Another week, another trip to the farmers market, another six ears of sweet corn. Maybe you’re one of those stolid types that needn’t go beyond the perfection of an ear of fresh corn, boiled and slathered in butter, salt and pepper, but after a few weeks of that routine I’m ready for a change of pace. Now you might suggest I go a week without buying corn, but with a season that lasts only six or so short weeks and a longing that builds up over an entire year, that would just be wrong. But where to find fresh ideas for consuming fresh corn — that was the question.

As a Midwesterner, corn forms a small part of my cultural DNA, but there are other foods that equal or surpass it in significance. For the indigenous people of Mexico, corn played (and continues to play) a much more central role, taking on religious significance. Who better to turn to for corn advice, then? Tamales are one of the more famous corn-based foods of Mexico, but the tamales most of us are familiar with used dried corn. In the state of Michoacán, however, they make uchepos, which are made like tamales but use the husks and kernels of fresh corn. These sweet tamales, complemented by a spicy salsa, are the perfect answer to the midsummer sweet corn doldrums.

Uchepos

Adapted from Diana Kennedy, The Art of Mexican Cooking: Traditional Mexican Cooking for Aficionados (New York: Clarkson Potter, 2008).

• Husks from 5 ears of corn
• Kernels from 5 ears of corn (about 5 cups)
• 2 T sugar
• 2 T unsalted butter, softened
• 2 T sour cream (original recipe calls for natas, creme fraîche or thick cream, but I used what I had)
• 1 t sea salt

The easiest way to prepare the corn for this recipe is to cut through the unhusked corn at its thickest part — just above the base — and then carefully roll off the husks in sheets. This also gives you a nice flat base to stand the corn up as you slice off the kernels.

Line a steamer basket with any husks that are too small to roll uchepos from; set steamer over low heat.

Process half the corn in a food processor until reduced to a pulp. Add the rest of the corn and process until corn forms a loose puree. Add sugar, butter and cream and process to combine. Transfer to medium bowl and stir in salt.

Taking one husk at a time, place a heaping tablespoon of corn mixture near the center.

Fold the sides of the husk together so they overlap and enclose the filling.

Fold the thin, tapered end of this cone up over the uchepo to close the bottom. The top will remain open.

Lay horizontally in lined steamer basket.

Continue doing folding uchepos until a layer covers the bottom of the steamer basket. Place in steamer and cook ten minutes, until just beginning to firm up. Remove steamer basket and fold the remainder of the uchepos, adding them in horizontal layers. When all the uchepos are prepared, place a towel over top of them inside the steamer, then cover the steamer with plastic wrap and place the lid on top. Steam 1 ½ to 1 ¾ hours, until the filling is pretty firm.

Serve uchepos hot with salsa and sour cream.

When I travel — which happens far too infrequently for my taste — I focus on the food. That’s probably not surprising. The problem with falling in love with the food of a place that, due to a lack of funds or time I won’t be visiting again in the near future, is the cravings. Sometimes after barely a week has passed I’m already desperate to be back where I was eating those foods I just can’t get in Minnesota. My coping mechanism is cooking: when the appetites first awakened by travel arise again instead of buying a plane ticket I head to my kitchen and do my best to recreate those foreign flavors at home.

It’s been a year since Martha and I traveled to Colombia and discovered the magic of Empanadas de Pipián. I’ve eaten plenty of empanadas in my life, many in restaurants in in Minnesota, but none like these. Empanadas de pipián have two distinguishing characteristics: first, the texture of their shell. Nobody would ever compare empanadas de pipián to Cornish (or Upper Peninsular) pasties; empanadas de pipián have a crisp, crunchy shell, reminiscent of a hard taco but slightly more yielding. The other unique characteristic of empanadas de pipián is their flavor: peanuts. While some empanadas may feature meat, or olives, or a medley of any number of ingredients, empanadas de pipián taste like peanuts. In a good way. A uniquely Colombian treat.

