Austin and basic black beans

Now that SXSW is over and my non-Texan friends who attended the conference are back on the East Coast, all I hear from them is, “Where can I get a breakfast taco?” or “Who has the best queso?”

Austin food is addictive, isn’t it?

One of the things I love the most about Texas is its size. Because it spans across several geographical, topographical and climatic zones, naturally there are going to be variations in what people eat in each area. While I would say that the trinity of Texan food—Southern dishes, barbecue and Tex-Mex—is the same throughout the state, how each region within the state interprets these cuisines differs.

Take Austin and Tex-Mex. After spending years in the Dallas area and Houston, I was already aware that differences could exist between the two Texan cities’ cuisines, so I wasn’t that surprised when I arrived in Austin to see that it, too, did things just a bit differently than other places in the state.

The first thing I noticed was migas. I’ve written about migas before—Austin’s signature breakfast dish of scrambled eggs with cheese, chips and peppers. Every place in Austin serves migas, yet when you leave Austin you rarely see them, if at all.

Black beans are another Austin Tex-Mex distinction. It was in Austin that I first saw black beans served alongside your tacos or your enchiladas, instead of the more typical refried pinto beans. This isn’t to say that you can’t find refried pinto beans in Austin, because there are many fine, fine examples of this noble dish. But, I found that Austin’s Tex-Mex could be a little quirky and so black beans would be on offer more often than I’d see them in Houston or Dallas.

I wasn’t a stranger to black beans. My mom fed me all sorts of beans when I was growing up in Houston and black beans graced our table probably once a week. But there was something about black beans that made me feel they were more upscale. Perhaps it was the color of the bean (black is always stylish!) or perhaps it was its more diminutive size, but I adored black beans just as much as my beloved pintos.

I know I’ve written a lot about beans lately—and if you’re not a bean eater, I apologize. I reckon you could say it’s the grim economy that has me returning to beans so frequently—they are, after all, such a healthy, inexpensive protein. But as beans have been a staple of my diet my whole life, I also just really enjoy cooking and eating them. And since they’re what I had for dinner last night, I thought I’d share them with you.

This is my basic black bean recipe. It takes little effort and has a rich smoky flavor that comes from chipotles instead of the usual ham hocks or bacon. And, of course, if you’re bored by black beans at least now I have something to point to when I write in the future about really fun things, such as black-bean salsa, corn and black-bean salad or that Austin late-night staple, Mag mud.

Basic black beans
16 oz. dried black beans
1 tablespoon of lard, bacon grease, peanut oil or canola oil
1 onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 carrot, diced
4 chipotles in adobo, chopped
1 tablespoon of epazote or 2 sprigs fresh
1/2 teaspoon of cumin
1/2 cup cilantro. chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 cup lime juice
Six cups of water
Two cups of chicken or vegetable broth
Salt to taste

Soak the beans covered in water—either overnight or the quick soak method in which you place the beans in a pot, cover with water, bring to a boil, cover and remove from heat and let sit for one hour.

Drain the soaked beans.

In the pot you’re going to cook the beans, sauté the onions and carrots in your preferred fat for 10 minutes and then add the garlic for one minute. Add the beans, chipotles, epazote and half the cilantro.

Cover beans with water and chicken broth, bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to low (liquid may still be moving and all the ingredients may still be jumping around the pot, just not as vigorously as when the heat is high. That's fine.). Stir occasionally.

After 1 1/2 hours, add the cumin, tomato paste, lime juice, salt and remaining cilantro and cook for 30 more minutes or until beans are tender. At this point, smash a few against the side of the pot with a spoon to thicken the broth a bit, stir the pot and serve.

Feeds six or four hungry people.

Notes: If you don’t want to serve the beans with the carrots, onions and garlic—leave them whole and then remove when beans are done. And if your store doesn't stock either dried or fresh epazote, you can order it from Penzey's or you can just omit it from the recipe. Though it is supposed to help with the beans' tendency to cause intestinal issues, so omit at your own risk!

Keep reading...

Fish tostadas, Veracruz style

I spent part of my junior year of college living in Spain. I was in the southern part of the country, in Granada, which is not too far from the Mediterranean Ocean. Because of this proximity, my host family ate a lot of seafood. And during Lent, it seems that’s all we ate.

We had fish stew, shellfish paella, tuna pizza, fish mashed potatoes and fish croquettes. But one of my favorite dishes served was flaky white fish covered in a tomato sauce studded with green olives. All at once it was salty, acidic and sweet.

The Mexican state of Veracruz is on the Gulf of Mexico and is said to be where the Spanish first made their entry into Mexico. Because of this, much of the Veracruzana cuisine is still heavily influenced by Spanish cuisine.

The Spaniards introduced the herbs thyme, marjoram and bay laurel, which have become hallmarks of that state’s cooking. They also brought along olives and capers, so it’s no surprise that the signature salsa from that state uses all of these ingredients.

Salsa Veracruzana is a rich tomato-based sauce that isn’t too spicy. It’s cooked, so the ingredients meld together into one complex flavor instead of the several distinct flavors more often found in raw-blended salsa. Also, the bay leaves, thyme and marjoram give it a distinctly different flavor than your usual tomato salsas made with just cilantro, jalapeno and lime salsas. That said there is also cilantro, jalapeno and lime juice in this salsa, which makes it still taste distinctly Mexican.

