Ode to the Tortilla

I love tortillas.

It wasn't always that way.

I am a child of the early 1960s. Then, on the East Coast, our food was influenced by two things: the post-war 1950s (jiggly Jell-O molds anyone?) and what we call Southern food, the everyday cooking of the South. Black or white, we all ate greens, fried chicken, grits, cornbread, black-eyed peas, and pecan pie. Tortillas did not exist in my world.

Looking back, I am trying to remember how my diet evolved from foods of the South to a diet that frequently features tortillas. In the 1970s, as a teenager, I was aware of corn tortillas mainly because the school cafeteria offered so-called tacos, stale hard U-shaped tortillas filled with ground beef of dubious origin. They were bland and boring, something that I had little desire to eat, but being a ravenous teenager, ate anyway. Then, I had no idea that tortillas were soft.

College added to my culinary vocabulary, but still no tortillas. The college cafeteria did not offer tortillas, as best I can remember, but it did introduce me to bagels and blintzes, foods equally unknown in the Southern food canon. In the latter years of college, when I was cooking for myself, I do not recall tortillas for sale at the A&P. But at a secondhand bookstore, I did run across a used copy of Diana Kennedy's 1972 opus "The Cuisines of Mexico." I devoured it even though I had access to none of the ingredients necessary to replicate her recipes.

Enter grad school. After majoring in French in college, I decided to pursue a degree in computer science. I applied all over the country and ultimately selected Texas A&M because they offered the best financial package. Putting myself through college, I had racked up sizeable debt. By going to A&M, I could just barely squeak by without borrowing any more money, if I lived frugally.

Arriving in College Station, one of the first orders of business was to hit the grocery store, albeit on a razor-thin budget. I walked into an alien landscape: mounds of tomatillos, nopales, dried chiles, cilantro, tortillas, and corn husks for tamales—everything labeled in Spanish. All were items I had just read about in Kennedy's cookbook, but had never experienced. We did not have the internet in those days. I learned by asking questions—constant questions—of anyone who looked like they might teach me something.

I fed myself from the grocery store, gradually learning how to use all those ingredients and consuming big quantities of that essential cheap-eat, the taco, made with the corn tortillas that were for sale at every store.

In exploring the town, I came to notice a steady stream of hispanic workers heading for a particular building, one bearing the sign La Taqueria. Inside, I found a dozen freshly made hand-patted tortillas for a dollar and an abuelita who always ensured that my docena was at least 14 or 15 tortillas. She and I had an unspoken understanding—a dozen tortillas each morning. I was the only white guy in her store every morning and she took care of me as she would one of her own.

Soft, warm tortillas tasting of corn were light years away from the prepackaged store tortillas and even farther from the boxed U-shaped crap my high school tried to get me to eat. Suddenly, I became a full-fledged member of team corn tortilla, eating some fresh and warm for breakfast and the remainder for dinner.

After college, my first wife and I would eat out rarely, for lack of time and resources, and when we did, there was a so-called Mexican restaurant nearby with attractive prices, never mind that it was totally run by non-Mexicans. Here I learned about flour tortillas and found them lackluster. After warm and fresh corn tortillas, everything else seemed wanting.

I find it ironic that a food I had never even seen as a child has become one of the staples of our kitchen. Now in retirement, when I am looking to put a tasty meal on the table without a lot of fuss, tortillas are always on hand. And when I am feeling up to some work, I even make fresh tortillas from the various masas that I have in the pantry.

Here are a few recent meals that remind me just how indispensable corn tortillas have become in our kitchen, despite having been completely unknown to me as a child.

Loaded Quesadilla

Loaded quesadillas are a happy by-product of leftover grilled chicken and baked creamed corn. I topped a quartered corn tortilla and jack cheese quesadilla with creamed corn, sliced grilled chicken, and guacamole. This is much more of a splurge meal calorie-wise than I usually make.

Chef's Tip: The best guacamole is the simplest, made from ripe avocados, lime juice, and salt, mashed gently so that it retains some texture.

Spiced Shrimp Tacos

I coated the shrimp in a spice mix (ancho chile, Chimayo chile, cumin, granulated garlic, Mexican oregano, salt) that I make on the fly, then cook them quickly on the stove top.