When a Colombian food jones strikes, the first reference I consult is the brown notebook I transcribed during afternoons and evenings spent in Martha’s Aunt Stella’s kitchen in Cali, Colombia as she prepared the family’s meal and put up with my persistent questions about her technique and ingredients. Stella is my sage for many Colombian foods.

As a resident of Cali, however, Aunt Stella has easy access to the nationally-renowned empanadas fried up at El Zaguán de San Antonio. Being able to drive 15 minutes to eat some of the best empanadas in town (in the whole world, in fact), she didn’t have much reason to make them at home while we were there. So the brown notebook had no recipe for me.

Where the brown notebook fails, the the two volume Nuevo Gran Libro de la Cocina Colombiana (originally published by Círculo de Lectores in 1983 and reissued by Intermedio in 2008) that I bought in Cali usually has some guidance. This cookbook covers a great variety of Colombian dishes, from soups to desserts, and does a good job of treating the regions of Colombia, even in its brief form. The photos are beautiful. But while it contains several recipes for empanadas, El Gran Libro was silent on the subject of those of pipián.

With first-hand experience coming up blank and my published reference of no help either, I had to turn to my absolute last resort when it comes to cooking: the Internet. That might sound odd coming from a food blogger, but my experience of Internet recipes largely mirrors that of grumbling old-media editors: there’s a lot of crap to sift through (all the recipes I post on marthaandtom.com are perfect, of course). There are a few websites whose recipes I will trust outright, but for the most part searching the web for recipes requires sifting through several versions on various websites and then applying a little common sense and experience to try to get something workable. A search turned up several recipes which I used as to develop a recipe for my empanadas (there was a spreadsheet involved, but I’ll spare you).

Empanadas de Pipián

You’ll need:

• 624 g (eh, call it a pound) potatoes, cut into a small dice

Note on potatoes: In Colombia, potatoes are a science unto themselves; there were more varieties of potatoes in the supermarket than I could even begin to wrap my head around. Small potatoes, large potatoes, red potatoes, blue potatoes, purple potatoes; there were even unwashed potatoes with the dirt still on (to be washed at home — some people like them that way). Taking a survey of the entire country would yield even more variety. And all of these potatoes have their specified uses; without a doubt there is some canonical potato for pipián. In the United States though, potatoes is more or less potatoes and we’ve got to take what we can get. I used white potatoes from the Midtown Farmers Market.

• 212 g (~3/4 c) hogao

Hogao is an ingredient in many, many Colombian dishes. In its simplest form — this is how Stella taught me to make it — it is a mixture of chopped onions and tomatoes, cooked to a puree-like consistency. More complicated versions exist; I personally couldn’t resist throwing in some garlic. I took 356 g roughly chopped tomatoes, mixed them with 156 g roughly chopped onion and 12 g (2 cloves) minced garlic and cooked it to the right consistency: maybe ten minutes over medium heat.

• 78 g peanut butter, melted

This probably leaves authenticity purists even more disturbed than the potatoes, but all the recipes call for roasted and ground peanuts (peanuts being the defining characteristic of Pipián); peanut butter saves several steps. I’m not talking about Jif here — our jar of Salt-Free Eastwind Peanut Butter’s ingredient list reads as follows: “Roasted Peanuts.” But Jif would probably be fine too.

• 1 T achiote

To make the Pipián, place the diced potatoes in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Add plenty of salt. Bring to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are just tender; it won’t take long if you’ve diced them small enough. When the potatoes are cooked, drain them well, then mix with the other three ingredients until everything is evenly distributed.

With the filling under control, the next step is to make the wrapper. Empanadas de pipián feature a yellow-corn based masa, for which I used the bag of P.A.N. Harina de Maiz Amarilla Precocida that we brought with us from Colombia. At the time we thought it would be impossible to get in the States and that we’d be out of luck if we needed our empanada fix. Happily, I’ve noticed this product available in many Latin American markets and even Latin American sections of supermarkets, so there is no obstacle between you and perfectly crunchy empanadas.

