Sunday Dinners: Black Bean and Pork Stew and Enchiladas Suizas
October 5, 2012
Enchiladas Suizas with Spanish-style barley.
We are lucky to be prepping for a trip to western and southern France soon, and in doing so we are immersing ourselves in all things French: beautiful wines, delicious cheeses and of course the language. Having had only a year of French classes way back in high school, I’ve been practicing with some nifty software I bought, but I’ll be damned if my Spanish doesn’t keep intruding like a jealous friend I’ve been ignoring.
Le bâtiment, c’est près d’ici?
Sí, está muy cerca. Sólo tres minutos, más o menos.
Bah!
So it’s perhaps not surprising that, while our heads have been in Provence, our Sunday dinner menus have been on a little south-of-the-border tour recently. We should be priming our palates by cooking coq au vin or cassoulet, but instead we’re drawn to delicious frijol con puerco and enchiladas Suizas. (At least Switzerland is next to France.) A recent Saveur magazine — the Mexico issue — is partially to blame; that and we have a soft spot in our hearts for Mexico and its food.
Tomatoes and peppers for the magic sauce.
Frijoles con puerco, aka pork and beans.
A week ago Sunday we bought a pork shoulder and made the black bean stew, a richly flavorful dish augmented by a zesty puree of tomatoes and onions that tastes very similar to Thomas Keller’s soffritto, except with a snap of habanero that lingers on the tongue. The frijol dish is simple: browned cubes of pork, garlic, onions and black beans, all stewed together. (It’s especially simple since we used canned black beans.) The magical sauce I mentioned is made by blistering a pound of Roma tomatoes and habaneros in a hot pan, then transferring them along with half a cup of white onion and a couple of cloves of garlic to the Vitamix to puree. Afterward, the puree is fried in a quarter-cup of canola oil until slightly reduced. I can’t stress it enough: This is a marvelous sauce that serves as a soffritto would, bringing beautiful flavor and a bit of heat to just about any dish.
Delicious enchiladas. A whole pan.
Last Sunday, tempted again by Mexico and by the fact that it’s tomatillo season, we launched into enchiladas Suizas. This too is a simple recipe once you get past the basic prep. The ingredients list calls for three cups of shredded chicken, expedited by the availability of grocery store rotisserie birds. Somewhat labor-intensive is the charring of the tomatillos (husks removed) under the broiler and then, without losing any juices, removing the thin skin to reveal the gelatinous membranes within. (Hint, do this part over the blender, ’cause that’s where they’re going.) There they are joined by two poblano and two serrano peppers (also blackened and peeled), 3/4 cup of sour cream, a cup of boiling water, garlic, cumin and cilantro, then blended until smooth. Mix a cup of the enchilada sauce with the shredded chicken and you’re ready to assemble.
The earthy bitterness of the tomatillos and peppers with that hint of cilantro make for a light-tasting, refreshing sauce, so different from red enchilada sauces prevalent in many restaurants, and definitely more intense than the mild, creamy enchiladas Suizas I’ve encountered. Once the prep work is done, this is an easy-to-assemble meal that would be ideal for make-ahead entertaining.
France, you are a flirtatious distraction for us these days, and we cannot wait for our upcoming date. But deep down, our first love is Mexico. Ahora y siempre.
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- Summer radishes.
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- Tomatoes and peppers for the magic sauce.
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- Frijoles con puerco, aka pork and beans.
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- Tomatillos under the broiler.
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- Shredded chicken with the tomatillo sauce.
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- Looking down into the Vitamix: the tomatillo sauce.
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- Delicious enchiladas. A whole pan.
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- Enchiladas Suizas with Spanish barley.
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- J’s barley.
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- Enchiladas Suizas with Spanish barley.
Marinated chicken and beef in the foreground, with the all-important Sriracha.