And then there are the olives and capers that are found in this salsa. I love salty and acidic foods—they remind me of the sea. For this reason, I think that olives and capers also go very well with fish, thus making this salsa a perfect topping for a Mexican fish dish such as a tostada or a taco.

We have a few more Fridays in Lent, and I think if you aren’t eating beef or pork during this time, these fish tostadas are a hearty, meaty dish. I also enjoy it, however, because it takes me back almost 20 years to when I was a young student living in Spain.

Salsa Veracruzana
Ingredients:
1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 jalapeño, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
12 large green olives, pitted and diced
2 tablespoons of capers
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tablespoon limejuice
Salt to taste

Method:
Heat the olive oil in a pot on medium high, and then cook the onions and jalapeños for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the minced garlic and cook for another minute, then turn off the heat and then stir in the crushed tomatoes, scraping any brown bits that might have formed on the bottom of the pan. Mix well but don’t let it get hot.

Immediately place the tomato mixture into a blender, and puree into smooth. Pour the blended tomato mixture back into the pot, and add the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil and then simmer on low for 20 minutes. Remove bay leaf and serve.


Fish tostadas with Veracruzana salsa
Ingredients:
Four 4-oz. fillets of cod
Four corn tortillas
1/2 cup of peanut oil, canola oil or lard
1 tablespoon of olive oil
2 teaspoons of cumin
Salt to taste
One lime cut into quarters
A couple of sprigs of cilantro
Veracruzana salsa

Method:
In a skillet, heat up the 1/2 cup of peanut oil on medium high for five minutes. If you flick in a drop of water and it sizzles and pops, it’s ready. (Alternatively, you could heat it to about 280 degrees). One at a time, add the corn tortillas and heat on each side for about a minute. Remove from oil, sprinkle with salt and drain on a paper towel.

Season each side of the fish fillets with cumin and salt. Heat a skillet to medium heat, add the olive oil and cook the fillets on each side for about four minutes, or until the fish flakes. (You may have to do this in batches, depending on the size of you skillet).

Take cooked fish fillets, and place one fillet on a fried-corn tortilla, cover in salsa and garnish with lime and cilantro.

Serves four.

Keep reading...

Greetings from Texas!

Greetings from Texas! I have spent the past few days tooling around the state, reuniting with college friends in Dallas, visiting my grandmothers in McKinney, shopping for new cowboy boots in El Paso and relaxing in the big sky and vast landscape of far, far West Texas.

Of course, I’ve been eating myself silly—sometimes up to seven little meals in a day. For instance, one day started with a fried pie at Shirley’s Burnt Biscuit in Marathon, TX. I then had a mid-morning snack of a Frito pie at Alicia’s in Alpine. Next was the Marfalafel from the Food Shark truck in Marfa, followed by the Mexican plate at Alice’s. I gave my stomach a rest for a few hours, and then had a brisket sandwich at Mo’z in El Paso, a milanesa de res (Mexican chicken-fried steak) smothered in queso at Casa Jurado, and then concluded my eating day with a carne guisada taco from Taco Cabana. Needless to say, I slept very, very well that evening.

You may think I’m a glutton, but rest assured I do not eat this way when I’m back in New York. It’s just whenever I’m in Texas each meal and each bite is precious and I want to squeeze in as much good tastes as I can during my brief time at home. When I go to Texas, I have my usual places where I like to eat, but this time I branched out and ate at some new restaurants, too. Here’s a list of five new favorite dishes I sampled while I was at home:

Breakfast tacos: El Tacaso in Oak Cliff, Dallas. I enjoy my breakfast tacos with eggs, but sometimes I just want a fluffy flour tortilla stuffed with refried beans and spicy, crumbly chorizo. This cheerful restaurant at the corner of Westmoreland and Fort Worth Avenue serves breakfast tacos such as these in the morning, alongside a container of fiery thin tomato salsa for dipping. Not much English is spoken, but everyone understands the international language of good food.

Chile con queso: When we Texans talk of chile con queso, we are usually referring to orange processed cheese melted with Ro-Tel tomatoes. And don’t get me wrong—this is good, addictive stuff. But in northern Mexico, chile con queso means white cheese melted with sautéed green chiles. And this also is good, addictive stuff. Julio’s Cafe Corona in El Paso serves its queso this way—a big bowl of melted Monterrey Jack laced with spicy strips of sautéed jalapeno and serrano peppers. And while it’s soft enough to dip a chip into it, I prefer to ladle it into fresh flour tortillas.

Chicken-fried steak: Every day on my trip I ate a plate of chicken-fried steak. It was not my intent to do this, but it just kept appearing on menus and so I indulged. I have always been a bit dubious of chicken-fried steaks made with fancy cuts of beef or served with embellished cream gravy, but the chicken-fried hanger steak at Tillman’s Roadhouse in Oak Cliff, smothered in a poblano cream gravy was a real crowd pleaser. And Paul Petersen at the Gage Hotel’s Cafe Cenizo also offers a chicken-fried steak, his served with a jalapeno, chorizo and roasted-corn cream gravy. If I hadn’t been stuffed, I may have ordered another plate.