I followed the instructions on the package, adding a bit of salt to a cup of water, then stirring in a cup of corn flour. It is important to let the dough rest 15-30 minutes to hydrate fully; the dough will be too wet when it’s first mixed; the water hasn’t been fully absorbed by the corn.

When the dough is sufficiently hydrated, it should be divided into balls. I pinched off a ball I thought looked to be the right size and measured it at 34 g; in retrospect these were probably a little too big. But the bigger you make them the fewer empanadas you’ll have to fold together, so it’s worth considering. Anyway, there’s no agreed upon size for empanadas de pipián; in Colombia we sampled some that were little more than folded over tortilla chips, and others that were much more substantial.

Once you’ve completed your ball size deliberations, you’re ready to form the empanadas. The easiest way to do this is with two sheets of plastic — a zipper-lock bag torn asunder, say. Place one ball between the sheets of plastic, flatten it slightly, then roll it out into an even circle using a rolling pin. Remove the top plastic sheet, place a tablespoon or so of filling in the middle of the dough circle, then fold the bottom plastic sheet over itself to close the empanada, pressing the edges to seal them. Carefully peel back the plastic and flip the empanada onto a cornmealed, floured, cornstarched, or otherwise nonstickified sheet. Continue until you run out of dough, filling, or patience.

Heat deep frying oil to 350ºF (you’ll have to use your own judgment on how much oil to use; in my pan 2 quarts made sense). Fry the empanadas in batches of 4 or 5. They are done when they start to develop dark brown spots, which should occur just as your oil recovers to 350ºF, ready for the next batch.

Let the empanadas cool a little (OR THEY WILL BURN YOUR MOUTH) but not too long — they are best fresh. Serve with ají de maní, preferably applied to each bite from a red squeeze bottle.

Ají de Maní

To be honest I wasn’t totally happy with the way this sauce came out; the addition of cilantro (an idea I got from that darn Internet) didn’t do much for the sauce. The basic idea here is a spicy sauce tasting of peanuts with a thin consistency.

• 96 g peanut butter
• 156 g hogao (should probably use much less, but I wanted to use up what I made for the pipián)
• 10 g (1 small) hot pepper
• 10 g (2 cloves) garlic
• 6 g (largish handful) cilantro
• 162 g water
• a pinch of freshly-ground cumin

Process all ingredients in a blender until smooth.

Perhaps you hadn’t noticed, but I haven’t been posting much lately. This is mostly for positive reasons: fun and interesting social engagements, steadily progressing training runs in anticipation of a marathon in October, excellent meals eaten outside the home, all working together to spare you of my culinary musings.

Related to the aforementioned activities or not, I’ve also been feeling a little blah about cooking lately. I’m still putting food on the table most nights, but it has mostly seemed pretty automatic — nothing quite interesting or delicious enough to share. I was uninspired.

Inspiration, happily and frustratingly, comes at unexpected times. So it was this afternoon, in a moment of distraction from the tasks at hand, I allowed my RSS reader to direct me over to the latest post on our friend Brett’s blog Trout Caviar: Grilling the Market. Whether it was the picture of a beautifully charred carrot or Brett’s call for simplicity in summer preparations, something about his post got my wheels spinning again.

My mind jumped immediately to dinner, where suddenly a pasta with some kind of onion, summer squash and cream sauce — most definitely blah food — started to take on a more interesting character. For one thing, pasta was out: no need for imported starch when a bowlful of market new potatoes sat underutilized on the counter.

The summer’s first squash could still be used, accompanied by some of its first carrots. Given our current urban living situation, grilling was not a possibility; luckily, roasting can also develop those deeply browned surfaces I was after. A quick dressing with olive oil, vinegar, market parsley and garlic, and plenty of salt and pepper was all that was needed to showcase the best of the season.

I read fifty to one hundred food-related blog posts in any given day; most of them are discarded with the spin of a scroll wheel. Sometimes though a post comes along like Brett’s that changes what I’m doing in the kitchen — and even my outlook on this blog. It’s enough to inspire someone to write a post.

