Chupacabra Soup

This isn't quite a non-recipe, in the sense that you can pretty much substitute anything you want in any quantity and it'll still turn out basically the same.

But it is a highly negotiable one, with a lot of options in the meat vs vegan, bean, and chile departments.

Chupacabra might be a bit hard to find in your local grocer's meat department, since one has never actually been caught, at least as far as the USDA and FDA know. But I think the combination of shredded chicken with two cups of Dynamite chile peppers tastes about the same.

(Truth in lending here: I have no idea what a Dynamite chile pepper is. That's all they had left at this little mom and pop farmer's market I just found. Looks like an Anaheim, but I'm assuming from the name it's a wee bit hotter. Yeah, I know ... I was born at night, but not last night ... didn't just fall off the tuna truck, ya know.)

The basic recipe goes like this: shredded chicken plus beans plus a veggie combo of onions and chiles with or without tomatoes plus broth equals soup.

Hints:

• Rotisserie chicken works great here, assuming you can't round up a chupacabra.
  
• Made the last batch with half boiled chicken, half ground Jennie-O turkey. Mixing in a little ground meat was something I tried when I was short on pork loin and I wanted to make a double batch of green chile stew, and I think it adds a little depth to the dish. Same idea works here.
• If you boil the chicken, then you'll already have a pot of brothy-water to make the chicken broth later. I've been hooked on Better Than Bouillon chicken base lately, for it's convenience, price, and most importantly taste. Bon Appetit loved it, and it's ridiculously cheap at the base commissary — about nine quarts of chicken broth for around three bucks, with no cans or cartons taking up space.
• If you're going to add ground turkey or chicken, then brown the meat first and then cook the veggies in the same pot, so that the meat juices work into the onions and peppers.
• Chiles: all I can say is, play around with them. It's always easier to start mild and work your way up. Kinda like unringing a bell, if you over-do the peppers, there's only so much diluting you can do later. This last batch, I used about two cups of Dynamites. I loved it, but it was too hot for M., and she had to cut the soup with sour cream. (Which is so odd, because she nearly always out-hots me under the table.)

Chupacabra Soup

Chicken: One rotisserie chicken, or a smallish over-roasted bird, or a pound or so of grilled chicken (shredded), or a pound or so of boiled chicken (again, then shredded) with maybe a pound of ground turkey, browned.
Olive oil as needed
Two small-to-medium onions, yellow or sweet (I like sweet mixed with chiles, but that's just me), medium to fine dice
3-4 garlic cloves, finely diced or minced
½ to 2 cups chile peppers (depending on your own personal taste and constitution), roasted, peeled, and diced (or, about 14-15 ounces of canned Hatch chiles)
2 cans black beans or 1 can black, 1 can pinto, rinsed
1 Tbs quality chile powder (Savory Spices is a great place to start, or grind your own.)
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp to 1 Tbs Mexican oregano
3 cups chicken broth plus more water if needed

Optional:
1-2 cups of diced tomatoes or 14-28 ounces of canned tomatoes
1 cup corn

Garnish:
Cilantro
Lime
Green onions
Strips of fresh tortillas

First, get your meat ready, either from a rotisserie chicken or by grilling or boiling chicken breasts. If you boil the chicken, then save the water for your chicken broth.

If you're using ground turkey or chicken, brown it in a large stock pot or Dutch oven. If you want, spice the meat with a little chile powder and cumin. Remove and set aside, then sauté the onions in the same pot, using the remaining fat from the meat plus as much olive oil as you need to keep the onions for sticking. Go with about medium heat for 6-7 minutes, and then add the garlic and chiles. Stir gently but frequently. If you have burnt bits on the bottom of your pot, lightly deglaze with a few Tbs of chicken broth (or a splash of wine or beer, if you happen to have some open).

Add the beans and gently stir. Add the spices and gently stir. Add the tomatoes and corn and gently stir (optional items). Then add your broth, and gently stir again before bringing the pot to a boil. Immediately turn it back down to a simmer, giving it 15-20 minutes. Then add your chicken (or chupacabra, if you found one) back to the pot.

