Farm to Table in Boulder

D and I traveled to Boulder, Colorado for the second annual Grand Masters Ultimate Frisbee tournament. He was competing with a team from Atlanta called Ball and Chain. During my research for stuff to do on our trip, I searched for restaurants featuring locally-produced food. I was thrilled to find out that one of D's teammates has a cousin who, along with three other partners, runs Cafe Aion, a farm-to-table restaurant in the university area of Boulder and invited the team to a private dinner party at the restaurant on Sunday night after the tournament. Cafe Aion's website says it perfectly:

We aspire to cultivate this tradition in our own local soil. We gather our ingredients from farmers, ranchers and fishmongers we know and admire, and we draw upon the time-honored practices of the osteria and tapas bar as we cook for our friends and neighbors.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves here, the decor and ambiance; the food and drink; and the professional and resposive waitstaff were all lovely.




We started by sampling some local beer, and I settled on a New Belgium Fat Tire from Fort Collins. The staff set out tasty hummous, bread, and really delicious oysters wth homemade horseradish. At the table, we found dishes of vegetable anti-pasta (green pepper, onion, and olives) and marinated lentils.

I enjoyed the way the staff did the party for us: they just sent stuff out and we didn't have to choose from the menu. I have a very hard time making restaurant decisions, particuarly with a new place, and it was nice to sample a variety of things sent from the kitchen. I read a review of the restaurant online after the meal, and I love the way the chef creates little treats for the table from kitchen leftovers: :

Dakota Soifer's chicharrones, seasoned with a dash of chile oil and salt, are crispy puffs that crack between the teeth and dissolve on the tongue almost instantly, leaving behind nothing more than the sweet smokiness of pork. They're not on the menu at Cafe Aion, but they're sent, along with other scraps-turned-tapas, to diners as thanks for their business, and as a way to use every part, even the skin, of the pig the chef buys to make sausage and ribs and pancetta.

The house-cured meats were delicious. We sampled some sausage and a pate that was served with bread and olives.

For our main courses, the kitchen staff sent out a nice paella with squid, shrimp, and chorizo. For me, the dish was a bit heavy on the rice and a touch bland--but I like fiery dishes. I might have put a dash of hot sauce on it, but I didn't ask for hot sauce and none was on the table. They also brought us plates of rare and medium-rare strips of beef, perhaps a london broil or a flank steak, with roasted vegetables. Best of all was that I recogznized the baby white turnips on the plate as those I saw on display at the farmer's market the day before. I so wanted to buy a bunch and prepare them back in our kitchen hotel, but we didn't have the time.

Dessert was a slice of fresh strawberry tart with a luscious cream base. They also brought us a plate of biscotti, iced ginger snaps, and caraway-seeded shortbread to go along with coffee or espresso.

What a wonderful find in Boulder. I definitely recommend putting Cafe Aion on your agenda if you visit the Boulder area.

The.Best.Tomato.Soup.Ever.

A group of us went out to dinner at a place called The Kitchen, a recommendation from a friend who recently visited Boulder. The service wasn't so hot, and they had a disappointingly small number of local wines on the menus, but the food and the ambiance were outstanding. Especially good was the tomato soup that our 7-year old dinner companion ordered. You wouldn't think tomato soup would be so remarkable, but she shared it with everyone at the table and we all raved and tried to guess the secret. If you instinctively guess "butter" for the ingredient that makes everything better, you win--to my great surprise. I thought the soup was made of fresh tomatoes and olive oil, but I was totally wrong.

The waiter was kind enough to ask the chef to give me the recipe.

The Kitchen's Tomato Soup

1 can quality tomatoes (the chef used organic tomatoes from California canned with basil)
2 medium onions
Cream
Butter
Salt & Peper

Sweat down the chopped onions in butter. Combine with the canned tomatoes and cook over low heat. Finish with cream and blend in a blender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I'm looking forward to making this with both canned and fresh roasted tomatoes to see if there's a difference. I'll report back. : )

Practicing with Sourdough

This past summer, I brought back some sourdough starter from a trip to San Francisco. It sat around for a few months until I had some time over the holidays to see what I could do with it. I've been experimenting with different recipes since Christmas. There is a rich body of literature out there about how to do sourdough, but what I like best about what I've learned so far is that, as I'd suspected, making bread can be less about science and formulas, and more about art.

