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

Stuffed zucchini

This recipe is a bit of a variation on stuffed zucchini that my mom has made since I was a little kid. I love potatoes and think that little cubes of it are fantastic in this rich and lemony tomato sauce, so I added them and the mint and chile flakes to zip it up a bit.

You can make this dish vegan by skipping the ground beef and using more rice and more of the zucchini innards for your stuffing. You an also add some slices of eggplant to the sauce to give it more texture. (Be sure to salt them first).

Serves 4

Ingredients

4 fat zukes

1 onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp tomato paste

2 tomatoes, sliced thickly

1 cup passata

250 g ground beef

3 tbsp chopped parsley

1/3 cup cooked rice

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 potatoes, cut into small cubes

2 tbsp chopped fresh mint

Pinch of chile flakes

Juice of half a lemon

4 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

Carefully cut the zukes in half and scoop out the inside. Be careful to get as much of the flesh as you can but not to make any holes in the skin. Roughly chop and then reserve the pulp. Put the zukes aside.

To prepare the filling, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a medium-sized frying pan. Add half the onions and sautee for a few minutes until they start to turn brown. Add half the garlic and sautee for another minute.

Add the ground beef to the pan and brown. Add the tomato paste, about 1/3 of the chopped zucchini pulp, rice, mint, parsley, chile flakes, salt and pepper. Then add about 1/3 cup of water so your tomato paste has enough liquid to mix well into the other ingredients. Cook the whole mixture for about 10-12 minutes until it’s just cooked.  Put aside to cool.

In a large, flat-bottom oven-proof pot (it needs to be big enough to lay out your zukes as well as go in the oven), heat up the remainder of the olive oil. Sautee onions and garlic as above.

Turn the heat down to med-low. Carefully add the passata so you don’t get splattered. Lay the tomato slices (and eggplant if you're using it) on the bottom of the pot, add the rest of the chopped zucchini pulp, lemon juice, potato cubes, salt, and pepper. Bring to the boil.

In the meantime, take the cooled filling and carefully spoon it into the zucchini shells.

Place the stuffed zukes on top of the vegetable mixture in the pot and reduce the temperature to low.Simmer covered for about 20 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 350F.  After 20 minutes, turn off the burner and remove the cover from the pot. Put the pot in the oven uncovered to cook for about another 20 minutes. 

When it's ready, the dish should be a bit brown on top, and the veggies (particularly the potaotoes) all soft. Depending on the water content of the zukes, you may want to remove them from the sauce and boil it down for a thicker sauce or just serve it as is.

Serve with rice, smothered in the rich cooking sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste.

© Gail J. Cohen 2018

Vegan basil hemp pesto

I've been cooking but not writing about it much lately. Trying to get back on track. The fall harvest is a great time to do it! Here's one for the gardeners (and the vegans).

If you're like me, you tend to grow basil in your garden in the summer and there's only so much of it you can use before the frost get it. Pesto is one of the greatest ways to use up large amounts of the fresh stuff. And making it takes hardly any time at all.

And this recipe mixes it with one of my favourite (and local!) seeds: hemp, which have an extraordinary nutty flavour that is enhanced by toasting the seeds before making the mixture. Add a little hemp oil to ratchet up that nuttiness. The fresh parsley, which is likely also in your garden, adds a bit of herby lightness.

Yield:  1.5 cups

Ingredients

1/2 cup hemp seeds

3 loosely packed cups of fresh basil leaves

1 sprig fresh Italian parsley

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 tbsp cold pressed hemp oil

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp salt

fresh ground pepper

Toast the hemp seeds in a non-stick pan on medium heat. It will seem like it takes a while but keep your eyes on it at all times because the seeds will go from not toasted to burnt in about 30 seconds. The toasting shouldn't take more than about 5-6 minutes depending on the pan you're using. Cool before making the pesto.

Clean the basil and parsley, making sure it's mostly dry before continuing on.

Add all the ingredients into a food processor. Blend for about a minute making sure the garlic is all chopped and it is quite smooth and creamy. Check the seasonings and voila. 

Use it on pasta, add cream/cream substitute if you want to make a creamy sauce, use it dressing for salads, etc.  It'll keep in the fridge for about a week but you can also freeze it in ice cube trays and save it for later when you're yearning for some garden freshness in the middle of winter.

© Gail J. Cohen 2017

Let's cook (and eat) together

There really are few things in the world that give me more pleasure than cooking and sharing interesting and delicious food with friends. A couple of years ago, I decided to host a dinner party at least once a month. It worked out fabulously and gave me the opportunity to cook some great stuff and connect with lots of friends. The only downside: lots of cleaning up.

A few months ago, someone mentioned the idea of a cookbook club, so I checked it out and thought it would be a great way to once again indulge in my love of cooking and sharing the table with friends, new and old. As you can see from the picture above, there's a lot of cookbooks in this house (most of them belong to my partner and this isn't even all of them....) 

So, for 2017, I am launching a cookbook club. 

The first rule of cookbook club is: Everybody cooks and everybody eats.