Update: I love this technique of thickening the soup with a corn starch slurry at Edible Mosaic.

The key to this soup is managing your chiles. Too many of a too hot variety and you have jet fuel. Too few of a too mild, and you have nursing home cafeteria soup.

More on Chiles

While you're making Pork and Green Chile Stew, listen to the folks from Spilled Milk tell you everything you always wanted to know about chiles but were afraid to ask.

Episode 22: Chiles

Non-Recipe of the Day: Pork and Green Chile Stew

Pete's Kitchen was the first place I ever had really good green chile stew. Their breakfast burrito is a rolled up tortilla stuffed with eggs, sausage, potatoes, and cheese, as big as your head, smothered in a spicy green chile sauce. The flavors were so well developed, I assumed it was one of those recipes where everything has to simmer for five or six days, leaping from a stock pot to a Dutch oven to a pressure cooker and back, constantly stirred, with a precise mixture of half a dozen different chiles.

Maybe green chile stew in its purest form has a non-negotiable recipe, but the best I can tell, you can screw this up a handful of ways and you'll still do fine. You can leave out half the ingredients, double up the rest, miss-measure (mismeasure?) everything, and forget to time anything, but it's going to turn out okay, as long as you pay attention to one very important step: quality chiles.

Even using standard grocery store canned chiles isn't a deal breaker. There are some recipes that are just plain bomb-proof. Pour cereal into bowl, add milk, for instance. Do you need to measure the cereal, and does it matter whether it's whole or 2%? Well, along those lines, you got your browned pork, then sautéed onions in a bit of the pork fat, followed by chicken stock and chiles. Like I said, bomb-proof.

I'm no expert, but I have to think that the version at the Santa Fe School of Cooking has to be a consensus fave. But if you use The Google to search the InterTubes, you'll find that there are zillions of recipes 90% similar except that they switch around one of the steps. Some brown the pork in oil, some don't. Some add flour to the pork, some add it to the onions, some leave it out. Some season the pork first with cumin or chili powder, some wait until you add the chicken stock, and some use the green chiles as the only spice . Potatoes are optional, as are tomatoes. Green chile quantities vary from half a cup to five pounds. Chicken stock varies from one cup to six. And some simmer for 15 minutes while others take four hours in the crock pot.

My personal recommendations:

• If you want to fire and forget, the crock pot works like a charm, but then you need a second pan to brown the pork and maybe the onions. But the beauty of the Dutch oven is that you can do it all in one contraption. Browns the pork, sautés the onions, and because it retains heat so well it does the same job as a slow cooker.
• Most purists will say this can only be made with Hatch chiles, but life's too short to limit yourself to just one kind of anything. Find peppers that you like and mix 'em up. M's mom sent us a gallon of assorted peppers from her CSA, Ricky and Lucy's Country Greenhouse, just outside Sidney, NE. Mostly mild and medium, but all delicious, and the blend of flavors made for a remarkable stew.
  

If you want to experiment, check out the Santa Fe School of Cooking's version, Denver Green Chile's version here, and Gourmet's New Mexico version here.

Pork and Green Chile Stew

1-2 Tbs vegetable oil (optional)
1-2 pounds pork butt, country style ribs, or other boneless pork, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
3-4 garlic gloves, minced (about a tablespoon)
4 cups chicken stock
1 cup diced potatoes
1-2 cups diced green chiles (roasted, peeled, and chopped)
cilantro for serving

Optional items:
— 1-2 Tbs chili powder (Ancho or New Mexico) + salt and pepper to season the pork before browning
— 1 cup diced tomatoes

Brown the pork in batches in a Dutch oven or non-stick pan. Set aside.

Remove any excess pork drippings, saving enough to sauté the onions. Sauté the onions until golden, then add the garlic and cook for one more minute.

If anything has stuck to the pan, deglaze with a quarter cup of the chicken stock, scraping up the bits. If you're using a Dutch oven, add the pork back to onions. If you're using a non-stick pan, then switch everything over to a large stock pot.

Add the chicken stock and potatoes and bring to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Add the chiles (and optional tomatoes) and simmer for 15 more minutes.

