the presence of a dirty vein; it is something else, no? Admittedly I find it repulsive, but the shrimp are often well priced and pretty good, so it's worth the ick factor. Before the days of pink goop I used to be able to pull out the vein with a tweezers, eliminating the need to slit the shell first if I wanted cooked shell-on shrimp. Now it's pretty much necessary to cut the length of the shell with a scissors in order to get out that goop. The more I think about this, the more I'm convinced it's time to give the shrimp-cleaning job to my husband. He has a very high tolerance for ick, but as a prep cook, while he is endearingly thorough, he is maddeningly slow. He makes the most lovely quarter cup of finely chopped parsley you've ever seen. In half an hour.

From the lid of the box it's an easy one: Clarines. French cow's milk cheese. One of my favorites.

Clearly there are passionate feelings about the NYT restaurant critic job, and little hesitation amongst those of us in the peanut gallery to express them. There are a lot of people in NY and out of it who want different things from a reviewer. I assume that by far the largest percent of the weekly restaurant review readers do NOT go to the restaurant; they don't have the money or they don't live in town, or, as in my case, both. Being able to find a balance that can keep the trust of readers who are restaurant goers and the desires of the myriad of food-interested readers who want entertainment and fun writing can't be easy. So I would hope it would take some time to figure out who gets the job. Anyway, I'm thrilled. If I can't have Dexter (be still my heart!) I'll take his dad. Hopefully Dexter will have something to say about the leftovers that make it home.

I'm tempted to do some variation on scalloped sweet potatoes or yams. Looking at the Essential NYT, Amanda Hesser has an adaptation of the Bobby Flay Chipotle Gratin that uses a spiced up cream (I'm thinking Mexican crema might be a nice sub for heavy cream) and she also has a recipe for Sweet Potatoes Anna, which uses only butter and herbs in the layers. Both recipes specify cooking with either foil or parchment for about 30 minutes, then without the cover for another 10-20 minutes. I want to make something that I can do most of the work one or maybe even two days ahead, since I am also responsible for the turkey, stuffing and dressing. Even with two ovens (both modest size) there is much competition for space, and the kitchen is mayhem. Are these types of casseroles able to be prepped and/or partially cooked ahead without suffering texture or flavor? I've made regular Potatoes Anna many times, but never any of it ahead--the best part being the just crisped golden crust on the bottom. Otherwise I might just go with mashing up yams with chipotle crema or butter and herbs (or a pan of each) and letting them sit overnight so they can just be tossed in the oven to heat thru.

This is fascinating. I never had a clue what sugo meant and leftover sauce from braised meat is one of my favorite things! I looked up several definitions of sugo and it can be as basic as "sauce" which I think is a little misleading, or as specific as: "a sauce made by adding stock, flour or other ingredients to the juice and fat that is rendered from cooked meat." That is also a little misleading, since in my mind that is gravy--as in what happens when the turkey comes out of the oven. Not to be confused with what Margaret Pilgim noted is "sunday gravy" which often refers to the whole pot of braised meats that is then divided and served in two parts: the meat, and a portion of pasta al sugo. I prefer a broader more middle-ground approach as Sam describes above, meaning simply the sauce without the meat that cooked in it. That way it applies to what I love about the leftovers of Coq au Vin: the chicken is long gone, but the sauce on rice is the last meal. Apparently sugo is from the Latin "to suck" (and that would be suck in the best possible way.) As in serve the succulent sauce that is left over after the meat has been eaten or removed over some yummy carbs (whether pasta, polenta or rice) and suck. It. Up. To get back on topic, I did make a Bolognese once, from a Batali recipe. I don't think it was a bad recipe, but I came to the conclusion that I simply don't like the idea of milk in a meat-based sauce.

After reading this thread I am still confused about the definition of Ragu and the definition of Bolognese. I always thought a ragu was generally a tomato based meat sauce characterized by a soffrito and long cooking of the meat. Most any kind of meat was acceptable, including goat and rabbit or a mix of meats; you used what you had. Ragu Bolognese was in my mind a regional ragu that differed by the use of less tomato product and the addition of milk. Very useful if fresh tomatoes are out of season and you don't have any canned tomatoes on hand. Should it be called Bolognese if it doesn't have milk in it? I suppose a case can be made that if you live in Bologna you can call it whatever you want. Straighten me out on this.