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

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