This is the most simple recipe I've found for sourdough, and the cinnamon-raisin bread that I made pictured here is the best loaf I've made so far. I'll keep practicing, though, and someday I'll make "the perfect loaf."

Basic White Sourdough Bread

1 cup sourdough starter (at room temperature)
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup oil (I use olive oil)
6 cups bread flour
1 tsp yeast
1/4 cup of warm water
2 tbsp whole wheat flour or oat bran
1 tsp honey

Mix sugar, oil, salt, water, and 1 cup of sourdough starter together in a large bowl. Sift the flour and add to the mixture. Grease or oil the dough. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise overnight.

The next day, stir the 2 tbsp of flour or bran and 1 tsp of honey into warm water and sprinkle with 1 tsp of yeast. Let this mixture sit for about 10 minutes. While you are waiting, grease & dust two bread pans with either oat bran, semolina, or corn meal. When the yeast mixture starts to look a little frothy or bubbly, pour the mixture into the bread dough and knead for 10 minutes. Allow the dough to double in size. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 40 to 45 minutes, or until bread is golden brown and taps hollow. Turn out to cool on wire racks.

To adapt to a cinnamon-raisin bread, make a mixture of cinnamon-sugar by mixing 2 tbsp sugar with healthy dashes of cinnamon. Add 1 cup of raisins right before you knead the bread. Divide the bread in half, and roll out each half into a long, narrow rectangle. Sprinkle a mixture of sugar and cinnamon over the rectangle and then roll up into a compact shape to place into your bread pans. Bake as directed above.

Denver-inspired Sweet Potato Pancakes with Honey-Cinnamon Butter and Pecans

I was in Denver, Colorado last week to watch D play a frisbee tournament, but ended up not watching too much frisbee. Another of the players had a 6-year old daughter who kindly accompanied me to some Denver-area restaurants. We joined another friend there for Saturday brunch at a restaurant called Snooze on the recommendation of a co-worker in New York who used to work there. She said, "You simply must try the sweet potato pancakes." So we did. The entire meal was delicious (we all shared the sweet potato pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, and poached eggs with hash and English muffins--the best I've ever had in my life, and discussed in a separate blog entry here). But I was underwhelmed by the sweet potato pancakes, so I just had to try my hand at them.

This weekend, we went to our friend's country house in Pennsylvania and spent time with a mutual friend who was up from Florida. D thought the sweet potato pancakes would be too heavy for a summer morning, but I was determined to make them better than Snooze did. They turned out really well, and we couldn't have asked for better company or a setting--at a lovely table on a porch by a noisy river. I served them with sweet chicken and roast pepper sausage, honey-cinnamon butter, pecans, and maple syrup.

Sweet Potato Pancakes

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
3 tsp baking soda
6 tbsp brown sugar
3 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp nutmeg
3 cups milk, 3 eggs, 5 tbsp butter
1 1/2 cup boiled or roasted mashed sweet potatoes
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Mix dry ingredients together (you can even do this days ahead of time, or before a trip to impress a host if you go visiting). Stir in the moist ingredients until well-blended. Ensure that the batter is drippy enough, but not too drippy. Heat a generous amount of oil in a pan and drop in approximately 1/4 cup or 3 tbsp of the batter until browned on either side. Serve with honey-cinnamon butter, a sprinkling of chopped pecans, and heated maple syrup.

camping

Blog-productivity has suffered this summer because D and I have been traveling so much. There's not much to say about this meal in terms of preparation, but it can't go unrecorded. We drove to Letchworth State Park a few weeks ago--about an 8-hour drive from Brooklyn. I was on a work trip and D came to meet me on the train. We drove from where I was staying about 3 hours to Letchworth, and then broke the trip up on the way back by stopping at my parents. Letchworth is known as the Grand Canyon of the East, and it was simply beautiful.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letchworth_State_Park

On the way to the campground, we stopped at a supermarket and picked up a grass-fed beef steak, fresh ears of corn, asparagus, and heirloom tomatoes. When we got to the campsite, we set up the tent, made some margaritas, and chopped up some garlic and spices to marinate the steak in (with olive oil, salt, and pepper). A friend brought back some spices in a little decorative container from Zanzibar, and we just used those--saffron, sesame, cumin, and I think some sort of red pepper spice. We put the marinating steak in a plastic bag and tucked it away in the cooler and headed off for a hike.