Roasted Summer Vegetable Salad

• 1# golf-ball sized potatoes
• 5 or 6 small summer squash
• 10-12 small carrots
• 3 small onions, sliced
• 2 T butter
• 1/2# flavorful sausage, cooked and sliced
• 4 oz goat cheese

Dressing

• 1/3 c olive oil
• 2 T apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup parsley leaves, minced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450ºF.

Cut the potatoes in half and place in large microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for 8 minutes, until starting to become tender. Toss potatoes — careful, they’re hot! — in ample quantities of olive oil, salt and pepper. Don’t wash the bowl just yet. Arrange the potatoes on a sheet pan, cut-side down. Roast 20-30 minutes, until cut-sides are deep brown, just about to burn.

Meanwhile, cut the squash into 1″ chunks and place them in the bowl you tossed the potatoes in. If your carrots are pencil thin like mine were, you won’t need to peel or cut them; thicker carrots can be quartered. Toss carrots and squash in bowl, adding more olive oil, salt and pepper as necessary to make everything good and moist and seasoned. Turn the contents of the bowl out onto a sheet pan and roast in the oven 3o minutes, until the surfaces start to brown. It’s probably a good idea to flip these veggies around about halfway through the cooking so both sides get brown.

Heat the butter over medium-low heat in a small skillet and add the onions. Cook until greatly reduced and deep brown.

While the vegetables are roasting prepare the dressing by combining all the ingredients. Salt and pepper should be added to taste; given the quantity of vegetables, you may need more salt than expected. Add in the sausage (I used the beef, bleu cheese, and Surly Bender sausage from Clancey’s Meats & Fish).

As the vegetables are done roasting/caramelizing, add them to the bowl with the dressing. When all is ready, toss the vegetables well. Top with crumbled goat cheese and serve.

Call me a pessimist, but in spite of all the amazing advances being made in the realm of cold weather fruits I don’t think anybody’s ever going to grow citrus in Minnesota. So what’s the hard-core locavore fundamentalist zealot to do when he finds himself in the North country and craving a glass or two of sangria, the citrus-laden wine drink of Spain? Since moving to California — or better yet, Spain — isn’t necessarily a workable option, the drink would just have to be adapted to local circumstances. Time for Minnesota sangria.

The inspiration for this concoction was a visit Martha and I made recently to Delano, MN and the Woodland Hill winery. Besides producing surprisingly decent traditional red and white wines, Woodland Hill also makes some worthwhile fruit wines, including, most notably for me, wines made with rhubarb. In visits to wineries in Michigan and Minnesota over the years I have imbibed all kinds of different fruit wines — most of them terrible — but this was the first time I’d ever seen rhubarb wine. Juice is extracted from the stalks by first freezing them to break up the cells, then pressing them for all they’re worth through a wine press.

At the time of our visit they were sold out of last year’s straight rhubarb vintage but had plenty of Tickled Pink, a strawberry-rhubarb blend. Strawberry and rhubarb is a classic flavor combination — and far superior to the ubiquitous kiwi-strawberry, I might add. Lest you think cloying thoughts of strawberry-rhubarb pie, crisp, or what-have-you, I should say this wine was remarkably restrained for a fruit wine; relatively dry (for a fruit wine!) and with clear strawberry and rhubarb flavor.

Clear as these flavors may have been, there’s always room for a little improvement. With copious quantities of strawberries and rhubarb from the Midtown Farmers Market, as well as a bundle of mint — the official herb of summertime — from the Saint Paul Farmers Market, I mixed up a version of this Spanish summertime staple fit for the fields of Minnesota.

Minnesota Sangria

• 1 bottle (750 ml) strawberry-rhubarb wine (we used Tickled Pink from Woodland Hill)
• 1 ½ cups rhubarb, cut into large chunks
• 10 medium strawberries, sliced
• 1 generous handful mint (you can leave it on the stem)

Mix all the ingredients in a large pitcher. Chill and serve.