With the recent heat wave seemingly behind us, this Sunday’s dinner called for something light and easy. Jeff came across this bulgogi marinade recipe a few months ago, and it’s the third time he’s made it. Based on the popular Korean dish, this recipe comes from Mark Bittman and calls for beef. We’d done it with chicken one time and with beef another, and last night — what the hell — we did a twofer: round steak and chicken thighs.
On top of that, an afternoon trip to the farmer’s market brought an unexpected find for this time of year — baby artichokes. Unable to resist, even while knowing they had no cultural fit with our lettuce wraps, we grabbed a bag. And indeed, dinner would be a grab bag of a meal. Two very different, but very compelling components, and either would make for delicious and easy entertaining. (Just probably not on the same night.)
Bulgogi Marinade
1 bunch scallions
8 – 10 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 to 3 pounds chicken or beef.
Put all the ingredients except the meat in the Vitamix, and blend until smooth. Add water as needed (Jeff used about 1/2 a cup).
Reserve about 1/2 cup of the marinade to use as a sauce. It’s tremendous. You’ll want to put it on everything.
Pour the remaining marinade over your choice of meat and mix to coat. (Bittman slices his beef before marinating, but we feel that complicates the grilling. We cooked the meat pieces whole and sliced them later.) Marinate for up to two hours before cooking on a hot, hot grill.
Slice the meat thinly and serve with butter lettuce leaves, the reserved sauce, sambal (or Sriracha if you are out of sambal like we, sadly,
Baby artichokes with garlic and mint.
were).
And now for something completely different ..I adapted this recipe from Mario Batali’s cookbook Simple Italian Food – Recipes from My Two Villages.
Baby Artichokes With Mint and Garlic
12 baby artichokes with stems intact
6 or 7 cloves garlic, peeled and slightly crushed with the side of a knife
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup mint leaves
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon dried red chile flakes
Salt and pepper
Remove the tough outer leaves from the artichokes and shave the stems. Cut larger ones in half lengthwise and place in acidulated water.
In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and the garlic until it is just golden. Drain the artichokes and place them in the pan stirring to coat with oil and garlic. Add the red chile flakes and a splash of wine and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, adding a little more wine along the way to braise the artichokes and keep the garlic from getting too brown. Season with salt and pepper, and about halfway through, add the torn mint leaves. Serve warm as a side dish, or as we did, as a first course. This would also be delicious tossed with fresh pasta.
Sunday Dinner: Cacio e Pepe
February 5, 2012
Fresh pasta, cheese and fresh ground pepper.
I’ve been sitting with this post for weeks now, unable to find words to adequately describe this beautiful simplicity of this dish. While I have many go-to recipes, my favorite dishes are often those with few ingredients that commingle perfectly. Cacio e pepe is one of those dishes. Fresh pasta, butter and olive oil, generous amounts of black pepper and salty Italian cheeses. Smug in my restraint, I thought: “This will be a beautifully minimalist post that shall represent the serene minimalist nature of the recipe.” How very zen.
But then I began to daydream about how this recipe may have come about. I imagined a slight Roman woman with knotted hands, children grown and in their own homes. She’s attending to the day’s housework in summer’s heat, sweeping, scrubbing, hanging laundry on the balcony to dry in the sun; and she’s cooking the night’s meal in a sweltering kitchen. I imagined that, after a long day of his own work, the tired husband returns home and sits down to his repast. They exchange tired looks and scant words about the day’s high points when he makes the fatal error:
“This needs more pepper.” “It doesn’t need more pepper.” “It does.” “It’s fine the way it is.” “I’d prefer it with more. Mamma makes it with more pep … ”
She snatches up the plate, whisking it back to the kitchen where she begrudgingly grinds a sneeze-inducing amount of pepper into the pasta, muttering: “Your mother (grind, grind, grind)… I’ll show your mother. You want (grind) more (grind) pepper (grind, grind, grind) I’ll give you more (grind, grind, grind) blasted (grind, grind) pepper.”