When we returned, D sparked up the fire, set up the grill, and we laid it all out. One flip on the grill, and voila. Shortly before sundown, we were enjoying this lovely meal under the trees.

Sustainably harvested fish & chips

Visiting the local chipper is one of my top three favorite things to do when I'm in London. My friends recently moved to a new area, so there was a new chipper to try: The Sea Cow. The old chipper was wonderful: a dingy little place where the fish was dripping with grease and they still wrapped everything in newspaper. I kind of missed it, and in fact, after visiting Sea Cow, one of my friends made a vow with me to seek out a new, dingy chipper for my next visit.

The Sea Cow fit in nicely with my local and sustainably produced food agenda; the ambiance and the tastiness of the food made the trip perfect. Unfortunately, I didn't snatch a "guide to the fish" sheet that was available with the menu, but the menu itself states: "All of our fish is sourced and delivered daily from the coast or Billingsgate Fish Market. We try and take advantage of the seasonality so our menu may change from time to time."

M and I chose the locally-harvested cod and chips--the most traditional of the fish and chips selections. P's mum ordered the Plaice and chips, and P ordered the grilled organic salmon. Everything was delicious. They had a good wine selection (with suggestions about how to pair the wine with the fish) as well. This place is a winner. I would definitely return.

Visiting the Buffalo Farm

Two years ago, I was a lawbreaker. I had my car registered in Pennsylvania, and so I had to travel to PA in order to get the car inspected. One year, I decided to take the car to Hamlin, PA, about a half an hour away from our friends' home in Lackawaxen because it was on the way from my parents' to their place. On the way back, we noticed a buffalo farm with free range buffaloes and a small adjacent store that sold the meat. We picked up a bunch of frozen meat; it was delicious, and we made quite a few cool dishes: buffalo kebabs, buffalo meatloaf, and buffalo stew with parsnips. You can find information about the place, and directions to the farm, here: http://agmap.psu.edu/Businesses/1612. Over the holidays, we went back and stocked up for a few months. Skirt steak if my favorite cut of meat, so the first thing we tried was a buffalo skirt steak.

I marinated the buffalo meat in olive oil, diced garlic, ginger, salt, pepper, paprika, and tons of parsley. I rubbed it into the meat in the morning, and left it in the fridge all day while we were at work. It was easier from there: D seared the marinated steak in a sizzling cast iron pan and we served it with some pureed cauliflower that I had frozen and then defrosted that same morning, and steamed kale. Delicious.

Rugelach wassailing

He'd been keeping it a secret from me since we met that he knows how to make rugelach, but D revealed it to me before this Christmas vacation. So we packed up the ingredients and made some here at our friend's country house in Lackawaxen. We were going to visit friends of our friends who are an artist and a caterer by trade (but many more things than that), and we decided to bring some rugelach with us for the visit. Hence, rugelach wassailing. Wassailing is defined in some texts as visiting-while-carolling, so we went rugelach wassailing over to Hawley and got a tour of the incredible toll house that they've made into a beautiful home.

Here's how we made the rugelach.

Rugelach

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1/3 cup sour cream
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/2 cup raisins

Cut cold butter or margarine and cream cheese into bits. In food processor pulse flour, salt, butter or margarine, cream cheese and sour cream until crumbly. Shape crumbly mixture into four equal disks...wrap each disk and chill 2 hours or up to 2 days.

Roll each disk into a 9 inch round keeping other disks chilled until ready to roll them.

Combine sugar, cinnamon, chopped walnuts, and finely chopped raisins (may substitute miniature chocolate chips for raisins).

Roll each disk into a 9 inch round keeping other disks chilled until ready to roll them. Sprinkle round with sugar/nut mixture. Press lightly into dough. With chefs knife or pizza cutter, cut each round into 12 wedges. Roll wedges from wide to narrow, you will end up with point on outside of cookie. Place on ungreased baking sheets and chill rugelach 20 minutes before baking.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

After rugelach are chilled, bake them in the center rack of your oven 22 minutes until lightly golden. Cool on wire racks.


If you wrap them up in some plastic wrap and tie them with a bow, they make nice house-calling gifts.