Chef's Tip: I love slaw on my tacos for its brightness and crunch. I make it an hour or more before eating, starting by mixing the dressing (apple cider vinegar, salt, and ground chile) in a bowl. Then with a knife, I thinly shred young cabbage and thinly slice a carrot to add to the dressing. I generally chop a little cilantro and mix it in as well. I let it stand on the counter for a while after tossing well, then adjust the seasonings.

Guacamole and Scrambled Egg Tostadas with Salsa Fresca

Here is a dinner that, tostadas aside, takes mere minutes to put on the table. The salsa fresca is chopped grape tomatoes, minced shallots, cilantro, lime juice, and salt. I never intended it to be spicy, but add any kind of spice you like.

Chef's Tip: As much as I would love to deep fry the tostadas, my waist would suffer, so I place them between two sheet trays, to keep them flat, in a moderate oven. I flip and rotate the tortillas after 15 minutes, then once again in 15 more minutes, then every 5 to 7 minutes thereafter until the tostadas are crisp. I make 8 per half sheet tray.

Frijoles Refritos con Totopos; Fresh Corn Salsa

I cook a big pot of beans every week or so. The first night, we eat a bowl of beans with warm tortillas. The second night, I convert the leftovers to refried beans. Sometimes it is fun to cut tortillas into sixths and bake them until they become crispy chips. Chips and dip seems a splurge, but this version is surprisingly healthy. To make refried beans, I finely dice a half onion and cook it briefly in a bit of canola with a finely minced chipotle. Then I add the beans and their cooking liquid, apply my masher to them, and cook until thick. Once thick, I season them with salt. I cook the beans originally with only a little salt; if they had full salt, the refried beans would become too salty after all the liquid evaporates.

Chef's Tip: Raw corn makes a great salsa with mixed with a little tomato, cilantro, chipotle adobo, lime, and salt. If the corn is really mature bordering on too ripe, I will often char it hard in a cast iron pan for a different, if similar, salsa.

Tacos de Tinga de Pollo

Chicken Tinga is so good, so easy, and so much more than the sum of its parts, whether purpose-made or from leftover chicken. I have little use for bland chicken breast, so when I roast a chicken, the breast will be leftover. I shred it and warm it with tomatoes, onions, chipotle, and Mexican oregano until it is dry enough for a taco filling.

Chef's Tip: The best tinga de pollo is purpose made. I brown chicken thighs in a big skillet on both sides before removing the chicken. Then I cook a sliced onion in the pan until limp. I add diced tomatoes and their juice, a minced chipotle, and some Mexican oregano to the pan. I nestle the chicken back into the sauce, cover it, and bake until tender. Then I pull the chicken, let it cool, and shred the meat. The meat goes back into the sauce and reduces until thick, yielding a far superior product. Bonus points for letting the cooked chicken sit in its sauce overnight in the fridge. Like many dishes, it improves overnight.

Shrimp Vegetable Tacos

These are nothing much more than diced onions and poblanos cooked down with minced cilantro stems and a lot of garlic. When the vegetables are soft, I add small shrimp and cook until they are just done. I then mix in raw sweet corn and a handful of fresh cilantro.

Chef's Tip: To make an easy garnishing sauce, thin sour cream with lime juice and season with salt and chipotle adobo to your liking.

Memorial Day 2026

Looking through previous posts of our Memorial Day celebrations, they have been much bigger productions. In the past, we would invite a crowd for holidays and I would really cook up a storm. More and more in recent years, we prefer smaller and quieter, quality over quantity.

Grilled Chicken with Chimichurri and Baked Cream Corn
with Bacon and Green Chiles

This year, we decided to celebrate quietly, just the two of us, by cooking something a bit out of the usual and sharing a bottle of wine.

Usual these days means that if it takes more than fifteen minutes to prep, it probably is not going on the menu—I only spend hours in the kitchen a very few times each year. I suppose this is all a direct backlash to the restaurant days when I would spend countless hours cooking, at least 40 of my 80- to 90-hour week. And without doubt, this is a reflection that my priorities have changed: being in the kitchen is still rewarding, but spending time with people, especially Ann, is even more important.

In the days leading up to Memorial Day, Ann had grilled chicken on her mind. When I went to the store to get a package of chicken thighs, I also happened across the first fresh corn of the year and so a menu came together quickly, while standing in the produce section.

I have always relied on raw ingredients to help me prepare my menus. In the restaurant days, when I would find myself with little inspiration, going to the farmers market and putting hands on ingredients would usually do the trick. Or, on non-market days, walking into the restaurant pantry and looking through the hundreds of ingredients—15 types of rice alone—would spur my creative juices.

