CB Cooks: Frijoles Borrachos (Drunk Beans)

Beans + bacon + tequila = awesome

This is not a "receta auténtico" by any means, it's more of a CB recipe based on some Mexican recipes and Rick Bayless' one by the same name. As I understand it, the general idea behind any type of frijoles borrachos (drunk beans) is to cook beans, then right before serving splash some tequila in them. Sometimes "borrachos" refers to cooking the beans in beer. Either way, sounds great, right? I've found cooking beans in beer makes them taste a little better, but adding some tequila right before serving makes them taste A LOT better.


As things get colder and we finally start making our way into winter, I thought this would be a great dish after a long day out on the cold water.


WHAT YOU NEED

Mayacoba aka peruano beans
they cook up big, yellow, and very creamy

- Beans - I used yellowish mayacoba beans; also known as peruano beans in some places. No matter what they're called, they cook up big and soft, much creamier than pintos or black beans.
- Onion - about half a white onion
- Garlic - 4-6 cloves
- Bacon - I used 3 long strips
- Green chiles - the name "green chile" really refers to any chile (aka "pepper" for us gringos) that is in it's green stage of ripeness. Although that's true, normally "green chile" refers to a mild green chile like anaheim or new mexico. I used a combination of poblano (the green fresh version of ancho) and jalapeño
-  Tomatos - I used a can of diced tomatoes, the ones at the store didn't look so nice (which is often the case)
- Salt, pepper, cumin
- Tequila (optional..?)
- Water

- Crock pot (or dutch over, or a pan or something)

HOW YOU MAKE IT
1) Fry the bacon, get it crispy, remove from pan, cut up, and add to crock pot

2) Add diced onions and green chiles to bacon fat, get them nice and golden

Mmmmmmm smells so good

3) Add minced garlic for 2-3 minutes, but don't burn it!

4) Add contents of pan to the crock pot

5) Add dry beans to crock pot (Some people swear by soaking beans overnight- I almost never do that, and they always turn out just fine. It may take longer to cook them, but if you're using a crockpot, who cares?)

6) Add the tomatoes and seasonings (salt, pepper, cumin, whatever else) and fill with water (or stock, or beer) generously

7) Crockpot: cook on low for a long time (8 hours?)
     Stovetop: bring to a boil, then simmer for a long time (2-3 hours?)

8) Once the beans are cooked (pick one out with a spoon and blow on it- if the skin wrinkles and peels back, it's done!) add a splash (a tablespoon or more) of tequila (or mezcal if you're daring)

9) Top with minced raw white onion, chopped cilantro and serve! Even better the next day, like most long-cooked dishes. The combination of bacon/cilantro/onion/tequila is pretty awesome- it's hard to imagine until you try it- it's delicious!

WHAT ELSE YOU COULD DO
- Almost anything! This is barely even a recipe...
- Substitute any smoked pork product for the bacon
- Use dried chiles instead of or in addition to fresh green chiles
- Use any other kind of bean (pinto, negro, great northern, etc.)
- Don't use tomatoes, or use tomatillos, or just splash with some vinegar, or lime juice
- More seasonings (like bay leaf, oregano, smoked paprika, anything good!)
- Cook the beans in beer (light beer like Corona or even dark beer like Negro Modelo)
- Cook the beans in stock (like chicken stock, beef stock, pork stock, veggie stock, whatever)
- Add more veggies like carrots, celery, etc.

CB Cooks: Falafel and pita bread

Falafel sammie with onions, poblanos, carrots, and tahini

One of my all time favorite foods is falafel, which is basically fried balls of some combination of chickpeas and/or fava beans. You might know I love anything involving beans, and the combination of beans and frying is a total winner. I'm pretty sure the healthiness of the beans and veggies totally outweighs any downside of frying stuff in oil. I tried for YEARS - literally - to make them at home, but they failed every time, falling apart in the oil, turning into fried hummus.


I think it was about a year ago I found another way, a method somehow I'd missed in my research. Don't use cooked beans! I found some recipe somewhere that suggested soaking the beans overnight, then grinding up the RAW beans for use in falafel. For whatever reason, this makes it much easier to keep the bean balls in one piece, and makes for a deliciously textured falafel.


