Fall Harvest Rice

Fall is at its peak here in the mid-Atlantic. Autumn leaves are falling, each shimmering leaf a memory of the last year, bringing on a melancholy I wear like comfortable pajamas on lazy fall mornings. I look out the window with my hands wrapped around my coffee cup and think, We are the product of all the autumns we've lived.  We are hopefully wiser and stronger, more capable of understanding the mysteries of life, more able to withstand the coming winter.

I've gone to the farmer's market  here in Bethesda to forage for the last of the fall harvest: diminishing supplies of lima beans, lonely cobs of silver-white corn, a few forlorn Honey Crisp apples. I feel the start of cold weather—a hint of winter's magificent presence—and know I should fill my bag with sweet potatoes, pumpkins, turnips, maybe a pot of marigolds.

But the lima beans and corn are what I need to prepare an aromatic rice my friends love, down to the last toasted grain at the bottom of the pan.  The dish is a hybrid: part Mexican, part Spanish, perhaps only the tiniest bit like an Italian risotto. Powdered turmeric and pimentón de la vera (Spanish smoked paprika) gives the rice its yellow color and a healthy quantity  of cumin gives it a nuanced flavor. Also, I use a paella rice which is short grained, similar to risotto rice.

Fall Harvest Rice

Recipe Type: Side Dish

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 60 mins

Total time: 1 hour 15 mins

Serves: 8-10

Ingredients

• 2 cups short grained rice


• 8 tablespoons olive oil


• 1 onion minced finely


• 1/2 red bell pepper cut in thin strips


• 1 tablespoon powdered pimenton de la vera


• 1 tablespoon turmeric


• 1 tablespoon cumin


• 2 envelopes powdered chicken soup concentrate


• 1 cup lima beans


• scraped corn from one cob


• 6 cloves peeled garlic


• cilantro for garnish


• salt to taste


• 5 cups water (or chicken broth if you prefer not to use powdered soup)

Instructions

1. Rinse the rice and drain out the water as much as possible.


2. Put 5 tablespoons of the oil in a large heavy bottomed skillet and place the rice to brown.


3. Let it brown, at medium heat, moving it with a spoon for about 3 minutes.


4. Add the minced onion and stir until the the onion has softened, about 5 minutes.


5. In the meantime, place the strips of red bell pepper and the cloves of garlic in a pan with the other 3 tablespoons of oil and saute them, until softened and the garlic is golden.


6. Now, to the rice, add the 5 cups of water, the turmeric, the pimenton de la vera, the powdered chicken soup, the salt and the strips of bell pepper and garlic.


7. Bring to a boil uncovered, and after 5 minutes, add the lima beans and the corn.


8. Check for salt and bring the heat down to a very low simmer.


9. Cook for another half hour approximately and cover loosely for the last 10 minutes.


10. Garnish the top of the skillet with the cilantro or if you are serving it on a special dish, wait until it cools for 10 minutes.

3.1.09

Blue Corn Pozole

As I gathered the ingredients for this post, I thought about a woman my family once knew in Laredo.  Her name was Ana María.  She was born in Nuevo Laredo and moved to the U.S. side of the border after her marriage to a Laredoan. Ana María was an eccentric woman who made it clear in subtle and not so subtle ways that she belonged to Nuevo Laredo's well-connected families.  However, in Laredo, Ana María and her husband were as poor as church mice.  That is, until the 1980's when gas drilling along the Rio Grande made overnight millionaires out of ordinary people like Ana María and her husband.

My parents had become friends with Ana Maria and her husband some time after I left Laredo. But I remember many funny stories about her and how my mother tolerated some of her crazy ideas.  Finally, I met her during a trip to visit my parents. She was a natural beauty, albeit with a strong belief in heavy black eye liner and pitch-black hair dyed to match.  Within no time, she told me she knew all the "right" kind of eligible, young men from Nuevo Laredo for me to meet. She was truly from another time and place!

