India

This blog has been pretty quiet lately. There are lots of reasons, but for me part of it was the end-of-semester crunch, immediately followed by a trip to India. Yes, India. Thanks to a grant from the Christian A Johnson Endeavor Foundation, six colleagues (including two of the only people who know about this blog -- Hi, Amys!) and I are in the middle of a two week trip to India to help broaden the colleges curriculum. I could write about all kinds of things about the trip, ranging from a visit to a slum to the Taj Mahal. But I figure I should stay on topic for this blog and write about beans.

Today we visited the headquarters of the Moraka Foundation, which helps spread organic farming techniques throughout India. They teach farmers in 17 states about composting and natural herbicides and the like. It was fascinating to hear from the farmers and see the varous techniques in action -- who knew that you could use buttermilk as an herbicide? -- and at the end we went to an organic market they run. It was filled with chutneys and spices and, yes, beans. Here are just some of the beans and lentils that they sell, grown in India by the farmers they work with. I would tell you if I bought any and which ones, but that would give away the fun for K when I bring her back presents.

A Simple Soup

D already posted the photo, so I'll tell you about the recipe. Basically, we weren't doing anything with these beans, even though they had a wonderful aroma and flavor. So one night, I bit the bullet and resolved to cook something with them. As usual I turned to soup. As usual I had kale in the refrigerator. I also found the core of a head of celery. I combined these in a light vegetable broth, topped with olive oil and parmesan. It was filling, tasty, and healthy - the trifecta!

Spoiler alert!

K will tell you all about this wonderful soup that she cooked the other night -- and the leftovers of which I am currently craving -- soon. But in the meantime I have to post a photo...

Hummus is For Everyone

A few weeks ago, someone in my department had some kind of event that had leftover food.  And, as people do when this happens, they put the food in the departmental refrigerator with a note saying whether it was fair game for everyone to eat it or not.  Only the way they informed us was with a note on the refrigerator that said simply “Hummus is for Everyone.”  My immediate reaction was that truer words have never been spoken.  In fact, I think that is going to be my motto on this year’s Christmas letter.

You see, I like hummus.  A lot.  I mean, what is there not to like, especially if the hummus has lots of garlic in it  But I even am a sucker for the various flavored hummuses (hummi?) that are served at the dining hall on campus, like ‘carmalized onion’ and ‘jalapeno’.  For some reason, I have never made much of my own hummus, but our recent adventures with beans has inspired Kay to start make it pretty regularly, and when she was out of town last weekend I took it upon myself to take some of the chickpeas she had soaked and cooked and turn them into hummus.  

At my wife's suggestion, I used this recipe from Inspired Taste, and it worked well.  They seem to think that the secret to good hummus has to do with the order in which you combine and blend the ingredients.  I have no idea whether they are right and, despite my scientist instincts, I don't plan to do a long series of experiments to find out.  But I will say that the recipe turned out well, and I have been happily eating hummus all week.  Because it is for everyone, except that I don't want to share.

(Note that this is normally the part of the post where I would include a photo of the finished product.  But let's face it -- as yummy as hummus is, it isn't particularly photogenic as it is basically just a beige blob.  So instead I will just post a photo of this really cute kinkajou that our son came home from school talking about yesterday)

Yum

We chose our next bean!

Rancho Gordo has this to say:

"Our harvest of Good Mother Stallard was again not great and we're already pulling it off the website for sale. It's such a shame as it's one of my favorites. It's big and meaty and has a bean broth that is as good as the bean. Hopefully we'll have production problems solved by next year and in the meantime enjoy what we like to call the 'you'll be back' bean."

Good Enough

Kay posted yesterday about a delicious meal she made by sauteeing the leftover beans with fresh local kale and other fancy-shmancy ingredients. I did my simpler (read: lazier) version of te dish on a different night, where I sauteed the beans with just a little bit of frozen spinach, some onions and garlic, and some ghee. It wasn't as good as Kay's version (obviously), but for less than ten minutes of work it was a very satisfying meal, thanks to the delicious beans.

Second Night

Last weekend, we received about 10 different kinds of greens from Everblossom Farm, so when I was looking for a way to reuse the Jacob's Cattle Beans, the obvious answer was to cook them with greens. I used two big bunches of kale and went in a Mediterranean direction - added some stock, smoke chili salt, and parmesan to flavor the bean liquor. I served it on rice with a squeeze of lemon, dash of parmesan, splash of olive oil, and grind of black pepper. 

We both agreed: delicious!

