Membrillo on My Mind

When I was little, membrillo was one of the many gifts our Mexican relatives brought when they visited. I took it for granted. So many years later and so many miles away, I remember this delectable dessert and the loving hands that brought it to my family in Laredo. I remember in particular, Tía Lupita, an elderly, widowed aunt on my father's side who traveled  hundreds of miles by bus at least once every three months all the way from her home in Puebla to visit us. I remember her deeply-lined, smiling face, her wrinkled hands, her warm embraces...and the bags bearing boxes of sweet potato candies wrapped in wax paper, bricks of membrillo, obleas, cinnamon sticks, piloncillo, and beautiful gold religious medallas for all of us.

I was intrigued by the fruit itself from which membrillo is made. Quince or cydonia oblonga was held in high regard by the ancients. For the Greeks quince was a ritual offering to a bride, quince was Paris' gift to Aphrodite, and ancient Roman cookbooks are filled with recipes using quince.

Nowadays, anything can be found at a specialty foods store, even membrillo, but nothing beats the taste of your own. If life hands you a quince tree and you don't know what to do with the stone-hard fruit, make membrillo! But making it is not for the faint-hearted. You'll need some time to spare. Transforming the boiled cream-colored meat of the quince into a fragrant sliced, amber paste shaped into a little brick and arranged with slices of manchego will make your day.

Chopped quince 

Quince paste

Membrillo

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Recipe Type: appetiser, dessert

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 1 hour 40 mins

Total time: 1 hour 55 mins

Serves: 15

Ingredients

• 4 quince (about 3 lbs)


• sugar (about 3 cups, roughly the equivalent of the boiled quince)


• stick cinnamon


• 1 lemon cut in half


• 1 bean vanilla

Instructions

1. Peel the quince and cut in half to boil it with the cinnamon, the vanilla, and ½ of the lemon.


2. After about an hour, when it is soft, drain the water, discard the lemon, the vanilla, and the cinnamon and cut out the cores of the quince.


3. Cut into smaller pieces and either smash it with a bean smasher or, to be more efficient, throw it in a blender or food processor.


4. Measure it and put it in a large pot with an equal amount (or a little less, if you prefer) of sugar. Into this mixture add the zest of the leftover, uncooked lemon half.


5. Cook it for about 40 minutes, at a medium heat, stirring constantly until it turns a pinkish, amber color.


6. After it has thickened into an almost solid mass, pour it into a container and let it dry on its own. After a few hours it will have set into a shape that is easy to slice.


7. Slice it thin and serve it with equally thin slices of manchego cheese.

Notes

Ripe quince is yellow.
Serve as an appetizer or as an after-dinner dessert with a nice Prosecco.

Crazy for Figs

My husband thinks my behavior in the vicinity of figs is a little outrageous. Let's face it, I'm crazy for figs, I can be a little obsessive. In fact, driving through Italy where fig trees seem to grow wild everywhere, I have been known to screech, “Fiiig treeee!!!” My husband, accustomed to this zaniness and wanting this to be over quickly, will pull over while I clamber through snake-infested weeds so I can pluck the delicious prize: ripe and luscious figs. I grab as many as my sticky hands can hold and cram a few in my mouth, darting back to the car, my husband's annoyance mitigated only by the sheer delight of sharing this "manjar de los dioses."

My earliest memories of eating ficus carica was in the hot, dusty Northern Mexican town of Villaldama, Nuevo León, the ancestral home where my father would take my sister and me on a train ride from Laredo to visit our grandmother, Mamá Manuelita. The interior courtyard of my grandmother's modest colonial house was overgrown with fig trees which surrounded an old well in the center. Our cousins would join my sister and me in the shade of the courtyard where we would sit eating the mushy black fruit with the glistening, ruby-red center.

Is it any wonder that here in Maryland I've been successful in growing these trees? They consistently yield a bumper crop each year, providing me with the challenge of figuring out a million ways to use them after I tire from eating them off the tree or pushing them onto friends and neighbors. So, after making jams, tarts, and sorbeto de higo all summer, I've been enjoying them now in November, taking them out of the freezer, already peeled and ready to roast in the oven.  This simple recipe with honey and citrus peel syrup, is one that has probably been around since the time of Adam and Eve.

So, in the spirit of the great Aesop's Fable, The Ant and the Grasshopper, all you grasshoppers out there, take heed from the ant and freeze some figs next year so that in the middle of the fall (or winter) you can pull them out and make this really special dessert for your Thanksgiving or Christmas table.

Honey Roasted Figs

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Recipe Type: Dessert

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 30 mins

Cook time: 45 mins

Total time: 1 hour 15 mins

Serves: 8

Figs, the first food to be cultivated by humans, even before wheat, are very rich in calcium and other nutrients.

