Rancho Gordo: Experiments from my mostly New World kitchen and gardens

A Day in the Beanfields

On Wednesday, I took a drive to the delta to check on this season's beans . I hear they are fine but this season has to be perfect!

Most of the fields were started after the last frosts but some short-season beans were just planted. We've had oddly cool weather this spring but now it's cooking out in the fields.

This unruly mess is everyone's favorite, Eye of the Goat! And it's doing great. Good Mother Stallard is also thriving, but it's slower growing bean.

Thought you'd like to see how the irrigation works. For our trial garden in Napa, I use a hose with emitters but it's just not practical for actual production. Beans need to be watered in our rainless climate but because we use irrigation, we can control the moisture, which I think makes for a better bean.

And the loveliest thing to see is a bean flower from the runner cannellini. They symbolize hope and good eating on your table in the near future!

Cooking With Clay. No. 8 Revisited

A few weeks back, I wrote about a favorite cazuela here on the blog. I'd written the post before a trip to Mexico and while I was there, my friends had planned on visiting the very potter who made the beautiful piece.

It turns out I was completely wrong. The workshop is in Puebla, on the way to Oaxaca. The artist is Lourdes and she and her family make the most amazing pieces from their local clay.

The secret ingredient is the rock that turns out to be talc, as in talcum powder. I touched a bit of it and at first I thought it was slimy but then I realized it was absorbing the moisture in my fingers.

The local rocks are so prized that apparently a young lady from the village married a fellow from the neighboring town and requested that they send over the rock so she could continue with her pottery. The village met and decided it was better to bring him in than let the rock go out so the couple moved back to her village.

I'm not clever enough to explain the process but even I could tell it was a lot of work and the whole family was involved in different parts of the process. I saw other work by other artists but Lourdes is the queen in my book. The final pots are "polished" by rubbing ancient rocks all over them.

Her mother preps the clay and even her daughter is learning the craft. In addition to being a master potter, Lourdes is an excellent cook and apologized for the "fast food" she had to offer us.

Her version of Mole Poblano was much simpler than the traditional recipe. She wrinkled her nose at all the fruit and the plantains. Chiles and spices for her and we agreed after tasting her mole.

Of course things taste better with tortillas and beans.

Now that we have the store almost open, I think we can try and import some of Lourdes' work to sell in Napa.

I love the thought of the pots that start out here and end up in my kitchen.

Rancho Gordo Store Update

What a long, sad journey it's been! I found a perfect location that needed no work and then the city and county of Napa teamed together to make sure that nothing happened, or so it would seem. But after a long time and several hissy fits, it looks like we'll be open for business next week. The health department says we can open the retail store as long as we're not bagging beans. That's another fight for another day but for now, it looks good. Watch this space for updates.

A Boat Ride in Mexico City

I attended an event in Mexico City for a new chapter of Slow Food. I went for the beans!
If you look, you'll see a lot of "celebrities" from the food scene in the nation's capitol. Again, I went for the beans. But I did manage to swoon a little in meeting one of my heroes, Patricia Quintana.

A Day at Xochimilco from Steve Sando on Vimeo.

Teacher's Pet

On Saturday afternoon I was the guest teacher at the Cavallo Point Cooking School. What a hoot! I've never taught before and I was a little nervous but my overwhelming desire to impose my tastes on others overcame any nerves I might have felt. Resident chef Kelsie Kerr and her excellent crew made me feel right at home in the beautiful facility overlooking the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.

The class was very hands-on and we made beans, tortillas (from nixtamal, not masa harina), nopales, requeson and more. When we finally sat down to eat, it was pretty great, I must say.

The hard part is watching students make mistakes. I'm not a natural teacher and would rather just do it myself than watch them burn the tortillas, but it was so busy I couldn't micro-manage and of course after a dozen mishaps, the tortillas were great. So we all learned something!

I grew up in Sausalito and this part of the bay was off limits unless you knew families stationed at Fort Baker. It's still surreal seeing all this fine dining and recreation in what was such a restricted area. But the setting is only secondary to the great classes. I met a lot of interesting people and ate really well. I don't think it gets much better than that.

