Good Bacon

I’m sorry for you shoppers who can’t get to the farmers market at Ferry Plaza, but I have to make sure those who come know about Prather Ranch’s new bacon. For weird legal reasons beyond my comprehension, it needs to be branded as Range Brothers, but it’s all part of Doug Stonebreaker’s Prather Ranch Meat Co.

The bacon is beyond delicious and I recommend cooking a couple of rashers and save the fat, at least a tablespoon or so. Then fry onions and garlic in it, add some soaked beans and water and cook until done. Chop up the bacon and toss over the beans right before serving. Hey! Some chopped sage might be nice, too.

They also have two sausages, including a whiskey sausage, that are very good as well.

Cooking the Rice Bean

Last month I wrote about the Rice bean that my customer Daniel Osborn had brought back from Chiapas.  My friends at UC Davis were very curious about it but asked how it tasted. The look was so unique I hadn’t bothered to find out. Until last night.

Wow. It’s really a winner. It actually tastes a little bit like wild rice. It’s quick cooking and I think I need to get to Chiapas really soon.

You Posole, I say Pozole

For the record, in Mexico, the finished dish is called pozole. It’s normally a fresh chile and tomatillo dish with pork or a dried red chile and chicken dish. I know there are exceptions. Lots of them. In the American Southwest, we call the dried nixtamalized corn posole, along with the finished dish.

In Mexico, the corn (often called "para pozole") is cooked with cal (the mineral lime) and then soaked for an hour before rubbing the skins and then pinching off the germ. Our version is done up until this step. All you need to do is soak and simmer. The germ is still there but the corn explodes anyway. I think it’s the smart way to go.  I avoid the canned at all costs. It’s gummy and rubbery and just kind of funky in general.

A New Bean From Puebla

The city of Puebla was a super surprise. I expected the food to be good but I had no idea quite how wonderful it can be. My friends Nuria and Fernando drove me to all ends to find great, representative food. I’ll go into some of my favorites later.

Nuria was also helpful in taking me to market after market to check out the beans. Like most markets in Mexico, inside was full of grain stalls that seemed to have three or four beans, rice and assorted dried dog food, all in sacks ready to be scooped.  You tend to see the same beans in all the stalls. They vary by region but within the region, they tend to be similar. Then you leave the covered market and wander around the edges and you find the smaller (as in tiny) farmers and Indian women and this is where you find the real gems.

Normally the women are sitting on the ground behind their wares and if you start to ask questions, you learn that these women know how to grow the beans, how to harvest them and of course, how to cook them. Just for the experience, I always buy something from these vendors because you always end up learning something.

Anyway, The Bean this trip was called Parraleño. It looks almost like steel. Some people felt it looked like a snake. I was assured by someone who never made them that they’d cook up like a black bean. They were wrong but they did cook up deep and dense and rich. I think I’ve found a new favorite. I’ll be growing them at our trial gardens in Napa this summer but I’m also working with the small farmer who grew them in Mexico. There’s a chance this may be our first imported bean. I’ll keep you posted!

Chile Navideño from Puebla

I was just in lovely Puebla. I’ve never been and it was a gas. I met some wonderful people and the food was incredible.

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I brought back a sack of chiles called Navideño, which are a smoked red chile, like guajillo. The interesting thing is you can tell it’s a wood smoke. It’s absolutely delicious. I haven’t had much time to play with them but I made a quick sauce with one of the chiles, a little tomato and some oregano.

De Arbol Chiles at the Market

Joan (and Dan) are bringing a new batch of De Arbol chiles to the market tomorrow in San Francisco. These are the short, hot pain-inducing delights I’d mentioned earlier. You can cut them up for heat anywhere but I like to toast them briefly and then toss them into a blender. Pan roast some tomatillos, onion slices and garlic and then add it to the blender as well. Blend until smooth and you have a delicious Jalisco-style hot sauce.

These were grown and dried right here in Northern California. I’ll add them to the website, along with the starch corn and CAL, next week.

More Beans from Chiapas

My friend Connie Green, who runs the Wine Forest and is known by most everyone as The Mushroom Lady, brought these varieties back from Chiapas.

These were called Ron, as in "rum". Connie said, "You can just tell these are delicious!" and she’s right. I found a similar, but smaller bean in Oaxaca a while back.

The black beans, called Ballero, are round and look like small bits of ammo.

Rice Bean from Chiapas

My farmers market customer Daniel Osborn stopped by the booth and was nice enough to bring back one of the prettiest and most unusual beans I’ve ever seen. I asked him to write what he knew and he sent this:

It was a pleasure talking with you a week ago. I hope you have success
growing the tiny little beans we gave you. We bought them in the
mercado in the small town of Ocosingo in Chiapas.  It is about 30
miles from the city of San Cristobal de las Casas. It is still a very
Mayan influenced area with, as you know, a lot of local varieties of
many different cultivated plants. It is a fascinating place to
explore, I’m sure you’ll love it.

Several people have brought me beans from Chiapas and they seem to be quite distinct from other varieties found in Mexico. I’ve really got to go there and fill up my bags with beans.

De’Arbol Chiles

One of the guys in the beanfields had a bumper crop of deArbol chiles and I snatched up all he had.

Large quantities of large chiles are difficult to dry here  but these smaller de Arbols were easy enough. We dried them right on the floor of a barn. They’re dry enough to use but still soft and pliable. They are a little shorter than than the same chiles we get from Mexico but they’re much hotter. I was humbled by them!

We’ll have them at the farmers market in about two weeks and online about a week after that.

De’Arbol Chiles

One of the guys in the beanfields had a bumper crop of deArbol chiles and I snatched up all he had.

Large quantities of large chiles are difficult to dry here  but these smaller de Arbols were easy enough. We dried them right on the floor of a barn. They’re dry enough to use but still soft and pliable. They are a little shorter than than the same chiles we get from Mexico but they’re much hotter. I was humbled by them!

We’ll have them at the farmers market in about two weeks and online about a week after that.