Norteño eating

It's New Year's eve, that night of nights when we eat something that will bring prosperity for the year to come. In the south, they will likely be having "hopping john," blackeyed peas and rice with bacon or ham, as their lucky dish. In many parts of the world, carp will be eaten. I'm not holding forth on the culinary miracle that is carp, it's really all about the fact that they have really big scales that resemble coins, and eating carp for New Years and keeping a couple of the scales in your wallet is supposed to bring you wealth. My spouse is Polish, and I am of German descent. For us, essentials for the season are pork and cabbage. Many Polish folks will be eating kielbasa z Kapusta (sausage and sauerkraut) tonight. But we will be having kapusta z kluski, cabbage and noodles. Pork with cabbage is almost mandatory, at least on New Years Eve, Kapusta (which means both fresh cabbage and sauerkraut) and kluski (egg noodles) are eaten year around. Kapu...

The ham most of us eat today has only a little in common with the ham that was common at the table a century ago. Yes, it is smoked, cured pork. But today, that ham is typically cured by injecting it with a solution of brine and flavor additives; faster, and it puts the consumer in the position of paying ham prices for water. Look carefully at the supermarket label and you will likely see in small print, "ham and water product" or "10% added water by weight." The country hams of old were a different beast. Pork, yes, and generally pork leg, they would be rubbed down with a mixture of salt, sugar (or molasses) and spices, and left in this for days or even weeks, a process which drew water out of the pork, jump-starting the drying process as it preserved the ham. This was prior to the days of the refrigerator and freezer, and that was the core concept of the ham - by drying the meat out, infusing the flesh with salt and nitrates, and smoking it, the perishable po...

OK, this will probably horrify some foodies, but I do occasionally rely on canned or bottled prepared ingredients. I am known to buy bottled spaghetti sauce, and bottled salsa. I do check the labels to make sure I am not being fed weird chemicals. That being said, the following is another non-traditional pasta recipe making use of eggplant and another exotic, the artichoke. Eggplant and Artichoke Pasta 1 15 oz jar spaghetti sauce 1 can artichokes (NOT marinated, you want fresh for this) 1 large black eggplant or an equivalent of smaller eggplant red wine 2 cloves garlic pinch of red pepper flakes olive oil Pasta (whole wheat penne is good) OK, a splash of olive oil in the skillet, chop the garlic and throw it in along with the red pepper flakes, saute a minute or two until sizzling and smelling good but not browning. While this is going on, peel the eggplant if it is a biggun and cut into 1/2 inch cubes. If using baby eggplants, you can leave the skin on and cut into bit...

I said I was on an eggplant mission, and I wasn't kidding. The following is not a recipe traditional to ANY ethnic cuisine AFAIK, it is something I threw together after chatting with Armand Saiia of El Valle's Dragonfly Farms and purchasing a bag full of his excellent baby eggplants. Eggplant, Sage and Walnut Pasta 1 lb baby eggplant, sliced in half-inch rounds ½ cup olive oil 2 cloves garlic, minced Pinch of red pepper flakes handful of chopped walnuts ¼ cup dried breadcrumbs several chopped fresh sage leaves Salt, pepper to taste. Saute the garlic and red pepper flakes in the olive oil until it smells good but do not let the garlic brown. Add the eggplant and saute until softened. Add the bread crumbs, walnuts and fresh sage leaves and saute a minute or two more. Season. Toss with pasta. Whole wheat penne would be perfect. Grated parmesan is nice but not required.

I chose this title because I have been asked that question several times when buying eggplant in the local supermarket. Even cashiers have expressed their perplexity over the eggplant. Odd, since it grows well here and really delicious eggplant is available in season from local farmers. So I will, for the next few blog posts, be on a mission - to share with you some wonderful eggplant recipes. Eggplant is yet another gift from the deadly nightshade family,as are peppers, tomatoes and potatoes. It is bland in flavor, and because of this quite versatile. It is an ingredient in many ethnic cuisines, including Japanese, French, Middle Eastern and Italian. It gets on well with its nightshade cousins tomato and peppers, and can be taken in a number of directions, flavor-wise. We'll start off with a Mexican spin on a classic French recipe that is a celebration of fresh, summer vegetables and which relies heavily on the usual suspects of local cuisine as well as eggplant. Ratatouil...