Deep Fried Worms

This post may not be for the weak and sensitive. Last week in Mexico I enjoyed a plate of gusano del maguey, or worms, as we say in English. I felt I was being very brave by eating them but to be honest, they were delicious and easy to like.

Wikipedia tells us they are nutritious as well.







You notice here at Fonda San Angel in Mexico City, they're served with blue corn tortillas, guacamole and a guajillo chile sauce. Again, very easy to enjoy.

Requesón

Requesón is a spreadable cheese that reminds me of an unsalted ricotta.

I recently had it in Hidalgo. The cheese was prepared by frying it with spring onions, garlic and epazote. Then a big, healthy blob was added to a bowl of beans.

I bought some recently and did the same, subbing red onion for scallions. Then I added it to the middle of an omelet. 

Of course, beans would have been a great addition.

I found mine in the butcher section of my local Mexican market. I'm told it's used throughout Latin America.

Rancho Gordo at Cavallo Point

Sorry to bother my non-Bay Area residents, but I needed to send out a reminder about the class I'm doing at Cavallo Point with resident chef Kelsie Kerr. I can't wait to show you my Nixtamatic machine, which will grind some locally grown corn so we can make tortillas, among other things. I don't see being able to do anything like this in the foreseeable future, so if it looks like it might of interest, give it some thought (15, 20 seconds, say) and then click the links below to book the class.

from the Cavallo Point website:
In My Kitchen: Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo New World Specialty Food and co-author of Heirloom Beans

Saturday 6/20 4:00-8:00 PM

In this class Steve will teach you about heirloom beans, corn and
chilies - all the treasures of the New World. And as he puts is best:
"New World food is exciting, tasty, healthy, romantic, and arguably, easier on the earth".

* Frijoles al ollo: a simple (but oh-so-delicious) pot of beans
* Homemade tortillas (we will even grind the corn for the masa)
* Quesadillas with cotija cheese and roasted tomatillo salsa
* Bison and Nopales (cactus paddle) tacos with ancho chile sauce
* Tunas (prickly pears) with Sambuca Romana

It's going to be a lot of fun but there are seriously very few spots available. Please book right away if you're thinking of coming.

Visit Cavallo Point for booking details.

Cooking With Clay. No. 8

I really should do a little more research before I rattle on about something but I've just been so in love with this cazuela from Hidalgo that I'm going to push on anyway. I can't remember where it's from or who made but it was a really grand gift from my friends Yunuen and Gabriel of Xoxoc. There's no glaze and I think the finish was acheived by rubbing rocks over the piece. Or maybe I made that part up. Blame the mezcal.

I didn't quite know how to cure it so I just boiled some garlic cloves in water until they water was gone. As lovely as the cazuela was, I could tell it would only look better with use.

And over the past months, use it I have! This is chicken simmering in an ancho chile sauce.

And this is the finished dish, with potatoes and a squeeze of lime. I'm convinced the gentle heat of the clay makes a perfect sauce. And I wonder if the earth doesn't impart some kind of flavor.

The same potter also made this cactus-shaped jar that I'm also in love with. Once things settle (there's a title for my life story!), I want to look into importing these and selling them online and in our store.

BRAM Clay Cooking in Sonoma

When I heard that there was a new clay pot store, on the square, in Sonoma, I thought the person with the news was nuts. Except this person was Paula Wolfert and she's anything but.

I rushed to the square the next day. You may know I have an excessive amount of clay cookware but why should I let a little thing like that stop me? It turns out the store is called Bram and it's just great. Most of the cookware is imported from Egypt but there's also Colombian Chamba, north African tagines and more. They also have a nice cookbook section (and I was thrilled to find my Heirloom Beans: Great Recipes  from Rancho Gordo there already!) and now they even carry a few of our beans.

They haven't started formal mail order yet but I understand it's in the near future. Of course, any trip to the North Bay (I don't know why but I hate saying "wine country") should include a stop at Bram. I won't embaress myself and show you all the pieces I bought. There is a limit, I am told.

