Poblano, leek, and potato soup

I love poblano peppers. I’m not entirely sure when I discovered them, but they were a revelation and for the past few years I have been addicted. While they are a little bit finicky to prepare, I love the smokiness and slightly hot bite they lend to dishes. I try to use them whenever I can, and soups are a particularly great vessel. This is one I concocted for the first time just recently. This recipe makes quite a thick soup. You can use a bit more water or stock if you prefer it a little thinner.

This ugly poblano really packs some delicious flavour when it's roasted.

5-6 servings

Ingredients:

1 or 2 poblano peppers. I’d go for 2 as it makes it a bit hotter and gives more of the poblano flavour.

2 big or three small leeks

3 medium potatoes

3 litres chicken or vegetable stock

1 tsp. dried Mexican oregano or marjoram

2 tbsp. butter

1 tbsp. olive oil

Salt and fresh ground pepper

Roast the poblano. If you have a bbq or gas stove, char the skin over the flame. If you have an electric stove, put it under the broiler for 10-15 minutes turning it so all sides get charred.  Put the hot pepper in a bowl, cover it with a towel, and let it sit/steam for 10 minutes or more. The skin should now come off easily when you rub it.  Remove as much as you can then cut out the stem and seed. Rinse the to get all the black stuff off and remove the final few stubborn seeds. Then roughly slice or chop.

Clean the leeks: chop the top darkest green bit off, then slice the leek in half longways, but not all the way so you don’t have two pieces. This should give you access to all the dirt that hides inbetween the layers when you rinse it.

Slice the leeks. Cut the potatoes into 1 inch chunks. You can peel them if you want but most of the time, I’m not bothered with that nonsense.

Sweating the leeks

Melt the butter along with olive oil in a medium to large pot. When it starts bubbling add the leeks and about a teaspoon of salt. On a med-high heat, let it all sweat and get delicious and soft for about 10 or 15 minutes.

Add the stock, and a bit of extra water — maybe ½ a cup — as well as the potatoes, poblano, oregano, a pinch more salt and pepper to the level you prefer (I love lots of pepper but others are not so enthusiastic about it.). Bring it all to the boil and once it’s boiling turn the heat down and simmer for half an hour.

Let's get smooth and silky.

Once it’s cooked, use a hand blender to make it smooth and creamy. Do it for longer than you think you should, about 3-4 minutes because that will ensure it’s very luscious and free of chunks.  If it’s too thick, add a bit of water or stock. Taste to make sure it’s got enough salt and pepper and serve.

We like to have this hearty soup with a grilled cheese or turkey sandwich for dinner. It’s a great weekday meal and there’s usually leftovers for lunch the next day.

This poblano, leek, and potato soup is a keeper.

© 2016 Gail J. Cohen

5-pepper and cheese tamales

When I was in Oaxaca, I had the pleasure of spending some time in the kitchen with my host family making tamales. They are impossible to reproduce at home due to the lack of fresh, soft masa and lard (which I wouldn’t use anyway but it sure does make for a rich and light tamal dough). So this recipe was inspired by that cooking adventure as Eunice uses swiss chard to wrap the tamales, rather than the traditional banana leaf or corn husk. I really enjoy the flavour the greens infuse into the tamale. And this version is 100% vegetarian.

These take a while to make, so be prepared to spend some quality time in the kitchen on a weekend. Your guests will be impressed.

These unique tamales are wrapped in swiss chard, which you also eat, rather banana leaves or corn husks that get tossed.

Yield: 10-14 tamales

Ingredients:

For the tamal dough:

(This will make double the amount of dough you need, so you can double the rest of the ingredients and make lots or you can use the remaining masa to make another kind of tamal. I made some amarillo mole with chicken tamales wrapped in corn husks with the remainder). 

280 g vegetable shortening, at room temperature 
Salt
1½ tsp baking powder
3½ cups dried masa harina for tamales mixed with 2¾-3 cups hot water
1 to 1½ cups vegetable stock

For the tamales:

·        2 big bunches of swiss chard

·        1 jalapeno

·        2 serrano chiles

·        1 red pepper

·        1 anaheim or banana pepper

·        1 poblano pepper

·        200 g of mushrooms

·        2 large or 3 smaller roma tomatoes

·        ½ onion

·        100-120g of monterey jack cheese with pepper in it (or really any melty cheese you want)

·        Salt

·        1 tsp Mexican oregano

·        Juice of half a lime

·        2 tbsp olive oil

For garnish:

·        Queso fresco or fresh ricotta

·        Salsa of your choosing, but freshly made is always best

·        Sour cream

Wash the swiss chard and let it dry. Then remove the stems so you are left only with soft leaves. I added probably about ¼ cup of finely sliced stems to the filling mixture, so cut and save that while you’re cleaning the leaves.

