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The upcoming Cinco de Mayo holiday is a
good excuse to cook something Mexican or borderish and have a
party.
CABRITO
A caller inquired about barbecued goat –
cabrito – which is often part of these celebrations, and he
seeks a recipe.
This is a very simple dish, made on a spit
and barbecued, without any rubs or sauces necessary. Just fire
up the barbecue and load chunks of meat; or wrap the meat in
foil and bake in the oven at lower temperature for longer period
of time. Basically, goat is cooked just as you would do ribs.
Goat is intermittently available in
Champaign-Urbana. They used to have it at Meijer’s, or at
County Market. A caller from Urbana reported that you can get
goat through Moore’s Farms, which has a booth at the Farmer’s
Market. She also recommends Rick Bayless’s first cookbook,
Authentic Mexican, for some recipes for goat.
CHILES EN NOGADA
A caller from Urbana recalled that some
years she was served a dish for Cinco de Mayo that consisted of
stuffed poblano chiles, stuffed with a sweet mixture of ground
beef with some pine nuts or raisins, covered with a white sauce
and sprinkled with fresh pomegranate seeds. Thus the dish had
the green, white, and red of the Mexican flag. She doesn’t know
the name of the dish, and seeks a recipe for it.
A caller from Champaign supplied the name
of this dish: it is Chiles en Nogada. The base for the cream
sauce is ground walnuts in a béchamel-type white sauce. The
dish is very popular in central Mexico. A recipe (which looks
fairly involved) can be found online at
<http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/000114chiles_en_nogada_chilies_in_walnut_sauce.php>
TORTILLA SOUP
Doyle’s sister taught him to make a
tortilla soup that is plain, simple, and so good, but he
couldn’t find the recipe. The soup is light, and doesn’t take a
long time to make. You take tortillas (I like the wheat ones),
cut them into ¼-inch strips which you fry in deep fat or plenty
of oil in a skillet; that’s the garnish for the soup. Maybe
somebody has that recipe.
A caller from Champaign once worked in a
Mexican restaurant owned by Mexicans (so the cooking was
authentic). That soup was made with chicken stock and chicken
pieces, but she has now discovered a vegetarian version and
doesn’t notice the difference.
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2 pasilla chiles (or poblanos)
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1½ pounds tomatoes
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oil
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3 cloves garlic, sliced
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1 large onion, thinly sliced
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salt and pepper to taste
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pinch dried oregano
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4 cups vegetable stock (or
water)
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1-2 cups tortilla chips
Fire roast the tomatoes and chiles: put
them on a rimmed cookie sheet and stick them under the broiler
until done on all sides. Peel and chop the peppers and chop up
the tomatoes. Put oil in a pan and sauté the onion and the
garlic until golden. Add the chopped tomatoes and chopped
peeled chiles and crush with the back of a spoon while they are
sautéing. Put in salt to taste and ground pepper and a pinch of
dried oregano. Add the vegetable stock (or water) and simmer
gently 20-30 minutes. Crush the tomatoes again as needed. Stir
in, so they get soft.
Serve garnishes on the side: 1 cup fresh
cilantro, chopped; 1 ripe avocado peeled and chopped; 1-2
radishes thinly sliced; lime wedges.
This tastes just as remembered from the
restaurant. You can also use toasted corn tortillas in place of
the tortilla chips, to reduce salt and fat content.
MOLÉ POBLANO
A caller from Champaign recalled that in
Texas, whenever there was a fiesta of any kind (like a wedding),
one of the things always served was chicken molé. The versions
she has found locally taste different than it does back home,
and it’s not very common here. It’s more spicy here. Her
grandmother made it with peanut butter and chocolates. Do you
have a source for a really rich molé sauce as opposed to the
more spicy red type?
Doyle was intrigued with the idea of peanut
butter as an ingredient, which would be similar to the use of
ground almonds in the sauce, but smoother. You can start with
dried chile anchos, moisten them, used as a deep base; the
chocolate (which can be Baker’s regular baking chocolate) is put
in at the end. Ground tortillas give it a little bit of body.
It’s not very complex to make, but there are prepared jars of
molé to be found, not as spicy, but you can start with that and
then add your own modifications. La Doña is a favorite starting
base. (Available online at
<http://www.mexgrocer.com/2526.html>)
There are a lot of recipes for molé on the
internet, including “The Mole Page” at
http://www.ramekins.com/mole/recipesmole.html which has more
than twenty recipes, which would be a good place to start and
then modify to your tastes.
A caller from Downs offered this quick and
dirty molé poblano from an old Sunset magazine from a
long time ago.
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vegetable oil
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2 large onions chopped
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¼ tsp. ground fennel
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¼ tsp. coriander
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¼ tsp. cumin (or more)
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¼ tsp. cloves
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2 large garlic cloves, crushed
or minced
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½ cup raisins
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2 squares of unsweetened
chocolate cut in little pieces
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½ cup smooth peanut butter
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1 can tomato sauce
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¾ cup chili powder (yes, that
much)
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2 toasted bread slices
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3-4 corn tortillas toasted
until dry
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2 Tbsps. toasted sesame seeds
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6 cups turkey or chicken broth
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1 Tbsp. sugar (omit if peanut
butter is sweetened)
Sauté the onions with the spices. Add the
garlic and sauté a little bit. Add the raisins, chocolate,
peanut butter, tomato sauce and chili powder. Turn the heat way
down to melt the chocolate. Put all of it in a blender or food
processor; add the bread, tortillas and sesame seeds and blend
with as much of the broth as you need. Strain if you want; add
as much of the broth to get to the consistency you want, and
heat it back up. It gets better if you do it a day ahead. We
use it for leftover turkey.
A caller from Champaign adds that you can
use a variety of different nuts in mole, peanut butter or
pepitas (ground pumpkin seeds: a recipe is available at
http://www.ochef.com/817.htm), ground almonds. The richness
comes from whatever kind of nut you pulverize.
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