Volume 10, Issue 093 - May 10, 2006

Greetings ,

Beans and corn are two very popular ingredients in Southwestern cooking. We will learn a little about each and how they have influenced the southwestern cuisine. Today's recipes from The New Southwest Cookbook by Carolyn Niethammer come from the Tall Timber Resort in Durango, Colorado and from the Roaring Fork in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Beans:

All cultures need a reliable source of protein to thrive, and in the Americas one primary source for millennia was beans. Beans are one of the oldest New World foods, originating probably in southern Mexico or Central America at least 7,000 years ago. When early European travelers arrived in the Southwest, they found Native peoples raising and storing impressive crops of beans, and were able to trade goods for the local food that helped them along their journeys.

Today, earthy-tasting, creamy refried pinto beans are a ubiquitous staple of Mexican restaurants. The beans are boiled until soft, mashed, and then fried in lard. In their dried state pintos are mottled beige and brown, but turn reddish brown when cooked. They are used classically in tostadas. More recently, however inventive restaurant chefs in the region have found ways to include other varieties of beans and cooking methods on their menus. Small black turtle beans, also called frijoles negros, have gained great popularity. They are not actually black but a very deep purple, which you will notice when some of the color leaches into the soaking water.

Unusual varieties of heirloom beans are also increasingly found in specialty stores and on plates in innovative restaurants. Among the most popular are the beautifully mottled burgundy and white variety called Anasazi, named after the Native Americans who lived in the Four Corners region until around the thirteenth century A.D. Similar in appearance are appaloosa beans.

There are many other heirloom varieties that you can experiment with including Flor de Mayo (soft lavender from Mexico), Yellow Eye (mixed white and yellow from a Four Corners family farm), and Colorado River (maroon and cream). Other heirloom beans developed from Native American varieties include bolitas, a close relative of the pinto, and the tiny teparies, developed over generations by the Tohono O'odham people and adapted to grow in hot desert summers.

Cooking Beans:

One of the advantages of beans as a food is that they can be dried for long-term storage. That means that to become edible, they must be rehydrated, and that often takes time. You do this by covering them with cold water (at least one inch over the beans) and soaking for several hours or overnight, during which time they will take up water through the little "hilum" - the place at which each bean was attached to the pod. This will shorten the cooking time and also remove indigestible complex sugars, called oligosaccharides, that cause gas. By changing the soaking water several times and rinsing the beans before adding clean water, you will get even better results.

If you need to cook your beans quickly, you can use the quick-soak method. Use a large pot, because the beans will swell to three times their size. Cover the beans with plenty of cold, unsalted water. Bring to a boil over high heat for about 5 minutes. Then remove from the heat, cover, and let them soak for about 1 hour. Drain, rinse, and cover with fresh water to cook.

Source: The New Southwest Cookbook by Carolyn Niethammer

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Anasazi Bean-Dip Boats
Tall Timber Resort, Durango, Colorado

Luxurious Tall Timber Resort is truly a get-away-from-it-all spot outside of Durango. The nearest road is six miles away, so arrival is only by the Durango-Silverton narrow-gauge railroad or helicopter.

Chef Judy Beggrow devised this appetizer - a much glorified version of chips and bean dip - using Anasazi beans grown eighty miles west of Durango in the small farming community of Dove Creek. (If Anasazi beans are not available, you can substitute pintos.) The ancho chiles she uses in the Red Chile Pesto that complements the beans are also grown nearby. These charming little bean "boats" are finished with a refreshing Lime Crème Fraîche.

Although served as an appetizer at Tall Timber, this can also serve as a side dish for a meal of tamales, rellenos, or enchiladas. Chicken base comes in a jar and is used like bouillon, but has less salt and more real flavor. You can substitute bouillon. Several hours before you plan to assemble the appetizer, soak the corn husks in warm water to make them pliable.

Makes 10 servings

Ingredients:

Anasazi Bean Filling:

1 pound Anasazi beans
2 1/2 tablespoons chicken base
1/2 large onion, diced
1 cup loosely packed chopped fresh cilantro leaves
1/3 cup diced green bell pepper
1/3 cup diced red bell pepper
1/3 cup diced yellow bell pepper
1 can (4 ounces) diced green chiles, drained
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup canned corn, drained (optional)

Lime Crème Fraîche:

1 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
salt to taste
white pepper to taste

Red Chile Pesto:

2 dried ancho chiles
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon Mexican oregano, or standard dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons brandy
2 tablespoons water

10 corn husks, soaked in water for several hours
red and blue corn chips

Preparation:

For the Anasazi Bean Filling:

Rinse beans under running water, then cover with 3 times as much water as you have beans. Soak overnight. Next day, drain beans, rinse again and cover with fresh water in large saucepan. Add chicken base or bouillon and boil until beans are tender but not yet bursting, about 3 hours. (Note, boiling time may vary depending on freshness of beans.) Strain, gently rinse in cool water and chill. Before serving, add onion, cilantro, peppers, green chiles, Tabasco, cayenne pepper, cumin and corn (if desired). Stir to combine well. Reheat to warm through before assembly and serving.

For the Lime Crème Fraîche:

Whisk all ingredients together in small bowl. Taste and add more lime juice if desired. Refrigerate until needed.