Bram
493 1st St
Sonoma, CA 95476
(707) 935-3717

Changing a Picky Eater

Poor Robby is constantly accused of being a picky eater. In fairness, there was a rough spot when it seemed like pizza and carbs were the only things that would pass his lips but like all things with kids, it changed.

When we traveled together in Mexico, he was very brave. From pigs ears to sour cactus, he was pretty much willing to give anything a go.

When we visited Maria in Hidalgo, there were fabulous homemade tortillas, home grown beans (Maria grows our Reboseros) and barbecued goat. I could sense the slight panic about the goat but I just looked at him encouragingly. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it but I think he sensed he should take one for the team. We were guests and Maria had made sure there was cola, thinking an American boy would like it, even though she prefered water.

Mexican barbecue is a pretty easy thing to love and it just took one tickled bite for him to realize his anxieties were for nothing.

I can't wait to take another trip with him!

White Beans from Brigit Binns

Brigit Binns and I share some mutual friends and we've developed an online friendship that will no doubt blossom into the real thing if I ever make it past San Francisco when I head south.

She's a smart, funny writer and I told her I'd love to share some bean recipes once we get some decent-sized white beans in. Happily, we have the Alubia Criollo bean in stock and while it's smaller and less potatoey than Gigantes, I think they'd be perfect for this recipe.



Brigit writes:

I thought your readers might enjoy this one, from the as-yet-untitled
cookbook of a very talented NYC Greek chef/restaurateur, to be published
toward the tail end of 09

Note: For garlic puree, simmer a big handful of peeled garlic cloves very slowly in enough decent but not great olive oil to cover, until they are melt-in-your-mouth tender. Drain (save the oil for vinaigrette) and puree. Bob’s your uncle.

Gigantes  Plaki
Makes 2 ½ quarts

2 pounds dried gigante beans (large limas/habas grande, or Rancho Gordo Alubia Criollo), soaked in water overnight
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large Spanish or sweet onion, finely chopped
2 large carrots, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
3 fresh bay leaves or 6 dried
¼ cup tomato paste
Water as needed
Kosher salt and cracked black pepper
1/2 cup Garlic Puree
2 cups crumbled feta cheese
9 whole scallions, sliced thick
1 cup coarsely grated Graviera cheese (or young Manchego or Pecorino)

1. In a large pot, warm the olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add all the vegetables and bay leaves and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, to soften without browning. Add the tomato paste and stir for 1 minute. Add the drained beans and enough fresh water to cover everything by about 1 inch. Bring to a boil and add 1 tablespoon of salt and a generous grinding of pepper. Reduce the heat, partially cover, and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours, until the beans are soft. Check occasionally, and add a little water if the level drops below the surface of the beans.
2. Drain the beans, transferring all the liquid back into the pot, and the beans and vegetables to a large bowl. Reserve the beans.
3. Place the braising liquid over medium-high heat and reduce until very thick. This will take some time. To the beans, add the garlic puree, feta, scallions, and only just enough of the reduced braising liquid to lightly coat the beans. Fold together and taste for seasoning.
4. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Transfer the beans to one large or several smaller gratin dish(es). Top with the grated cheese and bake just until warmed through and the cheese is melted, 25 to 30 minutes.

Office Closed

The Rancho Gordo office and warehouse will be closed Friday because of the Wine Auction. If you're going to Taste Napa Valley, be sure to look for Susan and Elizabeth representing Rancho Gordo.

Restaurants: Please call your orders in today!

COCHON 555 SAN FRANCISCO

I just got word that I'll be a judge at this event in San Francisco. If it's anything like the shindig they threw in Napa, it's going to be a winning affaire. Read all about it and don't forget to take advantage of the $30 discount for Rancho Gordo enthusiasts. See below for details. And see you at the Fairmont!

COCHON 555 SAN FRANCISCO
“Five Chefs, Five Pigs, Five Winemakers”
June 14th, 2009 at 5pm
The Fairmont San Francisco
WHAT: *A group of top San Francisco chefs will each prepare a 100 pound heritage breed hog from head to toe for this friendly competition. Guests and professional judges will determine a winner based on presentation, utilization and overall best flavor. The winner will be crowned the “Prince of Porc”. In addition, five selected winemakers will showcase their wines. COCHON 555 is a tribute to heritage and heirloom breeds, chefs and winemakers.