What brought Ana María to mind as I planned this recipe was how much she loved pozole.  She often invited my parents over for pozole--too often for my mother, who didn't care much for it. It's not a northern Mexican dish and my mother just didn't understand it. She would often describe how she had avoided another pozole dinner at Ana María's by offering to cook dinner at our home so that she could have some control over the menu. My mother had the nagging suspicion that  Ana María's real intention was to end up with a dinner invitation rather than have to cook.

I was always curious about the dish, never having tasted Ana María's famous pozole all those years. Later, during my trips to Mexico, I found many occasions to savor it. There are many versions of the hearty soup and, unlike my mother, I soon became a fan of pozole!

Last month, some friends from New Mexico brought me some dried blue corn kernels. I used them in this pozole recipe in place of canned hominy that is traditionally used. Normally, pozole is served with satellites of garnishes, little dishes of items that can be added to the soup: chopped white onion, sliced radishes, chopped cilantro, sliced limes, and thinly-sliced romaine lettuce. I like to add strips of fried tortilla as well.

Dried Chile Guajillo

My pozole recipe might be too spicy for little children who have not grown up with spicy food but it's substantial enough to serve as a main course. The flavors and textures are like few things I've ever had; the meat of the pork is tender, the corn kernels are chewy and the flavor of the chile guajillo cooked into this thick soup is deep and earthy.  And adding a squeeze of lime and the chopped cilantro creates a bright contrast with the savory flavors of the soup.

Blue Corn Pozole

Recipe Type: soup

Cuisine: Mexican

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 1 hour

Cook time: 4 hours

Total time: 5 hours

Serves: 6

Fall and winter is the perfect time for a hearty soup like pozole.

Ingredients

• 6 or 7 guajillo chili pods, deveined and seeded


• 2 cups dried blue corn which has been soaked overnight


• 2 lbs pork shoulder cut into 1 inch cubes


• 10 cloves garlic roughly cut


• 1 1/2 tablespoons dry oregano


• 1 tablespoon cumin


• 4 bay leaves


• Garnish: finely chopped romaine lettuce or cabbage, minced white onion, limes, cilantro, radishes, and tostadas, or fried corn tortilla strips

Instructions

1. Soak the corn overnight and then add salt and boil it at a simmer, covered, for about two hours in about 1 quart of water or enough so that there is enough liquid to soften the corn; add more water if it begins to evaporate too fast.


2. While the corn is cooking, remove the seeds and stems and devein the guajillo chiles, then place them on a heavy skillet or a comal at low heat until they soften, about 5 minutes or less.


3. After the chilies are soft, place them in a pot of about 5 cups boiling water , set aside to soak, covered, in this water for about 20 minutes.


4. Place the cubes of pork in a large, heavy bottomed stock pot and brown for about 6 minutes on a medium to high flame.


5. For an additional 3 minutes and at a lower flame, add the cloves of garlic to sweat as the meat browns. Add salt.


6. Pour the boiled corn pozole along with its liquid into the stockpot with the seared pork and garlic cloves.


7. While this is cooking, place the chilies along with their liquid in the blender, and blend. Do this little by little so the blender lid doesn't pop off with the expansion of the liquid.


8. Add this red liquid into the stock pot and add the oregano, crumbled bay leaf and cumin.


9. Place the pot lid at a tilt, check for salt and cook at a simmer for about three hours. Check the liquid frequently to make sure the result is brothy.


10. Fill small plates with garnishes: minced white onion, chopped cilantro, thinly sliced radishes, sliced limes, thinly sliced romain lettuce, and fried strips of tortilla. 

Fall Pickling

A harvest moon will soon be hovering over the horizon, imbuing us with the golden, hazy memories of autumns past. We will sit by our bonfire, warming ourselves as every orange tongue of flame lights our faces and the images of years gone by come to life. Sitting around a fire in the fall with friends and family is a custom we never tire of. In this circle around the fire, gazing into those hypnotic flames, as surely it's happened since the beginning of time, we reflect, we laugh, sometimes we sing, and, certainly, we always eat.