Jacob's Cattle Bean

Our CSA farmer has recently branched out into dried beans, and we've loved her black beans. Last week, she sent us a new treasure: local, organic Jacob's Cattle Beans.

Searching the internet brings up this information:

"Jacob's Cattle bean is also called a Trout bean or an Appaloosa bean, but Jacob's Cattle bean is the oldest name for the variety. It is a plump, white and red speckled, kidney-shaped bean with vivid maroon splashes. It is full-flavored, holds its shape under long cooking, and stands up well to plenty of seasoning. The bean has a rich aroma. It is a little tannic on the tongue and tastes almost like a green bean with a slightly fruity aftertaste. The aftertaste was also described as rich and nutty."

It looks like I should have used sage as the herb, based on the recipes online. I went with oregano, just from instinct.

Here are the beauties at the beginning of soaking.

Before the boil:

All ready to eat.

We found them to be a mild, pleasant bean - more suited to being sauteed with greens than tossed in tacos.

Some of My Secrets to Good Beans

I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

First, I almost always use "Mixtec salt" - sometimes called "Mexican salt" - in my beans. There's apparently a lot of controversy on the subject of using salt during the cooking process. "Mixtec salt" is apparently a staple in Mexican kitchens, and it's rumored to soften beans. I trust Mexican madres, so I use it. I wait until I've boiled the beans for five minutes, then I sprinkle in a pinch. I think it gives an interesting flavor.

In black beans, I use epazote. It's a Mexican herb that grows as a weed, and it has a unique faintly camphorescent aroma. It flavors beans in a subtle but distinctly Mexican way. I add the leaves and stems after the garlic and onions are sauteed, then warm them a bit. Then I add the beans and water, and cook as usual.

For pinto beans, I do the same treatment with Mexican oregano, and it adds an herbaceous richness to the beans.

Try it and let me know your results!

Stew

When we decided on white beans, I started looking around our kitchen for what we had that would pair with it:

- Canned heirloom tomatoes from the Everblossom Farm Winter CSA
- Dried rosemary from Everblossom
- Organic carrots from the supermarket
- Celery
- White onions
- Garlic

It made me think of a stew, thick and creamy, with a light tomato broth. I felt like going Mediterranean was more appropriate, even though the beans are grown in Mexico.

I searched the Googleverse for "white bean stew," occasionally with the qualifier "vegetarian," and I came up with a LOT of white bean and kale stews. All of which sounded great - I love the combination of beans and greens. I think I even have an entire cookbook dedicated to the combination.

The Kitchn's recipe for Tomato and White Bean Panade seemed to include all the ingredients I had on hand, looked easy enough, and sounded delicious. I knew I would leave out the bread, since we're not eating wheat these days, and I wanted a way to limit how much I consumed. We bought bread to serve on the side, since we decided to invite friends over for this bean tasting.

Here they are simmering away in the pot:

Do you see that one bean that is darker? There were a few of them in the mix. I thought of them as lucky to whoever ended up eating them.

When I was rooting around the refrigerator for veggies, I found a bag of beets with a fair amount of greens. Voila! I could use those for color contrast and nutrition-boosting.

Here's the final result:

It was pretty tasty, very beany. I thought the brown sugar made it too sweet, so I would omit that next time. But overall delicious!

Alubia Criollo

For our next bean, we decided to go the opposite direction, from brown to white. We chose Alubia Criollo. We actually have two varieties of these - the second we recieved as supporters for the Rancho Gordo - Xoxoc Project Fire Recovery Fund.

These that we received from the Bean Club came with this description:

"I was lucky enough to film a show called Emeril Green with the great Emeril LaGasse. He was a great guy and obviously tickled about all the beans we had. The bean that mae him flip, however, was the Alubia Criollo. He made me pronounce it on the air and if you've heard him say jalapeno, you'd be grateful. He was a very generous host and it was fun to be around such a legend and someone who really understood the beauty of beans. The Alubia Criollo are medium to large white beans with a super creamy texture and classic white bean flavor. Think about cooking them with a spring of rosemary (one is plenty. It's strong!) and your best, greenest olive oil as a dressing."

Fear Not

We haven't forgotten about beans. We just haven't given the latest updates. But here's a preview...

Libros de Michoacan

I know, I know...we promised you a bean blog and not a blog about a trip to Mexico that we took several years ago -- that's the subject of an entirely different blog.  And we will get to other beans before too long.  But before we leave all of our culinary reminiscing about Michoacan, I wanted to point anyone interested to two books that I read while we were on that trip that I recommend.

