Chestnut soup

This soup has Christmas written all over it. Every recipe that I found for this soup had cream in it. However, this Christmas my Jewish family were coming over and we were having prime rib as our main course, so cream was out. I toyed with using coconut milk as a non-dairy cream substitute but really in the end there was no need for it. The soup was all kinds of delicious on its own.

Roasted chestnuts just out of the oven

 Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs of fresh chestnuts or two packages of vacuum packed chestnuts

2 ribs of celery

1 clove of garlic, chopped

2 medium onions

Pinch of nutmeg

2 small/1 big bay leaf

1.5 litres of chicken or vegetable stock

Couple of tablespoons of olive oil

Sprig or two of Italian parsley

Salt & pepper to taste

If you have fresh chestnuts, they need to be roasted.  Heat the oven to 425F. Place the chestnuts flat side down on a cutting board and with a small, sharp knife cut an X into the top of the nut. Place them on a baking tray and cook for about 20 minutes. The shells will burst open when they’re ready.  Take them out and let them cool, then peel. Either chop or crush with your fingers (more fun) so you have little bits of nuts. You can do this all a day or two ahead and keep the peeled chestnuts in the fridge.

Peel and thinly slice the onions. Clean and thinly slice the celery.  Put the olive oil in a large pot and when hot add the celery and onions. Sautee/sweat for about 10 minutes, adding the garlic near the end so it doesn’t burn.

Add the stock, nutmeg, bay leaves, and parsley. Add almost all the chestnuts leaving a couple of tablespoons for later. Bring to the boil. Turn heat down to low and simmer for 30 minutes.

Toasted roasted chestnuts

While the soup is cooking, heat a bit of oil in a small frying pan. Add the remaining bits of chestnut and fry for a few minutes until it’s all crispy. Be careful that you don’t burn the little bits as it’ll make it all bitter.

Remove soup from heat and let cool a little. Remove the bay leaves and parsley.  Then blitz up the soup mixture until it is very smooth – don’t be impatient. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve steaming hot with a bit of the crispy bits drizzled on top in each bowl.

The verdict from my nephew who is a picky eater: "Add this to the list of things I'll eat."

© 2015 Gail J. Cohen

Oaxacan mole amarillo

Now that I'm not travelling, I'm going to share some of the recipes that I learned or were inspired by my travels as well as any others that find their way out of my head since I love to cook and love to share. I welcome any and all feedback!

Costeno amarillo

In Oaxaca, I ate a lot of mole amarillo and absolutely fell in love with it. Like many of the traditional Oaxacan moles, it is made with chiles that can only be found in Oaxaca. In this case it’s chiles consteno amarillo. I brought back a whole bag of them and couldn’t wait to try it out. (Most recipes you can find on the internet will be made with guajillo, which just ain’t quite right!) While I ate a lot of this mole while there, it wasn’t one of the ones that I was shown how to make so this is a cobbling together of what I got from watching and tasting along the way.

My dad, who is a lover of both spicy food and Spanishy flavours has never really developed much enthusiasm for Mexican food. He envisions greasy, cheesy Tex-Mex and he’s just not interested. Not being one to give up when faced with Mexican food naysayers, I decided this dish could be the gateway to get him on board. And a good choice it was. While he did not go in with the most positive intent, he was won over by the smooth and distinctive flavour, which is not too spicy and relatively fruity as the chiles are sun dried and not smoky at all.

It is also one of the moles that is traditionally served with vegetables, in  this case chayote, potatoes, and green beans. This mole amarillo is also one of the most popular fillings for tamales, the best late-night treats available on the streets of Oaxaca.

4 servings

Mole

4 chiles costeno amarillo

2 large plum tomatoes

½ small white onion, sliced

2 garlic cloves

2 med or 4 small tomatillos

2 cloves

Pinch of ground cinnamon

Pinch of cumin

1 ball of allspice

6 peppercorns

1 tsp oregano (preferably Mexican)

2 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

1/3 cup masa harina

1 litre of chicken stock

2 tbsp olive oil

Salt to taste

To poach chicken

8-10 chicken thighs

Handful of fresh parsley

1 clove of garlic

8 peppercorns

1 tsp salt

Vegetables

1 chayote

200 g of green beans

3 medium potatoes

Put chicken into a pot with parsley, garlic, salt, and peppercorns. Cover with water and poach chicken until done. Save stock to use in making mole. Set chicken aside.

Remove stem and seeds from the chile.

Gently soften the chiles on the comal. Remove and place in a glass bowl and cover with hot stock. Let soak for at least 20 minutes.