This past weekend, with the hint of fall weather in the air, spectacular blue skies and crisp weather, we decided at the last minute, to have a carne asada for friends in the garden. There were salsas to prepare and grocery shopping to do.  Never backing away from further complicating my life, I decided to make pickled vegetables and serranos for us to nibble on while the fire got going. My parents always had jars of these things in Laredo. (Who would ever show up to our house without a jar of pickled peppers in hand?) My parents ate them in great quantities, plus you found them on every restaurant table in Nuevo Laredo, it was the equivalent of the ketchup bottle you would find here in a fast food restaurant. But it's not fast food, and it is something good to have in your refrigerator (or pantry if you trust your canning skills).

So, if you have a bounty of peppers, now is the time to put them in vinegar along with carrots, small onions, cloves of garlic, and marble sized potatoes, if you can find them.

Fall weather pickling

Recipe Type: appetiser

Cuisine: Mexican

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 10 mins

Total time: 20 mins

Serves: 8

As you canning experts know, you can add or subtract any variety of vegetables to this, for example zucchini and pearl onions, etc.

Ingredients

• 4 cups marble sized potatoes


• 1 cup serrano or jalapeño chiles


• 6 cloves peeled garlic


• 5 carrots, cut into thick slices


• water to boil the vegetables


• white or apple cider vinegar to add to the boiled vegetables


• aromatic herbs: bay leaf, oregano, and thyme

Instructions

1. Place the potatoes, chiles, carrots, and garlic in a pot of boiling, salted water that is about one inch over the level of vegetables.


2. Cook slowly, uncovered with a low boil.


3. They should be cooked after about 10 minutes: check the carrots, or the potatoes for doneness.


4. Drain most of the water and add the vinegar. It should be approximately half water, half vinegar.


5. Cook for another 5 minutes, adding the bay leaf, sprigs of oregano and of thyme.


6. Pour into canning jars and store in your refrigerator after they've cooled.


7. Serve in bowls as an appetiser.

Chiapas Pork Roast on Mexico's Independence Day

In the U.S., it's widely believed that Cinco de Mayo is Mexican Independence Day. However, Mexicans celebrate their independence on the 16^th of September, the day that the criollo, Father Hidalgo, rallied the indigenous masses in the town of Dolores with "el grito"-- the shout urging them to overthrow the oppressive yoke of colonial Spanish government.  The ensuing fight for independence would last ten years.

On the 15^th of September every year, the president of Mexico stands at the balcony of the Palacio Nacional to commemorate this moment. There is a sort of call and response that takes place before the explosion of fireworks. It goes like this:

¡Mexicanos!

¡Vivan los héroes que nos dieron patria!

¡Víva Hidalgo!

¡Viva Morelos!

¡Viva Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez!

¡Viva Allende!

¡Vivan Aldama y Matamoros!

¡Viva la independencia nacional!

¡Viva México!

¡Viva México!

¡Viva México!

The thunderous roar of the crowd's response is exhilarating and the excitement reminds them they are hungry and thirsty. Naturally, food abounds in celebrations like this where families have gathered afterwards at friends' homes for such traditional fare as mole or chiles en nogada. Further south, in the Chiapas area, perhaps you'll find a roast pork that's been cooking for hours ready for the moment when famished guests arrive after celebrations.

My sister, Laura, makes the best one I know of. Here's her recipe.