Grilled Chicken Thighs

Sunday, I skinned and boned out the chicken thighs, saving the bones and trim in the freezer to add to my next pot of stock. Then I made a quick marinade of ground cumin, salt, pepper, a touch of Chimayo chile, minced garlic, and minced cilantro stems with just enough oil to make it into a paste. The chicken marinated overnight in the refrigerator for grilling on Monday.

Baked Creamed Corn

The creamed corn was my idea and response to seasonal vegetables. Ann wanted something quasi-decadent with the chicken: she had been angling all week for risotto or Israeli couscous. I just was not in a rice or pasta mood, especially in light of fresh corn.

I tried to keep the corn as light as possible, yet still have it feel decadent. To that end, I fried a bit of smoked pork shoulder to render a touch of grease; it is much less fatty than bacon. To this, I added the kernels from four ears of corn and two Anaheim chiles, roasted, peeled, and seeded. I use a propane torch to roast chiles; my technique is posted here.

Two tablespoons of flour went in next and cooked for a minute or two to cook off the floury taste. Then I added a bit of chicken stock, call it a half a cup, to create a fake cream base (traditionally, I would have omitted the flour and cooked down heavy cream until thick) and then thickened it a touch more with grated Cotija cheese, a big handful.

Between the pork shoulder and the Cotija, the corn needed no additional salt. To finish the dish, I scattered a bare handful of grated jack cheese on top and put the pan in a hot oven until it browned. That's my quick take on a lighter creamed corn.

While the corn was browning, I made a batch of chimichurri, because, grilled meat deserves chimichurri. Chimi is so easy to make that I do not use a recipe. I posted a step-by-step here if you need photos and a recipe. The basic premise is to add a bunch each of destemmed cilantro and Italian parsley to the food processor along with a chopped shallot and a couple cloves of minced garlic, a teaspon of Greek oregano, a half a teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes, and let it rip. When well blended, add a good slug of red wine vinegar and twice that much extra virgin olive oil. After it comes together, season to taste. After a couple of batches, you will find what you like: thinner, thicker, more acidic, milder, etc.

Quick Dinner for Ann's Girlfriends

Ann invited Erika and Michelle over for dinner just so that they could catch up with each other. I cooked a quick gluten-free vegetarian dinner and we sat around the counter and yakked for a few hours.

Erika Makes Gorgeous Flower Arrangements
My First Time Seeing the Yellow Kangaroo Paw Flowers

I Shoot a Bunch of Candids When People Are Not Expecting It
Sometimes, I Get a Gem

Chips with Pineapple Salsa

Posole Casserole with Poblanos and Fresh Corn

Michelle Made Mexican Chocolate Mousse

A Southwest Dinner

We're getting close to the summer travel season when we are going to be on the road somewhat often. Before we leave for Virginia for my daughter Ellie's wedding, we wanted to have Rob and Dyce over for a casual dinner.

Rob and Dyce Brought the Most Gorgeous Peonies

I really am trying to avoid dinners with lots of last minute cooking so that I can relax and focus on guests. That shifts meals towards braises and dishes without touchy timing. Ann had kindly suggested all manner of dishes, but nothing grabbed me.

Unclear on what to make and rooting through the freezer, I found a bag of cleaned and cubed pork shoulder from a foray to Costco. Their shoulders come in two packs and that's a ton of meat. I typically break down both shoulders into cubes for braises like carnitas and freeze what I don't need right away.

Knowing that Rob and Dyce are fond of New Mexican food had me thinking along those lines and so I decided to make chile verde. After pondering for a few days, I decided to make a posole casserole to accompany the pork, and to offer empanadas for an appetizer. After a week of beautiful weather, it cooled off again and the choice of heartier food seemed lucky and apropos.

Then I remembered the heirloom masa harina that Ann gave me for my birthday and I decided to make tortillas to accompany the meal. And so the menu was set with the only last minute task to cook the tortillas. Somehow in the course of moving, my tortilla press did not make it to this house and so I improvised using a cast iron pan and a cut open Ziploc bag.

Empanadas de Picadillo Dulce, Cilantro Aïoli

Empanadas I make with an egg-enriched pie crust that never fails to bake up flaky and golden brown especially when brushed with an egg wash. Habitually, I fill empanadas most often with picadillo dulce, a sweet and sour pork that I first learned about by reading old Spanish-language recipes in the Biblioteca Nacional de México.