*Each 100 lb pig can be pre-cooked, braised, grilled, pressed, pickled, rubbed, smoked, seared, sauced, spiced, injected, marinated, cured in any way, or otherwise prepared. Guest of the event will experience the chef creations during a 2.5 hour stand-up reception. Chef stations will alternate with winemaker tables. Guests should not arrive late for this event.

*WHO: *A Taste Network Event www.tastenetwork.org featuring:
Ryan Farr, 4505 Meats
Nate Appleman, A16 / SPQR
Staffan Terje, Perbacco
Ravi Kapur, Boulevard
Peter McNee, Poggio Trattoria

*Wineries include:* Krupp Brothers, Hirsch Vineyards, Elk Cove Winery, Arcadian Winery, K Vintners / Charles Smith's Wines
The VIP experience starts at 3:30pm with a reserve wine tasting by five winemakers including: Ghost Horse World, Chase Cellars, Patz & Hall and tba. Artisan cheese reception by Taste Network. Mixologists will be passing artisan libations from Domaine de Canton, delicious pre-pig party snacks, tasty beers from Magnolia, and best of all, guests can meat and greet with the chefs, winemakers and judges of COCHON555. (This portion is $200).

Then at 5PM, the fun begins, guests will witness a pig breakdown and porchetta demonstration by THE BUTCHER Taylor Boetticher of Fatted Calf , over 400lbs of swine, great wines, heritage beans from Rancho Gordo, a pig perfect dessert by the team at Magnolia and tasty pig infused truffles. There will be an after party at a location to be determined. This is a full day of new and old relationships, great chefs, swine, wine and we look forward to sharing it with you.

Please sign up to "Bacon Bits" the newsletter for event updates and announcements. Please visit the website where you can also find us on Facebook and Twitter under Cochon 555 and Cochon on Tour. http://www.amusecochon.com

*WHERE: The Fairmont*, San Francisco - 950 Mason Street
*WHY:* To promote heritage pigs and breed diversity in local and national communities.
*HOW: RSVP IS REQUIRED.* Tickets are $125 per person ($30 discount to Rancho Gordo readers and friends. Enter "baconbits" in the code for a discount)

*/COCHON 555/*/ began in Atlanta and is national in scope. San Francisco ends our 10 city tour with cities such as New York, Portland, Seattle, Boston, Des Moines, Chicago, Washington D.C. and in the future, all winners will be invited to compete in Grand Cochon. Chefs and judges from each city are selected by Taste Network to participate in the event. www.amusecochon.com

*Taste Network* is a Georgia-based company delivering experiential services to the artisan wine and cheese industries. The company’s mission is to provide cultured events and education focused around artisan wine, cheese and cuisine to its clients and the public at large. Right now, we love the pig!!!We suggest you request more heritage pig from the menu to the meat counter. Support heritage species.www.tastenetwork.com
For sponsorship info: http://www.amusecochon.com (tele: 404-849-3569)

Carneros Heritage Fest 2009

Let the party season begin!

Last Saturday was the Carneros Heritage Fest in the Carneros region that is the valley that ties Napa and Sonoma. I've been involved from the start and it's a great day, especially if you have kids and you're hungry.

Here come the Rancho Gordo beans! Cooked to perfection, I might add.

Why it's Stuart and Miguel from the Oxbow Wine Merchant! Chef Miguel Sanchez made some wild lamb treats.

This was probably the best crowd food I've had in a long time. The beans were served with well-cooked kale. Under the tortilla is some lamb, grilled to perfection and on the tostada is pureed garbanzos with some chiles mixed on and topped with slow-braised lamb that was virtually lamb carnitas. So clever and so good. Hats off to chef Brandon Guenther who made it all seem so easy!

Carneros Wine Alliance

More Breakfast Fun

A healthy but delicious start to a new week.