Dry roast onion slices, garlic in the skin, tomatoes, tomatillos on the comal. Once ready put them all in the blender (remember to cool and remove the skin from the garlic). Add the cilantro, oregano, and the chiles and soaking liquid.  Waz until smooth, about 3-4 minutes.

Grind the cloves, cumin, allspice, and pepper.

Heat oil in a pot and quickly fry spices when hot. Add chile mixture and sear.  Bring to the boil and stir for about 5 minutes. Add masa harina as well as ½ a cup or so of chicken stock. Let boil for about 10 minutes. Add more stock if it’s too thick and let boil for a total of 15-20 minutes. Add salt to taste.

In the meantime, peel and cut up the chayote. Cut up the potatoes into slightly larger pieces. Boil them in a mix of stock and water with a pinch of salt.  Clean and boil the beans in stock as well.

Mole amarillo

To serve: Two chicken thighs covered with one soup ladle + a bit of mole with a selection of the vegetables. Of course, fresh corn tortillas on the side are always welcome.

© Gail J. Cohen 2015

Cartegena independence day celebrations

There's still more to come about Oaxaca, but right now I'm in Colombia and in the moment as November 11 is a huge holiday in Cartegena. While it is Remembrance day in Canada, in this city on the Caribbean coast it's their version of Carnival, but celebrating the city's independence from Spain in 1811. At the time an extremely wealthy city, it was the first in Columbia to break with Spain and led the way for other city states to do the same. Caracas, Venezuela was the first city in South America to gain independence from Spain.

The celebrations in Cartagena go on for about five days and culminate with the Miss Colombia pageant (which, by the way if you're trying to get tickets, is sold out). We aren't going to be here for the full throttle of partying but are having the chance to get in on some of the action.

Today there was a parade of most of the schools in the schools in the city. Each one has their own costumes and dances and parade through the old walled city accompanied by live bands or bicycles laden with second-rate but loud sound systems.

Obviously some of the kids were more enthusiastic than others but alongside all of them were teachers and/or parents who made sure they were hydrated while dancing through the streets in temperatures of about 33C with 100% humidity.

I am not entirely sure what the black-face troupe was all about. 

The grown up parade is tomorrow and apparently it's totally crazy here with most shops and restaurants in the old city closed due to how crazy it can get. Will we brave it? Or will we simply chill by the awesome rooftop pool at our hotel? It could go either way.

Altars

Altars are an integral part of the celebrations of Dia de los Meurtos. Most families and businesses create one to honour the lives of those who have passed away. In the days leading up to Nov. 1, I saw them popping up all over Oaxaca. Some were very elaborate and expensive while others much smaller and more modest. But all have the same basic premise and building blocks.

Sugar skulls, bread, and flowers are integral to all Dia de los muertos altars.

Generally an altar will be two or three tiers and each layer will be covered with a cloth and ofretas or offerings. Many will have an arch made of marigolds and sugar cane over the top.

Almost all altars will contain the following elements:

• Marigolds, which symbolize death.
• Pictures of the dead (in many cases including beloved pets (or mascotas)).
• Candles.
• Incense, usually from the copal tree.
• Sugar skulls.
• Pan de muerto, the egg bread symbolizing the deceased.
• Food, drink, and fresh fruit that were the favourites of the deceased. These can include traditional as well as modern foods as well as alcholic beverages, particularly mezcal in Oaxaca.
• Papel picado, the hand cut paper decorations.
• Salt, which represents the continuance of life.
• Pictures of saints.
• There are often other favourite things included such as cigarettes, and other items belonging to the deceased.

At our school, we built a modest altar but all went together to the market to buy the items. Anyone could add in items for people they wanted to remember. Weaving the flowers and putting all the pieces together and remembering lost loved ones, even though mostly with a group of people who didn't really know each other well, was actually quite uplifting. 

Bottom left from our house and bottom right was the altar from our school.

These pictures show some of the altars I saw around Oaxaca, including the one from our school, the house I was staying in, as well as a few other family and business ones.

Dia de los muertos

While everyone knows I came to Oaxaca in large part for the food, the timing was expressly to ensure I was here for Dia de los meurtos. While I didn't go to everything or see probably even a tiny bit of what was going on in and around Oaxaca, I was fortunate enough to go on a few trips with the school to some cemeteries.

Crazy school kids on a wild night field trip.

I sort of knew what to expect but also didn't. I made a point of not looking at travel blogs or anything like that so when I got there, it would all be new and amazing. And it was! So spoiler alert if you're coming down to Oaxaca for the celebrations and don't want to see what it's all about, then stop reading.