The first is less culinary, but deals with the history of the region.  Mexico is of course characterized by the relationship (or lack thereof) between the indigenous people and the European settlers/conquestors which played out differently in different parts of the country.  Bernardino Verastique's book Michoacan and Eden:Vasco de Quiroga and the Evangelization of Western Mexico tells the story of Vasco de Quiroga, one of the bishops working in the Michoacan region in the 17th century. I found this book extremely fascinating in the way it discussed the history of the area from the point of view of both the native Purepecha people and the Spaniards who came in and took over. Quiroga was a humanist, and brought many interesting ideas to the region, such as the idea that each village should specialize in a different craft (pottery, mask making, basketry, etc), an idea which still exists today. The book does a nice job of treating Quiroga even-handedly, rather than caricaturing him as either a Villain or a Savior. And while it is clearly written by an academic, the tone is fairly light and never gets too academicly dense.

The second book is Cuisines of Hidden Mexico: A Culinary Journey to Guerrero and Michoacan by Bruce Kraig, and it is part travelog, part cookbook, and part history as it is filled with the author's stories of trying to film a documentary series set in this part of the world.  I am not sure it has as wide an audience as a better-written book could, but I found it very valuable in planning our trip when we went and have gone back to consult recipes a number of times in the years since.

Sopa Tarasca

K has been writing about all of our great memories of Sopa Tarasca during our adventures in Michoacan -- and I have to admit that her writings have had me check out plane tickets to Morelia more than once, and if it weren't for the drugs and violence we would probably be heading down there at this moment. But until that situation settles down a bit we will have to make our own uchepos and sopa tarasca -- we'll save the enchiladas placeras for someone else.

After spending some time researching various recipes for sopa tarasca, I ended up coming upon a story that Pati Jinich wrote for NPR that had a recipe that sounded good. I actually remember reading this story when it first came out, shortly after our trip to Michoacan when we were still pining for Patzcuaro hardcore. At that time we didn't know who Jinich was.  Now, we are big fans, but that's a story for another day...

The recipe was quite easy to make -- basically just cook the beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and ancho chiles and then blend them all together with some stock...

...but, especially when combined with a bunch of garnishes, including homemade tortilla chips and fried pasilla peppers, fresh avocado and cilantro, and cotija cheese, the results were wonderful. And while I am sure that the special Rancho Gordo beans were part of what made this meal special, I'm planning to put this soup in heavy rotation soon!

Santa Clara del Cobre

Sopa Tarasca - soup of the Tarasca people - is a specialty of Michoacan, but we had no idea it was made with a special bean. I had Sopa Tarasca once, and I remember it well.

One day, we were visiting the smaller village of Santa Clara del Cobre, famous for its tradition of copper-working.

As we've mentioned, Michoacan is cool. Downright chilly, in fact. Santa Clara del Cobre was even colder than that. At 7,200 feet, the altitude put a true nip in the air - even at midday. It was beautiful though, and after a morning wandering through shops and museums, E had fallen asleep on my back and we were looking for lunch.

We chose a place right on the square, but it was your typical Mexican hole-in-the-wall. Not many tourists to the town, it seemed. Ordering a soup with a sleeping child in your lap isn't maybe the best idea, but she managed to eat it one-handed. The thick, warm liquid hit the spot, driving away some of the bone-chill. The fried chiles sprinkled on top helped with that too. The beans were satisfying, tasting almost nutty, and the fried tortillas gave it heft. All in all, a really satisfying meal.

Making a Plan

After we'd selected a bean, we had to choose a way to prepare it. As I considered this project, I was torn. Is the best way to experience a new, heirloom bean at its simplest - some garlic, onions, and maybe an herb to flavor the bean liquor? Or should we prepare elaborate dishes that create special occasions?

Then we thought maybe these two options didn't have to be in opposition - we could cook the beans simply, try some of them that way, then cook the rest in a fabulous recipe. So we had a plan!

As we read the description of Bayo Chocolate, a food memory arose: Sopa Tarasca ... mmmmmm.

Michoacan

Oh, Michoacan. How we love thee.

We spent two weeks in Michoacan in 2010 and loved it. An easy drive from a major airport (Guadelajara), the landscape is made up of rolling hills and forests surrounding a shimmering lake. The food was perfect for us - affordable street food that was delicious and vegetarian! What is pocket change in America bought more food than we could eat.

In Patzcuaro, we rented a car and a lovely home - our first experience of really living in Mexico, shopping at the market, paying the water man, struggling to dry our clothes. June is the rainy season, and it was often chilly and damp. K was completely won over - all the wonder of Mexico without the fear of sunburn and heatstroke, sign her up! Actually, the area is very reminiscent of Northern California.