I've also dabbled in bread baking (I love the book Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day) and tried making some pita bread for my falafel. It didn't really turn out like the super thin pita "pockets" found in many Lebanese restaurants, but it was still pretty awesome. It's more like normal soft bread, without a hard crust, kind of like hamburger buns or torta bread. 


There aren't too many things better than freshly baked homemade bread.


WHAT YOU NEED
For the CB falafel:
A bunch of chickpeas and/or fava beans, soaked in water overnight (I think I used 1 pound of beans, which yielded 11-12 big falafels)
Tahini (sesame paste- it's like a more liquidy peanut butter, but made out of sesame seeds)
1/2 big white onion
5-6 cloves garlic
Handful cilantro
Jalapeño
Cumin, salt, pepper, any other seasonings you like
A little bit of flour

For the bread:
1.5 cups flour
1 teaspoon dry active yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
Water
Cornmeal for dusting (optional, but helpful)

HOW YOU MAKE IT
The bread:
1) Mix the flour, yeast and salt in a big bowl

2) Add about 1 cup water, mix

3) With your hands, divide up the dough ball into 4 little balls, then hand-roll them out into little circles

4) Put them on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal (so they don't stick as much) and preheat the oven to as close to 500°F you can get. If you don't want to bake them immediately, cover them with a clean kitchen towel so they don't dry out

Ready for the oven

5) Bake for ~3-10 minutes- but watch closely! Once they puff up, they're pretty much done!

Doesn't that just look magical!?

The falafel:
1) In a food processor, process the beans, onion, garlic, cilantro, jalapeño (you might have to do it in batches)

2) In a big bowl, add about a tablespoon of tahini, a tablespoon of flour, and your seasonings. Mix well!

3) Grab a clump of the mixture, smush it together in your hand- if it seems like it will stay together, you're good to go! If not, add some more flour.

4) Form little balls in your hands, pressing them to make sure they won't fall apart. Place on a cookie sheet or something. I've found it helps to put the balls in the fridge for a while before frying.

Ready for the fridge, or the oil

5) Get 1-2 inches of oil hot in a pan, then fry the balls. Because it's not deep frying, they turn out to be more like patties instead of balls... But I think that's better for sandwiches anyway.

6) As soon as both sides of the patties are nice and brown, remove from oil and place on some paper towel to absorb residual oil. Immediately sprinkle with salt; repeat for remaining patties.

When you first drop the falafel in the pan, DON'T MOVE IT for at least a minute! You want to form a nice crust, which will help the ball stay together. Don't worry about it sticking to the pan- once the crust forms, it will become unstuck.

WARNING: Don't crowd the pan! You want to fry these guys, not steam them. 
SUGGESTION: If you have any cast iron cookware, this is an ideal time to use it! It will thank you later.

Mmmmm so crispy, salty, and chickpea-y

7) Serve immediately in your fresh "pita" bread!

WHAT ELSE YOU CAN DO:
- I like my falafel in bread, with lots of toppings. This time I used sliced onions, raw poblano strips, and thin carrot strips I cut with a peeler. If I had any, cucumbers and tomato are great additions.
- Tahini alone makes a great sauce- I tried making a lime-garlic-tahini sauce for this, but it tasted like messed up candy...
- Falafel burger!

Apparently in Egypt or Lebanon (or both?) McDonald's has a McFalafel
I wonder if this tastes better than that...

CB Cooks: Mole ("moe-lay")

Makin' mole! (with my new homemade hand-carved mole stirrer)

When anybody mentions "mole" (the sauce, not the animal) a lot of things often come up.

"Oh yeah, the Mexican chocolate sauce," "It's super hard to make!" "It has so many ingredients in it" "It's too sweet for me" "I've had the premade kind and I don't like it one bit" "It was invented by nuns who had to feed some important guy and only had chiles and nuts and stale bread in their kitchen" "It takes three days to make" "How the hell do you pronounce it?"

