Villa Victoria Blog

Verdolagas con Puerco / Pork with Purslane

In July of 2009 I went to Mexico to attend the first international conference on vanilla, Veracruz a la Vanilla. The conference was held at the World Trade Center in Boca del Rio.   I arrived a few days early.   While I wandered around the city so great they had to name it twice, Veracruz, Veracruz, I went to museums, I walked along El Malecon, the busy port waterfront, and I went to lunch at Sanborns in the historic district.  Sanborns is an institution in Mexico.  It is a pharmacy, bookstore, and restaurant/coffee shop where the weary traveler can go and get a perfectly prepared meal every time.  In 1898 Walter Sanborn, a 22 year-old recent pharmacy school graduate from Los Angeles, went to Mexico City and opened the first bicycle delivery pharmacy.  His brother followed soon after and they went into partnership and expanded the business.  First, to discourage their employees from going home for their siesta, they started to make them sandwiches.  They started to sell sandwiches to their customers, then they opened a lunch counter, then they installed a soda fountain, then they started making ice cream.  To ensure a steady supply of safe milk for their ice cream, they imported milk cows from the United States and introduced large-scale dairy farming to Mexico.  Mexicans are inveterate restaurant-goers and it soon became THE place at which to be seen.  They bought an historic house, La Casa de los Azulejos, all the while, expanding their pharmacy business.  They are known for their quality, luxury goods and service.  The waitresses all wear severely starched and colorful "China Poblana" uniforms, the service is always prompt and there is a consistency in all the locations.  For the traveler, it can be a home away from home.  Sanborns is now owned by Lebanese magnate, Carlos Slim Helú, the richest man in the world.

I was ushered into a bustling, jostling, noisy restaurant filled with businessmen and families having their mid-day meal.  I ordered glass of Paternina Banda Azul Rioja, a creamy bean soup and this plate of pork and purslane.As I cut into the tender pieces of pork bathed in the bright and tangy purslane, I was grateful for the chance to have a beautiful meal, and I considered the dark side of Mr. Sanborn. 

Jack Johnson, the boxer, arrived in Mexico City on August 26, 1918 to a throng of 2,000 fans shouting !Viva Johnson! A couple of weeks later he went to Sanborns for lunch.  He was refused service on orders of Walter Sanborn.  Johnson went to another restaurant where he ran into a Mexican general who was an acquaintance.  The general became incensed at his treatment at Sanborns and vowed to make Sanborn apologize.  Three hours later the general and Johnson returned to Sanborns accompanied by two more generals, two colonels, and several other officers.  They ordered ice cream.  All were served except Johnson.  Three officers found Sanborn and demanded service for Johnson, but he did not budge.  A large, rowdy crowd formed in the store.  One of the colonels called for police support and a group of 25 gendarmes and their captain positioned themselves in the alley outside.  One of the officers threatened to close the establishment and another told Sanborn he was going to take him out into the street and beat him up.  A lawyer prepared to strike Sanborn with his cane.  Sanborn conceded, shook Johnson's hand, and ordered ice cream served to the entire party.   Just imagine, Johnson, three generals and two colonels, coming down from a tense skirmish with little bowls of ice cream!  (Journal of Sport History)

Recently, I adapted the pork and purslane recipe from Marge Poore's 1,000 Mexican Recipes in my slow cooker.

6 tbs.     Olive oil
1            Medium onion, chopped
3 lb.        Kurobuta pork shoulder, cut into large chunks
5-6         Garlic cloves, chopped
1 tsp.      Dried epazote
1/2 lb.     Tomatillos, husked
1            Jalapeño chile, minced
3 cups    Purslane, washed and roughly chopped
1/4 c.      Cilantro, chopped
              Salt & pepper to taste

Heat olive oil, onion & garlic in slow cooker on high.  Put seasoned meat, epazote and tomatillos in and cook for 5 hours on low.  Add purslane and jalapeño in for one hour more.  Taste for seasoning and add the cilantro.

Caldo Tlalpeño / Chipotle, Chickpea and Chicken Soup

Five years ago I had this soup in a VIPs restaurant on Avenida Hidalgo in Tampico, Tamaulipas.  I had been out all day, touring Tampico, visiting cemeteries and the state archives.  I was tired and hungry and this soup did the trick.  When I got back to Seattle I immediately reproduced it from memory.  Below is my latest.Tlalpan is a borough of Mexico City and is famous for this simple and soul-satisfying dish.