Barbacoa: I’ve wanted to eat at Carnitas Querataro in El Paso for quite a while. It’s a small chain of restaurants that serves up Mexican comfort food, with an emphasis on braised and roasted meats, as the name would suggest. While their symbol is a grinning pink pig, I found that their beef is equally delicious, especially their barbacoa, which in Texas is slow-cooked meat from the head of a cow. On my last day, after eating a breakfast of excellent red-chile cheese enchiladas, I asked my server to bring me a menu so I could order food for the plane. I got carnitas, but on a whim decided also to bring along a barbacoa burrito, which was a large homemade tortilla simply stuffed with pork-rich refried beans and strands of smooth barbacoa. Mid-flight when we were somewhere between El Paso and Dallas, I unwrapped my barbacoa beauty and everyone within a few rows of me asked, “What is that amazing smell? What are you eating?” Note to self: next time buy extra barbacoa burritos and sell them on the plane.


Frito pie: I stopped into Alicia’s Burritos in Alpine with the intent of ordering a breakfast burrito, but when I saw Frito pie on the menu, my plans changed. After my last post, I’ve had Frito pie on the brain (as have some friends of mine, to which I apologize if they still have not gotten their fix), and Alicia’s version did not disappoint. It was a cast-iron bowl filled with a mountain of crisp, tiny Fritos, topped with homemade chunky chili, melted cheddar and juicy diced onions. As I sat working my way through the bowl, I admired the decor of Elvis curtains and cheerful turquoise walls. After a while, I realized that this bowl would just not quit. I had ordered a small Frito pie, so I asked the waitress how big was the large. “That is a large,” she said. “We thought you looked hungry so we made you a large bowl instead.” You can't beat service like that! (Though if they had known I was on my second breakfast they might have reconsidered.)



This concludes my travelogue. Next time, I will be writing of salads or fish—it is, after all, Lent. Plus my stomach could use a break. But was I ever happy while eating my way across the great state of Texas!

Keep reading...

Pinto bean pie: sweet, not savory!

Vinegar pie, buttermilk pie, and corn meal pie—these are all desserts that were in vogue when my grandmothers were growing up in the Great Depression. Made with just a few inexpensive ingredients, these pies—which are all, at heart, a variation on chess pie—were refreshing and still presentable to good company.

But what about pinto bean pie? It’s another oldie but was it also a goodie? I decided to find out on my own.

I’d been curious about bean pie for quite a while. When I first heard of it, I assumed that it was a version of Frito pie that was made with beans instead of chili. But when I heard people talking about eating bean pie for dessert, I realized that I had been wrong and that bean pie is sweet not savory.

After a bit of research, I found quite a few recipes and from the spices added decided that bean pie was trying to approximate a pumpkin or a sweet potato pie, as often included were allspice, cloves, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. And even though some recipes insisted that pinto bean pie was a substitute for pecan pie, after making it I failed to taste how this could be the case.

At first, I was put off by adding mashed beans to my mixture of butter, sugar and eggs. The resulting color of the blend was a bit unappetizing (a less-than-lovely shade of washed-out beige), and, well, it just seemed odd adding mashed pintos to my dessert. Pintos are made for savory dishes, not sweet!

But after I threw some spices into the mix and took a small taste of the uncooked filling, if I hadn’t known that it was beans in the spoonful instead of pumpkin puree, I would have been fooled. After baking it for an hour, the color—thankfully—deepened into a warmer, darker brown. And after topping it with a big scoop of vanilla frozen yogurt, I had my first slice of bean pie. I found it creamy, rich, spicy and fulfilling.

Now, I figured that because it was made with beans it was healthier than your typical slice of pie. And perhaps it is, at least in terms of protein. But it’s still not as healthy as eating a piece of fruit for dessert. (Though I guess if you had fresh fruit you might not even need to make pinto bean pie!)

Since the beans are just there for texture and not flavor (sort of like when you make a cream pie with tofu—which is, incidentally, also beans), I’m eager to make some variations. Such as a chocolate bean pie, made with black beans and spiced with cinnamon and ancho. Or perhaps a banana bean pie or a coconut bean pie or, why not just combine two Depression favorites and make a vinegar bean pie? The possibilities for bean pie combinations are endless!

When my grandmother was telling me about these Depression-era pies, I asked if she’d heard of pinto bean pie. She replied that she hadn’t. She added, “But as long as it doesn’t taste like raisin pie, which is another pie that my mother made back when I was growing up, then bean pie is probably pretty good.”

Raisin pie? Very interesting. But I guess that’s another subject for another day.

Pinto Bean Pie
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of unseasoned cooked pinto beans (can use a one 15oz. can if you prefer)
1 cup of light brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon clove
A pinch of salt

1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a blender, cream the sugar, butter and eggs.

Add the beans, and blend until it’s thick and smooth.

Add the spices and vanilla.

Pour pie filling into an unbaked pie shell, and bake for one hour or until an inserted knife comes out clean.

Keep reading...