Depending on how much pork you use, how big your onion was, and how much chile you use, you might need to add more chicken broth to this the stew; conversely, maybe add a few Tbs of flour to thicken it.

Stir in some cilantro and serve by itself in a bowl, over rice, or in and on a breakfast burrito.

Freezes great.

Beans and Rice

The packages were mailed with impeccable timing so as to arrive the day before the holiday, birthday, or special event, or, in the case of a weekend shindig, on the Friday before. The boxes were cut down and refolded so as to require minimal packing materials, to scalpel away every unnecessary ounce — no sense paying Uncle Sugar and the US Postal folks a penny more than he needed to.

Inside the box were presents for the grandkids, something special for each one, but it also unfailingly included something practical. Maybe a few pounds of pecans from the nearby orchards, or something that my mom had mentioned, off-handedly, something she needed to get from the store.

And there was always an envelope. A blank envelope, no writing or return address or "To:" on the front or back. Unsealed, with the flap tucked in, so the card wouldn't fall out but so the envelope could be used again. Inside the envelope was a card, also blank, with a handwritten note on a separate piece of paper. A blank card and a blank envelope, so I could reuse it, maybe give it to my mom or dad on their birthday, saving me a trip to the store and a dollar-fifty.

The note always started with a reference to whatever we had spoken about last: "Thank you for the baseball pictures" or "It's so good to hear how you're doing in school." Then it congratulated us on our birthday, wished us a happy Thanksgiving, or explained how proud he was of whatever it was we did most recently.

And he signed off the same way every time: "Beans and rice." From my earliest years, I knew what it meant, shorthand for those things that will get you through the hard times. My grandparents had lived through the depression, had seen tough times, not tough as in your stock portfolio took a hit over the last quarter or the Apple Store was out of the 3G iPad, but real tough, missing meals tough, darning socks tough, and waking up seeing your breath it's so cold inside tough.

We weren't much of a bean family, but we had our share of rice. Whatever it was Mom was cooking, rice would make it go further. Add a cup of cooked rice to the meatloaf to make it look like two pounds of ground beef, that kind of thing. Wasn't hardly anything you couldn't add rice to. I half expected to see the grains floating in my Kool-ade.

I still have a lot of my grandfather in me. When I travel and want to send home little gifts, I'm a lot more likely to send them a pound of coffee from wherever I am, than an ornamental plate or spoon or a T-shirt — something practical and consumable that won't sit on a shelf taking up space forever. And I have trouble looking at any recipe without wondering how you could double the servings by adding some rice or potatoes or stuffing it into a tortilla. Mu shu pork burrito? Why not?

Chili always looks naked to me when it's not served over rice. Even Cincinnati-style chili can go a little further if you put a scoop of rice in the bottom of the bowl, then add the spaghetti, then the chili.

Okay, maybe that's getting carried away ... rice and spaghetti sounds like you're just asking Primo to call you a criminal and refuse to serve you. But it's still in the back of my mind nearly every time I step into the kitchen.

Not sure what Papa Joe would think about this chili. The man knew his produce and his steaks, but our family wasn't much for spices that made you sweat. But I do know that after tasting it, he would say that we should double the beans and serve it over a huge bowl of rice. Just because, you never know ... and you should never forget the tough times.

Our go to chili recipe: Hot and Spicy Buffalo Chili (The starting point)

1 pound ground bison
1 pound hot and spicy Italian sausage (casings removed)
1 large red onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
1 4-ounce can fire-roasted diced green chiles
1 15-ounce can black beans
1 15-ounce can pinto beans
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 ½ teaspoons ground cumin
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Shredded Mexican cheese, sour cream, and chopped cilantro for serving


In a large skillet, cook bison and sausage over medium heat until
browned. Drain.

Mix meat and remaining ingredients in 6-quart crock pot. Cover and
cook on low heat setting 6–8 hours (or high heat setting 3–4 hours) or until
onion is tender.

Serve with shredded cheese and sour cream.