And thus the spicy, salty, buttery combination was born, a happy accident born out of the weariness of a long day. That’s how I imagine it, anyway.
Cacio e Pepe (Adapted from Bon Appétit)
1 pound fresh egg pasta (like spaghetti)
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons freshly cracked black pepper, or more to taste (ahem)
1 cup grated Grana Padano
1/2 cup Pecorino
Bring four quarts of salted water to a boil, and cook the pasta for one to two minutes — it should be slightly underdone. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the pasta water.
In a large skillet, melt 3 tablespoons of the butter along with the olive oil. Add the pepper, swirling to incorporate. Add 2/3 cup reserved pasta water and bring to a simmer. Add the pasta and the remaining butter; using tongs coat the pasta with butter and pepper. Reduce heat and add the Grana Padano, mixing with the pasta until melted. Remove from heat and add the Pecorino, working the cheese into the pasta until it melts and the pasta is evenly coated, and al dente, adding more pasta water if it seems dry.
Serve with a medium-bodied Italian red like Langhe Nebbiolo, and toast your beloved and your good fortune at having discovered this dish. And, for the love of god, please don’t bring Mamma into it.
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- Fresh pasta, cheese and fresh ground pepper.
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- A lovely pile of fresh pasta.
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- Butter, olive oil and pepper.
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- Pasta goes in the pan.
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- Adding the pasta water and cheese.
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- Last bit of cheese, toss, melt and eat.
Namesake: Chicken Chile Verde
January 25, 2012
J's signature chicken chile verde.
People constantly buttonhole me: “Robyn, the name of your blog is Chile Verde Chronicles, but you don’t have a single chile verde recipe: What’s up with that?”
OK. I exaggerate. It is a fair question, but no one has asked. Well, hold onto your hats, friends …
First, a little bookkeeping: I contemplated filing this under “Tradition” as this dish pops up frequently enough in our rotation. It could also fit naturally under the header “Sunday Dinner” as that’s the standard CV feast day. At the same time, it could just as easily fit under “Refrigerator Staple” because we always seem to have a batch of leftovers. But to me this dish deserves its own header, and perhaps some day a series of posts.
Safe to say that J’s chicken chile verde has evolved dramatically over the years. In one of the first versions, back in our early dating days, he used canned jalapeños instead of milder green chiles. The result was fuego — liquid fire — which he declared “practically inedible.” Coming from him, that’s saying something.
Today the basic ingredients remain the same (chicken thighs, lots of veggies and chicken broth), but there’s always a tweak here and there. One batch he’ll use roux as a thickener, the next it’s barley. (Can you imagine?) At times, he’s rubbed and grilled the chicken first, finishing it in the stew, and other times he’s poached the chicken to make the broth base. Every time he makes it, it’s slightly different, and a little better.
So, without further ado, I give you his latest version which involved rub-seasoning and grilling the chicken:
J’s Chicken Chile Verde
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon chipotle chile powder
2 strips bacon cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 large jalapeño (or more to taste), chopped
3 7-ounce cans whole green chiles, 1 can chopped, 2 cans diced (will be divided)
1 green bell pepper, diced (will be divided)
3 small onions, diced (will be divided)
6 cloves garlic, chopped
8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 chicken bullion cube
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon cumin seeds (less or more to taste)
8 to 10 black peppercorns
1/3 cup barley, rinsed
Pinch of chile flakes
Salt and fresh-ground pepper
Fresh lemon or lime.
For the rub: In a plastic storage bag, combine the paprika, granulated garlic, chipotle powder, salt and pepper, and shake to mix. Add the chicken, give it a little rubdown, and refrigerate for at least one hour while you start the stew.
In a large Dutch oven over medium heat, crisp the bacon, rendering the fat. Add the carrots, celery, 2/3 of the diced onion, 1/2 of the diced bell pepper and cook in until soft, about 15 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste, barley, cumin seeds and peppercorns and stir to mix with the vegetables. Add 1 can of chopped green chiles and half the jalapeño. Stir. Add the broth and the bullion and simmer, covered, for 1 hour to 90 minutes, stirring occasionally.