Baking Bread on a Rainy Day

Baking is not my strong suit, especially baking things that require rising and yeast. But I thought, while I have the time and patience away from the city, let me try again to make bread. It's been rainy and dank here, so it was the perfect day to try it out. I used cake yeast this time, having had little luck with the powdered yeast the last few times I tried. It seemed to help.

Buttermilk Honey Wheat Bread

2 ½ tsp (one third of a package) of fresh/cake yeast
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups all purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp honey
1 ½ tbsp vegetable oil
1 ½ cups buttermilk

Gently heat the buttermilk and the honey in a saucepan over a low flame. Do not boil. Add the yeast when the buttermilk has reached room temperature. Add the rest of the ingredients. The dough will be really sticky, but try to knead it for a bit. Place the dough in a greased bread pan and let rise for about an hour, or until doubled in size, whichever is longer. Bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven for about 25 minutes, or until bottom sounds hollow when tapped.


We served the bread alongside roasted chicken (which was brined and smothered in parsley and yucatan spice rub) and roasted for a long time at a high temperature with shallots, carrots, and beets. It was delicious and soaked up the juice perfectly.

Yucatan Empanadas

My favorite Christmas present this year was a set of empanada makers from D's sister. I've been thinking about making empanadas since before Thanksgiving. Frozen ground turkey from an organic bird was just waiting in the freezer to get doctored up into some spicy turkey empanadas. I'd never made them before, so I kept putting it off, mostly because I am not usually graceful enough with dough. But I threw a bag of the frozen turkey meat in our cooler for the few days we were staying at our friends' country house in PA between Christmas and New Year. Just before we left, D's sister dropped off some presents, and the empanada makers were among them. I researched some recipes, packed together the ingredients, and off we went.

This is the recipe for the dough, and followed by a website that gives a step-by-step tutorial on how to make empanadas.

Cornmeal Whole Wheat Crust

1 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 minus 2 tbsp cup yellow cornmeal
2 tbsp almonds
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 t nutmeg
6 whole coriander seeds
1/2 cup cold water (or more as necessary)
1 stick cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg, lightly beaten

Combine flours, cornmeal, baking powder, seasonings and salt in a blender or food processor; pulse just til combined.

Add water, butter, and egg; pulse just til combined, adding additional water if needed. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface; knead gently 4 to 5 times. Place in a bowl, cover and refrigerate 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 425°. Spray two large cookie sheets with cooking spray.

Divide dough into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into an approximately 6" circle on a lightly floured surface. Spoon 1/4 cup of filling into center of each circle.


This is what I did for the filling, but you could do so many things with empanadas....

1 lb ground turkey
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
½ cup currants
1 cup chopped mushrooms
2 tbsp Yucatan spice mix
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp salt

Bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and continue baking until the crust is browned.

Step-by-step instructions: http://latinfood.about.com/od/appetizersandsnacks/tp/empanadas.htm

And this is how we served it:

Choux Pastry Heart

One of my favorite bands is one I rarely ever listen to anymore. They exist in a particular time for me, but every once in a while, I remember a lyric or a particular melody that conjures up all kinds of complicated memories. The Cocteau Twins had a song, perhaps it was on Four Calendar Cafe, which came out in 1993, that contains "choux pastry heart" in the lyrics. I remember it, but I can't find it anywhere. Anyway, I have a favorite recipe for Mushroom Gougere that uses a choux pastry dough with gruyere cheese. It's delicious, but now I can only hum Corinne Bailey Rae's Choux Pastry Heart when I make it; the Cocteau Twins lyrics are lost to me.

My friends asked me to make a gougere for brunch over the holidays. I hadn't made it for a while, but it always gets rave reviews, so I was game.

Here's how to make it, somewhat adapted from the Vegetarian Gourmet by Roz Denny (1995):

Mushroom Gougere

Choux Pastry Crust

1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter
3/4 cup cold water
3 beaten eggs
3/4 cup diced Gruyere cheese (you can substitute any kind of Swiss)

Filling

1 small onion, sliced
1 carrot, coarsely grated
8 oz crimini mushrooms (or any kind of mushroom)
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp curry paste (mild or hot, according to your taste)
2 tbsp flour
1 1/4 cup milk
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
salt and pepper
2 tbsp flaked almonds

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a round 9 inch glass pan.