The filling is clearly of Moorish origin, containing almonds, olives, and sometimes raisins, though I have made it my own through the years. This version was ground pork shoulder, almonds, olives, onion, poblano chile, garlic, Mexican oregano, and three types of dried red chile (the majority ancho). I made it sweet and sour with brown sugar and Sherry vinegar. I have outlined the process in a previous post.

Masa Balls for Tortillas

Ghetto Tortilla Press: My 1930's Griswold Skillet

Tortillas on the Table

Chile Verde, Posole-Chipotle Casserole, Tortillas

Chile verde is not a recipe but an idea. At essence, it is cubes of pork braised in a salsa verde. There are as many ways to make it as there are cooks and they are all wonderful. I am certain that I make it differently each time and this time, I used the slow cooker to free our single oven to use in baking the posole.

For chile verde, there are two essential steps. First, make a salsa verde and second, brown the meat and braise it in the salsa.

For salsa verde, I roasted at high temperature (say 400F) a sheet tray of poblano peppers, Anaheim peppers, onions, garlic, and tomatillos. I rotated the chiles as each side became blistered. Once done, I pulled the tray out and covered it in film so that the veg could steam until cool and loosen the pepper skins.

Next up, I skinned and cleaned the peppers, dicing and reserving three or four Anaheims for the posole casserole. The peppers, garlic, tomatillos, onion, and a bunch of fresh cilantro went into the food processor. I blended it until roughly smooth and put it in the slow cooker.

For the pork, in recent years, I have adopted a process by which I only brown one surface of the cubes. This provides great flavor while not drying out the pork. After browning all the pork and putting it in the food processor, I deglazed the pan with a splash of water and poured all the porky goodness into the slow cooker with the pork and salsa. Eight hours later, the pork was tender and the sauce reduced to just the right thickness.

The posole casserole, something I started making in my 20s as a broke graduate student, I assembled in the afternoon and put into at 350F oven about 90 minutes before we were ready to eat. Timing is not critical, a delightfully brown crust is.

I admit that I did not make my own posole, though I could. I bought two 28-ounce cans of commercial hominy, the same Teasdale brand that I used in the restaurant. One can each of yellow and white hominy went into a mixing bowl with the reserved chopped green chiles, half a bunch of sliced green onions, and the kernels of one ear of fresh sweet corn for contrast and variation on the corn theme. Purple hominy (maíz morado) would have been cool, but my store had none.

I bound the casserole with a chipotle béchamel: olive oil and a spoon of flour cooked for a minute, then a pinch of salt and one finely chopped chipotle in adobo. After mixing the hominy and sauce, I adjusted the salt and put it into an oiled baking dish and topped it with a little grated white cheese. The result is as delicious as it is simple.

Making tortillas with modern masa harina is a trivial process of mixing the corn flour with enough water to make a workable dough. Then you roll it into balls and smash the balls between sheets of plastic (or a cut open Ziploc freezer bag in my case) in a tortilla press (or beneath a cast iron skillet in my case). We restaurant chefs are used to adapting and overcoming: no tortilla press, no problem. I can even patty them by hand, old school.

After peeling the masa circle off the plastic, it goes into a hot, dry frying pan on low to medium heat. Cooking both sides takes less than a minute and if I had a flat-top, I could have cooked them all at once rather than one at a time. Naturally, I could have fired four pans on the stove and cooked four at a time, but no matter. We were all busy yakking while I was pressing and cooking tortillas.

It should be axiomatic that a tortilla is only as good as the masa from which it is made. And if you use shitty Maseca or Masa Brosa, you are going to get a shitty tortilla. My masa is from Masienda and is processed from heirloom corn varieties grown on small farms in Mexico. It is expensive relative to the big brands (but even so, tortillas cost cents), but it helps sustain small farmers and preserve heirloom corn varieties.

José Restaurant, Dallas

We considered several options to get to San Angelo TX to visit with Carter for his 25th birthday. The most efficient proved to be to fly to Dallas, rent a car, and drive the four hours to San Angelo. With a return flight to Oregon at 10am on Monday morning, we decided that we would return to Dallas on Sunday evening and camp out at a hotel near the airport, especially given the inefficiency of the rental car system at DFW.

