I mentioned Happy Girl Kitchen last week and then next thing you know, Jordan makes a rare appearance at the market. She’s very pregnant and let’s be frank, probably a little needier than usual. At the end of the day, we both had some sampling food leftover so I dumped some of my Cellini beans into the last bit of her salsa and it was a marriage of good taste.
I don’t remember watching anyone enjoy food so much for a very long time.
I mentioned Happy Girl Kitchen last week and then next thing you know, Jordan makes a rare appearance at the market. She’s very pregnant and let’s be frank, probably a little needier than usual. At the end of the day, we both had some sampling food leftover so I dumped some of my Cellini beans into the last bit of her salsa and it was a marriage of good taste.
I don’t remember watching anyone enjoy food so much for a very long time.
It’s hot. I’m tired and cranky. I want to eat.
The solution is to tastefully arrange some leftover beans, leftover poblano chile strips and some canned sardines on a plate. Smother in fresh cracked pepper. Accompany with good bread that’s been given a quick brush of olive oil and then popped in the toaster oven for a few minutes.
If the beans and chiles are coming straight from the refrigerator, zap them in the microwave for 30 seconds or so to bring them to room temperature.
Add some cool wine or a beer. Everything is going to be OK!
I recently was invited to a bean industry event that focused on field trials for beans. For hours, we toured acres of bean fields and heard the results. The beans were bred for uniformity, size, color, resistance to disease and bugs and of course, yields. I was having a grand old time until the end when it dawned on me that not one word had ever been mentioned about flavor.
The tour was followed by a luncheon prepared by the local health department and included a short lecture on the health benefits of beans. The prepared beans included three types of "chili", a salad and hummus, all designed to mask the flavor of the beans, or designed to mask the lack of flavor, I should say. No wonder people think they hate beans! This thick stodgy porridge they were passing off as chili would please no one.
I then started thinking about how we’ve done the same thing to pork. It’s been bred so that it’s bland and nearly fat-free and when we cook it, we need to smother it in barbecue sauce to again hide the lack of flavor. What if the ingredients tasted like something and we wouldn’t need to buy the barbecue sauce? What if the beans were delicious and could be enjoyed by themselves, or perhaps with a fine piece of heritage pork?
I talk to a lot of people who are just getting interested in food. I also talk to a lot of self-described "foodies" and "gourmets". They can study Larousse Gastronomique
I’m not a culinary luddite and I know the worth of breeding to avoid disease and pests. I suppose there’s even a place for the kind of canned red kidney beans one finds on a salad bar. But if we demanded quality as loudly as we’re demanding economy and convenience, I think we’d be starting something worthwhile.
It’s easy enough to make a breakfast of molletes north of the border. The heart and soul of the dish is the refried beans. I like to sauté red onion slices in bacon drippings until they’re almost disolved. I then add whole beans and some of their pot liquor, and some water if they seem a little dry. Using my bean masher, I slide along the bottom of the skillet so that the onions incorporate into the beans. I repeat the process until the mass is a glorious mess of refried beans. Be sure and leave some texture for interest.
For the molletes, I toasted a slice of Acme Bread’s Pain au levain and topped it with a spoonful of the refried beans, a spoonful of fresh salsa and then topped the whole thing off with some grated Manchego cheese. The Mexicans make a fair Manchego but I prefer the Spanish. If the cheese and salsa are at room temperature, there’s no need to broil. It’s lovely as it is.
I’m not crazy for sweet breakfasts in general and in Mexico, I have to admit, I don’t care much for their pastries. I don’t despise them, but knowing there’s something else savory available, I tend to go for that.
While my traveling companions are enjoying perfectly nice pancakes or sweet breads, I like to go for the molletes. These are generally white rolls with some of the filling scooped out to make way for a slather of refried beans. They’re then topped with cheese and broiled until the cheese is bubbling. Of course, like most good things in New Spain, they’re served with a searing salsa guaranteed to wake you up. You are now prepared for the day.
Next: Molletes a la Rancho Gordo
Our focus is New World Foods and heirloom varieties, so I have to admit I feel like a bit of a sell out offering chick peas. But they’re one of my favorites. One of my growers grew them this summer and I have a limited supply. The first time I made them, it took four hours in the slow cooker, unsoaked! When I’ve made commercial garbanzos, it’s taken a full 12 hours at times.
A classic Mexican soup using garbanzo beans is Caldo Tlalpeño. There are several versions but the best are basically a chicken soup, seasoned with chipotle chiles and packed with garbanzos and garnished with cool avocado. This seems to be a typical recipe.
Erik Ellestad is one of the Bright Young Kids preparing and creating modern cocktails. I’m pretty much "old school", as in gin martinis and Manhattans, but anytime a Rancho Gordo product can be incorporated into a classic, I’m all for it. Especially since I think the bean martini is a few years away.
from Erik:
1 Dash Celery Salt
1 Dash Lemon Juice
1 Dash Worcestershire Sauce
2 oz home made tomato juice
3 oz clam juice
1 1/2 oz Rain Vodka
1/2 teaspoon prepared horseradish
1 dash Rancho Gordo Rio Fuego Very Hot Sauce
Roll ingredients in ice
between cocktail shakers. Strain into ice filled glass and give it a
good grind of black pepper.
Note: This recipe is adapted from the "New and Additional Cocktails" section of the second edition of the Savoy Cocktail Book
In
any case, I often find Bloody Mary’s a bit thick. Using the clam juice
thins out the tomato juice. It’s not too clammy or anything, more of a
hint of the sea. Nice, really. The Rancho Gordo Very Hot Sauce and
horseradish give it a little bit of a kick.
You visit Erik’s blog for more inspiration. He also is the booze host at eGullet.
This last spring, I was visiting my friends Maria and Isidro at their home in Jalisco, Mexico. They were great hosts and it was really different than visits to their home here in Napa.
Maria loves to cook and talk about food. Everyday, the tortilla man came by with a package of fresh tortillas and she laughed at how fast they seemed to go with me visiting. Isidro likes to forage and trade fruit, cactus paddles and citrus and Maria incorporates them into the meals. They tended to eat a lot of vegetables, chicken and some beef but no pork. On the table at every meal was her salsa made from de Arbol chiles and it was memorably hot.
I talk a lot about tacos and on some level, think almost anything fits on a warm tortilla, but the traditional dishes are there for a reason and Maria likes to make these beef tacos. It was casual but hardly haphazard.
Each tortilla had a scoop of ground beef, some coleslaw, a few beans and salsa. The slaw was the perfect counterpoint to the hot salsa and the beans and beef gave the tacos body. Cold beers were always nearby for obvious reasons.
My neighbor at the Ferry Plaza farmers market is Happy Girl Kitchens.
Todd and his wife Jordan have lots of really unusual and delicious items but I was blown away by his spicy tomato juice. It turns out he makes it by straining his fresh salsa. Now that tomatoes are in full swing and so juicy, your fresh salsa can be sitting in a pool of tomato juice. This makes an excellent sangrita at drink time. I made the above from some glorious tomatoes from Eatwell Farm and cucumbers from from my neighbors at Catalan Farms and even drained, you could still taste the cucumbers. I added a spash of Rio Fuego Very Hot Sauce for good measure. Gosh, but I love summer!
Rancho Gordo: Experiments from my mostly New World kitchen and gardens 