Sift the flour and salt onto a large sheet of waxed paper. In a large saucepan, heat butter and water until the butter just melts. Do not let the water boil. Fold the paper and shoot the flour into the pan all at once. With a wooden spoon, beat the mixture rapidly until the lumps become smooth and the mixture comes away from the sides of the pan. Cool for 10 minutes. Beat the eggs gradually into the mixture until you have a soft, but still quite stiff, dropping consistency. You may not need all the egg. Stir in the cheese, then spoon the mixture round the sides of the greased pan.

To make the filling, saute the onion, carrot, and mushroom in butter (or olive oil) until the onion is carmelized. Stir in the curry paste, then the flour. Gradually stir in the milk and heat until thickened. Mix the parsley, season well, then pour into the center of the choux pastry. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the dough has risen, but before it turns golden brown, add the flaked almonds. Continue to bake until the pastry is golden brown, and the mixture inside is somewhat stiff. Serve warm.

Happy Boxing Day!

There are so many different holidays this time of year.  It was just Christmas, and Chaunnakah, and Kwaanza, and now it's Boxing Day!  We were at our friends' country house and we all hosted ten friends for brunch.  After feasting and drinking champagne for a few hours, I had to lie down with the cat and take a nap.  Later that evening, we were here with just four of us, and one of our friends prepared leftover plates with parsnip puree, smoked salmon pasta salad, and a green salad on the side.  He served up sandwiches with sliced duck on french bread with mustard.  After dinner, I rehabilitated the pizelle batter and made these for dessert that we served with jasmine tea.

Italian Pizzelles

3 eggs
1 3/4 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp. bourbon vanilla, or a very good vanilla, extract
1/2 c. butter
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 c. sugar


Beat eggs and sugar. Add cooled melted butter and vanilla. Sift flour and baking powder and add to egg mixture. Batter will be stiff, but supple enough to be dropped by spoon. Batter can be refrigerated to be used at a later time. Makes 30 pizzelles.

My mother gave me a pizzelle iron a few years ago, so that's what I used. I dropped a heaping teaspoon of the batter onto the greased iron, and let cook until they steamed. I removed them with a knife. They weren't as neat as they could be; it takes practice.

Ducks

I never really ate duck breast before. Last year, D. made duck confit for my birthday, but I don't really remember what it tasted like and besides, it was just duck legs. This year, our friends suggested that we have duck for Christmas dinner at their country house in Pennsylvania. They said they would prepare duck breasts for the guests, there were to be about a dozen of us. D. volunteered to get the duck from the butcher he knows, so that meant that they couldn't start the duck until we got to the country house. We were lazy that morning, and didn't really get on the road until the afternoon. When we arrived at the house at dusk, I had to deal with getting the cat all set up, and D. brought in the cooler. He ended up preparing the duck himself, though our friend had made a currant sauce to go along with it. I wouldn't know how to do it if you left me alone with a duck breast, but from what I recall, D. cut checkers into the fat of the duck breast, though not so far in that the meat itself was punctured. He seasoned them with salt and pepper, and let them cook in olive oil on the stove in a cast iron pan until the skin was crispy and brown. 

Then he popped them in the oven and cooked until they were medium-rare. He sliced the breasts and arranged them a on plate in the center of the table, and everyone passed around sides of the currant sauce, string beans, parsnip puree, and brussel sprout gratin. It was a delicious meal. The duck breast slices were wonderful on french bread with mustard and cheese the next day.

Home cooking in an efficiency condo on the beach

I took a much-needed vacation in Siesta Key, Florida last week. D and I rented a condo right on the beach, and it was lovely. I spent days on the beach watching pelicans dive into the water, spent nights in fun Sarasota restaurants, went to an Obama rally and saw the man speak in person, and visited the Sarasota farmer's market. Our efficiency condo had the worst cooking implements--terrible pots and pans, not a single good knife, not even salt and pepper!--so we ate out much of the time. I just had to have a home-cooked meal after visiting the farmer's market, though. This market really rivaled some of the best I've seen, and it was great to see citrus fruit there. We bought a nice pound of grouper from the fish monger, along with a little bag of herbs; a couple of lemons, a lime, a tomato, an onion, a small bag of red potatoes, a bunch of parsley, and two ears of fresh corn. We baked everything in the little electric oven: the grouper with lemon, onion, and tomato; the halved red potatoes with parsley and olive oil; and the corn in their husks. All we did was squeeze lime over the corn when we shucked it, and then we served it up. You can actually cook a great meal in any kind of kitchen!