Tamal dough:

Mix the water and dried masa harina together until you have a soft dough. If it doesn’t hold together or is still a bit crumbly, add a bit more water until you can get a good ball of it. Sometimes if your masa harina has been around a while, it can get really dry so needs more water to reconstitute. Use hot but not boiling water for this as boiling water is really hard on the old hands when mixing it all together (obviously a lesson learned the hard way).

You can make the rest of the dough by hand, but it is much easier with a stand mixer so those are the instructions I’ll provide.

With your mixer on medium-high speed, beat the shortening, 2 teaspoons salt, and the baking powder for a minute or two. Continue beating as you add the masa in small handfuls.

Reduce the speed to medium-low and add 1 cup of stock. You should be able to roll the masa into a ball without it either breaking apart or being so soft it sticks to your hands so add more stock if you need to but be careful not to add too much. Continue beating for another minute or so, until a ½ teaspoon of the batter floats in a cup of cold water (if it floats you can be sure the tamales will be tender and light).

Taste the batter and season with more salt if you think it needs some. You can, if you have time, refrigerate the batter for an hour or so, then rebeat, adding a little more stock or water if you need to bring the mixture to the soft consistency it had before. This can make your dough a bit lighter.

Filling:

Roast the poblano. If you have a bbq or gas stove, char the skin over the flame. If you have an electric stove, put it under the broiler for 10-15 minutes turning it so all sides get charred.  Put the hot pepper in a bowl, cover it with a towel, and let it sit/steam while you chop up the other ingredients so it will be easy to peel. Then remove the skin, stem, and seeds. Rinse it to get all the black stuff off. Then cut into 2” slivers.

Stem and deseed all the peppers and chiles. (You might want to wear gloves for this part). Then cut them into fine slivers about 2” long. Finely slice the onion and the mushrooms. Chop the tomatoes into small pieces.

Heat the oil in a medium-sized frying pan and add the peppers, chiles, onions, mushrooms, oregano, and a pinch of salt. Saute until soft, then remove and put in a mixing bowl. Using the same pan, cook the tomatoes, along with the lime juice, until they’re soft. You may have to add a bit of water and squash them in the pan to make it all saucy. Pour the saucy tomatoes into the vegetable mixture.

Cut the cheese into 2” long slivers.

Making the tamales

To steam the tamales you will need a really big pot with a wire rack or vegetable steamer on the bottom. Add water to the bottom of the pot until it is just below the rack. Lay a couple of swiss chard leaves or parchement paper (with a few holes poked in it) across the rack so you won’t have the steam directly hitting the tamales.

Take enough masa dough to roll into a walnut-sized ball.  Starting with pushing your thumb into the middle of the ball, proceed to flatten the ball on the palm of your hand. Add a tablespoon or so of filling as well as two or three strips of cheese onto the flattened ball. Then bring the edges up and make a bit of a dough packet.

Wrap each ball in a leaf of the swiss chard. Try to make sure that there is no dough peeking out but the wrapping doesn’t have to be super neat because once it’s steamed, you won’t be able to tell. Place the wrapped tamales into the steaming pot making sure you leave a space in the middle of the pot for the steam to travel through. If you don’t have a huge pot, you may have to steam in a couple of batches.

Once you have all of the tamales wrapped and placed in the pot, turn it on and get the water boiling. Once it has started to boil, turn the heat down to a very low simmer, cover and let the tamales steam for about 1½  hours.

Once they’re ready, gently remove them from the pot (it’s a bit tricky because the steamed chard is so soft and you don’t want to tear it) and place them on individual plates. Garnish with a bit of salsa, crumbled cheese, and sour cream on top.

You can have these as a whole meal accompanied with rice and a bit of salad or by themselves as an appetizer or snack.

(10 Weight Watchers SmartPoints per serving)

© 2016 Gail J. Cohen