One of Thanksgiving's culinary clichés is cranberry relish. Often, it is plopped on a plate straight from the can, a gelatinous, quivering cylinder. In such form, it really doesn't add distinction to the holiday table. A pity, because you can take cranberry relish in some interesting directions. Southwestern-style cranberry relish can add a New Mexico flourish to your Thanksgiving dinner, and provide a welcome relief from the predictable and ordinary cranberry cylinder. Southwest Cranberry Relish 1 12oz package fresh cranberries 2 key limes (or 1 large lime) 2 jalapenos or more to taste ¼ cup chopped cilantro with stems ½ to ¾ cup sugar, to taste Chop key limes and add to blender or food processor with ½ cup sugar. Pulse until finely chopped and put in bowl. Put cranberries in food processor or blender and pulse until chopped. You do want some texture, so don't puree them. Chop the jalapenos finely. As jalapenos vary widely in heat, I recommend taking a tiny nip ...

One of the traditions of Thanksgiving is a casserole of mashed sweet potatoes, blanketed with a layer of marshmallows and baked. The basic idea of mashed sweet potatoes is a good one, but for my taste, the thing with the marshmallows is overpoweringly sweet and really is a detriment rather than a contribution to the finished dish. Here's a simple way to make a mashed sweet potato casserole that is simple, elegant, good. Begin by baking your sweet potatoes in the oven until tender. Scoop out the insides. For every two cups of sweet potato, add 3 TBS butter 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 cup cream a grind of black pepper 1/4 cup bourbon Mash it up, well. Dot the top with butter and, if you like, sprinkle with chopped pecans. Brown it in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes before serving.

Supermarket turkeys invariably include a "gravy packet" these days. Now, if you are really looking to make your special holiday meal taste like something ladled up at a cafeteria, and you're pretty sure that maltodextrin and monosodium glutamate are essential nutrients, go ahead and use the packet. You won't hurt my feelings - unless you actually serve me the gravy packet gravy. I believe that we should apply the rule that Michael Pollan advocated. If your grandma would look at the label and not recognize the ingredients, don't use it. You can actually make gravy without a packet, the way grandma did, and have it turn out nicely. Let me tell you how - How to make gravy for your Thanksgiving turkey without use of the gravy pouch When you clean out your bird, set aside the neck and innards. The liver can be chopped finely and mixed with your stuffing if that pleases you (this is an integral part of Amish Potato Stuffing, and it does add a lot to the flavor.)...

The holiday season is fast upon us, and for many of us,that means serving ham. Sadly, holiday hams at many tables range from the ho-hum to the heinous, with really good ones being the exception. Few of us have access to really good hams. And by that, I mean non-agribusiness pork cured with care, well-smoked and well-aged. If you can get one of these, and you can AFFORD one of these, good on ya. But most of us are stuck with hams bought at the supermarket. If you are buying a supermarket ham, I have two pieces of advice for you. First, pass on the "ready to eat" hams. As James Beard observed, they are misnamed, as they are not ready to eat and they likely never will be. Look for a real ham, with some skin on it, and a bone in it. These can often be had fairly inexpensively. They are no great shakes, they were agribusiness pigs, likely with mediocre diets and unhappy lives, and their meat has been cured by brine injection to process quickly and also pump up the weight of th...

OK, the recipe I will share with you is NOT the original, real deal machaca. In common parlance, machaca has come to be a reference to shredded beef cooked in the Mexican style. It is similar to the Cuban dish, ropa vieja (old rags, a reference to the appearance of shredded beef.) The original machaca was more of a reconstituted beef jerky. In rural Mexico, there weren't any refrigerators back in the day. So beef would often be preserved by drying. Slabs of the stuff would be sprinkled with lime juice, salted, and hung out to dry in the hot sun and wind. When completely dried, the beef would, texturally, have more in common with a wood plank than with something you would eat. So the cook would grab a machaca, a fist size rock, and the dried beef would then be machacado, that is, literally, beaten, pummeled, smashed, until the fibers of meat would seperate and the resulting fluff would be cooked with tomatoes, onions, chiles, etc, and sometimes scrambled up with eggs. If y...

The growing season for most things is over in this temperate clime, but thankfully, some greens, notably collards and kale, and to a lesser degree, chard, will keep growing for some time. Some kales will even overwinter, and can be harvested from beneath the snow. But we don't see these wonderful greens in the stores too much, and more's the pity. Besides being available fresh and in season when other veggies are not, they are a fine source of vitamins and minerals, and delicious when properly prepared. Both kale and collards are somewhat tough, and take a knack to cook properly. Besides cooking them longer than some other greens, one trick is to cut them in a similar way as one would chiffonade leafy herbs like sage - roll the leaves up into a cylinder, then slice the cylinder as thinly as you can to make thin little collard or kale strips. These will cook more rapidly and become more tender than if you simply cook your greens whole or tear them into chunks. The followin...