Dia de los meurtos is actually more than one day. It kind of stretches from Oct 31 to Nov 2 but in reality celebrations stretch through more than a week. At least in the city, there's a parade of kids, marching bands, and even dressed up pets at least once a day for the whole week. It was a rare day to not hear the subtle sounds of a tuba nearby.

But for now, here's a bit about the cemeteries.  We went to two, one in Oaxaca and one in a small town nearby called Atzompa.

The cemetery in Atzompa is well known for having quite a raucous all-night event on Oct 31-Nov 1.  The whole gang of us from the school arrived and found the walkway toward the cemetery packed with people and vendors selling food, drink, and more with loud live music blaring from a stage up ahead. But once we walked through the gates, we were greeted with an awesome sight of hundreds of candles and the scent of thousands of flowers. There was a big stage set up on the one end of the cemetery but the live music stopped shortly after we got there and was replaced with some really odd Mex-pop that provided the soundtrack to our one hour visit.

Atzompa

The Atzompa cemetery is quite old and also quite small. The graves are somewhat of a disorganized mess but almost all had new soil piled on top and decorations of marigolds and other flowers as well as candles. We arrived about 10 pm just when it was getting busy with families arriving to spruce up the graves, light candles, or sit together and pray, eat, drink, sing, and laugh.  It was quite a wonderous sight.

The celebrations go on all night there and many families, and tourists, stay through the night, but I opted not to since there was really no connection to any of the families.

The next night we started off watching a parade in central Oaxaca, that was punctuated by a wedding celebration outside one of the city's large churches that we happened to be standing nearby. The couple had set up what is known as a cathedral, but is basically a huge fireworks structure that they set off and it ends with their names being all lit up at the top. Totally off the charts here with the fireworks.

Oaxaca's main cemetery. 

Anyway, after that the school gang walked over to the main Oaxaca city cemetery, which was substantially larger and more formal than the one in Atzompa. The owner of our language school and her husband both have parents buried there and we visited and decorated their graves and showed our respects.  

So there is a very serious side to Dia de los meurtos but there is also just total craziness as well. Especially in Oaxaca, it was like a cross between Halloween and I don't know what with tons of people in the graveyards all dressed up and taking pictures with each other. There was live music and bands wandering around and just outside the walls of the Oaxaca cemetery there was a carnival, complete with rides, games, food, and flower sellers.

It was a party for sure in Oaxaca.

It was total pandemonium and complete sensory overload. I'm not sure these pics do it justice but it gives you a bit of a taste of it.

The corridor of smoke

Not enough has been said in this little blog about the food in Oaxaca — at least not in my opinion as this trip is largely about the food!

I don't know if it has an official name, but at the Mercado 20 de Noviembre is a corridor that serves grilled meats. I call it the corridor of smoke because as you enter, you're assaulted by the smoke of dozens of charcoal grills being fanned by ladies cooking up meats, many kinds of meats.

I had read about it a bit in advance but otherwise the place makes absolutely no sense. You walk in and both sides of the corridor are lined with meat sellers. As you go by they loudly try to convince you of the superiority of their products and prices. But to me, they all seem the same, selling thinly sliced beef and pork as well as fat little chorizos and tripe; there's occasionally some other option. You order by weight, so if you know how much you want, you can tell them, or you can just give them a measurement with the space between your hands, ie: I want "this much."

But, first you actually need to go to another vendor to get yourself fresh chiles de agua (hot and grown only in the state of Oaxaca) as well as the delicious small white onions. Once you get those in a little basket, head over to a meat vendor, order up your meat, and then give them to the lady at the grill.

She'll chuck your chiles and onions right into the coals under the grill. Then the meat dude gives her the meat to cook. In the meantime, go find yourself a seat back with the vendor from whom you got the chiles and onions. From them you can order drinks, including beer, which is a delight in the smoky furnace of the place. They will also bring you a wide selection of side dishes including salsas, guacamole, pickles, fresh vegetables, and other stuff. You pay 15 pesos for each of these side dishes. So it does actually pay to go with a bunch of people 

At some point, your meat along with a few fresh and very large tortillas will be delivered to you and then you pay directly for that (I believe the ladies who cook and sell the tortillas are also independent vendors but as noted, it's a bit confusing). 

Well finally after all that, it's just up to the eating. I went with just one other person and we had way to much for just the two of us. I will say the chorizo was absolutely the best. Totally out of this world. The beef, carne asada, was tasty but a bit chewy. I didn't try the pork but my companion suggested it was tastier than the beef. 

I've seen now this meat selling, grill as you stand there thing in a few markets but the one in 20 de noviembre is by far the biggest and most elaborate.