The second week, we stayed in a furnished apartment in Morelia - a beautiful city, colonial with many modern amenities, similar to Puebla. We learned how to buy bread and how scary/wonderful a Mexican zoo can be. The animals are RIGHT THERE!

Michoacan was the first place in Mexico that D said, "I would buy a house here." The real estate is so affordable (under $150,000 for a furnished, two-bedroom home), and Patzcuaro is a lovely size - a town but big enough for amenities. There is a WHOLE TOWN dedicated to growing avocados!

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to return - the violence has just gotten too scary. At first, we said we couldn't live there but maybe a vacation would be a possibility. Now even a vacation seems too risky.

So we pine...

For uchepos under a tarp as the skies open...

For corundas as big as a softball slathered in salsa verde and crema...

For atole in the misty morning market in front of the Basilica...

and, most of all, for enchiladas placeros.

Oh, enormous plate of sauced and fried tortillas, smothered in potatoes and carrots, I wish you were in my mouth right now!

Bayo Chocolate

We've recently been enjoying pinto beans a lot, so when we were choosing a bean to start with, I was drawn to the Bayo Chocolate. The warm brown color was appealing to my eye.

It turned out they were also the first bean described in the Rancho Gordo newsletter:

"Bayo beans are very popular in Michoacan. They are very mild and soak up any flavors you might want to add. These Bayo Chocolate are pretty rare. I've only seen them in a market in Puebla. I know you want advice but all I can tell you is that they are mild and creamy. In Michoacan, you can make a Sopa Tarasca which is one third each pureed beans, pureed tomatoes and chicken stock. Fried tortilla strips on the top would add some nice crunch and a few cubes of queso fresco or fresh farmers cheese would be welcome as well."

The Long Soak

In August, we shifted our diet to more whole grains, and that involved more beans. At first, it was lots of garbanzos, which were turned into hummus, but as the season turned cold, I branched out to other beans.

I was tipped off by a friend to the long soak. He says that the phytates in beans are unhealthy and, if you're going to eat them, you should soak them for several days then cook them in a pressure cooker. I don't have a pressure cooker, but I'm really good at starting something and forgetting about it for a few days.

So that's what I do with my beans - into a bowl they go covered with water (a few inches extra), then I set them on the counter, or out on our enclosed patio where it's more like refrigerator temperature this winter. I leave it there for two to three days, until it starts to make little bubbles.

I pour out the water, and refill the bowl (again with a few inches extra water). I know some people cook with the soaking water, but it has the phytates in it, so I want to get rid of it. Also I've never noticed it made a big difference to flavor one way or the other.

Then I pull out my trusty cast iron pot, saute some onions and garlic, and pour in the beans and water. I bring it to a boil, let it boil for five minutes, then turn it down to a low simmer. That was the advice we got when we first ordered Rancho Gordo beans a few years ago, and it has worked well for us.

The huge benefit of the soaking comes into play at this point. Because the beans are already totally hydrated, cooking time is much decreased. (You can also do this with pasta!) Beans cook in two hours and are very soft.

It used to be that it would take four, five, even six hours to cook, and even then they still wouldn't be fork tender. It would require adding new, cold water every hour or so, which seemed to me that it would disturb the cooking process. Me being me, I would forget to add more water, and more often than not, the beans would burn. Not so effective really.

This benefit alone convinced me of the superiority of The Long Soak. The fact that there might be health benefits is an added bonus.

Nowadays, at the advice of the internet, I've taken to adding a few teaspoons of an acid (usually apple cider vinegar). Then it bubbles much more quickly - like overnight - and I rinse it out and add more water daily. I've notice no other difference in cooking or eating.

Before Rancho Gordo

One of the things that inspired us to join Rancho Gordo's bean club was that we have been enjoying experimenting with dried beans from other sources. Here is a bowl of black beans grown by our favorite local farmer, Elaine Lemmon of Everblossom Farm, and cooked by K for a taco night.

Grand opening

When D and E got home, we opened the package and were pleasantly surprised!

In addition to the beans, we received an awesome Rancho Gordo apron.

Plus a lovely little newsletter describing the beans, where they come from, and how to cook and serve them.

Here's the loot - six bags of beans, a bag of artisanal piloncillo, and a cool poster from Rancho Gordo too! I'll detail each kind of bean as we cook and eat it.

Since packages will arrive from Rancho Gordo quarterly, that gives us 12 weeks to enjoy this, so I anticipate we'll be posting every two weeks.

They're here!