As far as the last question, I'm pretty sure it's "moe-LAY" for us gringos, with the accent on the last syllable. Not sure why there isn't actually an accent there, perhaps because the word comes from a pre-columbian language. (In fact, I'm pretty sure "moe-LAY" just means a mixture of stuff or a sauce; the word "guacamole" just means "mixture/sauce of avocados". Pretty sure, not completely sure, so don't quote me on that. My spanish degree only covered spanish, not native mexican languages.)

I'm a huge fan of mexican food, and many say the concoction known as mole is the greatest accomplishment of the entire cuisine. In a lot of ways it is very complicated- many ingredients, many flavors, and the complexity only gets more complex when you serve it with other food like turkey (as is traditional for many moles). (Remember- "moe-LAYS" not "moles")

As I understand it, often mole is prepared on special occasions, because there are many ingredients; also, it's often paired with slow-cooked meat, which of course takes a while to cook. For these reasons (and probably many others) mole is one of those dishes (like tamales) that seems difficult and beyond reach for us lowly gringos. Especially on any day that isn't sunday!

Well I've got news for you! I'm definitely no expert in mexican cooking- but I think I have at least a handle on making "moe-LAY." In fact, I made some last night (on a wednesday night!). It took about an hour, and it will be even tastier today. I've made it a bunch of times, and I think I've come up with some rough guidelines (i.e. not an exact recipe) for making mole. In almost every mole recipe I've ever seen (in english OR spanish) there are certain types of ingredients that are always present. Based on that "research," I've come up with a list of ingredients- basically, you need at least one thing from each category to prepare your mole. Just to reiterate, I'm no mexican cooking expert, and this is most likely complete blasphemy... But it tastes just like mole in restaurants. If I had a mexican aunt, maybe this is what her mole would taste like.

Below I've listed the 6 categories, and some common ingredients that go in those categories. My idea is this: if you take at least one thing from each category, you will have something that is pretty much a mole.

INGREDIENTS:

FRUITS

- like dried chiles (absolutely necessary), raisins, bananas, plantains, etc

NUTS

- peanuts (or peanut butter!), walnuts, almonds, sesame seeds, pecans, etc

SPICES & HERBS & STUFF

- cinnamon (or mexican canela), anise, cloves, cumin, oregano, avocado leaves, allspice, coffee, and yes maybe even chocolate (but it's not entirely necessary!) - and SUGAR

VEGETABLES

- onions, garlic, tomatoes or tomato sauce, etc

LIQUID

- broth, stock, water, chile soaking liquid, beer, anything!?

THICKENERS

- masa (like prepackaged tamale mix i.e. Maseca, or fresh from the tortillería), stale tortillas, toasted stale bread, animal crackers (I've heard this is a common old mexican lady addition)

HOW YOU MAKE IT:

Most recipes call for a very involved individual frying of each set of ingredients before everything is combined and blended together. I don't doubt this makes a thicker, richer, more voluptuous sauce... But this also exponentially lengthens the time needed to make this dish. When I make this, generally, I just throw everything into a blender and blend away! (If I fry anything, I'll get some onion and garlic looking toasty in a pan with some oil before adding it to the blender). Basically, here's the process:

L-R: Cloves, allspice, ancho chiles, piloncillo (sugar), tortillas,
oregano, pepper, onion, cumin, garlic, peanut butter,
tahini, walnuts NOT PICTURED: oil, guajillo chiles

1) ASSEMBLE your ingredients (at least one from each category, and you pretty much must use some kind of chiles)

For my wednesday night mole, I used:

dried ancho and guajillo chiles (fruits), peanut butter, walnuts, and tahini (ground sesame paste) (nuts), cloves, cumin, oregano, allspice, and some mexican piloncillo sugar (spices), onions and garlic (vegetables), chile soaking liquid (liquid), and stale corn tortillas (thickeners)

2) If your dried chiles are hard and old, and you can't run out and get some more, you might want to rehydrate them. Put them in a bowl, cover with hot water, and let them sit for 30 minutes or so. Mine were old, so I did this yesterday. Rick Bayless says if the soaking water is bitter, throw the water away.. If not, use it in the recipe! Mine last night was sweet tasting, so I used it. Many people will toast their dry chiles in a dry skillet before soaking, but I didn't do that. If you do it, make sure not to BURN the chiles.

soaking chiles (smells a whole lot like raisins)

3) BLEND - Add everything to the blender, and blend the &*#$ out of it. It might be better to add things in steps, to make sure everything gets blended.