Ingredients

• 1 ½ lbs fresh or frozen figs, peeled


• 1/2 cup sugar


• zest of one lime, one lemon, one tangerine and one orange


• 2 tablespoons honey

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.


2. Place the figs on a baking dish that may be used to serve them.


3. Sprinkle the sugar and drizzle the honey.


4. Bake until the sugar caramelizes, 40-50 minutes.


5. Serve at room temperature.

Notes

Reconstituted dried figs may be used but the baking times will differ.

Remembrance: Pan de Muertos

When I was younger, I dreamed of my hometown, Laredo, Texas, almost on a weekly basis. I roamed its streets, looking for my house, feeling anxious because I could no longer find it. I took buses that dropped me off at streets I no longer recognized. I knocked at houses where no one knew my family. I walked up and down Kearney Street, looking for the mesquite tree that grew in front of our house, not recognizing anything. To add to my anxiety in this recurring dream, I knew my loved ones were waiting for me to arrive from this long trip home. Funny how dreams are a tapestry of our aspirations, our worries, and our sorrows.

Last night after many years, I dreamed again of going back to Laredo. It was a collage of symbols, of the surreal, of longing, and of loss. In the dream I found my son under the mesquite tree in front of my house, waiting for me. My mother's white dishtowel flapped from one of the branches.  My son was dressed in camouflage as he extended his hand to me to tell me, as he always did, that everything was alright. He led me inside the house where his grandmother and the rest of the family was waiting, gathered around a table bedecked with foods that we all knew he liked.

It comforts me to believe that our dearly departed and beloved come back to be among us on November 1, Día de los Angelitos, and November 2, Día de los Muertos. But the truth is, I always feel close to my son. From my second story window, on this beautiful fall day, I look down at the brightly colored leaves scattered below and can almost see him, looking up at me, proudly stepping out of his new car as he did a few years before he deployed to Iraq.

It was comforting to prepare this simple egg bread, Pan de Muertos. I've woven together recipes belonging to different relatives in Mexico with my own knowledge of bread baking. The result is a very easy brioche-type bread that is not difficult to make and it doesn't stray much from the traditional bread of Mexico. It is an orange blossom and anise-scented, barely sweet, airy bread. Sweetness, love, remembrance, lament...all are part of this ritual. It's hard to believe I'm here, blending, kneading, baking this bread in this quiet house, thinking of my son and all those who did not return from a war that finally ended, much too late.

A whispered Why? floats in the air, unanswered, and the yeast continues to do its work.

Pan de Muertos

Recipe Type: bread, desert

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 3 hours

Cook time: 45 mins

Total time: 3 hours 45 mins

Serves: 8

Dear readers, The error in this recipe has been corrected.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup warm water


• 1/4 cup butter, room temperature


• 3 cups unbleached flour


• 1 packet yeast


• pinch of salt


• 2 teaspoons anise seed


• 1 tablespoon orange zest


• 3/8 cups sugar


• 2 jumbo eggs or 3 small eggs, room temperature


• 2 tablespoons orange blossom water


• granulated sugar for sprinkling


• For the glaze: 1 oz cone of piloncillo and 3/4 cup water and juice of one orange

Instructions

1. In a large bowl mix the sugar, flour, anise, salt and ½ cup of the flour and then mix in the butter.


2. The eggs, the water, and orange blossom water should be combined in a separate bowl, mixed well, and added to the first mixture.


3. Add another ½ cup of flour.


4. Add the yeast and another bit of flour until you have gradually added the rest of the flour and a dough is formed.


5. Knead the dough on a floured surface for about 3 minutes.


6. Place the ball of dough into a bowl large enough to allow the dough to rise and cover with a slightly damp dishcloth.


7. Cover the bowl with a lid so that the heat and moisture will allow the dough to rise.


8. Let it rise near a warm area for about 1 hour and a half.


9. Punch down the dough and shape it into a large ball, leaving small pieces of dough to form the ball on top and the four rolled pieces that form the 'bone' shapes.


10. Let this shaped dough rise for another hour in a warm spot of your kitchen.


11. Brush the glaze on it, (see below), sprinkle with granulated sugar and place in 350 degree oven for 45 minutes or until it is a golden brown.

Notes

For the glaze:
Bring a 1 oz. cone of piloncillo to boil in about ¾ cup of water until it dissolves, let it boil until it thickens, add the juice of one orange, cook for another 3 minutes; then let it cool before brushing it on.