Scrambled eggs with boiled cactus paddles and some leftover beans. If it were the weekend, I'd have added cheese.

Cooking With Clay, No. 7

It's been awhile since I've shown you any clay pots. Don't think it's because I've learned self control. I just forgot!

My current favorite pot is from Chile. It didn't need curing and it reacted quickly to the heat and still managed to stay warm long after the fire went out. I think it's a keeper, although it's a little small. We're looking into getting larger sizes to actually sell in the the store, should it ever open.

Not being able to leave well enough alone, I decided the pot was too sterile and clean so I took my handy butane torch to it and add some lovely black marks to it. Please don't laugh at me. I am vulnerable these days. I think it looks much better and well-loved. We'd have gotten there eventually.

New Beans from Hidalgo

First off, we've reinstated Reboseros on the web. We have a limited crop until September.

Now, may I present some new beans that arrived today from Hidalgo? I hope you are as excited as I am about their arrival.

Ayocote Negro: big, ebony beans that are worth buying just to look at them raw!

Lila, or Apetito beans:

and perhaps the best news of all, a medium sized white bean, Alubia Criollo. It's actually a smaller runner bean but it can be used all over the map, in Mexican food and of course European staples like beans and clams with chorizo and pasta fazool:

We'll try and get these added to the web site by the end of the week.

Mushrooms and Nopales: A Great Combination

I was watching Bobby Flay's weird TV program, Throwdown.  What's the point of competitive cooking? I don't get any thrills out of it. This episode had two brothers in Los Angeles who made chile rellenos with nopales and mushrooms and they looked great. Flay "challenged" them to a throwdown to see who could make the better chile relleno. Flay came up with a vomit-inducing eggplant filled relleno with a cornmeal batter and a sauce with balsamic vinegar. His version looks and sounds vile. I think if he left off the sauce and used a bell pepper instead of a poblano, maybe I'd take a bite, but his thing sounds a hot mess.

Food Network published the Flay relleno but not the authentic Mexican one. I didn't watch the whole show so I didn't know who won or how it was made but I did start humming a happy samba at the thought of nopales and mushrooms. So I improvised a batch. Along with sauteed onions and garlic, I added a chopped nopal (prickly pear paddle) and a bunch of chopped crimini mushrooms. Finally a chopped Roma tomato and a serrano chile and salt. When it was all cooked, I chopped about 2 spoonfuls of epazote and added it to the pan.

That night I stuffed the mixture into peeled poblano chiles and added some cotija cheese before heating it in my toaster oven. The next morning the mixture made its way into an omelet. Both dishes were great and worthy of your experimentation.

Haricots à la Bretonne

This post is in tribute to Tatiana, who recently lost a brave fight with cancer. I only met her once and if "enchanted" didn't sound so silly in English, it's the word I'd use to describe the thrill of meeting her. She struck me as the very definition of chic, although she'd be the first to laugh if she heard that. She was vivacious, fun and genuinely interested in what others were saying. She was my best friend's mother and I'd send her postcards and notes now and again over the years and she'd pretend she could read my awful, but fancy, handwriting. She was horrified when I told her I loved Charles Boyer in Pepe Le Moko. "That was Jean Gabin!," she said, leaving off the "you idiot" that belonged at the end of the sentence. She loved to travel and was thoughtful enough to buy me a ceramic "baño" sign, correctly thinking I'd like it.

Alain, her son, went through the family photo albums and discovered lots of old shots from her childhood in France with her Russian family. She's so adorable! Stoic when in the photograph alone and coming to life around her loved ones, especially the menfolk.

She's missed by her family and friends and I wish you could have met her.

In going through her recipes and clippings, Alain found this and I'm happy to pass it on. I think with our beans, you can manage a much shorter cooking period. The clove and addition of butter are what make this unique.

Breton Beans

The dried white beans must be from the most recent harvest so a 2-hour soak in cold water is sufficient. Drain the soaking water, recover the soaked beans in cold water, bring them gently to boil, boil for 10 minutes then drain. 

