Tamales de mole amarillo

Mole amarillo is one of the most popular fillings for tamales, the best late-night treats available on the streets of Oaxaca, Mexico. This is my version created from the many different ones that I was shown and read about how to make. I use costeno amarillo chiles but unless you’ve got a stash that you picked up while in Oaxaca, you won’t have them. Substitute guajillos instead. The sauce will be a little more red/orange than yellowish in that case. There’s also some alternate vegetarian filling suggestions at the end.

These tamales are wrapped in banana leaves, which are available frozen in many Latin, Asian, and Indian grocery stores. I also use shortening rather than lard but if you are all about the lard, go ahead and use that for your masa. And if you don’t have comal, you can dry roast everything in a non-stick frying pan.

Makes 20-24 tamales

Ingredients:

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
2 cups chicken stock (use the water you poached your chicken in)
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt to taste

Chicken for filling

8-10 chicken thighs
Handful of fresh parsley
1 clove of garlic
8 peppercorns
1 tsp salt

Masa for tamales

1 cup shortening
2 cups masa for tamales (store bought, dried)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1.5 cups warm chicken stock

1 pkg frozen banana leaves (defrosted)

Method:

1. Poach the chicken: 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 to cool.
2. Remove stem and seeds from the chiles. Gently soften the chiles on the comal. Remove and place in a glass bowl and cover with boiling water. Let soak for at least 20 minutes.
3. 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 chiles with some of their soaking liquid. Waz until smooth, about 3-4 minutes.
4. Grind the cloves, cumin, allspice, and pepper.
5. Heat oil in a small pot and quickly fry spices, including cinnamon, 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.
6. Shred the cooked chicken. Mix the shredded chicken and most of the mole together to make the tamale filling. It should be wet but not too runny. Add a little more of the mole and/or chicken broth until it is a good consistency.
7. The package of masa you have should have instructions on how to make the dough, so it’s best to follow those.  Basically mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl, then add the chicken stock and incorporate. It should create quite a damp (but not at all runny) dough. Beat the shortening in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer until it is quite fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Then add the masa to the shortening and beat until mixed together, about another 2-3 minutes. You can test to see if it’s fluffy enough by putting a small ball into a glass of water. If it floats, you’re good to go!
8. Put a layer of water about 5 cm/2” deep into a steamer pot or the largest pot you have in the house with a veg steamer tray in the bottom. The great thing about banana leaf tamales is you can just pile them one on top of another, unlike corn husk ones that need to be standing upright.
9. Wipe down the leaves and trim them with a scissors: cut off the stem and make squares approx. 20 cm/8” (they don’t need to be perfect). You should also cut them with the grain of the leaf rather than against it. Either cut some thin strings from the banana leaf or use cooking twine for wrapping up the parcels. 
10. Once your leaves are all prepared, pass them over a flame or grill, moving them constantly, until they soften and become pliable. The banana leaves have a white film on them. The heat should burn off the white film and make the leaves shinier. 
    
11. Place ¼ cup of masa onto each banana leaf and flatten (this works best with a rubber spatula). Put about 2 tbsp of filling on to the top half of the masa (not in the middle). Fold the leaf so the lower part masa covers the filling.
    
    You may have to roll or fold it again to close the packet up tightish. Then fold the sides of the banana leaf one at a time to form a package. Tie with string and place folded side down into the pot on the steamer tray. Pile them up neatly around the pot as you go.
    
    Once you have all them all wrapped and ready, cover the pot and turn on the burner to get the water boiling. Once boiling, turn down to low and let your tamales steam for about 45 minutes.
    
    
12. When done, remove from pot and let cool for about 10 minutes before serving. Top with a bit of salsa verde.

* Vegetarian fillings:

• Oaxacan cheese and rajas (slices of jalapeno or roasted poblano)
• Oaxacan cheese and refried beans

Vegan chiles rellenos

I love chiles rellenos and this summer have a bumper crop of poblano peppers growing in my garden so all the more reason to make them. However, they can be a bit heavy and my partner is trying to eat healthier, so I put my mind to figuring out a vegan version.

I also don’t like using “weird” stuff, so there’s no vegan cheese or anything else in here. Just straight up stuff that you’d have in your kitchen to make a vegan picadillo and then stuff the peppers. The batter is a little odd but works and is a bit lighter than the eggy versions that are more traditional.

There are quite a few steps to this dish but they are below, so go for it. I serve it with rice, so remember to have that on the go as well. Some people will stuff the peppers and refrigerate them for an hour and then batter and fry them. If you do it that way, you can make the tomato sauce and batter during that cooling off period.

Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

4 poblano peppers

Picadillo

1 tbsp oil

½ onion, diced

1 carrot, diced

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

½ cup fresh or frozen corn

1 potato, diced

1 jalapeno, diced

½ tsp Mexican oregano

½ tsp ground cumin

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 tsp tamari

2 cups water

Salt and pepper

Batter

½ cup regular flour

½ cup cornstarch

Pinch of salt

¾ cup soda water

Tomato sauce

1 dried chile (arbol, puya, cascabel, costeno amarillo)

3 tomatoes (or a combo of tomatoes and tomatillos)

1 clove garlic

½ onion

2 tbsp chopped cilantro

Salt and pepper

Splash of oil

Instructions:

Roast the poblanos. 

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 peppers in a bowl, cover them with a tea towel, and let them sit/steam for 10 minutes or more. The skin should now come off easily when you rub it. Be careful with this step because you want to keep your peppers in the best shape possible for stuffing. Remove as much of the blackened skin as you can then carefully slice from tip to tail on one side and, again carefully, remove the seeds. Make sure the stem remains attached. Rinse and put aside.

To make the picadillo:

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan. Add onions and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the rest of the vegetables and saute for another minute or two.

Mix tomato paste and water together so you get a tomato juice type situation going on. Add that to the veggies in the pan along with the herbs and tamari (which gives this a bit of a beefier flavour but can be left out if you don’t have any). Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about 25 minutes until the carrots and potatoes are soft. You want the final product to be quite dry but if it starts looking like it’s drying out and going to burn before the veg are cook, just add a bit more water. Check the seasonings and then put aside to cool.

For tomato sauce:

Stem and seed the chile and then soak in a bit of boiling water for 15 minutes.

Roughly chop all the other vegetables. Chuck them in a blender along with the softened chile and a couple of tablespoons of the soaking water. Waz it all up until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Heat the oil in a small pot. Pour in the sauce. You should get a lovely sizzle so just watch you don’t get burned. Add salt and pepper. Turn the heat down and simmer for 10 minutes. The sauce will turn a darker red colour. Taste again for seasoning.

Batter up

Make the batter by simply adding the flour, cornstarch, salt, and soda water and whisking it all together.

Stuff it

At this point, you’re going to stuff the peppers, which is a bit of a fiddly business. Just be patient and have some toothpicks on hand to help seal the stuffed peppers.

Take a split pepper and place in the palm of your one hand. Gently fill with 2 tbsps or so of the picadillo (depending on the size of your peppers, you may need more or less). Make sure they are not too full to allow you to pull the two sides together and seal with a toothpick or two. Repeat for each of the poblanos.

In a medium sized frying pan, add enough oil to generously cover the bottom of the pan and heat.

Gently dip each of the chiles in the batter and place slowly into the hot oil. Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side or until the batter gets lightly golden brown. If the batter doesn’t stick as much as you’d like, you can spoon a little bit more on the chiles while they’re cooking.

Once they’re all golden brown, remove to a bit of paper towel to absorb a bit of the oil. Serve over a bed of rice with the tomato sauce.

Buen provecho.

© Gail J Cohen 2018

Beet and sweet potato soup

This is a hearty vegan soup that has a little warm heat from the delicate Kashmiri chile.  I love beets and this seemed like a great way to use them and sweet potatoes, which I’d also like use in more dishes.  And pink soup, woo hoo!

6 servings

Ingredients:

4 small beets

2-3 small sweet potatoes

1 onion

1 tsp whole cumin

1 tsp whole coriander

1 green cardamom pod

1” piece of ginger

4 cups veggie stock

1 tsp Kashmiri chile

4 tbsp oil

Salt

Peel the beets and sweet potatoes and cut into smallish pieces. There are two ways you can prepare them to get a deeper and richer flavour. One is to roast them in the oven: Heat oven to 375F. Sprinkle veg with oil and a tiny bit of salt. Wrap in a foil package and then roast for about 45 minutes.  

The second is to saute them in oil for a bit in a frying pan so they get a bit caramelized and soft around the edges, which takes about 15 minutes.

In the meantime, take the cumin, coriander, and seeds from the cardamom pod and grind them in a mortar & pestle or spice grinder. The flavours are best when freshly ground but you can always use already ground spices.  Finely chop or grate the ginger.

Dice the onion. Add 2 tbsp of oil to a medium sized pot and sautee the onions with a pinch of salt until just starting to brown. Then add the ground spices, ginger, and chile and fry for just a minute.

Add the veggie stock and roasted vegetables. Bring to the boil. Then lower the heat and simmer for about half an hour until the vegetables are soft. 

Remove from heat and blend until quite smooth. Adjust the seasoning. Serve with a small dollop of sour cream or cashew cream.

© Gail J Cohen 2018