2.1.7

Tacos de Huitlacoche

This past Columbus Day (also known as Día de la Raza in Latin America and Indigeneous People's Day in the United States) weekend I was back in San Miguel de Allende visiting friends and taking advantage of the long weekend. The weather was delicious with nightly rains quenching the hillsides and leaving the cobblestones glistening in the morning sun. The rains are also responsible for the abundance of huitlacoche, a corn fungus that Mexicans consider a delicacy.

In Mexico, huitlacoche enjoys the same culinary standing as truffles do in Europe, though it doesn't grow underground and isn't as costly.  The high regard for huitlacohe is an ancient sentiment.  The Aztecs revered all forms of maize, especially huitlacoche, a Nahuatl word some linguists decipher as meaning "ravens' excrement."  It is true that huitlacoche is not exactly pretty; the deformed, irridescent, and spongy kernels are powdered with black spores and look a little like, well, bird droppings.

Fresh huitlacoche is not hard to find in Mexico.  I saw a young woman selling it right on the cobb but often I buy it from Josefina, my elderly friend from the sierra, who removes it from the cobb and sells it packaged in baggies.

Huitlacoche's taste is difficult to describe; the flavor is not quite like porcini or truffles, but there is some similarity.  Fresh is better though difficult to find in the United States.  Canned huitlacoche is more readily available, which requires a longer cook time to dry out the liquid.

Doña Beatriz

This recipe belongs to Doña Beatriz, a legendary cook from Casa Carmen in San Miguel de Allende.  She doesn't put cheese in her tacos but to add cheese, cut thin slices of a soft cheese like queso de Oaxaca or Monterrey Jack and warm it on a corn tortilla, topping the quesadilla with cooked huitlacoche.

Photos of tacos courtesy of Kelly Castellanos-Evans

Doña Beatriz's Tacos de Huitlacoche

Recipe Type: Appetiser

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 5 mins

Total time: 25 mins

Serves: 2 to 4

Ingredients

• Ingredients:


• 2 1/2 cups of huitlacoche


• 2 roma tomatoes


• 1 small onion


• 1 clove chopped garlic


• 1/2 cup canola oil (approximately)


• Fresh cilantro


• Salt to taste


• Corn tortillas

Instructions

1. Clean the huitlacoche by removing the tiny stems or feet (la patita) from where it is attached to the cobb (these have a slightly bitter taste).


2. Cook the onion first until it is soft, then add the roma tomato; cook until it dissolves, then add the huitlacoche.


3. Cook this mixture for about 10 minutes, until it is all softened, add salt to taste.


4. Warm your corn tortillas on both sides on a comal.


5. Place a spoonful of the mixture, garnish with a slice of fresh tomato or a slice of avocado and chopped cilantro and serve with your favorite salsa.

Salsa Pico de Gallo

Molcajetes are a type of mortar (molcajete) and pestle (tejolote) made from basalt.  Use of the molcajete in Mesoamerica dates back 6,000 years and remains ubiquitous in Mexican cooking today. Molcajetes are versatile tools;  they can be used to grind chiles, herbs, and spices, thereby releasing essential oils and flavors.  Because they are made from volcanic rock, they may be heated and used to serve stews, meats and other foods that taste better at higher temperatures.  They also function as attractive serving pieces for guacamole and salsas.

Pico de gallo, for instance, is a quick salsa that can be found on nearly every Mexican table at mealtimes, whether breakfast, lunch or dinner.   (La Madrina recalls that preparing it was the first duty she was given as a child.)  It's simple, fresh and zesty and the perfect accompaniment to a variety of Mexican dishes.

Pico de Gallo

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Recipe Type: Salsa

Author: Gilda V. Carbonaro

Prep time: 10 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• 3 firm, large tomatoes, chopped small, into cubes


• 1 regular-sized white onion, minced


• 1 serrano pepper, minced


• 5 or 6 sprigs of cilantro, roughly chopped


• salt to taste
• 
  

Instructions:

1. Grind the minced serrano pepper into the molcajete.


2. Add the chopped ingredients: tomato, onion, and cilantro to the molcajete, add salt to taste and stir.

Notes

Add or diminish the amount of serrano pepper, as you prefer. Or use another type of pepper, like jalapeño if you can't find serrano.

A Salsa Challenge

In the U.S., most restaurants serve a variation of salsa ranchera and sometimes salsa verde, but there are many other exquisite and nuanced salsas to explore.  Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico contains recipes for over twenty different salsas, including a fiery salsa de chile habanero.  She writes

It would be unthinkable to sit down to an authentic Mexican meal and not find a dish of sauce or some pickled jalapeños on the table; they are as common as salt and pepper.  I suppose it is not surprising given the great variety of chiles that are cultivated--and some grow wild--throughout Mexico.  There is a great difference, too, in the heat level, color, taste in chiles both fresh and dried.  The ways in which chiles are prepared, and the ingredients with which they are combined, are highly regional...I doubt that any other cuisine has such a variety of "condiments."

