Thanksgiving Leftovers

Every year it seems like Turkey Curry is the featured after-Thanksgiving recipe in most of the newspapers. I suspect most of us just pick at the turkey until it’s finished. My mother was famous for her Turkey-Rice Soup. Famous? Maybe not, but we all loved it.

I made enchiladas last night with some leftover chile sauce from my breakfast chilaquiles. The tortillas were dipped first in hot corn oil until soft, then in the chile sauce. Inside I rolled some boiled potatoes (from Little Farms in West Marin), some of the turkey and some chopped raw onion. The enchiladas were topped off with more chile sauce.

The recipe for a chile sauce is here.

Video Lesson in Coooking Beans

A lot of times at the farmers market, I’ll explain how to cook the beans to a new customer. This is followed up with printed instructions. This followed up with a follow-up lesson, going over the same thing. Again. So my friend Grant and I decided to make a video with instructions. It ended up being far too indepth so I’ve rededited it to just cover the basics. Down the road I’ll do a more advanced version.

You can laugh. It’s OK!

Video Lesson in Coooking Beans

A lot of times at the farmers market, I’ll explain how to cook the beans to a new customer. This is followed up with printed instructions. This followed up with a follow-up lesson, going over the same thing. Again. So my friend Grant and I decided to make a video with instructions. It ended up being far too indepth so I’ve rededited it to just cover the basics. Down the road I’ll do a more advanced version.

You can laugh. It’s OK!

Yellow Eye Beans

I have to confess that I’m not in love with ordinary Navy or Great Northern beans. They have a blandness and "comfort food" quality that puts me to sleep. Navy beans also have a slight gumminess that I really don’t care for. I much prefer the buttery Runner beans or the light and delicate Marrow bean. But I do understand there are moments, especially as the colder weather approaches when you want something a little less challenging, a little more familiar and still full of flavor. Meet the Yellow Eye bean. You can cook it using my preferred method of a simple mirepoix with olive oil or you can go to town and use a ham hock. I like them on their own, cooked simply but you could use Yellow Eyes for the famous Senate Navy Bean Soup or even classic baked beans.

If you’re in San Francisco this weekend, I’ll introduce them at the farmers market. They’d make a great side dish this Thanksgiving. Of course they are also available online.

These look very much like Butterscotch Calypso, a great bean we have grown in the past. But the Calypso beans (both Butterscotch and Black) have distinct potato flavor. The Yellow Eyes do not.

Yellow Eye Beans

I have to confess that I’m not in love with ordinary Navy or Great Northern beans. They have a blandness and "comfort food" quality that puts me to sleep. Navy beans also have a slight gumminess that I really don’t care for. I much prefer the buttery Runner beans or the light and delicate Marrow bean. But I do understand there are moments, especially as the colder weather approaches when you want something a little less challenging, a little more familiar and still full of flavor. Meet the Yellow Eye bean. You can cook it using my preferred method of a simple mirepoix with olive oil or you can go to town and use a ham hock. I like them on their own, cooked simply but you could use Yellow Eyes for the famous Senate Navy Bean Soup or even classic baked beans.

If you’re in San Francisco this weekend, I’ll introduce them at the farmers market. They’d make a great side dish this Thanksgiving. Of course they are also available online.

These look very much like Butterscotch Calypso, a great bean we have grown in the past. But the Calypso beans (both Butterscotch and Black) have distinct potato flavor. The Yellow Eyes do not.

Appetizer Peppers

Here in the Bay Area, small European-bred peppers have been all the rage for a couple of years. The most famous is the Padron, popularized by Happy Quail Farms and others, which has a distinct nutty flavor and the occasional hot bite. Mariquita Farms grow a similar Friarelli which lacks the nuttiness but has a pleasing, slightly bitter (amaro) aftertaste.
After rinsing the peppers, saute them on high heat with a little grape-seed oil and kosher salt. Cook them until they blister a bit and are somewhat soft. You don’t want to overcook them but they should be pleasant to bite, not a workout. Serve with a shot of good, chilled sherry and you are on your way.