Obama Acceptance Speech Celebration Dinner

Since we didn't make it out to one of the group viewings of Obama's speech, I figured we ought to celebrate the way that we usually do at home with an insanely yummy healthy dinner. This sounds like it would be a lot of preparation, but you can do a bunch of stuff ahead of time (over the weekend, for example) that makes it super easy. Everything on the menu was local, most of it organic. I purchased the lamb from one of my favorite meat vendors at the Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market. I brought the figs back with me directly from Berkeley, California.

Lamb steak with fig chutney, pureed parsnips, and sauteed dandelion greens

1 1lb lamb steak
1 bunch dandelion greens
3 parsnips
1/4 cup of milk
4 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper
8 oz mission figs
1 small onion
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
one cinnamon stick
pinch of fresh thyme and rosemary
olive oil

Marinate the lamb steak in olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme and rosemary. You can freeze it just like that after it's done sitting in the mix for a little while.

Peel and boil the parsnips until tender. Put in a blender when tepid with 1/4 cup of milk, salt and pepper, and I used a touch of truffle oil, which is not essential, but is super yummy. Puree. You can put that in a freezer-safe container or a freezer bag, too.

Cut figs into bite sized pieces and boil them in a mixture of chopped onion, sugar, vinegar, and cinnamon stick until jam-like. Put in a jar and refrigerate.

The dandelion greens you can't freeze, so that's what you have to prepare just before the meal. Cut the dandelion greens into bite sized pieces and sautee in olive oil, chopped garlic, and salt and pepper. I added toasted sesame seeds, but again, not essential.

I couldn't resist some sweet, local corn, but it may have overloaded our plates. I definitely felt gluttonous.

Enjoy!

Pollo en Mole Poblano

This isn't the most appetizing of photos, but let me tell you, mole paste directly from Mexico is no joke. I find it so strange that I couldn't find a good recipe for using it on the web, and even when I tried asking a restaurant chef in Xochimilco how to use it, his advice was sketchy. He leaned in and said, "I'll tell you my secret: I break sweet cookies up into the mixture." I was like, well, thank you, but I am never going to do that. So I brought home a recipe last night for mole negro just to get an idea of proportions, and then I played around with it a bit. This mole, as I mentioned in a previous post, is from Xochimilco, and it was Mole Poblano, which means that it was made with poblano peppers. It cost about $1.70 for 5 ounces of it, which I used in this recipe that serves 4 well.

This is what I came up with, and it was really very delicious.

Pollo en Mole Poblano

4 skinned, boneless chicken breasts
olive oil
salt & pepper
4 medium sized tomatoes
2 cups of chicken stock
5 ounces of mole poblano paste (or any mole negro)
sliced almonds or pepitas

2 cast iron pans and a small food processor or blender for liquifying the roasted tomatoes.

Start out by browning the chicken breasts in a cast iron pan with some olive oil. When they are well browned, but not cooked all the way through, place the entire pan in the oven at about 325 F.

Next, cut the tomatoes into quarters and heat another dry cast iron pan until it is smoking. Fry the tomatoes in the dry pan until the juices have all come out and you get a nice fragrance. Take the tomatoes out of the pan when they are done and set aside in a bowl.

Rinse out the tomato pan and put it back on the fire to dry a bit. Once dry, put some olive oil in the pan and put the mole paste in and quickly break it up into small pieces. Add a bit of stock tot he mixture until the pieces are nearly all broken down. Don't let the mole burn. Turn the heat to low, and turn back to your tomatoes, which should be no longer steaming hot. Place them in the food processor or blender and make a liquid out of the tomatoes. One recipe suggested straining them, but why waste the nice tomato seeds?

Keep heating the mole and adding stock and pureed tomatoes until you get the consistency you want (it should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon) and the desired heat intensity (mole can be very spicy).

When it is nice and thick and smooth and soupy, take the chicken out of the oven and pour the mole sauce over the four breasts. Place back on the stove and simmer on low until the chicken is tender. I like mine well cooked so that it is nearly falling apart, you can cook your to the degree that you want.