I enjoy making homemade salsas.  I find that the taste tends to vary slightly with each batch, the outcome dependent upon the ripeness of the tomatoes, the types and amounts of chiles I use and whether the vegetables are roasted or blended raw.

Homemade salsas, whether green or red, raw or roasted are utterly fresh.  Which is why it's hard to understand the seemingly huge demand for bottled salsas sold in stores.  (Some even claim that salsa outsells ketchup as America's favorite condiment!)  It takes very little time to blend the vegetables raw or roast them first and throw them into a blender.

Readers are hereby challenged to reach for the fresh tomatoes, tomatillos and chiles in lieu of who-knows-how-long-they've-been-on-the shelf bottled salsas!  Here are a few recipes to get you started:

Salsa Three Ways

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Recipe Type: Salsa

Author: Gilda Claudine

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 25 mins

Serves: 4 to 6

Ingredients

• 5 Ripe Tomatoes


• 5 tomatillos


• 2 avocados


• 1 habanero


• 2 Jalapeños or chiles serranos


• Cilantro


• 1 small onions


• 1 clove garlic


• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. On a comal or cast iron pan without oil, roast the tomatoes and chiles.


2. Once the vegetables charred, cool and remove some of the burnt skin.

Salsa de Habanero

1. Place 1/2 of a habanero (de-seed for less heat), 1/2 clove of garlic, 1/4 raw onion and 3 large tomatoes in a blender or food processor.


2. Blend until the ingredients are smooth.


3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Salsa Roja

1. Place 2 jalapeños, 1/2 clove of garlic, two large tomatoes, a bunch of cilantro in a blender or food processor.


2. Blend until the ingredients are smooth.


3. Add salt and pepper to taste

Salsa Verde with Aguacate

1. Place roasted tomatillos, roasted serrano peppers, 1/2 clove of garlic, a bunch of cilantro, 1/4 onion (optional) and 2 ripe avocados in blender or food processor.


2. Blend until smooth.


3. Add salt and pepper to taste

Notes

A few things to keep in mind:
The jalapeños and serranos can be used interchangeably.
Adjust the spice level accordingly by using more or less chiles in each recipe.
The salsas may be stored in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days.

Hurricane Beans

Maybe the end of summer is awakening in me a craving for slightly more substantial foods because I seem to have beans on the brain lately. Or maybe it's having just returned from Mexico where beans are, of course, a staple and found in abundance.  Whatever the reason, while friends and family were preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Irene, I found myself sifting and stirring these frijoles negros con epazote.

My Hurricane Beans are simple but delicious, which goes to prove that most of the time, the simplest way is the way to go.  Too many ingredients and too many steps can sometimes over complicate a healthy and delicious meal. I grew up eating mostly pinto beans but I've grown accustomed to black beans during my frequent travels to San Miguel de Allende where Doña Beatriz of Casa Carmen Bed and Breakfast prepares the black, glossy legumes like no other cook.

Doña Beatriz

Doña Beatriz garnishes them with fried tortilla strips which adds to flavor and texture. Unlike many cooks, she does not soak her beans overnight; she  simply throws them into boiling water (after carefully picking out bits of dirt and rinsing them) lowers the heat o a simmer and covers them. The beans cook for 2 ½ to 3 hours until they are completely soft. You don't need to check them constantly, as long as you've left them on a low flame and covered. Midway through the cooking process, add salt to taste and an unpeeled clove of garlic. If you run low on water, add only boiling water to the pot.

What gives these beans their signature flavor are the sprigs of epazote thrown in when the beans are almost ready. Epazote can be found dried or fresh at Latino stores or you can even grow your own as my neighbor, Leslye, does...lucky me!

Epazote

Hurricane Beans a.k.a. Black Beans with Epazote

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Recipe Type: Side Dish

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 3 hours

Total time: 3 hours 15 mins

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup olive oil


• 4 cups black beans, cooked


• 4 to 5 oz of pancetta or bacon chopped into little chunks


• Salt to taste


• Several sprigs of epazote


• 2 – 3 corn tortillas cut in strips and fried to a golden brown

Instructions

1. Brown the bacon/pancetta in the olive oil slowly until it is golden.


2. Add the cooked beans and bring to a simmer for about 15 minutes, adding water if it is not soupy enough.


3. Add the epazote and cook for another 5 minutes.


4. Serve garnished with the fried tortilla strips.

Notes

Beans can be cooked and then frozen after cooling them, thereby giving you the freedom to prepare them in whatever style you prefer, whenever you like.