Variations:

• Grind your own chili powder using dried peppers

• There are lots of chili powders to try, and we'll occasionally go up to 4 Tbs if they're not super hot. Savory Spices has a huge selection if your grocery store can't help you out. Mexican oregano is a nice addition, maybe a Tbs sprinkled in with the chili powder.
  

• Experiment with cinnamon, cloves, all-spice, and even chocolate.

• I'm guessing you can get canned chili peppers just about anywhere these days. If you're lucky, you live in a place where folks roast Hatch chili peppers on the side of the road, so you can pick up a bag on your way home. In these parts, you can buy them frozen as well. Or, roast your own. The conventional wisdom is to roast them on a grill or in the oven, then place in a paper bag and let them steam. You can then peel off the skins and use immediately or slice and freeze. But I've never quite gotten the part about peeling off the skins. I just slice them up, roast them on the grill or oven, then store in zip lock bags in individual servings. Keep enough in the fridge for the rest of the week and freeze the rest.

• Canned tomatoes work in pinch, but try roasting a pound or so, slicing them in half and oven-roasting them for 30-45 minutes. Then coarsely chop them before adding them to the mix.
  

• When we've made the chili on the hot side, it always seems to mellow out the next day. So the first time, serve it plain or over white rice. The next day, make the rice with a little cumin, Mexican oregano, and lime juice, and it won't seem like leftovers at all.
  

Tomorrow: Zucchini Cornbread, if you really don't feel like rice in your chili

End of July Food News

Wandering through the papers this week ...

Korean Tacos gain momentum. There are several things I like about this trend. First of all, I just personally think the fusion of Korean BBQ with Mexican garnishes just plain works. It's like twins separated at birth, and when you get them back together, you realize that there's something in their DNA that makes them fit. Second, I love the movement towards healthier fast food, a la Chipotles, Garbanzos, Wahoo's Fish Tacos. And third, you gotta love the groundswell of well-appointed restaurants and pedigreed chefs taking their craft to the streets. In Denver, we've always had Biker Jim's Gourmet Dogs, but lately he's been joined by GastroCart and the Steuben's Food Truck. 'Cause let's face it — Americans are never going to stop eating fast food, but at least now we can feel good about it.


Pez Cycling interview with Willy Balmat. This won't mean much to 99% of you, but Willy's been a hero of mine forever. A very distinguished chef in the traditional sense, having worked at some major restaurants around the world over the year, what makes him special is that he's been the team chef for professional bike teams for a quarter century. And not just any old teams, but 7-11, Motorola, US Postal, Discovery, Garmin, and now Cervelo. What a career, and what stories he must have.


Beat the heat with a handful of ice cream recipes, from the Atlantic.

Why do we like the food that we like? And specifically, why do we like bitter foods instead of just sweet and savory ones? Paul Bloom discusses that very issue with the editors at SEED magazine and with Ira Flatow on Science Friday.


Field to Plate: We're in the middle of serious farmers market season, and to find out what's in season in your neck of the woods, check out these state-by-state calendars here.


Ready for August? August is National Catfish Month, National Panini Month, National Peach Month, and National Sandwich Month. For the day-by-day "holidays," visit Foodimentary.


Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.

Chicken and Veggies in Chile-Lime Adobo

I've been in a grilling rut for a while, especially when it comes to chicken and vegetables. I have two stand-bys that I keep returning to. For a rub, it's based on the Mustang Spice from Canyon Cafe: a Tbs Cajun blacking spice, a Tbs chile powder (New Mexico or Ancho), a shake of salt and a shake of fennel seed. For a marinade, it's half lemon juice, half olive oil, with a shake of salt, Mexican oregano, and chile powder. They're both quick, easy, and don't take a lot of measuring.

But like I said, a rut. No matter how good something is, no one wants it all of the time.

Which is why this adobo from Chef Louise Mellor caught my eye. (That, and the fact that she is an amazing photographer, so everything she posts catches my eye.) "Adobo" is like "salsa," in that it simply means "sauce." There's no right or wrong answer as to what constitutes an adobo, and the term differs greatly from region to region. Many of them seem to be thinner than most grilling sauces, as they work as both a marinade and mop, and the vinegar base of this helps it to penetrate the chicken before it hits the flame.