All the time she spends away from our land — with what seems like most of the year seized by Old Man Winter’s cold, dead hands — makes the return of the Green Goddess to our fields and forests so much more sweet; an unrivaled cause for celebration.

The objects of her cult are easily obtained this time of year at one of her many temples. We chose the Saint Paul Farmers Market, well stocked with her tender pea shoots, her verdant watercress, her crisp lettuces, and, of course, her mighty royal standard: asparagus. Indulging in an orgy of her fruitful abundance, the watercress’s bitterness reminded us of our Goddess’s never-distant departure. This only served to increase our zeal, as we sang songs praising Her name.

Prayer to the Green Goddess

• One large bunch pea shoots
• One head baby romaine lettuce, torn into bite-sized pieces
• One bunch watercress, leaves and tender stems only
• One bunch thin asparagus spears, cut into one-inch pieces
• Green Goddess dressing (see below)

Wash and dry all greens. Combine first four ingredients in a large bowl and toss to combine. Top with dressing, or toss dressing together with greens before serving.

Green Goddess Dressing
From Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

• ½ cup mayonnaise
• ½ cup sour cream
• 1 T tarragon vinegar
• 2 T water
• ½ cup parsley, chopped
• 3 T chives, chopped
• 1 ½ T tarragon, chopped
• ¼ t salt

Blend all ingredients in blender or food processor until smooth and pale green. Adjust consistency with additional water and season with salt to taste.

“They just don’t make cocks like they used to.” So laments just about every modern recipe for coq au vin, the venerable French braise of rooster in wine. The story goes that the dish was developed as a way to use the meat of tough old roosters past their prime; only a long braise could break down the serious connective tissue developed from a lifetime of crowing at the dawn, strutting around the yard, getting in fights — in short, acting like a cock.

Nowadays, the poultry we eat goes from eggshell to belly in as little as six weeks; not enough time to develop muscles flavorful enough to stand up to hearty red wine sauce. Recipes attempt to compensate for modern chicken’s relative blandness with modifications: reducing the braising time, using select parts of the bird. But what if instead of changing the recipe to suit the bird, you found a better bird?

The original concept of coq au vin demands a bird that has lived a hard life, working strength and flavor into its muscles as it struggles every day for mere existence. You could ask your butcher or farmer to track down the oldest, meanest bird in the hen yard and deliver it to your table, but such animals are in short supply and someone might get hurt. Or, you could turn to wild birds — game — that live less sheltered lives than today’s chicken. What about, for example, pheasant, which I happen to have in great supply thanks to the generosity of our friends Johnny & Stacie?

The pheasant in question came into my possession deeply frozen. As I was waiting for it to thaw, I created my braising liquid: I combined the better part of a bottle of red wine (California petit sirah from a certain Trader of value-priced wines) with three cups of chicken broth and brought them to a boil, reducing the mixture to about four cups.

After my pheasant thawed I rinsed the bird, removing any errant feathers and being sure to preserve some of the blood for use as a thickener later. I then cut the bird into quarters. If your bird was shot, as mine was, this is a good time to gently massage the flesh, attempting to locate the small balls of lead that brought about the pheasant’s demise. Don’t worry if you can’t find them, though: what your fingers cannot find your teeth surely will!

With pheasant appropriately divided and seasoned with salt and pepper, I proceeded to render the fat out of some chopped bacon (saving the crispy bacon bits for later of course). I then browned the pheasant pieces in the fat and set them aside. Next in the pot went a handful each of chopped onion and celery, and when that was soft a tablespoon or two of chopped garlic, along with a tablespoon of tomato paste. At this point, quite a bit of dark brown sucs had developed, so I deglazed the pan with some of the braising liquid, scraping up every bit of browned deliciousness. I then returned the pheasant pieces to the pot (along with juices) and poured in the rest of the braising liquid. It all spent the next long while gently simmering, slightly covered, until the meat was tender.