After simmering, blend the mixture until smooth, not grainy, using an immersion blender (this could take a few minutes — you don’t want whole peppercorns). Add the remaining onion, bell pepper, jalapeño and diced canned chiles and continue to simmer while you grill the chicken, making sure to mark it well. When done grilling, let the chicken rest for a few minutes, then dice.
Add the chicken to the chile verde and stir. Simmer for another 10 minutes. Season to taste with chile flakes, salt and pepper. If you feel so inclined, add a squeeze of lemon or lime, to taste, for a bit of acid.
That’s it. The barley adds a rich nuttiness, the grilled chicken a smoky undertone and the peppercorns, well, a nice pepper flavor. Serve with warm tortillas, beans, shredded or melted cheddar, crumbled Mexican cheese, shredded lettuce, minced onion, habañero salsa, cilantro — whatever combination floats your boat. Hell, it’s good in a bowl eaten with a spoon. It’s better the next day, and the next.
Phone us on a Sunday night and chances are we’re drinking wine and cooking up a big batch of chile verde. Pretty nice tradition, I say.
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- J’s signature chicken chile verde.
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- All the veggies in the broth, simmering away.
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- Our beloved immersion blender.
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- Grilled chicken thighs.
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- J’s black bean, pinto bean and barley filling.
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- The master at work, stirring the finished verde.
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- A few suggested toppings, for your consideration.
Fagioli alla Fiorentina
Speaking of traditions …
This year, New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday, which means our most recent pork-centric Sunday dinner took on a familiar, annual theme. Why I started making this Italian pork-and-beans dish to celebrate the new year, I do not remember. I think at one point I may have claimed New Year’s Eve or Day as my holiday to spend in the kitchen preparing a fabulous dinner. At some point, I also may have claimed — hoping on some level — that I simply must be part Italian, though none of my ancestors were from anywhere near the Mediterranean. I do remember making fagioli for the first time on a cold a New Year’s Eve in Salt Lake City, and I’ve made it many years since, in Chicago, in Venice and now in Portland. My recipe combines two versions I found in Saveur magazine (November 2000), and while the ingredients are few and simple, the aroma from the oven is comforting, warming, homey.
Why we have not made this for any other occasion is beyond me; it’s the essence of a one-pot meal, and incredibly easy to prepare. In the past, I’ve used only sausage as the accompanying meat, but this year we decided to braise pork shoulder with the beans. Next time we make it, I’d love to play with the ingredients and perhaps substitute pork with lamb, and sage with thyme or rosemary.
Fagioli alla Fiorentina
1 pound dried cannellini beans (or any dried white beans)
5 ounces prosciutto cut into wide strips
Generous drizzle (1/4 cup) fruity olive oil
4 to 5 canned plum tomatoes, quartered
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
2 spicy Italian sausages
1 pork shoulder (about 2 pounds)
Sprig of fresh sage
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Put the beans in an earthenware pot or a dutch oven, and cover with cold water. Set aside and let soak overnight or at least 4 hours. Drain and add cold water to just cover the beans.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
In a skillet drizzled with olive oil, lightly brown the sausages. Remove and set aside. Salt and pepper the pork shoulder, then using the same pan, brown it on all sides. Remove and set aside.
Add the prosciutto, tomatoes, garlic and sage to the beans, and season to taste with the salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil. Place the pork shoulder in the center of the beans, gently working it into the liquid until it’s partially submerged. Place the sausages atop the beans as well.
Cover and bake until the beans have absorbed all the liquid and are tender, about two hours. A meat thermometer placed in the center of the pork should register 160 degrees. Remove the pork shoulder and the sausages and cut into slices. Serve beans and pork in bowls or deep plates with perhaps a good crusty bread to sop up any juices.
Favoloso, no?
Chile Verde Chronicles 