This schedule left us with the opportunity to have a nice dinner in Dallas on Sunday night, a night when many restaurants are not open. Of all the places we could have gone, we chose José near Love Field in north Dallas, an easy drive from our hotel near DFW. José is known for its elevated Guadalajaran-inflected food and drink, a celebrated female chef in AQ Pittman, its use of house-made masa from corn brought in from Mexico, and a segment on "Taco Chronicles," the Netflix show that you do not dare watch if you are remotely hungry or trying to lose weight.

The Very Handsome Floor-to-Ceiling Back Bar at José

As a chef, when I go to a restaurant, I just want the kitchen team at that restaurant to show me what they do well. The restaurant knows far better than I do what they do well. So, why should I order off the menu if I have the option to let my hosts decide? It's a rare restaurant that will roll with a request to just order for Ann and me (there are some technical POS issues, but that's more a cop out than anything), so when I e-mailed asking if they would just order for us, I was pleasantly surprised to get an affirmative response from GM Victor Rojas within a short while.

Just as we were seated, a runner dropped off a basket of totopos and a couple of salsas, one red and one green. The green salsa was one of the standouts of the night. It was almost identical to the usual salsa verde I make at home, except that it was smoother and less rustic. I really enjoyed it. It's the small things for me that make an experience.

Within a couple of minutes of our being seated, Victor appeared at our table bearing amuses and introduced himself. He would take great care of us personally for most of the evening and we greatly enjoyed chatting with him.

Blue Corn Sopecito with Blue Crab Salad

While we were munching on the tiny sopes and contemplating the cocktail menu, I had a chance to look around the spacious dining room of the building that was once a dry cleaner. The industrial steel clear span framing gives a large open interior and high ceilings that leave room for an immense custom floor-to-ceiling back bar that is the focal point of the room.

Back to the table, the star of the sopecitos was not the crab, but the blue corn masa from which they were made. One of the primary reasons we selected this restaurant is because they nixtamalize their own corn and grind their own masa. Nixtamalization is the process of soaking dried corn kernels in a basic solution that dissolves the hard outer shell, the pericarp, of the kernel.

It is a process that my great grandmothers would have used to make the hominy (posole) so prevalent to the Scots-Irish Appalachians. When I was a boy, I would often see ash hoppers at country auctions. People would fill these hoppers with ashes from the fireplace and the rainwater would filter through the hopper and drain into a bucket below. The solution in the bucket would be lye, potassium hydroxide. Today, rather than using lye, we use refined hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) called cal to nixtamalize corn.

Victor helped us choose cocktails. I had a riff on a Manhattan called the The José Way Manhattan, a dark complex mixture of mezcal, amaro, Banane du Brésil, vanilla, and Angostura bitters. Ann had a smoked tequila Old Fashioned of reposado, agave, and a couple of bitters. We really enjoyed our cocktails; they are similar to what we are making currently at our home bar where Ann's Oaxacan Old Fashioned will hang with anybody's.

Ann and Her Smoked Tequila Old Fashioned

The José Way Manhattan

Victor also brought us small glasses of the house mezcal and said that he had gone to Mexico to help make it. After smelling its unusual fruity nose similar to an eau de vie or schnapps, I asked how it was made. It is a pechuga of 100% espadín piñas. The pechuga used in the redistillation came from things that he sourced at the market: apples, guavas, and chile chilhaucle. I have had pechugas flavored with all sorts of things, but this was the most unique mezcal that I have ever tasted, a smooth and highly refined spirit that I enjoyed.

Arugula with Peaches, Fresnos, Grilled Okra, and Goat Cheese

Next up was an arugula salad course, the standout of the meal for me. The salad was plated on a spread of goat cheese from fairly local (Waco) Pachi Pachi Farms. The best parts were the fresh salad ingredients: sliced peaches, sliced mildly spicy Fresnos, and the revelatory ingredient, sliced grilled okra. I also loved the crunch of the toasted quinoa sprinkled on the salad.

As a southerner, I have grown, harvested, and cooked okra all my life. Even though I have cooked it myriad ways, I never thought to grill it gently. The smokiness from the grill enhances the small tender okra without activating any of its slime. In the highest form of chef flattery, I may rip this off, if I can ever find some tender baby okra out here in Oregon where it is essentially non-existent. 

