This week's topic include a further embrace of my inner hillbilly, comfort food, WF style, mmmmm.... legumes....., and I make what may be the perfect steak sauce.
What am I working
on? Fall is upon us and it’s my favorite time of
the year. There’s a chill in the air and allergens and bugs are dying by
the truckload. It’s also the time when a
boy’s thoughts turn to college football and hearty comfort food, such as stews,
soups, etc.
One of my favorite comfort foods is
pork chile verde. In my mind, it’s
really just a thick stew served with beans, tortillas, etc. Plus, it’s easy to make yourself, and it will
likely be better than what you get at most restaurants.
Here’s the beginning of it. I roast tomatillos and pablano chiles. I peel the roasted skins off the pablanos and
take the stems and seed pods out. Then I
rough chop both. In a pan, I sauté some
chopped white onion, garlic, Mexican oregano, and Mexican thyme. I throw in the chiles and tomatillos and let
that simmer for 20-30 minutes.
And now you have the base sauce for
any green chile verde you want to make.
Naturally, I make pork chile verde.
Because it’s pork. And it’s good.
I cube a few pounds of pork shoulder
and season it with salt and pepper.
Brown it in a large pot (I prefer my beloved French oven). Take the pork out and sauté julienned onions
and chopped garlic. Throw the pork back
in the pot, along with a fair amount of your base green chile verde sauce, some
whole garlic cloves, and a little more thyme and oregano. Add a generous amount of kosher salt. You could also spice this up with some
chopped jalapenos or Serrano, but be careful.
I add enough chicken stock (homemade,
of course!) to double the volume in the pot.
Ish. Remember – you’re cooking
this a long time, so most of this moisture will go away. I prefer to let this simmer for 4-6 hours or
more. As the moisture evaporates, the
flavors intensify. Season with kosher salt
to taste.
But what to serve with this…. ? Legumes! My favorites are pinto beans, but I had black
beans on hand, so black beans it was.
The best part about beans is that they are easy!
First, spread the beans out on a
cookie sheet and search for nasty looking ones and other non-bean things. I recently saw them do this on a cooking show
and thought “Sheesh. Now I have to sort
through my dry beans?!” Well, now I know. When I sorted these
beans, I found a handful of nasty looking “beans,” and, …. Wait for it…. , 2-3
little pebbles. Rocks, people! Those aren’t cooking down!
Spend a little time and sort through your
beans. Trust me.
Back to the preparation. Soak the beans in a lot of water overnight. Before cooking, drain the beans and set
aside. Sautee some onions, garlic, and
whatever else strikes your fancy.
Throw the beans back in and fill the pot with chicken stock. I also believe that all beans need some
pork. Why? Must I say it again? Because it’s pork, and it’s good!.
Check it out. I used a ham shank. Yum.
Do not add any salt. That will come later. If you add salt before the beans are soft,
they proteins on the outside of the beans will harden and you will never be
able to get the beans to soften up. I
know this sounds like food nerd talk, but it’s true.
Let the beans simmer 8 hours or so,
periodically refilling the pot with more stock or water when it gets close to
the top of the beans. When the beans
have softened up, you can start adding salt to taste and stop adding liquid. At this point, start seasoning the beans to taste and let the beans simmer until a
fair amount of the liquid is gone and you’re left with the beans in creamy,
rich sauce. You probably know what I’m
talking about. These are the kind of
beans you can eat by themselves with a spoon or a tortilla.
Back to the chile verde. Serve with your homemade beans, rice, warm
tortillas (I prefer flour, but whatever), and your favorite hot sauce. You won’t be disappointed.
The WF’s ‘soft
drink’. As I’ve mentioned in past blogs, I spent a
fair amount of my childhood in the South.
During that time, I acquired a taste for sweet tea. Sometimes, you have to embrace your inner
hillbilly. In the South, when they say
sweet tea, they mean SWEET tea. Like
more sugar than you can imagine in tea sweet.
Like diabetic coma sweet.
For many years, I got away from sweet
tee. However, lately I’m finding my way
back to it, albeit in a WF way. If I
make it at home, I make a strong sun tea and add just enough simple syrup to
make it slightly sweet. Using simple
syrup is great because it quickly dissolves and you never have that cloud o’ sugar
at the bottom at the bottom of the glass.
This slightly sweet tea over ice on a warm day is absolutely
divine.
I’ve also found a sweet tea variation
at various sit-down and fast food restaurants.
Inevitably, their sweet tea is frighteningly sweet, so I cut it. I’ve found that ¼ or sweet and ¾ or so unsweetened
makes a perfect beverage.
Seriously. I can’t get enough of this stuff! Give it a try.
The World’s Best
Steak Sauce? I recently read a relatively famous book from
a well-known travel channel host. In it,
he discusses demi-glace, how important it is to line cooks everywhere, and how
to make his basic demi.
I’ve been dying to make demi, so I
gave it a whirl. I pulled out a bag of
frozen beef stock made from last Christmas’s prime rib and start reducing
it. I toss in some diced shallots, a few
sprigs of German thyme, peppercorns, and a cup or two of decent red wine. I let it simmer away and reduce until it
coated the back of a spoon.
I now know why demi-glace costs so
much when you buy it. I reduced about
8-10 cups of stock and wine and ended up with less than a cup of demi. I poured it into small ice cube trays to
freeze for future use.
I can't wait until the next time I make
a beef, pork, or lamb dish. I’ll throw a
cube of this into a pan with some butter and pour the sauce onto the plate
before I place the meat on the dish.
Should be fabulous.
If the guys are lucky, I’ll save this
for our next Super Bowl feast……
Happy cooking.
WF