I just happened to pick up a bag of dried New Mexico chile peppers, even though I had no idea what I was going to do with them. I'm sure I could soak them and reconstitute them, but since they were already dried and I needed chile powder for this adobo, I figured I could grind them in a coffee bean grinder.

The result was a spice that was full-flavored without being overwhelming, that tasted fresh as though it had just been picked that afternoon. One dried pepper turned into 2-3 Tbs of fresh chile powder, and since a bag of 8-10 dried peppers cost around $1.50, it also turned out to be more economical than getting a generic bottle of chile spice from the grocery store.

For the chicken, we marinade it for a couple of hours before grilling. The veggies got a coating right before they hit the grill, with a little in reserve for mopping about halfway through.

Again, her recipe is here, and she's also on Facebook here.




Chicken and Veggies in Chile-Lime Adobo, adapted from Satisfied.

1 teaspoon sugar

3 Tbs ground New Mexico chile powder

1 tsp black pepper

2 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp Mexican oregano

2 tsp ground garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

3/4 cup white vinegar

Juice of 3 limes

2 Tbs olive oil

More on spice:

There's a little shop right down the street from the big REI in Denver called Savory Spice. A whole shop, nothing but spices.

Now a lot of folks will look at this and think, nothing but spices? Gotta be some kind of hippy, yuppy, over-priced hooplah, yeah? You can get spice from the grocery store ... why make a special trip for your paprika?

First of all, they are anything but over-priced. Some specialty spices might cost a little bit more, but most are actually less expensive than their major brand counterparts, I'm guessing because they buy in bulk and grind them in shop as they need them, without adding stabilizers or preservatives, without fancy labels or advertising, and without a lot of shipping and distribution costs. And because you can purchase your spice in whatever size you want, you're not going to buy a big bottle of something you'll use twice that will go bad sitting on your shelf unused for years and years and years. You can buy just about everything in 0.5/ 1/2/4/8/16 oz packets, and use your own bottles and save even more.

So price and value are the first reasons to shop there. But quality is the most important. Without any stabilizers or preservatives, and because the spice was ground right there in the shop, it's amazing how the target flavor of a particular spice shines through. The words you keep hearing as folks sample in the shop are bright, crisp, and fresh.

Of course, you could do this yourself, if you are willing to hunt down the raw materials each and every time, which is typically a lot harder than it sounds. Sometimes it is quite easy, though. And if you're lucky enough to have a good Hispanic section in your grocery store, dried peppers are a great way to start.

Braising Hell

Even the most die-hard vegan has to admit, you drive by a rib shack and the place just smells good. Might not be your cup of tea to actually eat, but the smell is like a slap of Vitalis, a cup of coffee, a good nap, and a favorite book all wrapped up in one. It's something familiar yet not boring, a little bit of everything but not too much of anything.

(Carnitas burrito, guac, and green salad with Mexican-ish dressing)

But smoking ribs is a lot of work. The really good joints, they start working 6-8 hours before the first meal is to be served. You have to get the right wood and charcoal mix, get the smokers up and running, prep your meat with a mop, rub, or sauce, and then let the smoke and time do their thing.

So it's always cool when you find a simpler way to do something that gets the job done almost as well. And I've had a ton of luck with this recipe from the folks at Spilled Milk, the foodie version of Car Talk.

(The entire Spilled Milk braising collection: braised scallions, Molly Stevens' braised cabbage, and carnitas.)

Braising seems like a winter way to cook. Slow cooking, aromatic, fills the house with warmth. But I'm not going to cut it out of the schedule just because the Weber is topped off and the sun is raining down its UVAs and Vitamin D on us. Because the Spilled Milk recipe for carnitas keeps turning out shredded pork as good as the places that pass out handi-wipes by the bucket.

We've made this three times now, with very slight changes to their recipe each time, and it's fool-proof, bomb-proof, and oh so versatile each time.

And while it's not exactly the same thing as good ol' barbecue, you do get a pile of tender pork that rivals the pulled pork from the most traditional of smokehouses.

