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

Salsa verde: once you go green there's no going back

Salsa verde can mean a lot of different things from a totally fresh sauce to one much more complex. This version of Mexican salsa verde is tomtaillo-based and has become one of my favourites.  Of course, it was the very first dish that was prepared for me when I arrived in Oaxaca last year. So simple and so mind blowing. Enjoy it, over and over again.

Yield: 2 cups

Ingredients:

1 lb tomatillos husked and washed
2 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
2 garlic cloves with skin still on
½ white onion sliced
1 fresh jalapeno or serrano chile
Juice of ½ a lime
2 tsp of oil

Dry roast the tomatillos, garlic, chiles, and onions on a comal or in a large non-stick frying pan. Once the garlic is blackend, take it off the comal and cool it, then peel and put it in a blender.

You can definitely use canned tomatillos for this. It doesn't have quite the same fresh flavour but it works and you don't need to roast them, just toss in the blender and keep going.

Add all the other ingredients to the blender and blend it all until smooth, about 2-3 minutes. If it’s very thick, add a bit of water to thin but don’t make it too thin.

Heat the oil in a pot and once it’s very hot, pour the tomatillo mixture into the pot so it sizzles. Stir and boil for a couple of minutes and then it’s ready to use in any variety of delicious ways.

Good tasting isn't always good looking when it comes to food!

The most simple dish involves dry frying a couple of corn tortillas, daubing some salsa on a plate, then layering salsa and tortillas, and toppping with some queso fresco and sliced avocado or guacamole . Makes a great breakfast. Add a soft fried egg and now you’ve some perfection. We probably eat this for a light dinner even more often than breakfast.

For a bit more of a substantial meal, you can poach or grill some chicken and serve it with rice, avocado and a bit of salad.

© 2016 Gail J. Cohen

Albondigas verde

I thought I'd repurpose some of my recipes from other places so I can have all of them in this new blog. So here goes.

From the archives

For the many Sephardim that read this blog (and there are so many of you I can barely count you on one finger), you'll be familiar with the traditional version of albondigas that we've been eating (and loving!) since we were all tiny. They're red, it's all about the tomato. Well tonight I went off the beaten path, well onto the somewhat beaten path of Mexican flavours that I've embraced and turned the blessed albondiga of my youth on its ear! Tonight's were green, that's verde, yes!

I had some tomatillos sitting in the fridge that I had picked up at a farmers' market a while ago. I needed to use them. I was not willing to let those beauties go to waste but I needed something one step up from salsa verde, because that does not a dinner make. So a little searching and a little cobbling together and here's what I came up with.

Albondigas verde

• 1-2 pounds of ground beef
• 10 or so tomatillos
• 2 poblano peppers or a couple of jalapenos
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 big white onion (1/2 cut into chunks, 1/4 chopped super finely)
• 1/2 cup of chopped cilantro
• 2 tbsp of uncooked rice
• few tablespoons of oil
• salt 
• 1 or 2 eggs

Clean and remove the husks from the tomatillos and put them in a pot of water to boil for about 15 min until they turn a little yellowish. If using jalepenos, boil with the tomatillos and remove seeds etc once cooked.. Once ready, drain the water from the pot.

Roast the poblano peppers (either under the broiler or over the flame of a gas stove) until they are fairly charred. Put in a plastic bag and let sweat for about 10 minutes so the skin will be easy to get off. Clean the skin off, remove the seeds and rinse the pepper to get all the black bits and seeds off.  

Chuck the cooked tomatillos, poblano peppers/jalapenos, chunks of onions, cilantro, garlic, and about a cup of water into a blender and blend until it is a very nice green colour.

To make the meatballs, mix the eggs, ground beef, finely chopped onion, rice and a couple of pinches of salt into a bowl and then form into walnut sized balls. Not too tiny but not big either.

In a pot large enough to fit the balls essentially in one layer, add the oil and let it get hot. Pour the tomatillo mixture in (and enjoy the sizzle). Mix and let it come to the boil. You should add a bit of water to thin it out now (I used the blender and got all the rest of the tomatillo mixture out with the water). 

Once the sauce comes back to the boil, add the balls, turn down the heat, and let it simmer partially covered for 30 minutes. Add salt etc as required to taste.

I served this over pink rice and a little Mexican style salad with chopped onion, a few of the last stragglers from my tomato crop, chopped lettuce, and some chunks of avocado dressed simply wiht some lime juice, olive oil and a bit of salt.  They don't look all that fantastic in pictures but we're about flavour here, not looks!

(c) 2013 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