For the Red Chile Pesto:

Soak the dried chiles in warm water until soft. Remove seeds and tear chiles into small pieces. Combine with all other ingredients in a blender and whirl until smooth. If the mixture is too wet, transfer to small heavy bottomed saucepan and cook on medium-low heat to reduce slightly and thicken.

To Assemble Appetizer:

Drain and pat dry the soaked corn husks with paper towels. Pull a 1/8 to 1/4 inch strip from the edge of each husk to use as a time; tie each cornhusk about 1/2 inch from each end to make a boat-like shape with a lengthwise opening. Put about 2/3 cup beans in each cornhusk boat. (If you have extra beans, reserve for another meal.) Top each with a dollop of Lime Crème Fraîche and on top of that a smaller dollop of Red Chile Pesto. You can make ahead to this point and hold for a few hours until ready to heat and serve.

Place stuffed cornhusks on a baking sheet and heat in a 250 degree F oven before serving warm with red and blue corn chips for dipping.

Corn:

Corn is the staff of life for the Southwest. It developed originally somewhere in the Mexico-Guatemala border region and then spread south into South America and north through northern Mexico to the southwestern United States, before traveling throughout the Americas. It was not known in Europe, Asia, or Africa until Columbus introduced it.

A type of grass, corn grows only where there are farmers to care for and cultivate it. Some annuals reseed themselves, but generally corn must be planted by a human being at exactly the perfect time to have the right temperature and moisture conditions for growth. And, unlike most of our food plants, nothing similar to corn grows in the wild. Even its closest relative, teosinte, does not produce cobs and kernels.

That leaves us with a mystery. If there was no wild form of corn for the ancient populations to develop and domesticate, how did it come into being as a food plant? Many scientists have devoted their entire professional lives to this conundrum.

What we do know is that early corn was much different from what we have today; the cobs and kernels, for instance, were very small. Thousands of years of breeding by early farmers led to the larger ears that we have today, making corn the earliest genetically engineered crop.

Native cooks developed early methods of making corn, with its tough outer shell, palatable and digestible. They ground the kernels between two rocks to make a meal that could then be combined with water to make mush. Later they learned to remove the hard hulls by soaking the kernels in water with ashes. The result they called nixtamal. We call it posole or hominy.Nixtamal remains an important ingredients in soups and is also ground into a dough called masa, which is the basis for corn tortillas.

Source: The New Southwest Cookbook by Carolyn Niethammer

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Sugar and Chile-Cured Venison Chops with Colorado Corn Sauce
Roaring Fork, Scottsdale, Arizona

From the cover of Bon Appétit magazine to a segment on the Today Show, Roaring Fork executive chef Robert McGrath has amply shared his vision of Western cuisine with American cooks. He promotes food that is sophisticated but hearty. Many people in the Southwest region hunt game and thus have access to venison in their own freezers, but there are also excellent sources on the Internet. Chef McGrath serves these chops with Green Chile Macaroni (see below).

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

1/4 cup sugar
3 teaspoons dark ground red chile
1 teaspoon kosher salt
4 venison rib chops (7 ounces each)

Colorado Corn Sauce:

1 tablespoon plus 1/4 cup cold unsalted butter, divided and cut into cubes
1 cup sweet corn kernels, fresh or canned
1 teaspoon chopped shallot
1/2 cup white wine
1 tablespoon plus 4 tablespoons chopped fresh chives, divided

Preparation:

Mix the sugar, ground red chile and salt together. Evenly rub the mixture over the venison, then cover, refrigerate and let cure for 6 hours.

While the meat is curing, make the Colorado Corn Sauce. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter over low heat. Add the corn kernels and "sweat" them for about 2 minutes, then add the shallots, white wine and 1 tablespoon of chopped chives. Simmer for 10 minutes, remove from heat and allow to cool, then purée in a blender. As the sauce starts to come together in the blender, add the remaining butter, 1 cube at a time, until all of the butter is used. Strain the sauce and keep warm over very low heat.

At the end of the curing time, brush any excess dry rub off the venison chops. Grill to the desired temperature over a medium-hot fire, about 3 minutes per side for medium-rare. The sugar in the cure will burn easily so keep an eye on the heat and expect a little blackening.

To serve, spoon corn sauce over 1 portion of the plate and sprinkle with remaining chopped chives. If serving with the Green Chile Macaroni, mound about 1/2 cup on the other side of the plate, then rest the venison chop up against it.

Green Chile Macaroni
Roaring Fork, Scottsdale, Arizona

If you were like most kids, you loved macaroni and cheese and still turn to it when you need some homey comfort food. Well, this is comfort food with a Southwestern twist - macaroni and cheese with green chile. The poblanos give plenty of chile flavor with not much heat.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

1/4 cup diced red bell pepper
1/2 cup sweet corn kernels
1/4 cup diced red onion
2 teaspoons chopped garlic
1 teaspoon corn oil
2 cups cooked macaroni
1/2 to 3/4 cup purée of roasted, peeled poblano chile (3 to 4 whole poblanos)
2/3 cup grated hot pepper jack cheese
1/4 cup heavy cream
kosher salt and cracked black pepper to taste

Preparation:

Sauté the pepper, corn, red onion and garlic in oil in a medium heavy saucepan or deep frying pan over medium heat until the vegetables are soft. Add the macaroni, poblano purée and jack cheese and stir until the cheese is melted. Fold in heavy cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste.