0 Champan-Hayes-Boh

For a small honors seminar this semester, I decided to hold the final exam as a discussion over food at Casa Hayes-Boh. I decided to make champandongo the main course, as I have been thinking about this mole-based (MOH-lay) dish ever since we had it here with a group of Pam's students here three years ago.

In that case, Pam had made the food of Coma Agua Para Chocolate a major theme of her Spanish course, and had secured an undergraduate research grant to facilitate having the class make most of the dishes from Laura Esquivel's book (see my posts on its revolutionary context and on Latin American films).

We have cooked several of the dishes from Esquivel's work before -- most notably chicken based on her quail-and-rose-petal recipe, but Pam's class project was far more ambitious, especially since it involved students, many of whom had little if any cooking experience. Working in pairs, students created both a fabulous meal and a permanent record of their culinary efforts. Each post on the CAPCR blog explains how a dish was prepared and how it is connected to the story. All of the dishes were shared at our house during this 8:00 a.m. class. Most were then served again -- either remade or thawed from leftovers -- at an undergraduate research colloquium open to the entire campus.

I must admit that I know the movie far better than the book, and so was unaware of champandongo prior to this adventure with the students. I have been a huge fan of mole -- a complex chocolate-chile sauce usually associated with poultry -- since Pam and I spent the summer of 1989 in Puebla, Mexico. The sauce is properly known as mole poblano, meaning "sauce of Puebla" and represents one of the several ways cacao was used for centuries before people thought of it as a candy. Its use in this lasagna-style dish was simply amazing, and it is hard to believe I have not yet attempted it myself.

In planning my own version, I of course began with the description by Sullivan and Laura. (Incidentally, Sullivan is the only student in this class who I knew previously, both as a student and a long-time family friend.) As complex as the dish was, however, I knew that authentic mole is much more complicated: Campbell's soup, for instance, was rarely available to the ancient Aztecs. I turned to the Hispanic Kitchen blog for more authentic versions, and quickly found an impressive recipe for chicken mole.

Detail: Champan-Hayes-Boh

0 Revisiting my first recipe

It has been three years since we started this blog. We've been generally consistent about posting "one new recipe a week" (and not fretting about it when we don't). Yesterday, in honor of my first "recipe" I re-made the Classic Italian Soup in Reverse. I had to make some substitutions as I am also still working on my "what's in my refrigerator?" project. So, this time, I cut up a roll that was left over from the office holiday party in lieu of the sourdough bread, and used red wine instead of white, as we did have some red cooking wine in the 'fridge, but no white wine to be had anywhere. Once again, I used tomatoes that I had frozen over the summer, rather than canned, and this time I used some garlic salt, and added the half onion I found in the refrigerator. I also used water and a teaspoon of "Better than Bouillon" instead of chicken stock. It was a good soup. I do recall liking it better when made with white wine, though.

Detail: Revisiting my first recipe

0 Flavors from summer's bounty

On Maryland day this year I made basil-corn muffins from a recipe in the cookbook Dishing Up Maryland, explaining at the time that I did not have the fresh corn kernels that the recipe called for, and I would try them again in late summer when such would be available. Since our farm box this week included four ears of corn on the cob, and we still had some fresh basil from the previous week, it seemed the time was right for a do over. The corn was exceptionally sweet and made for some delightfully moist and tasty muffins. Also in this week's farm box were some of those most ubiquitous of summer veggies - zucchini, and it so happened that on the opposite page of the cookbook from the corn muffins I noticed a recipe for zucchini fritters. This was a simple recipe that complemented the muffins well for a wonderful dinner. I started by shredding and draining 2 medium zucchini. While that drained I mixed 3/4 c. flour with 1 t. baking powder. To this I added 2 beaten eggs and 1/4 c. milk. The recipe called for fresh thyme, but I used parsley, basil, and cilantro instead, since that was what was in my herb bundle from the farm. Once the herbs were added, also threw in 1 t. of pepper flakes. Once this was ready I added the zucchini and mixed well. I heated our indispensable cast-iron griddle and poured some vegetable oil onto it. The batter was dropped onto the griddle and then cooked on each side for 4-5 minutes. The hot peppers gave these an unexpected kick.

Detail: Flavors from summer's bounty

0 Dippy Signature

Readers of this space know that we love to cook all kinds of things, some of which are quite fancy. It is a bit funny, then, that my signature dish is just a dip. I had not made it for quite a while, but brought some to a party recently, to rave reviews. When looking up the recipe -- James' Killer Queso Dip -- on my web site, I was reminded that this dip actually brought me temporary fame in the online recipe world, as it made me the Featured Chef on FastRecipes.com for a week or so several years ago. I had not heard of the site, but its managers found my dip and liked it!

Pam and I cannot remember where we originally found the recipe, but we know I have been making it since our Texas days in the mid 90s, if not before. The original recipe called for one cup of salsa, leading me to make the double recipe my standard dose, since salsa usually comes in a 16-ounce jar. The real key to the dip's success, though, is that I do not use ordinary salsa -- I always get something a bit more complex and smoky, usually a chipotle salsa, and usually as local as I can find.

This weekend I have made the dip twice, with a new variation. Rather than using roasted red pepper from a jar, I roasted my own. After years of being intimidated by this process, I tried it about a year ago (as I describe in detail in Busy Kitchen). It is actually easy and quite rewarding. For the dip, I used a very large, mild red pepper that was being sold as a red bell pepper but was deep red and shaped more like an oversized poblano. I charred, sweated, peeled, seeded and chopped it, stirring it gently into the dip. (I use a silicon scraper rather than a spoon, with low heat to get this dip smooth.)

The roasted pepper is not only better flavor, but it avoids the use of a glass jar, so this is a "greener" red pepper. Realizing that the dip might benefit from the residual oil in which peppers are packed, I added a tablespoon or two of my own. We are way beyond ordinary olive oils at Casa Hayes-Boh, though, so I used some oil infused with Persian lime. I think this moved the dip to a whole new level!

All this use of lime-infused oil created a potential crisis. Next week, the comestibles for Pam's birthday will be lime-themed, so I called our friends at Lebherz to ship us some more, along with some chipotle-infused oil, which might be added the next time!

Detail: Dippy Signature

0 Even Better Leek & Potato Soup

A month ago, Pam made a leek and potato soup that we both enjoyed, though I enjoyed it more than she did. Even the cookbook author had deemed it "meager," and Pam agreed. We both decided that we would try it again "some time" and we had some ideas to, well, soup it up a bit.

To the sauteing leeks and potatoes at the early stage of the recipe, I added about half of a small, very hot pepper, finely minced (from Colchester Neighborhood Farm, as were the potatoes and leeks). For the liquid, I used three cups of commercial vegetable stock and four cups of local, organic, low-fat milk from Crescent Ridge.

These small changes made for a truly delicious and satisfying meal on this cool evening. The mildly piquant soup was perfectly paired with "liquid bread" in the form of home-brewed IPA.

Detail: Even Better Leek & Potato Soup