My plan is to have us meet once every couple of months. Pick a cookbook to discuss and make recipes out of. Then have a potluck type together and hang out and eat and drink. 

If you live in Toronto, especially the east end, and you're interested, leave a comment or find me on Instagram @ohcanadagail. Hoping to launch later this month or early February.

You can't beet this curry

I used to live right in downtown Toronto and just down the street in Cabbagetown was an unassuming Sri Lankan restaurant in a somewhat ramshackle old house. I can’t remember how I first ended up eating at Rashnaa there but I do remember that it was a taste revelation for me and I have probably eaten there more than anywhere else in the city. Most of the time I would order the mutton kottu roti, which is a spicy, meaty, plate of wonderousness. When something is that good, why stray, but at some point I started ordering a side of one of their vegetable curries. Now they have a lot of the standard ones but they also have a few special ones that they don’t make every day, so it’s a bit of a lottery if they’re going to have them on the day you decide to eat there.

My three favourites are beet, spinach, and okra. None of which are easy to replicate. I have scoured the internet for recipes for all of them and tried a few but not had the best luck. This is the closest I’ve come to Rashnaa’s beet curry and is adapted from a recipe at My New Roots. Joy factor also ratched up as the beets came out of my own garden.

One of the things that I really like is the flavour of curry leaves, which are an aromatic leaf from a citrusy tree and are completely unrelated to curry powder. They are incredibly fragrant, and not at all spicy, giving off a nutty scent when cooked. They apparently also have tremendous health benefits. You can buy curry leaves fresh and dried in most Indian and even some regular grocery stores.

Yield: 3-4 servings

Ingredients

2 – 3 medium-sized beets
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp ground coriander
20 dried or 15 fresh curry leaves
2 green chiles, finely chopped
1 stick cinnamon
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp. salt, plus more for finishing
1 cup full-fat coconut milk
juice of 1 lime
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Peel beets and cut them into matchsticks. You might want to wear gloves for this to avoid getting bright pink hands.

In a medium-sized pot over medium-high heat, melt coconut oil. Add the mustard seeds, stirring constantly until they start to pop. Quickly add the coriander, curry leaves, chiles, and cinnamon, stir well, and fry for a minute.

Add the onion and saute until they are translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and saute for another minute.

Add beets, salt, and coconut milk, bring to a simmer, reduce heat low and cover. Simmer gently so the coconut milk doesn’t split, for about 20 minutes until the beets are fork tender.

Once the beets are done, turn off the heat and stir in the lime juice. Check your salt levels and then gently fold in the cilantro.

Serve hot with rice and any other vegetable curries you might like.

The beautiful beet curry along with a chicken in onion gravy, smoked eggplant and herbs, and a mushroom curry.

Potato salad with creamy roasted poblano dressing

Harvest time is prime time. Even from my small urban garden, the ripening of the vines of tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetables and herbs is cause for much annual excitement and creativity.

Every year, I plant a selection of heirloom tomatoes – thanks to the seeding efforts of others much more skilled at this than I – as well as a few other things I want to try out. Space and direct sun are pretty scarce around my house so the vegetable garden is set right up on the sidewalk, where, I’m happy to report, neighbours and others are kind enough not to pilfer my produce!

The last few years, my little plot has included poblano peppers, those shiny, dark green Mexican pods that deliver what I consider one of the greatest flavours on earth: slightly smoky, fresh, a bit of heat, and a great colour!

In this recipe, all the herbs, poblanos, and the knob onion come from right outside my front door. That’s 100-foot eating if you’re counting! The salad is also best with some of the unique potatoes you can get from your local farmers’ market or that you may grow in your own garden (maybe I’ll do that next year).

The dressing is creamy but light and fresh; not cloying like many the many mayonnaise-based potato salads I am not a fan of.

And, of course, summer is the time for eating outside and grilling things on the bbq. This salad goes great with carne asada, grilled steak tacos, or pretty much anything else cooked over a flame!

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 large poblano pepper
2 pounds potatoes
1 knob onion or a couple of green onions

Dressing:
1/4 cup plain, low-fat greek yogurt
1/2 roasted poblano pepper (you only need 1 pepper in total for the salad and dressing)
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove roasted
2 tbsp chopped chives
2 tbsp chopped cilantro
2 tbsp chopped parsley
juice of half a lime
salt and pepper

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. (Get your little garlic clove into this action as well to roast and sweeten it up).

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. Remove as much of the skin as you can then cut out the stem and seed. Rinse it to get all the black stuff off and remove the final few stubborn seeds.

Then roughly slice or chop half of the poblano to use for the dressing and more finely chop the other half to use directly in the salad.

To make the dressing, put the roughly chopped poblano half as well as all the other ingredients into a blender or food processor and waz it up. Check for salt. It should be a pleasingly light green, fresh, smooth dressing. Personally, I could just eat this dressing straight up, it’s so amazing.

Meanwhile, cut the potatoes into one-inch cubes and boil until fork tender in salted water. Drain.