Kiss My Grits, or at least eat them

It’s been a Halloween tradition that I bring my  Posole/Fish stew to Sonoma and set up a home base at my pals Maureen and Mike’s house while the kiddies go out trick or treating. Halloween isn’t my favorite holiday but with good food and wine (Mike works for Gloria Ferrer, who in addition to their more famous sparkling wines make an underrated chardonnay), it’s a lot of fun.
This year I made far too much posole and have been experimenting ever since. The most successful has been this breakfast treat.

Puree leftover cooked hominy in a mini-food processor with just enough milk to help the blades move. When smooth, saute in a little fat (I used some rendered chicken fat but any kind of oil would be fine) and then add a handful of grated jack cheese and some chopped cilantro. Salt and pepper the corn (now technically grits) and spread over a plate. Top with warmed beans with their pot liquor and follow with a dusting of dry cheese like Parmesan or cotija.

I need to clear up some things. Up until recently, a martini was a gin drink served strained into a chilled cocktail glass. Now it apparently is any kind of cocktail with ingredients ranging from chocolate to apples. Grits used to mean ground hominy. Hominy is corn with the skins removed. Ground whole kernel corn with the skins used to be called mush here and polenta in Italy. Now it would seem that any ground corn can be grits.

At Rancho Gordo, we sell prepared Hominy, which is corn that’s had the skin removed and then dried. You soak and simmer and then the individual kernels "flower" open. You can also buy hominy canned but there is a gumminess and rubber quality that the canning process adds. You can also buy whole dry corn, soak it in CaL, rub the skins off and then simmer until cooked. This is the traditional method for making pozole in Mexico.

June in November

What’s going on here? It’s November and it’s mild and pleasant and things are still happening in the garden.  Several bean plants have new growth and even new beans. I wouldn’t be surprised to see bean blossoms if this keeps up.

Tomatillo Salsa Step by Step

I think should explain the salsa I described previously a little more in depth.  Take these ingredients and place them on a medium high comal or skillet: 2 slices of red onion, 2 cloves of unpeeled garlic, 2 serrano chiles and some tomatillos in their husks.

Allow them to roast and get soft. The onions will start to caramelize. Flip the onions when they’re done and move the other ingredients around to cook evenly.

As the ingredients finish, place them in a bowl to cool down and to collect any juices that may run. The tomatillos will start to get soft and hiss as they finish.
As the vegetables cool, peel the tomatillo and garlic skins. You can pull off any excess skin from the chiles but don’t waste a lot of energy on it.

Chop the onions fine and set aside. You can grind the onions with the rest of the ingredients but I like to add them in the end for a more interesting texture. Chop the chiles and the halve the tomatillos.

You can mix the salsa in a food processor but here I’m using my molcajete. Starting with just the garlic, chopped chiles and salt, grind the ingredients to a paste.

Add the tomatillos and start grinding until they mixture is somewhat smooth. This is a real pleasure. Grinding in the molcajete feels great and provides a texture you just can’t get from a food processor.

When you get a texture you like, add the juice of a key lime (or small Persian lime). Add about a 1/4 teaspoon of ground cumin. If you are like me, you will add more because more is better. Right? Wrong! It shouldn’t taste like cumin in the final dish. Just this pinch adds a beautiful rich nuance and any more is too much. Try it my way and add more later if I am wrong. You can also add cilantro but I didn’t feel like it so I didn’t. Add the chopped onions and then mix well. You may need to add some salt. You are finished and I am hungry.

Tomatillos Milperos

If you grow tomatillos (tomates  verdes, Physalis ixocarpa) once, you’ll probably have them for life. If only one of the fruits falls to the ground, your future will most likely include tomatillos. Mine are a mix of plants from the nursery, seed companies and even trips to Mexico. They tend to be smaller, sweeter and mostly purple when fully ripe. A milpero is a cornfield and it’s common to find the tomatillos among the cornstalks.

The plants look a lot like Deadly Nightshade and they are in the same family (as are tomatoes) so when you’re doing early weeding, don’t get too vigorous. If you leave the plants to grow, you’ll see the familiar yellow "paper lanterns" that will eventually fill with the delicious fruits, sometimes even bursting at the seams.

To make  a salsa, place a bunch of tomatillos in their wrappers on a hot dry skillet or comal. Add a thick slice of white onion, a serrano pepper, two cloves of garlic (in their paper skins) and roast until the tomatillos are hissing and soft and the onion charred. Place in a food processor with some lime, salt and chopped cilantro. Chop well and serve.