4) STRAIN everything! This is key. The idea is to get a homogenous, velvety sauce with no lumps whatsoever. I have a strainer I pretty much only use for mole, I call it my mole strainer. 

Strain! Check out that gorgeous color. All that red/orange is from the chiles,
no tomato products here

5) Take the strained liquid and put it in a pan. If it's really really thick, add more liquid.

6) SIMMER - Add salt, pepper, whatever, to taste, and simmer. If it's too bitter, add some sweet stuff like sugar, honey, etc. Chiles are relatively bitter, you'll probably need to sweeten the mole at least a little bit.

7) That's it! You can simmer it for a long time, or not... Definitely gets better the next day.

I really like it over bean enchiladas, or grilled chicken, or pretty much anything. You can even put it on eggs! It's a really versatile sauce, and since there can be so many flavors in it, it goes with almost everything.

Using those 6 categories, the combinations are endless! By varying the type of chiles used, or the amount of sweetness, or the amount of other fruits or nuts, this base recipe could create an infinite variety of moles. This isn't entirely authentic, but the flavor is pretty close. If you follow these simple steps, in a matter of minutes you can be on your way to creating your own custom mole!

CB Cooks: Roasted Squash and Apple Soup

It's actually squash, sweet potato, carrot, parsnip, and apple soup

As the weather gets colder, and my obsession with fishing gets more difficult to satisfy out in the cold, my fall cooking season is starting in earnest. I'm not done fishing for the year, but the weather is getting nastier and nastier... I've got to start doing some activities to replace my constant fishing fix. Cooking works great!

This is my combination of a bunch of different dishes I've had and really enjoyed. The inspiration for this dish comes from 3 places: 1) the squash and sweet potato soup from Big Bowl (it's very tasty, I highly recommend you get it) 2) A parsnip and apple soup Claire and I had on our honeymoon, and 3) A root vegetable purée from Brewery Vivant in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Don't let the possibly strange combination of squash and onion and apple turn you off- this is definitely worth trying. I think it's delicious! I was at the grocery store and saw some beautiful squash; here's what I did with it.

WHAT YOU NEED

Mmmmsquash

Squash - I used a big butternut squash grown by the good folks in Hudsonville, Michigan

Sweet potato - I used a single big one

Carrots - 2-3 would be good

Parsnip - I used just one, but adding more would be good too

Apple - we had a single golden delicious left in the fridge, and it was an excellent choice

Onion - I almost always use white onion

Garlic - you can never use too much

Stock or water - I didn't have any stock, I used plain old water

Oil - I used olive oil

Ginger, cinnamon, cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper

A splash of coconut milk would probably be great; some garam masala or curry powder would also be good

SPECIAL TOOLS

Oven - for roasting (this isn't completely necessary, but it concentrates the flavors)

Big pot - for making the soup - I used a dutch oven

Bean masher or immersion blender, or both, or just a regular blender - to get the soup thick and smooth

Roasted parsnip and carrots

HOW YOU MAKE IT

1) Roast the squash, sweet potato, carrots, and parsnip in a 400°F oven for about an hour (rub oil on the veggies and season with salt and pepper before roasting). You want everything to be soft and easily mashable. You'll probably want to take the carrots and parsnip out earlier than an hour. I cut the squash in two, and roasted it cut-side up, but you could also dice it and roast it that way. I didn't bother peeling the carrots or parsnips, but I peeled the sweet potato. Would probably be easier if you didn't peel that...