Spoon a bit of the mole onto a plate and then place a chicken breast on top. Then dollop with a little bit more mole sauce. I didn't sprinkle almonds or pepitas on top, but I would like to have. So you should. If you like them. I served the pollo en mole with plain steamed veggies as a nice clean contrast to the complexity of the sauce.

The Long, Hot Labors of Pepper Relish

This is the product of my labors on Saturday. Several jars of sweet pickles for a barbeque in San Francisco this coming weekend, several jars of Mexican Pepper Relish, and one experiment in gherkins that I am less than optimistic about.

I didn't keep perfect track of my recipe for the relish, but this is what I remember I did. In addition to the peppers I brought back from Mexico, I shopped at the Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market for the tomatillos, bell peppers, and onions.

Mexican Hot Pepper Relish

10 hot peppers of various shapes, sizes and colors
2 green bell peppers
1 red bell pepper
1 large onion
5 medium-sized tomatillos
1 cup of sugar
2 cups of vinegar
2 cups of water
3/4 cup of canning salt

Cut the hot peppers with a sharp knife into tiny pieces. Your fingers will be burning, but its better than putting them through a processor...too much juice and you lose too much of the meat of the peppers. Put aside in a small bowl. I suggest putting half of the bell peppers, half of the onions, and all of the tomatillos in a little food chopper and handcutting the rest. Mix them all together in a bowl and sprinkle with 3/4 cup of canning salt. Stir up to ensure that the peppers are covered in the salt, and then cover with boiling water. Let stand for about 2 hours.

When the peppers are brined, rinse them lightly and then drain them (you can save the liquid). If you want, you can substitute some or all of the pepper liquid for the water to make the relish syrup.

Combine the water (or pepper juice), vinegar, and sugar and bring to a boil.

Spoon the pepper mixture into small jars, cover with boiling syrup, and seal the jars. They should be good after three days of setting.

Enjoy some on scrambled eggs, steak, hot dogs . . . and remember to share with your friends!

I haven't decided on a name for my Mexican pepper relish

Two years ago, I called my first batch of relish hellfire hot pepper relish. My friend Patrick grew scotch bonnets and gave me a few, and I made 12 jars of relish. Last year, my own peppers were either not hot enough, or I added too many other ingredients, so the relish was awesome, but it wasn't very hot.

This year, I've been growing my own peppers--Carribean Reds and Jalapenos--but I also brought these peppers back from Mexico and made a few jars this afternoon. I'll post the recipe soon (its kind of complicated), but for now, I'll just say that my fingers are still burning.

Pan Integral, muy delicioso en Coyoacan

On the way back from Mercado de Coyoacan I found this lovely little organic bakery about 8 blocks from the subway station on a beautiful main street in the town aptly named La Casa del Pan. The waitstaff was friendly, the atmosphere totally relaxed, and the food was terrific--all organic, fresh, and local. I had a cappuccino, a whole wheat roll that was slightly sweet, and a small almond crescent cookie. The wheat roll was just the right kind of crusty and shiny on the outside, the right kind of soft in the middle, and the right kind of sweet throughout. I also bought a roll to make a sandwich for the plane the next day and carried it like an ancient vase all day so that it didn't get crushed.



Besides amazing breads and other baked deliciousness, they served soup, pizza, and sandwiches that were also prepared in a lovely and healthy way. There are more and more places like this in Central America. If you're ever in Mexico City, it's worth a trip to Coyoacan--for the market, but also for lunch at this bakery.

Mexican Fresh Food Markets

One of the reasons that I agreed to take a few of my remaining vacation days to go to Mexico for two small presentations at the International AIDS Conference was so that I could visit some local fresh food markets and bring back mole and vanilla beans. I posted queries on Chowhound and the Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forum to see if people had recommendations about where to go and whether I would have any trouble bringing things back. I didn't get very many responses, and didn't have a clear idea of where to go or what to do when I got there. Luckily, I ran into a friend of a friend of a friend at a breakfast on the first day I was there who is from Mexico City and told me to visit Mercado de Xochimilco and Mercado de Coyoacan.



Public transit in Mexico City is easier than in any other city I've ever visited, so it was easy to get around, even though both of these markets were very far from where I was staying, and from where the conference was being held. I spent time practicing my Spanish, taking pictures, and buying food stuffs to bring home. These are just a few pictures of the produce in these markets. In the coming days, I'll post more about what I've done with some of the ingredients I brought back. First up: mole verde chicken breast.