4 T Olive oil
1 Onion, chopped
3 Garlic cloves, minced
1 Chipotle in adobo chile (from a can)
2 cans Chickpeas, drained
1 cup Carrots, shredded
2 cups Chicken, cooked and shredded
1 Avocado, cubed
1 Lime
2 Qt. Chicken broth, preferably homemade

In a slow cooker, start the onion and garlic in the olive oil.  Gently sauté for 30 minutes.  Add the single chipotle chile, the chickpeas and the shredded carrots and cook for 1.5 to 2 hours.  Warm the broth separately and add to the the slow cooker and cook for another 1/2 hour, or until the broth is very hot.  Add the shredded chicken and heat through.  Taste for salt.  Serve in bowls garnished with avocado and drizzle the lime juice over.  Serve with warmed corn tortillas.

Maricela's Mole

There are almost as many versions of mole (pronounced MOH-leh) as there are those who undertake to make it. Every recipe I have seen differs from the other. This difference is not just because each cook swears by the veracity of their version. There are regional differences.  Mole Poblano comes from the state of Puebla, where it is believed to have originated. Mole Negro hails from the state of Oaxaca and is a satiny, black and glossy liquid which has the consistency of Oklahoma crude oil. There are green moles, red moles and yellow moles. Mole is served at weddings, birthday celebrations, gala occasions and at Christmas time. Modern Mexican supermarkets devote whole aisles to offer all the dry ingredients necessary for mole, stocking several varieties of chiles, nuts, chocolate and spices. It is officially "El Platillo Nacional" (the National Dish). The origin of mole is a subject of endless debate and speculation.

Most scholars of Mexico's cuisine will agree that the invention of mole dates back to the end of the seventeenth century, when colonialism was the order of the day. Convent cuisine was taken to the realm of new and uncharted territory by the nuns whose aim was to please the bishops and dignitaries who passed through Puebla on their way to and from Veracruz and Mexico City.The Mestizo nuns quite naturally used a combination of ingredients rooted in the New World and borrowed from the Old World.

A nun of the Dominican order of Santa Rosa, Sor. Andrea de la Asuncion, was said to have invented mole on the Sunday before Lent, circa 1680.The occasion of her creation was a reception at the convent by the bishop, Don Manuel Fernandez de Santa Cruz y Sahagun given to honor the Viceroy and Captain General of New Spain, Don Antonio de la Cerda y Aragón, Conde de Paredes y Marqués de la Laguna.  Here he is looking pensive.Don Antonio, for short, was travelling west to Mexico City from the Port of Veracruz to accept his new post. Legend goes that Sor. Andrea browned chile ancho, chile mulato, chile pasilla, and some chipotles in lard; she toasted sesame seeds, cloves, peppercorns, almonds, peanuts, cinammon sticks and anise seeds and then ground them; she added some disks of chocolate, roasted tomatoes, onions, garlic and tortillas, all of which was ground by hand on a metate. Finally, to this melange she thinned it out with some warm turkey broth, added some cooked turkey pieces, and Mole Poblano was born.

That is the neat and tidy version. In Bernal Díaz del Castillo's first-hand account of the conquest of Mexico, he relates that the Aztec high priests performed human sacrifices every day, offering human hearts to the god Huitzilopochtli. They believed that the sun would not rise the following day without this offering. He recalls, with horror, seeing some of his fellow Spaniards being sacrificed and that after the ceremony, the arms and legs were prepared in a chilmole sauce which contained chiles, tomatoes and other spices. The word, Mole is the Spanish-ization of the Nahuatl word mulli or molli which means "mixture".

It was a version of this mixture (the first paragraph!) that my mother's neighbor, Maricela, made for her young daughter's birthday on one of my trips to California. In the last months that my mother lived, Maricela would check in on her, take her food, and would send her pre-teen daughters to keep her company. I thanked Maricela for looking out for my mother and she responded by inviting me to her daughter's birthday celebration. The next day I headed down the street with my four year-old daughter to Maricela's house. She received us warmly and served us a plate of chicken with mole, rice and tortillas. I'm glad I had the presence of mind then to ask for her recipe because it was the best mole I have ever eaten.

Months later when my family met again in California it was for my mother's funeral. I walked down the street again to Maricela's house to ask her to make a large quantity of her mole for the gathering at the church. She was more than willing to do one last thing for Doña Eva.Maricela's hand-written recipe was elegantly terse and it read like poetry:

Chile pasilla. Chile brito, barely. Chile puya.
One onion. Fried.
Garlic. Fried.
Plantain. Fried.
Raisins. Fried.
Cumin. Fried.
Cloves. Fried.
Sesame seeds. Fried.
Chocolate - to taste.
Cinnamon - to taste.
3 tomatoes.
6 tomatillos.
Cooked in water - the tomatoes.
Process all in blender.