This is me enjoying it all! Thanks to my pal Alice for sending me this (and insisting I post it!)

Beyond the corridor of smoke, this market, which has just been renovated (like last week) has dozens of places to eat traditional Oaxacan food. On another day, a school friend and I went and basically picked the counter that had the most Mexicans having lunch there. Unlike many of the other places, there was not someone yelling out to you to and sticking a menu in your face. We sat down and this place and asked for a menu and the dude was like, 'we have five things, pick one.' So I picked the chicken in salsa verde, which was also ridiculously good. And he topped me up with rice and sauce. Who doesn't like a place that gives you seconds. That and a drink cost 40 pesos. That's about $3.50!

They are all a bit skeletal here in Oaxaca

Today's post is a collection of the skeletons, and los catrines that I've seen around the city of Oaxaca over the past week. Most of them are women, or la catrina, the origin of which the hivemind at Wikepedia describe thusly:

La Calavera Catrina ('Dapper Skeleton', 'Elegant Skull') is a 1910–1913 zinc etching by famous Mexican printmaker, cartoon illustrator and lithographer José Guadalupe Posada. The image depicts a female skeleton dressed only in a hat befitting the upper class outfit of a European of her time. Her chapeau en attende is related to French and European styles of the early 20th century. She is offered as a satirical portrait of those Mexican natives who, Posada felt, were aspiring to adopt European aristocratic traditions in the pre-revolutionary era. She in particular has become an icon of the Mexican Día de los Muertos.

I'm starting off with this one that was in Le Merced market yesterday because I think this fruit seller had style with his catrine.

The rest are much more classic. The ones that look like they're in jail are all just in the windows of shops that are almost universally behind iron bars.

Chapulines finalmente

Spent much of the last few days having anxiety about verb conjugations, which has led to much wandering around town, yakking with people, and doing not much in the way of studying, which is what I should have been doing

But, as I'm sure everyone has been waiting with bated breath to find out, I have now tried the chapulines. That's grasshoppers to you who don't have a strong grasp on Spanish.

They eat a fair amount of insects here but the chapulines are the most prevalent. There is, of course, the worm (or gusano) in the bottom of the mezcal bottle but they eat them on tacos and such as well. I'm sure also before I quit this place, I will have tried some ant mole.

The chapulines are sold all over the streets and markets of Oaxaca. They come in three flavours: natural (lime and salt), garlic, and chile. They also come in a variety of sizes. Being a bit of a grasshopper virgin, I asked around and most people told me that they preferred the little ones. So at the market the other day, I got a handful of each flavour of the little ones and gave them a go. Ate them straight up. Not bad. Tastes like the flavours that are on them although they do have a very distinct smell (which is amplified when it is both hot and humid/rainy, which it has been the whole time I've been here). I liked the garlic the best but don't eat them if you're planning on having smooches any time in the near future.

I really tried to eat one of the bigger ones but as it sat on my plate the other day with it's grasshopper legs and crunchy aspect to it, I just couldn't do it. I still might but for now I'm going to ride the wave of having eaten grasshoppers at all.

Tamales!

They are crazy for tamales in Oaxaca. I thought tamales were mostly made for festivals because they take forever but here they eat them all the time - stuffed with moles, veg, chicken, etc. I have probably eaten tamales at least every second day since arriving. 

While I am in Oaxaca, I am staying with a family along with three other students from my language school. The four of us, along with the family of five, plus a dog and cute puppy make for a big household. Although the house is big and the students all have rooms with an ensuite (mini) bathroom to ourselves. While here, we get breakfast as well as the choice  of having our main meal. There's also a little restaurant in the garage that pops up every night. So there's cooking going on around here.  So I asked my host Eunice the other day if I could cook tamales with them one day and today was the day.

After lunch at 3, I hung around in the kitchen and tamale making started. Usually tamales are wrapped in either dried corn husks or banana leaves. Today, we used swiss chard, which was really awesome.

The tamales were pretty basic and easy to make, as tamales go.

Eunice showing me how the pros do it; the salsa, and the wrapped tamales getting ready for a steam.

The stuffing was thin slices of jalapenos (rajas de jalapeno), tons of onion, and tomato and shredded chicken. That's it. Basically cook it up into a salsa. In order to use it for the stuffing, just scoop some out of the pan and strain it so you don't get all the sauce, then add some chicken and that's it.

The masa (corn meal mixture) that is used for tamales is really hard to replicate back home but you can do a decent approximation using the pre-packaged masa that's available in lots of stores. Here's it's fresh and therefore much lighter and smoother. To the masa, which you can buy around the corner from pretty much anywhere, you add quite a bit of fat which makes the batter rich, and a few teaspoons of baking powder. 