It wouldn’t be coq au vin — well, faisan au vin — without pearl onions and mushrooms. Since braising these along with the bird would turn them into an unrecognizable mush, most recipes call for cooking them separately and mixing them in before serving the dish. While you could brown the mushrooms and onions in a pan, I prefer to roast them; maybe it gives them a deeper flavor, but it’s definitely a lot easier. Just toss cut up mushrooms and onions with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast at 500ºF until they are as brown as you like them.

With pheasant starting to separate from its bones and mushrooms and onions a deep golden brown, I stirred everything together (remember those bacon bits?). If your sauce is looking a bit thin, now’s the time to stir in blood (or cornstarch if you’re squeamish). Over olive oil mashed potatoes, it was a rich and satisfying meal; not least because of the deep flavor of meat that had lived a life before it found its way to my plate. Since I’ve never eaten it I can’t say if it’s any better or worse than a wizened old cock, but I’ll take it over a six week chick any time.

It’s springtime again, which means the Internet is running rampant with reports of ramps. Amidst all the gushing over this early allium, I read probably the best assessment of ramps ever written:

Most “spring” menus are cruel teases. The good stuff we really want, like local peas and asparagus, doesn’t turn up for at least another month. So impatient chefs smother us in ramps, the garlicky, leek-like wild onions that come out of the ground in March. They’re supposed to presage the glorious bounty to come. Instead, they remind us of winter’s bottomless pit of turnips and rutabaga. I’d rather eat wild grass on the High Line.

(The Gripes of Wrath by Steve Cuozzo. Thanks to Shefzilla for the link.)

In spite of a certain shared cynicism with Cuozzo, when I saw The Wedge had ramps from Harmony Valley Farm in Wisconsin, I more or less dropped what I was doing to head over and claim a bunch. After all, what kind of blogger would I be if I didn’t jump on the occasional bandwagon?

There are many possibilities for cooking up this wild stinkweed; risotto seems obvious for some reason, and they are a popular target for pickling. But I wanted to taste my ramps in all their oniony, burny goodness, so I wanted to kep them raw. How about pesto?

The beauty of ramp pesto is its simplicity; the ramps have the onion family more than covered, so no need to add garlic. I used:

• 1 bunch of ramps
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted (or use whatever nuts are on hand)
• Sea Salt
• Black Pepper
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• ~1/3 cup olive oil
• ~1/2 cup finely grated parmesan cheese

The first step is to wash your  ramps, since ramps come from the dirt and dirt is gross. After that, the ramps should go into a mortar, at which point you use a pestle to grind a fear of God into them. Adding a little sea salt gives traction. Once the ramps are sufficiently broken down to allow space in your mortar for the nuts, add those and keep grinding. Eventually, your graceful, slender ramps will be reduced to a funky green paste.

With the ingredients ground to your satisfaction, you can stir in the lemon juice and enough olive oil to loosen the consistency up from paste to sauce level. Then add in the cheese and adjust the seasoning. Presto: pesto!

The flavor of ramps is hard to describe; they are close enough to garlic to satisfy my strong garlic appetite (and probably alienate any garlic haters), but they have a further green, grassy taste. In a good way, I think. Anyway, they’ll have to do until we get some real spring vegetables.

A beer’s name doesn’t necessarily tell you what you should pair it with: a porter might not complement a porterhouse, and just because it’s a Kwak doesn’t mean you should eat it with duck. But happily, sometimes names make things easy; take India Pale Ales, which in the first word of their name make as good as a suggestion as you could hope for. Drink me with Indian food!

The affinity of Indian food as we know it in the West and India Pale Ales is no mistake — the beer and the cuisine grew up together. IPAs, distinctive above all for their extreme hoppiness, were first popularized among Britons working in India in the days of the British East India Company and the Raj, at least partially because the extra hops helped the beer survive shipment halfway across the world.