Every year at the Tri-County Farmers Market here in Las Vegas, Mark and Amy May of the May Family Farm offer outstanding heirloom potatoes grown on their La Liendre farm. Blue fleshed, white fleshed, yellow fleshed, and many of them new potatoes or fingerlings. Tonight, sitting alongside a London broil and some butter steamed asparagus, those local heirloom fingerlings are what's for dinner. Here is a simple and wonderful way to cook fresh fingerling or baby potatoes - Put a half a stick of butter in the bottom of a dutch oven, along with a handful of fresh chopped herbs. What kind of herbs is up to you - not a bad idea to use something to tie in with your main dish, but hey, use what you want, it's your dinner. Rosemary is nice, so is sage. Wash a pound or so of your fingerling potatoes. If some are more than a mouthful, cut them in half so they are just a nice bite. Melt the butter, throw in the baby spuds and a pinch of salt, and put the lid on. Put them on the stovetop u...

One of the culinary herbs peculiar to this region is Oregano de la Sierra. It is used in place of oregano in the local cuisine. It is not oregano. The latin name for this plant is Monarda Menthefolium, and it is a variety of bee balm. It does have a flavor reminiscent of oregano with a bit of mint. It is a beautiful plant. It is normally foraged in the mountainous areas, hence its name, which translates as "oregano of the mountains."Those who enjoy word play will note that the word "oregano" itself derives from the Greek "ganos" meaning brightness or ornament, and "oros" meaning mountains. So cross-culturally, "oregano de la sierra" means "ornament of the mountains of the mountains." The photo at right is of oregano de la sierra growing in my back yard. It is drought-hardy and likes filtered shade. As you may guess, being a bee balm, bees love it, so it doesn't just feed you, it feeds our little friends as well. If you wan...

Frito pies are popular here in New Mexico, as well as in Texas and Oklahoma. A frito pie is a simple dish, a pile of storebought fritos, with a red chile or taco filling poured over, the whole thing topped with the standard adornments of shredded lettuce, chopped tomato, grated cheddar cheese, onions, and a dollop of sour cream. I may lose friends for saying this, but it is a dish vulnerable to criticism. It's chief virtue is ease of preparation. It is as good as the toppings, basically. The chief problem from my perspective is that it begins with Fritos. This means way too much salt to be either healthy or optimally flavorful. And it means you have to buy Fritos. The frito pie arguably took its inspiration from a much older, traditional dish, chilequiles. Chilequiles were simply a way to use corn tortillas which had gone stale in a fashion both nutritious and delicious. In preparing chilequiles, corn tortillas were cut up, lightly fried, and combined with any of an astonishing arr...

In this part of the world, squash has been cultivated since pre-Columbian times. Scholars claim that the first squash were cultivated here not for their flesh, but for the seeds, an important winter source of fat and protein. Make a mental note, therefore, and save your squash seeds, either to eat them, or to replant them in the spring. If your squash is a hybrid, take note; it will likely NOT breed true from seed, so you should probably eat the seeds, and make a mental note to buy heirloom squash from local farmers next time around. The most common squash in these parts is a dual purpose vegetable called "calabacita." In the spring and summer, it produces egg-shaped summer squash, striped and similar in coloration to the Mexican grey squash. It is yummy, and goes nicely with fresh field corn. More on that another day. If allowed to remain on the vine until the end of the growing season, it becomes a humongous winter squash, called a calabaza or a pumpkin depending on who you...

Chicos and Beans, Ese! They go together like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. But what ARE they, and why are they so good? Chicos are as far as I know an ingredient peculiar to northeastern New Mexico. Chicos are sweet corn which is roasted in an outdoor wood-fired adobe oven called an Horno (pronounced or-no, as rhyming with “porno,” but don't make that association with the older generation.) The result is that the corn is preserved, but it keeps its sweetness and the sugars in the corn are caramelized, resulting in a wonderful, distinctive flavor. It is best to buy them from someone who has roasted them, as one never really knows how old the ones in the stores may be. Just like beans, if they are more than a year old, you have to cook them forever to make them tender. The classic winter repast of chicos and beans is about the sweetness of the ingredients and how they harmonize with each other. The chicos provide the sweetness of roasted corn, the smoked ham hocks provide the swe...