Champagne Telmont

Our cocktails were done after the salad, so wanting a wine that would be able to stand up to anything that might come next, we went the sparkling route, ordering a bottle of Champagne Telmont. A label that we have not had before, it was a fine all-purpose wine with lots of red fruit dominating the nose, the palate balanced by a healthy addition of Chardonnay.

Dobladas de Pollo Enmoladas

Our first course with the Champagne was a plate of dobladas covered in mole. I detected chicken thigh meat, poblanos, and a white melting cheese inside the fresh tortillas and the top had a good sprinkle of queso fresco. To be honest, I wasn't expecting mole in a self-styled Jaliscan/Guadalajaran restaurant, but I have never met a mole I did not like.

Victor referred to the mole as "aged mole," meaning that each new batch contains some of the previous batch, old school, the way it has always been and should be done. He regaled us with the story of the line cook who thought to put the final batch of mole before COVID into the freezer to be used as a starter on the far side of the pandemic. Good looking out!

The mole on these dobladas was a fairly dark, fruity, complex sauce that in my world I would call a mole poblano. As much as I loved this mole, I cannot help but wonder how this combination of chicken, poblanos, and cheese would respond to a mole verde or pipián.

The star of this dish was neither the mole nor the filling. To quote Ann, “that tortilla though!” She would have been content with a stack of those tortillas and a ramekin of that excellent salsa verde. As would I.

Carne Asada, "Patatas Bravas," Salsa Roja

The Carne was an Excuse to Snack Fresh Tortillas!

We would get more awesome tortillas with our next dish, a cast iron dish of carne asada, onions, and peppers, served with whole roasted potatoes tossed in spice ("patatas bravas"), and a beautiful salsa roja. The eye opener from this dish was the salsa roja, an intense concentrated tomato sauce. The sauce was enhanced with smoky chile morita. The texture of the sauce and the smokiness reminded me in the best way of a beautiful roasted eggplant sauce.

Again, while the meat was awesome (sous vide tenderloin, I think), the tortillas and the salsa roja stole the thunder. Ann and I asked for more tortillas with which we polished off all that delicious sauce.

Coconut Flan with Candied Amaranth and Pepita Topping

Neither Ann nor I are dessert eaters because sweet flavors are not really our thing. Flan is so often cloying and pedestrian, but not so in this case. The pastry chef had a deft hand with the sugar and the addition of coconut milk made this flan much more interesting than usual. 

After dinner, Victor brought us little glasses of dark, barely sweet Fernet-Vallet as a digestif, a nice parting gesture. We thanked him profusely for his hospitality, the willingness to order for us, the excellent staff training, and of course, a delicious meal for which I would like to thank all the BoH team, especially the prep cooks and dishwashers who never get any credit, but without whom, nothing would happen.

The stand-out components of our meal were none of the star players. The glory goes to the supporting actors: the masa, the grilled okra, the salsa verde, and the salsa roja.

I compliment Victor, a consummate hospitality professional, and the service team on their attentiveness. I always love going to a restaurant where the entire service team takes responsibility for all guests, not the usual "not my table, not my problem" attitude. The FoH staff at José are well trained. Not a lot of guests would notice this, but then, I'm not an average guest, having owned, cooked at, and run a fine dining restaurant for a very long time.

Black-Eyed Pea and Corn Filé Gumbo

I have always loved black-eyed peas. Not only are they part and parcel of my Southern heritage, but they are also delicious, easy to grow, and easy to shell. 

Black-Eyed Pea and Corn Filé Gumbo

Black-eyed peas are very different from beans even though the two are used in the same ways; they belong to two different botanical families. While beans are decidedly New World, field peas such as black-eyed peas come from the Old World, West Africa to be precise. All the types of field peas are lumped into the term cowpea (from their heritage as animal fodder).

I have eaten all manner of cowpeas under many names and in many colors and shapes, such as crowder peas, Sea Island red peas, black-eyed peas, cream peas, lady peas, and pink eye peas. Culinarily, they are interchangeable and for my taste, the fresh green versions are better than the dried versions. At least, they are very different in flavor profile. A green black-eyed pea will be very mild and quick cooking; dried black-eyes are deep and rich in flavor and need long cooking.

It being just after the first of the year, black-eyed peas have been on my mind. For us Southerners, a batch of black-eyed peas are required dining to bring good luck for the forthcoming year. For various reasons, I did not make my usual New Years' black-eyed peas, so I wanted to rectify that.