Photo by Laura Lee

Chiapas Pork Roast

Recipe Type: Main Course

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 4 hours

Total time: 4 hours 20 mins

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients

• 4 dried chiles anchos, cleaned of seeds and veins


• several sprigs fresh thyme


• 2 bay leaves


• 1 tablespoon peppercorns


• 4 cloves (whole)


• 2 tablespoons allspice


• 1 stick cinnamon bark


• 5 cloves peeled garlic


• 2/3 cup vinegar


• 1 ½ tablespoons salt


• 5 pounds pork roast (shoulder, with outer layer of fat, if possible)


• 1 cup very hot water


• 2 cups thinly sliced white or bermuda onion (for the garnish)


• 1 cup thinly sliced radishes (for the garnish)


• 2 cups thinly sliced romaine lettuce, dressed with oil and vinegar (for the garnish)

Instructions

1. Cover the chilies with the very hot water and leave soaking for 20 minutes.


2. Drain and place in a blender jar.


3. Crush the herbs and spices and add them, as well as the garlic, vinegar, and salt to the blender.


4. Blend until smooth, add water if necessary to blend into a smoother consistency: a loose paste.


5. Pierce the meat all over with the point of a sharp knife.


6. Smear the meat with this mixture and let it marinate in the refrigerator for about 4 hours, but preferably 24 hours.


7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.


8. Put the meat in a covered casserole dish and cook for 1 hour.


9. Turn the meat, scraping the paste that is sticking to the bottom of the pan and diluting with about 1 cup of warm water and cook for another hour still covered.


10. Turn the meat again and cook for another 2 hours, or until it's very tender, but keep basting with the pan juices.


11. There will be plenty of sauce left in the casserole when the meat is cooked.


12. Serve the meat sliced with some of the sauce from the pan drizzled on top and with plenty of onion rings, cilantro, sliced romaine lettuce and warm corn tortillas.

Aguas Frescas: Mexican Thirst-Quenchers

In the hot summertime, Mexicans reach for a fragrant, ripe fruit juice, freshly dissolved in a blender with ice water to quench the thirst and hydrate the body. Why consume outrageously sugary soft drinks by the gallons, when you can just as easily get hooked on the real thing? Natural fruit with nutrients such as Vitamin C and E and antioxidants you can find in fruits such as mangos, canteloupe, and papayas, to mention a few?

In Mexico these natural, fresh fruit juices known as aguas frescas (“fresh waters”) are found in open-air markets in gigantic transparent glass jugs, lined up and ready to be ladled into a glass.

Aguas frescas are drunk from the spring until the early fall and can be found in every region of Mexico as well as in the US wherever Mexican culture abounds. They are not exactly smoothies because water and a small amount of sugar is added to the fruit pulp, and they are not just made from fruit, but also from seeds such as tamarindo or chia (a kind of sage grown by the Aztecs). An agua fresca can be made from flowers as well, such as the one called jamaica, made from hibiscus flowers. One of my favorites is horchata, made from rice, originating in Spain, quite possibly via the moorish occupation.

Some great places to find agua frescas:

• Jugos Acapulco – Santa Ana and Costa Mesa, CA
• Paradise Aguas Frescas – Tucson, AZ
• Taqueria Jalisco – Clovis, NM

If you can’t find aguas frescas near you, try making them yourself. To make any basic agua fresca, start out with a very ripe and sugary cantaloupe, or watermelon, mango, or pineapple, for example, and blend 1 part fruit and 2-3 parts water. Even with water added, the essence of the fruit in all its glory refreshes the palate. Strain or don’t strain, and add sugar to taste. Squeeze limes for a slight citrus punch to the agua fresca and serve cold in icy-frosted glasses.

Here are a few other recipes:

Tepache
Jamaica and Chia

¡Salud!

This article originally appeared on The Menuism Blog here:  Aguas Frescas: Mexican Thirst-Quenchers.

Papaya for Dessert

I've always wondered why people feel each meal should be topped by a sugary, calorie-laden dessert, either store bought or homemade. Don't get me wrong, I love a good apple pie in the fall with a rich vanilla ice cream, or a pear tart as my friend, Ania, makes it. But to eat a heavy dessert every time you sit down for lunch and/or supper? Is it any wonder we have the problems we do with obesity and the health problems related to it?