2) Once the veggies are roasted, get some diced onions sizzling in your big pot with some oil

3) When the onions are nice and sautéed, add a bunch of minced garlic and cook for about a minute

Roasted squash (I shouldn't have made
those cuts- made it hard to get the flesh out)

4) Mash up the roasted veggies (not the squash skin or sweet potato peel) and add to the pot

5) Add your liquid (stock or water) to the big pot, stir

6) Simmer

7) If you want it to be nice and smooth, use a bean masher, an immersion blender, or a regular blender. Careful! Blending hot liquids can be dangerous! I first used a bean masher to get the veggie chunks to a workable size, then I busted out my immersion blender to get everything nice and smooth

I caught an immersion blender-
must be about a 25-incher

8) Once the mixture is super creamy smooth, season with whatever seasonings you want. I used ginger, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, and cumin

9) Taste, adjust seasonings. If the mixture is too liquidy, let it simmer with the lid off for a while... But watch out for little explosions! Bubbles rising up from a thick liquid like this can be mini burning hot volcanos of scalding lava. I speak from experience.

10) Once you're happy with the consistency and flavor, turn off the heat and stir in some RAW diced apple. Yes, raw! The remaining heat in the soup will partially cook it, and it will keep some of that nice crunchy apple texture. If you want a completely smooth soup without bits of apple in it, either don't add the apple, or add it before you blend the soup

11) Ladle into a bowl, garnish with more raw diced apple on top

Adding the diced apple

WHAT ELSE COULD YOU DO?

- Cook some bacon, dice it up, put it back in the soup after you blend the veggies

- Next time I make this, I will most definitely add some puréed ancho or guajillo chile. Maybe even some fresh green chile too.

- Add a splash of coconut milk - the soup already has a hint of coconut even though there's none in it! This could be good

- Some similar recipes call for turmeric; although I don't think it adds too much flavor, it would make the soup a brighter orange color

- Add garam masala or curry powder - lots of squash soup recipes call for curry powder. I'm not sure exactly why, but it could work

- Add the onions after you blend the veggies, so you get more texture in the soup

- Some potato in the mix would probably be great; or turnips, rutabagas, any root vegetable would be a nice addition

- Some recipes call for the addition of a dairy product like yogurt, milk, cream, etc. I really don't think this is necessary; the soup is super creamy on it's own, and if you cook it with water or veggie stock and hold the pork, our vegan friends can enjoy it too.

CB Cooks: Quick Salsa de Chile Árbol

Of all the things I regularly make at home, I've probably made this more than any other. When I first started making it, I did it the traditional mexican way of toasting the chiles, and roasting whole tomatoes, onions, and garlic over an open flame... As great as that tastes, it's time consuming. This is the quick version, the simple recipe I use to make our weekly salsa.

What you need:

- A can of whole tomatoes OR fresh tomatoes (I use the ~20oz cans- tomatoes at the grocery store are hit or miss- did you know that most of the tomatoes you find at the grocery store are actually GREEN unripe tomatoes that are artificially colored red with gas!??!?)
- 1/4 large white onion
- juice of 1 lime
- garlic (~4-6 cloves)
- handful chiles (I use árboles, but you could really use ANY chile, like serrano, jalapeño, ancho, etc)
- handful cilantro
- a blender

whatever you do, make sure you use lime juice!
lemons and vinegar have NO place in salsa

Chiles de Árbol look like this (they are a kind of dried chile)

How you make it:


1) Put onion, lime juice, garlic, and chiles in blender, and blend (you might need to add some tomato juice to get it to spin)

should look something like this

2) Add handful of (washed) cilantro, blend (but not too much- if you blend the cilantro too long, your salsa will take on a very green tinge- still tastes great, but doesn't look as nice. And it's not as appetizing to those who aren't in love with green food.)

You could stop here and use it as
a marinade, or extra-concentrated salsa

3) Add tomatoes (including juice- if you want a chunkier salsa, leave out the liquid), blend

4) Add salt, pepper, cumin to taste - sometimes I do, sometimes I don't... Just depends on how the salsa tastes.

5) Eat right away, and refrigerate what you don't eat. WARNING - gets hotter as it sits, so keep that in mind when adding chiles.

Uses: Put it on everything! Great on chips, beans, tacos, enchiladas, chili, meat dishes; if you make it without cilantro and cook it, it goes from being a salsa fresca to a salsa cocida, with a completely different flavor