Cover them yet again in cold water with a pinch of salt, a medium onion studded with one clove, 2 cloves of garlic, half a carrot and a small bouquet garni (2 parsley sprigs, 1 sprig of thyme, 1/2 a bay leaf). Again bring gently to boil, skim, cover and simmer over very low heat. 

Mince a good sized onion, and let it sweat gently in butter until it starts to turn golden. Moisten with a "half glass" [1/2 cup? less?] of dry white wine and a quarter cup of tomato juice [that's a literal translation, the original may refer to juice from a tomato], 2 grated garlic cloves, a little salt and several twists of pepper. Cook together around 15 minutes. 

Drain the cooked beans and add them to the pan, and stir. Remove from heat and bind with some butter.

It's Spring and I think I'll Renew My Vows

My prickly pear cactus has gone insane with growth and I'm eating nopales like crazy. I just can't get over how borderline negligent I am with this plant and all it does is give. Who needs a pet? You feed it and give up vacations because no one wants to dog-sit and you must deal with it's bowels. A prickly pear gives you a vegetable and a fruit and it's healthy and you can take a last minute trip to Paris without worry. You tell me which is the better deal!

One lilttle harvest tip I just learned: Cut the paddles at the end of the day. They have more acid in them in the morning! It's true.

If you've noticed me looking radiant lately, I might tell you my secret. For breakfast I take a cleaned paddle and blend it with the juice of two oranges and a little water and a hit of honey. When you hear someone hitting "high C", you'll know it's me.

HELP WANTED: I would like to pickle and can my extra paddles. Can paddles be made with a water bath or must they be pressure canned. They're so acidic I can't believe they need the extra equipment but I've been wrong before.

Rancho Gordo Store Update

What a nightmare! Wouldn't you think that in this economic climate that if a small company wanted to expand and grow (and pay more taxes), that the powers that be should would there to welcome and encourage rather than beat one's dreams to a bloody bureaucratic pulp? Things aren't quite that bad but our journey to move across town and have a small retail area where customers can buy packaged beans directly has been very bumpy.

In the meantime, here's where we're at:

Above: My office is all the way in the back. The warehouse and shipping will be to the right and back.

Can you tell that my collection of Mexican movie posters will come in handy?

I want to rotate the posters. My friend Alain came up this week and "curated" the show. You see "Passion" on the wall in front.

These will be in my office.

You can barely see him, but Salvador is cutting acoustical tiles for the ceiling. Sorry. I'm renting or the ceilings would be a little more grand.

I'm excited and frustrated. It looks like like a summer opening and that's about as precise as I can be.

Were Beans Used In an Ancient Form of Writing?

I love reading about ancient pre-Colombian life from the buildings to the culture and of course the food. Early Spanish religious zealots decided to burn most of the written history as they considered it Satanic. The thought of what was destroyed turns my stomach a little. The more I learn about ancient new world cultures, the more shocked I am at how advanced they were.

This is a bean dressed up for battle with a sword and shield from Moche pottery:

Apparently there are many scholars who believe that centuries before the Inca in Peru, there was an actual bean writing system based on the markings of the beans. I'm not clear if the markings are manmade or natural but the bean they used was called pallares by the Spanish and I think I need to get down to Peru and check this all out.

Source: Maya Script: A civilization and its writing by Maria Longhena.
Abbeville Press, 2000

Cooking With Clay, No. 7

It's been awhile since I've shown you any clay pots. Don't think it's because I've learned self control. I just forgot!

My current favorite pot is from Colombia. It didn't need curing and it reacted quickly to the heat and still managed to stay warm long after the fire went out. I think it's a keeper, although it's a little small. We're looking into getting larger sizes to actually sell in the the store, should it ever open.

Not being able to leave well enough alone, I decided the pot was too sterile and clean so I took my handy butane torch to it and add some lovely black marks to it. Please don't laugh at me. I am vulnerable these days. I think it looks much better and well-loved. We'd have gotten there eventually.

A Great Moment in Bean Cinema

Great Moments in Bean Cinema

I haven't seen Lust in the Dust with Divine and Tab Hunter in 25 years, but this still makes me laugh. I know just how she feels!