The basic recipe is easy. Three pounds of pig (pork shoulder or country style ribs) and an onion go into the pot, all chopped. Then you pour in a mixture of one cup of chicken broth, 1/4 cup of tequila, and a few tablespoons of lime juice. Turn up to high until the liquid boils, then turn down to simmer, uncovered, for 2-3 hours. Right before you're ready to serve it, you can turn up the heat to evaporate the rest of the liquid.


The only thing I'd suggest is to do the whole thing in a Dutch oven. They called for braising the pig in a sauce pan, then moving everything to a skillet to slightly brown the meat before serving. If you use a Dutch oven, you can do the whole thing in one pot. Plus, let's say you've cooked the pig for two hours, but everyone is going to bet late for dinner. You don't want the carnitas to dry out yet, and you don't want to scoop it up and put it in the fridge. With the Dutch oven, you an turn the stove down to as low as it will go, cover it, and let it self-baste until you're ready to brown it up. Yet another example of how the Dutch oven rocks.

(Carnitas salad, cabbage, and scallions.)

The Spilled Milk recipe is for a carnitas salad, which I highly recommend. Your pork meat goes over chopped cabbage, and gets a dressing of hot sauce and lime juice.





Unless you're feeding the entire high school football team, you're going to have leftovers, and the carnitas is great in a quick burrito, taco, or sandwich. Here we mixed mayo with homemade salsa on a roll, with the carnitas, cabbage, and lettuce.




Like I said, we've made this three times now, as such:
1. No change to their recipe. The meat is tender and succulent, and the tequila gives it a brightness that goes well with the cabbage in the salad.
2. Left out the tequila and used either a Vidalia or Texas Sweet onion instead of a plain yellow. This produced a mellower carnitas, still very tender, with a stronger pork flavor.

(Left: braised carnitas with triple sec and hot sauce.)

3. The third time, I'm embarrassed to admit, we had failed to replace our vanquished bottle of tequila, so I intended to make it just like #2. But for whatever reason, at the last minute I poured a splash (2-3 Tbs) of triple sec over the pig. No idea why. Just did it. And then, because we were going straight to the burrito/taco phase and skipping the cabbage salad phase, I added the hot sauce to the liquid as it braised. Maybe 2-3 tablespoons of Texas Pete. I have no idea what the chemical formula for the reaction between triple sec and Texas Pete is, but the resulting carnitas had a tangy, slightly sweet BBQ flavor.

For the burritos or soft tacos, we warmed the tortillas in the oven, added the carnitas, some chopped cabbage, guac and salsa. Served it up with a side salad with a home-made version of a Mexican dressing (or, at least, what this haole druid thinks a Mexican salad dressing would taste).




Braised Carnitas

Around 3 pounds of pork shoulder or country style ribs
1 onion, diced
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup tequila (blanco)
Lime juice, from one lime or 2 Tbs

Carnitas Salad Dressing
Hot sauce (Frank's or Texas Pete) + lime juice (about a 3:1 mix works for me, but you'll need to play with that.)

Mexican Salad Dressing
1:1 ratio of mayonnaise to sour cream
splash of milk
splash of lime juice
dash of cumin, ancho chile powder (or other chile powder), Mexican oregano
(optional: finely chopped fresh cilantro)
Only make enough for the number of servings that you need, pour over a mixed green salad.




Leftovers

Fish Tacos and an Inordinate Fondness for Cabbage

I have a tendency to take things a little too far. I get into something, then beat it to death until I'm sick of it.

I think I might be close to doing that to the poor, innocent cabbage.

When I was first learning how to eat ... no, not how to use a fork and spoon, but how to really eat ... One of my first nutritional discoveries was that your basic iceberg lettuce is a waste of space, a weed that has found its way into the American kitchen thanks to fast food joints and crappy diet plans. (A discover, I should add, that, like most nutritional information, is only partially true.) Sure, it's low-cal ... and low-taste, low-nutrition, low-everything. But it's easy to grow and takes well to American soil, so we grow a ton of it ... five million tons, more or less, more than anyone but China.

But it's a waste of time, of space, of chewing, even (or so I was told at the time), and I moved on to heartier leaves and heads as one of my strides into a healthier and tastier way of living. Color means vitality, so more vibrant heads are the way to go, more often than not.

At some point on this journey, I decided that anything calling for lettuce would get either cabbage or spinach, two of the better choices from a nutritional standpoint. So I went a little nutty with the cabbage, forcing its way into every recipe until, as could be predicted, I got a bit sick of it, and off to limbo it went.

This past winter, thanks to the folks at Spilled Milk, I reacquainted myself with cabbage. But this time, it wasn't just a substitution for lettuce, but the centerpiece of a recipe. I made braised cabbage on more than one occasion, after listening to them go on and on about Molly Steven's recipe (and deservingly so!). Then for St Paddy's I made their colcannon. I made up a couple of other ways of making cabbage a side dish unto itself, and not an ingredient in something that inevitably tastes a wee bit too much like something that's trying too hard to be healthy. (Start with the SM colcannon, but cook the cabbage with onions and add a dash of balsamic vinegar before mixing it with the spuds. Delish.)

And in doing so, I rediscovered the veggie that I had over-done the first time around. Okay, it is one of the healthier things on the produce shelf. That doesn't have to be a bad thing. It has a pretty darn decent shelf life, making it a good item to keep around. It's cheap. And a little bit goes a long way.

For instance, just a tiny bit of finely chopped cabbage brings a little life and vibrancy to posole. Chop it up, put it in the bottom of the bowl, then ladle the posole over it, and it adds both brightness and crunch to the stew.

In the summer time, my favorite use of cabbage is in tacos. It just seems to go better with a soft, warm tortilla and succulent, spicy meat than your standard lettuce, which wilts under such scrutiny. Cabbage will hold its own, providing some crunch and texture, no matter how much salsa or fire you add to the mix.

Why don't people use cabbage more often? Mostly because if knife skills aren't your thing, it can look like a chore to chop it up. I've heard folks complain that when they're done chopping it, they have cabbage shrapnel all over the counter and even the floor. And because a little bit goes a long way, and folks think the rest will go bad before they get around to finishing it. Personally, I'm not buying either excuse. As long as you wrap up the exposed face of a head of cabbage, it won't mind a bit that you hacked off a quarter or an eighth and saved the rest for later. As for knife skills, all you really need is a good 8 inch chef's and a cutting board a little bit bigger than you thought you needed at first, to keep the occasional cabbage projectile from leaving the counter top.

And I can't imagine making fish tacos with plain old lettuce.

Not so much a recipe as just a couple or three tips.

Tortillas: wrap them in foil and put them on the warm (not hot) part of the grill for 10 minutes or so right before serving. Or after you're done with everything else, just throw them on the grill individually, unwrapped for half a minute or so per side.


Salsa: Take your pick. No wrong answer.

Rice: You can put it in your taco, or have it on the side. Put the rice in a sauce pan with a little bit of oil and a shake of Mexican oregano. Stir it around so the rice is evenly coated, then put it on the stove over medium-high heat for about a minute. Instead of plain water, add half water, half chicken broth. Cook per the instructions for your type of rice.



Other toppings: cheese, sour cream, cilantro, chopped olives, chiles.

Fish: Typically a white, flaky fish, like cod, mahi-mahi or tilapia. You can marinate it if you want, but I like a simple rub. Try one part Cajun blackening spice, one part ancho chile powder, with a dash of sea salt. Times vary, but fish cooks quickly so it's typically 4-6 minutes per side. As soon as you take them off the grill, give them a squirt of lime juice and let them stand for a couple of minutes before flaking them into your taco.


Sides: the aforementioned rice, grilled veggies, refrieds, or burracho beans. To make gringo burracho beans, either open a can of black beans or soak and boil dried black beans, as you normally would prepare them. Then, an hour or so before dinner, add 8 oz of a crisp lager (do not use an IPA or other bitter beer — will leave the beans with a burned aftertaste). Add a dash of cayenne and/or cumin and stir it all in. Bring to a boil, then simmer partially uncovered until the liquid is mostly gone.