My notes: I have never heard of chile Brito.  As far as I can tell, it probably is a regional name.  I substituted chile Ancho.  The chiles should be toasted in a 350˚ oven until they are fragrant and puffed up.  Seed them and soak them in very hot water for 20 minutes. In a slow cooker, fry the plantain, raisins, cumin, cloves (I added whole black pepper also), sesame seeds and the cinnamon stick for one hour in either coconut oil or pomace olive oil.  Cook tomatoes and tomatillos in enough water to cover on low heat.  Peel, but don't seed the tomatoes Buzz up everything in the blender, adding enough chicken broth to keep the blades moving.  Add to the slow cooker and cook for 2-3 hours on high.  Add salt and one disk of Mexican chocolate and cook for an additional 2 hours on low. Cool sauce and portion out in 1-2 cup containers.

I'm not convinced that we need to be slaves to proportions and minutiae. Cooking is, at times, an imprecise science. Serve over poached chicken or turkey.

Huachinango a la Veracruzana / Rockfish Veracruz-Style

Food takes time.  There is no fast food -- either you cook it, or someone else cooks it.  It all takes time from start to finish.  Feeding oneself requires conceptualization, planning, organization and finally, execution. Even the scraggly-haired primitive hunter-gatherer had to follow the same flow-chart: hunger>picture in your brain of a fish>make arrowhead and spear & get the women to start the fire>impale fish, take it back and throw it on the grill.  

Last week, when I got a picture of a fish in my head, I went to Mutual Fish on Rainier Ave. in Seattle. I selected my fish then I had them fillet it.  I took the reserved head and bones and made a fish stock with them in a slow cooker for 3-4 hours.Then in another slow cooker (I have three!) I sauteéed onions, garlic, green olives, pickled jalapeño slices and currants in olive oil.  Two hours later I added canned tomatoes and two cups of the finished fish stock and salt to taste and cooked it for two more hours. Two hours after that, as our guests, Bob and Valerie, arrived I slipped in the salted filets and by the time we chatted, had wine and finished our appetizer, our dinner was ready.

Huachinango is Red Snapper and our Northwest equivalent is Rockfish.

1-2    Rockfish, head and bones resesrved
2        Leeks, white part sliced
2        Celery stalks, chopped
2        Carrots, sliced
2        Bay leaves
4        Parsley fronds
2        Quarts water

Put all ingredients in slow cooker on high and cook for 3-4 hours.  Strain liquid and cool.

1 lb.     Rockfish filets, sliced into serving pieces
5-6 T Olive oil
1 Onion, sliced
5-6 Garlic cloves
1T Capers
1T Currants
1/4 cup     Green olives w/ pimentos
1T Pickled jalapeños, minced
28 oz.       Tomatoes, crushed
2 cups       Fish stock 
1T Salt

Cook onions, garlic, currants, capers and olives in olive oil until onion is soft, 2 hours.  Add the tomatoes and jalapeños and cook an additional two hours.  Add the fish stock and cook 1-2 hours.  Thirty minutes before serving, gently slip the fish into the broth and cook until opaque.  Check for salt.

Recado Rojo - Annato / Achiote Seeds

Recently I re-arranged my myriad stores of bags of spices, pulses, seeds, etc.  I found this bag of achiote / annato seeds.

I could use it up tablespoon by tablespoon, making multiple batches of yellow rice studded with cabochon-emerald peas, but then I would still have an open bag hanging around in my pantry for years.  Or I could roll my sleeves up and do the thing I'm most curious about -- Recado Rojo, that non-spicey, fragrant red rub they use in Yucatan.  I grew up using the term achiote but it is also known as annatto.  

8 oz.          Achiote seeds
4 cups       Coconut vinegar, heated
.125 oz.     Allspice berries (32 each)
1.25 oz.     Black pepper
3 oz.          Cumin seeds
2 T             Coriander seeds
10 ea.        Cloves
1 lb.           Garlic cloves, lightly browned in a dry pan
3 oz.          Salt
2 cups       Sour orange juice (available at Big John's PFI)

Soak the achiote seeds in the coconut vinegar overnight.  Drain the seeds and grind everything together in small batches, adding the sour orange juice as needed.

Makes 2.5 lb

Rub 8 oz of achiote paste on a big hunk of bone-in pork shoulder.  This one was from Thundering Hooves  in Oregon which I bought at  Eat Local in Queen Anne.

 

Pre-heat and line your crock pot with banana leaves and seal with aluminum foil and cook on high for 8-10 hours.

I served the tender pork with pickled red onions, coconut jasmine rice, black beans with epazote, and culinary superstar Madhur Jaffrey's Gujerati-style Cabbage and Carrots.  What more could one want?