Place the hot potatoes in a bowl with the finely chopped poblano and green onion. Dress the potatoes while they’re still hot as it really helps them absorb all the gorgeous flavour. You can eat it warm or refrigerate for a couple of hours if you prefer it cold.

Marinated flank steak quickly seared on the bbq with the creamy poblano potato salad and "solar flare" heirloom tomatoes: summer eating at its best.

6 Weight Watcher smart points per serving (using less olive oil will bring your points down a bit)

© Gail J. Cohen 2016

Carne asada en adobe de guajillo

My friend Sarah recently returned from Arizona with a couple of bags of chiles in tow; keen to use them but not really sure what to do with them. So I offered to help. If you have a “I want to make things with chiles but don’t really know where to turn” emergency, I’m you’re gal. So we set a date for some Mexican cooking basic training and I set out figuring out something delicious to do with either cascabel or guajillo chiles.

I particularly enjoy guajillos because they have a beautiful deep red colour as well as a lovely fruity flavour without too much heat. Quite often people are afraid of cooking with chiles because they don’t want to eat spicy foods but the beauty of many Mexican chiles is that they’re not crazy hot but deliver a delightful flavour punch.

If you’re ready for some great grilling, this marinade is absolutely spectacular and worth making over and over again on the BBQ this summer (and also winter if you’re anything like me.)

Ingredients:

2 pounds flank or skirt steak

Marinade:

4 dried guajillo chiles

2 cloves of garlic

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1 tbsp cider vinegar

pinch of salt

pinch of sugar

Boil up some water. Stem and seed the guajillo chiles. Soften them slightly on a comal or in a non-stick frying pan. Just heat them for a few minutes on each side until they are soft, don’t burn the flesh because it’ll make your sauce bitter. Put the chiles in a glass bowl, cover with boiled water, and let sit for about 15 minutes or so. Dry roast the garlic (with the skins still on) also in the pan or on the comal.

Once blackened, let the garlic cloves cool then peel and toss them into a blender along with the reconstituted chiles, vinegar, salt, sugar, cumin, and a 1/4 cup or so of the chile liquid. Waz it up until you get a really great smooth paste. If it’s too thick, just add a bit more water.

Take the steak and cut it into two pieces then put it in a non-reactive (preferably glass) plate and smother the meat with the marinade. You want every bit covered in it. Cover and put it in the fridge to marinate for at least four hours but better for eight or so.

When ready to cook, heat the grill until it is super hot. Put the meat on and sear each side for 8 or so minutes. Then flip it a couple of times to finish it off. Make sure you use up all the delicious marinade during the cooking process. Remove it from the heat and let it sit for about 10 minutes, then slice thinly and serve in a taco or over rice.

And why not grill up some shrimp along with it! They are great with salsa verde or marinated in lime and garlic.

© Gail J. Cohen 2016

Dia Uno

The  The first day of this trip was a travel day. The morning was incredibly smooth, or felt that way, with it taking only 10 minutes to check my bags, get new boarding passes and go through security. It took longer to find the Aeromexico counter hidden in the far back end of Terminal 3 than the whole rest of the process. While going through security, there was one tiny hiccup when they checked my boarding pass, with the security person asking if I'd already gone through. I said 'no,' she then shrugged her shoulders and sent me through.

Limes and grapefruits growing outside my window. Smells heavenly.

I didn't think much of it but noticed when I went to board the plane that I had been moved well up to the front of the plane from my seat back in row 20 but I settled in. Then a man came and told me I was sitting in his seat, 6C, but that was on my boarding pass as well. So a fair bit of confusion ensued. I got a call from the airline on my cell asking if I had boarded, then someone came looking for me. It was all a bit hearstopping. I'm not entirely sure what went wrong but for a minute there I was Manuel and I was sitting in 6C. Obviously it turns out I was not Manuel, but no one actually knew who he was or why I ended up with his boarding pass, and the other dude in 6C got relocated across the aisle in 6D and we got the flying party started.

Flying on Aeromexico was like the old days. The plane wasn't old or anything but there was only the drop down screens, they actually fed you a decentish hot meal, and you could get alcohol at no charge — even on my short hop from Mexico City to Oaxaca.  In case you're wondering, travellers, the Mexico City airport has crap WiFi and not such great cell coverage either. So I'm looking forward to spending eight hours there in a few weeks.

Arrived in Oaxaca, on a somewhat delayed flight, and had a super-tiny panic about not being met by my host family at the airport, but all was fine and the lovely Marianna and her mother Eunice picked me up and put my Spanish to the test as soon as we were in the car!

I've travelled a fair bit and find that arriving places at night, for the most part, is really disconcerting. Unless it's somewhere like New York or some other city that makes sense to me (don't ask what that means exactly but my sister-in-law who arrived in the darkest night to Iquitos, Peru with me knows exactly what I mean) I get very discombobulated.  And although I am staying with a family, the communication on this first night were not that great and I was not feeling brave enough to hit the dark streets to find a bite to eat. So I just unpacked in my big room with teeny tine ensuite bathroom and kicked back and relaxed. I needed to rest up for my first day of Spanish class and I'm glad I did.