As I was walking the grocery store recently, the idea of a black-eyed pea and corn gumbo sprang into my mind unbidden and I stopped by the freezer aisle to score a couple bags of frozen green black-eyed peas and frozen sweet corn kernels. Both of these vegetables freeze well and are among the only frozen vegetables that I use (the odd bag of  pearl onions aside).

Last night was an opportune moment to make said gumbo and so I started as I do all my gumbos by making a roux. Not wanting to set off the smoke detectors in the house, I kept my roux to medium brown, about two-thirds of the way to being a black roux.

A gumbo roux is one part each of fat and flour, heated while stirring, until the flour browns to the shade that you require. The rule of thumb is that the lighter the protein (chicken, seafood) the darker the roux and the darker the meat (venison, pork) the lighter the roux. Back in 2008, I did a pictorial on making roux, if you want to see the process in action.

The next step in making a gumbo for me is to add the trinity (mirepoix, the Cajun holy trinity: onions, peppers, and celery) to the roux which stops the roux from browning further and starts to cook the vegetables. I used one and a half poblano peppers, two stalks of celery, one really large onion, one half a bunch of green onions, and about six cloves of garlic, minced.

After stirring the vegetables in, I added about a quarter cup of my home-grown Cajun spice mix and let it cook briefly before adding a quart of water. If I had a good vegetable stock, I would have used that instead of water. I turned the heat down and left the stew base to simmer for a half an hour at which point, I added two bags of frozen black-eyed peas and let them cook until they were tender, about twenty minutes. After the gumbo cooks for a while, the oil that you used in the roux will gather on top and you can ladle it away.

To finish the gumbo, I added the corn and then I seasoned and thickened it. In terms of thickening gumbo, there are two methods, one from African slaves and one from indigenous tribes. Now would be a good time to mention that gumbo derived from the Angolan word kingombo, meaning okra, The first means of thickening is to add sliced okra to the stew and let it cook in well. The okra will largely disintegrate and all its (frankly, nasty) mucilaginous interior will thicken the stew.

The second method, from the Choctaw tribes native to the Gulf South, is to stir in filé powder, ground sassafras leaves. Sassafras is a small shrub/tree native to the southeast, a shrub whose roots and bark make a nice tea and whose leaves lend a spicy herbal note to dishes, reminiscent to me in some ways of thyme.

I am not the world's biggest okra fan, having had to eat way too much of it as a child and worse, having had to pick it daily as a child. Cutting okra is an unpleasant experience. It grows in hot humid places such as Alabama where I spent my teenage years. And the head-high plants are horribly irritating to your exposed skin, especially when exacerbated by the inevitable sweat born of such a climate.

Although I could have bought sliced and frozen okra at the grocery store, where it is neatly stacked alongside the black-eyed peas, my aversion to it leads me to thicken my gumbos with filé powder whose flavor I prefer. My mother mostly used okra (duh, they had a freaking garden full of it) and sometimes she committed the culinary faux pas of using both okra and filé powder simultaneously, something that could result in your excommunication from the Southern fraternity in certain areas.

I will say that I do love fried okra, just not the boiled crap that my mother insisted I eat or go hungry. Going hungry was very tempting, I must say.

At the last moment, I stirred in a good bit of salt, filé powder, and the frozen corn. I turned off the heat and let the gumbo stand for five minutes to let the corn warm through. Sweet corn kernels need no cooking at all. And there you have it, a quick gumbo of black-eyed peas and corn.

Kitchen Basics: Poaching Shrimp

It's summer now, even in Bend, Oregon where it last snowed on June 19th of this year, and our palates are turning towards cooler dishes and to raw ingredients. Last night, after waiting nearly a week for our avocados to ripen, I made a quick salad of fresh tomatoes, raw corn, diced avocados, and poached shrimp. I imagine this salad has been made millions of times; there's nothing special about it save for perhaps how I poach my shrimp.

Tomato, Corn, and Avocado Salad with Poached Shrimp

This is a perfect dish to illustrate poaching seafood using a court bouillon, a classic flavored and acidulated poaching liquid, one of the foundations of French seafood cookery.

Although I have specified a recipe below, at the end of the day, we're talking about a salad and salads are nothing if not fungible. That is, you should feel free to adjust this any way that you want. Want a higher proportion of tomatoes? Add them. Don't like cilantro? Maybe use Italian parsley. Don't have a red onion in the pantry? Use green ones instead. Want to add toasted macadamia nuts? Do it. Hopefully, you get the idea.