The after-meal dessert is something that U.S. children have come to expect. Is it a missplaced sense of prosperity that makes us eat this way? Did we eat this way in the 50's? In Laredo?  If so, I don't recall. We baked cookies or buñuelos for special occasions, made cakes for birthdays, ate ice cream on hot summer days, or pan dulce especially when it was cold outside, and had a feast of desserts at Thanksgiving. But after every meal? I shudder to think of how much I would struggle with weight now if I had grown up gobbling desserts after every meal. As it is, it's not easy.

I notice the less advantaged people of Mexico in my visits and the wholesomeness of much of their diet. They can't afford pies, doughnuts, soft drinks, frozen things in boxes and packages. They must depend on food at its origin: the vegetables, the legumes, and the fruit. And often the meat is cooked into a soup and accompanied with tortillas. It's ironic that some of these people with a few pesos a day eat a healthier meal than some of our more advantaged children here in the U.S., let alone those who fall through the cracks here.

If I could do anything to change the meal planning in the school where I teach, I would advocate serving dessert only once a week and offer the student a plate of fruit after their mid-day meal. There would be a revolt to be sure; sugar cannot easily be taken away. But at some point peace would prevail (I think) and these children who are accustomed to such a high intake of sugar in one day would become accustomed to living with less of it, becoming healthier adults as a result.

Papaya is an example of what we ate at home as a snack or something to offer a guest on a hot day, or simply a dessert after a meal. What's there to prepare? You just peel a cold papaya, remove the seeds, chop or slice and arrange on a platter. Papaya is one of the fruits that contains the highest concentration of Vitamin C, potassium and beta-carotene. The custom in Mexico (or Laredo) is to serve a platter of papaya with salt and lime juice, squeezed at the last minute. Its sublime tropical flavor on a summer day beats any baked dessert anyone can put before you.

Simply Papaya

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Recipe Type: dessert, snack

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 5 mins

Total time: 5 mins

Papaya is the perfect, healthy dessert or snack that comes wrapped in its own 'skin'. Just peel and arrange on a beautiful platter and dazzle the eye with the color and the palate with the taste! Serve it as it is done in Mexico, with salt and lime to lend complexity to the fresh taste.

Ingredients

• papaya


• salt to taste


• Mexican limes

Instructions

1. Peel the papaya and remove the seeds.


2. Cut in slices or 1 inch cubes.


3. Arrange on a platter and squeeze lime and sprinkle salt before serving.

One Way to Get Your Greens

I'll bet you didn't know those weeds that grow on the side of the road are not only edible, but also delicious.  I'm referring to verdolaga or common purslane (portulaca oleracea), which can be the bane of the gardener or a treasure for the discerning cook.

What's more, this succulent weed is incredibly healthy. Verdolaga contains high levels of Omega-3 fatty acids and is a great source of Vitamin C and some B-complex vitamins. Here in central Mexico where I often travel, verdolaga is everywhere: on the side of the road, growing lushly (albeit wildly) in clay pots, and in the market.

The best part of eating verdolaga is that you can't beat the price. In my case, it's free because it grows abundantly next to a lime tree in a large pot. No complaints from me about the wayward growth of tangled verdolaga, ready for my kitchen and my palate!

Verdolagas a.k.a. Purslane

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Recipe Type: salad

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 10 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 4 cups of washed, chopped verdolaga


• 1 or 2 firm, but ripe tomatoes, cut in wedges or strips


• ½ red onion, cut into thin slices


• 1 avocado cut into strips


• 2 limes


• ½ cup chopped cilantro


• ½ olive oil


• Rock salt to taste

Instructions

1. Mix the verdolaga, tomatoes, onion, and cilantro in a salad bowl.


2. Arrange the avocado.


3. Sprinkle rock salt.


4. Drizzle olive oil.


5. Squeeze the juice of both limes and serve.

Notes

You may prefer to thoroughly mix the oil, salt, and lime juice before arranging the avocado slices so that all the leaves of the verdolaga are smeared with the dressing.