Roll the masa into little balls, then turn those into a little cup, fill with salsa and chicken, seal them up, then wrap in the swiss chard. Then you just steam them until they're ready. In a pressure cooker it takes less time but in a regular pot, steaming would take about an hour and half. 

Once they're ready, simply serve with a bit of the salsa with juice as well as a bit of crema and crumbled queso fresco. Easy, peasy (and no messing around with unwrapping steaming hot leaves or corn husks!)

During the whole affair, I was chatting away in Spanish with Eunice, who told me my Spanish was pretty good. Her mom even said she understood most of what I was saying. So the whole Spanish lesson thing seems to be paying off. Maybe by the end of all this I'll be able to read and understand those kids books I bought at the book fair in the zocalo last night.

All about mezcal

Mezcal is the drink they pride themselves on in Oaxaca. Tequila is totally second class here.  So despite my tendencies toward things fruit juicy, I had to try mezcal. I gathered a couple of new friends from language school and we set ourselves the task of become more familiar with the drink. But before we get to that, you're all biting and your nails trying to figure out what's the difference.

Since I am no expert, here according to Mezcal PhD [http://mezcalphd.com/2012/08/tequila-vs-mezcal/] (who obviously is an expert) are the three main differences between mezcal and tequila:

• Tequila and mezcal are produced in different states of Mexico (though there is overlap).

• Tequila can only be made, by law, with one variety of agave:  the Blue Agave.  Mezcal can be made with upwards of 30 varieties of agave, though most are made with the Agave Espadin.

• The production process for mezcal is different from tequila which leads to a distinctly different flavour profile for mezcal.

Dr. Mezcal also notes that about 90 per cent of all mezcal is made in Oaxaca and there are pretty passionate about it. And while some of it might be made on an industrial scale, much of the Mezcal that I've had is made by small artisnal producers.

Today I went on a whirlwind tour of many things (more on that in another post) but one of the stops was a small mezcal distillery for lessons on how it's made. First of all as senor PhD notes above that meszcal can be made from any number of agave plants. The one that can be cultivated/farmed is maguey espadin. It's the one that most mezcal is made from. The others all grow only in the wild or naturally and therefore the mezcal from this is much more expensive but also each plant from each area has its own really distinct taste.

The pina, the kiln, the cooked fruite, and the masher.

Back to basics. The plants can take anywhere from 5 to 25 years to mature. Once their flower stem grows, then it's time for the harvest as after they flower, they die. So the only part of the plant that is used is the pina, or heart, of the plant. The flower stem and leaves are not used for the making of the alcohol.  The pina is then chopped up into pieces and stuck into a fiery pit to cook for five days. It becomes soft, sweet, and smokey during it's time in the "kiln."  Once it's taken out of the kiln, it gets all mashed in a large stone mill that, in the case of the place we were anyway, is done by a horse. I am quite sure that the more industrialized operations do not use this method. Anyway, once there's mash, it goes in to ferment for a bit and then that alcohol mash goes into the distiller. Again in this case, the distiller is copper and they literally light a big wood fire under there and let it all get done.

That's the traditional and artisanal method of making all mezcal. Ones produced from the maguey espadin are then often aged in white oak barrels for anywhere from six months to many years. There are four basic types: joven (not barrel aged), reposado (rested in the barrel for 6 months or so), anejo (aged five years or so), and then basically anejo plus/grand reserva or whatever each distiller calls it.  With the mezcals made from the wild plants, they are genrally not aged in barrels because they all have very distinct flavours that will be tainted by barrel aging. Some are distilled in clay pots, or some other part of the production process uses different materials but they are distilled into the bottles and then are ready for drinking.

On our drinking night in the city, we went up to a really nice little mezcalaria on Alcala near Humbolt. The owner, Coca, served us up some unique tequilas from a variety of the wild maguey (or agave) plants. They included bicuixe (bi-kwish-eh), cuixe, papalometl, and tepextate. At the distillery we also tried one from the coyote. The all-natural one as mentioned each have a really distinct flavour profile but one thing they all share is a substantial alcohol punch: 50% or more.

And one thing is that anywhere they sell mezcal in the city or any of the nearby distillers will give you as much to try as you want. Many also have fruit cream versions as well, which in the end taste like milkshakes and can likely lead to some very bad headaches the next morning if you're not careful.

So I can't say that I want to drink it all the time but mezcal definitely tastes better to me than tequila. And because most of it is pretty much organic and natural, you don't feel bad drinking it. I'm sure if you drank a lot, that might not be the case, but in moderation, all good.