Tomato, Corn, and Avocado Salad with Poached Shrimp

1 dry pint of small salad tomatoes, halved or quartered depending on size
3 ears of sweet corn, kernels shaved off
4 medium or 2 large avocadoes, diced
1/4 of a medium red onion diced, about a 1/2 a cup
1/2 cup of cilantro leaves
1 pound of poached and cooled medium peeled shrimp
juice of one large lime
2 tablespoons salad oil (I used extra virgin)
salt to taste

Mix all ingredients. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve immediately so that avocados do not brown. Serves two amply as a main course or four to six people for an appetizer. This would also make a great filling for lettuce wraps.

Poaching Shrimp in Court Bouillon

I call for a sachet for the spices in the court bouillon so that you don't have to pick the spices out of the shrimp before you use them in your salad. You are, of course, welcome to pick them out but don't blame me if you get grumpy about it.

2 quarts of water
1/4 cup of rice vinegar
2 tablespoons Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 cheesecloth sachet containing:

1 clove garlic, sliced

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1 teaspoon allspice berries

1/2 teaspoon brown or yellow mustard seeds

pinch crushed red pepper flakes

Bring all the ingredients to a slight boil and let them cook for 5-10 minutes to really flavor the court bouillon. Raise the heat to a rolling boil and add the shrimp. When the court bouillon comes back to the boil, turn off the heat and walk away. After 15 minutes or so, the shrimp will be cooked and more importantly, will have picked up a bit of the flavorings.

You can use the shrimp warm, allow them to cool in the broth to room temperature, or drain them and refrigerate for later use cold. Me, I like to cool them to room temperature in the court bouillon and add to the other room temperature ingredients in my salad.

Cold Dish for a Hot Day

Ahi Tataki on Salad of Sugar Snaps, Tomatoes, and Corn

What to eat on a very hot day? Something cold and fresh. This salad really hit the spot and represents everything I have learned as a chef about simplicity and letting ingredients shine.

I knew I hit the mark when Ann asked the question on eating the salad, "What did you do to this?" I replied "Nothing." When you have ingredients this fresh and high quality, you don't have to do a thing. Learning this lesson has taken decades.

A new trick for an old chef. I have learned (perhaps re-learned) this summer that if you put a quick blister on sugar snaps, you can coax the peas into a deliciousness that tops even their totally raw state. Very many sugar snaps have never even made it home this spring from the farmers market, having been snacked by Ann and me on the walk home. That's how delicious they are totally raw.

To make them even better, I heat a pan over blazing heat, generally on the grill outside. Just as I'm ready to cook, a touch of oil (in this case, sesame) goes into the pan, and then the peas go in to sit for a few seconds to char the pods a bit, and then are tossed with a sprinkle of salt until the pods go from raw green to bright green all over, a minute or so. The result is still nearly raw (certainly the peas inside the pods remain raw) and beguilingly delicious.

The salad in the photo above adds halved small tomatoes and raw shaved corn. On top of this are slices of tuna that I seared in the cast iron pan after the peas came out. A sprinkle of really good salt finishes the dish. Sublime.

Cinco de Mayo

Time to celebrate! Ann and I are now three weeks or so past our COVID booster shots and we feel relatively safe to socialize in small groups outdoors with others who have also been vaccinated. To better get to know our neighbors, from whom we've been at a considerable distance over the last year, we're embarking on a series of porch parties, the first of which we held on Cinco de Mayo.

Unlike a lot of previous affairs, we kept this one really simple and now that we're retired, simple will be the model going forward. I made refried black beans with salsa fresca as a chip dip and a large bowl of rajas con crema, creamed strips of poblano chiles with corn, for tacos. Liz brought a platter of pork quesadillas and Sandy brought a black bean salad. Annie made tequila-lime cupcakes for dessert.

Annie was in charge of décor, arranging everything just so and picking some flowers for the bar. Libation-wise, I made a batch of margaritas and put cheap Mexican beer and white wine on ice. Easy.

After everyone left, Ann and I cleaned up from dinner (disposable plates and cups, not very Oregon eco-blahblah, but easy) and then went back outside on the patio to enjoy the first really beautiful night of the year.

This was the most normal we have felt in a very, very long time. What a relief! Maybe the light at the end of the COVID tunnel is not a train after all.