Serve with a bright wheat beer, like Odell's Easy Street or Breckenridge's Agave Wheat.

Spicy Black Bean Soup with Irish Soda Bread

There's a band out there that calls itself the Afro Celt Sound System. Founded by members of the Pogues (the sometimes folk, sometimes pop, sometimes punk Celtic band), they blend Irish melodies with West African rhythms to create an always interesting musical hybrid. I think that's sort of why St Patrick's Day is such an endearing holiday. The Irish may not lead the world in any particular industry or art form, but they make for a nice mix in everything they do. It's a culture that is easily incorporated into everyone else's.

As Tim Allen once said, the great chefs of Ireland ... now there's a short list for you. The Emerald Isle might not be known for any truly groundbreaking dishes, but a little bit of it goes well with just about everything else out there.

And the same is true for Mexican fare. You can throw a little bit of Mexican spice into just about any culture's offerings and do quite well, and there's a salsa that will accent just about anything from anywhere.

I was getting ready to make our Spicy Black Bean Soup, and this recipe for Irish Soda Bread leaped out at me. Typically we make some guac to go with this soup, but I didn't have an avocado handy, and hot bread sounded good to dip into the soup and soak up the last bit from the bowl. Irish and Mexican ... two great things that go great together.

And, in keeping with our recent theme, a very economical meal. The soup features one of the all-time great utility players, the chipotle pepper in adobe sauce. You can score a can of these for right around a buck, and you only need 1-2 peppers per dish, so we're looking at 10-20¢ for a major spice upgrade. The soup features about $1.50 in beans, $2-4 in sausage (depending on brand), $1.00 in chicken stock, and pennies for spices, for 5-6 bowls. And the bread costs you about $1.25 in flour, brown sugar, butter, baking soda, and butter milk.

Quick digression ... Mexican spices are one of the great deals I've found in this part of the country. I have no idea whether everything we have in Colorado is available nation-wide, but we are never in want for jalapenos, cilantro, or other produce staples. I can get a 1.5 oz bottle of McCormick's oregano for around $3, or an 8 oz pouch of Mexican oregano for $1.50.



Spicy Black Bean Soup

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1½ teaspoons minced garlic (about 3 cloves)
1 canned chipotle chili, seeded and finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
3 15-ounce cans black beans, drained and rinsed
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 12-ounce package smoky cooked sausage, such as andouille, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons lime juice
¼ cup finely chopped cilantro
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Sour cream and lime wedges for serving

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil until shimmering. Add onion and cook over moderate heat until softened—about 3 minutes. Add garlic, chipotle chili, cumin and oregano and cook until fragrant, stirring occasionally. Add beans and broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, partially cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Coarsely crush some of the beans using a potato masher.

Meanwhile, cook sausage in a large skillet over medium-high heat until lightly browned. Add sausage to the beans, along with the lime juice and cilantro.
Season with salt and pepper and simmer for 2 minutes. Serve with sour cream and lime wedges.




Irish Soda Bread

I halved the recipe here so that we wouldn't have too many left-overs. The half-size made enough bread for four.





1.5 cups of all-purpose flour
1.5 cups of whole wheat flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
2-3 Tbs of butter, chilled*
1 cup buttermilk**

* put the butter in the freezer until your ready to use it, then slice it into tiny slivers, then rotate and slice again.
** or one cup whole milk with one Tbs white vinegar or lemon juice (mix well then rest for 5-10 minutes)

Preheat the oven to 425º. If using a baking stone, preheat the stone as well. If using a heavy baking sheet, line with parchment paper or lightly grease.

Mix the flours, sugar, and baking soda until uniformly mixed. Add the chilled butter and work it into the flour with a fork until the butter nearly disappears — about half-pea sized pieces. Make a well and mix in the buttermilk, stirring very gently until the liquid is gone.




Pour the dough out onto a lightly floured cutting board or counter top and knead for 10-12 turns. Then shape the dough into a ball about twice as wide as it is tall. Place the ball onto your stone or baking sheet and mark it with an X (any sharp knife will do, about 1/2 inch deep). Bake for about 35 minutes.