Indian food as most of us know it — the kind you get in Indian restaurants everywhere from London to your local strip mall — is also a product of the British presence in India, as Britons and their local cooks adapted Indian culinary traditions to suit the British palate — particularly the British taste for meat. You can bet that as these Brits and Indians worked to develop this new cuisine, they made sure it paired well with the beer that was most widely available — that is, India Pale Ale.

Popular though they may have been in India in the 18th century, I think it’s safe to say that IPAs are even bigger today — it seems like craft breweries are leaping over each other to bring out the next big IPA, and to see how many more hops they can cram in. The selection of IPAs in a decent liquor store can be pretty overwhelming. Looking for something a little bit different, I picked up a six pack of Summit’s latest addition to their Unchained series: an India Style Rye Ale — an IPA with rye thrown into the mix (an IRA if you will).

Summit’s IRA pours with very little head and is quite dark in color, reminding me of a brown ale. As the beer hits the tongue, the brown ale description continues to be apt: the first flavor note is a very strong roasted, caramel flavor. After that initial impression, the beer takes a turn into more traditional IPA territory; that is to say the hops hit and hit hard. I thought I detected a slight grassiness in the flavor from the rye, though that might well be the power of suggestion (a power that should not be underestimated in beer rating and pairing!). Although the beer poured with very little head, it had great carbonation, with little spritzy bubbles that danced across the tongue. Overall, this is an enjoyable, well balanced beer, provided you like hops. And if you’re drinking India Ales, that seems a safe assumption.

With India Style Ale in hand, all that was needed was some India Style Food. As a centerpiece for our meal, we turned to that mainstay of the Indian buffet: chicken tikka. Starting with a recipe from Bon Appétit (a practice I don’t normally recommend) I marinated a cut up whole chicken in yogurt, cilantro, salt, garam masala, and garlic. After an hour in this yogurt bath, I roasted the chicken pieces for about 40 minutes at 500ºF, until the meat was cooked through and the skin was starting to blacken. Following through on Bon Appétit’s full menu, Martha roasted carrots with oil, salt and cumin seeds, and I made raita and white rice. All these elements combine to make a fulfilling Indian food experience: moist and roasted-tasting meats and vegetables accented by warm and citrusy spices that fill the mouth, all cooled and brightened by the yogurt and cucumber in the raita. Comforting and enlivening at the same time, it’s the kind of food that could help you feel at home in a place a few thousand miles away from home.

Food like that, or a cold beer. Better yet – the two of them together. I had a hard time trying to explain intellectually why the India Style Rye Ale and the Chicken Tikka worked so well together; each seemed to tame and complete the other. Maybe it was the acid in the yogurt cutting through the hops’ bitterness, or maybe the fact that the big flavors of the beer were a match for the big spice flavors in the chicken. Perhaps the beer’s roasted malts found their soulmate in blackened chicken skin. None of these elements really suffice in explaining what made this combination so satisfying. Ultimately, their affinity may owe to their shared history; a few gulps and bites might be enough to express the perfection of 200 years of codevelopment, but they are probably not enough to understand it. I’d better do this again.

When it comes to Spanish bar food, I don’t need much more than a plate full of jamón serrano to accompany a few cañas of beer. But for Martha, there is no better tapa than the croqueta: a deep fried little log of gooey delight (beer doesn’t hurt here either). Always looking for ways to please, and not exactly hating croquetas either, I recently fried up a couple of batches using two different recipes for Martha’s and my own enjoyment.

I made my first batch of croquetas using the classic technique (my base recipe came from Penelope Casa’s Delicioso: The Regional Cooking of Spain). The first step is to make a very thick bechamel: my roux consisted of 6 tablespoons of olive oil and ¾ cup of flour to which I added 2 cups of milk over medium heat. In preparing the bechamel I learned that a lumpy roux that just won’t break up can be remedied with the magic of a food processor, a most satisfying action after 5 minutes of uselessly hunting lumps with a whisk.

Lots of fillings can go in croquetas, but salt cod and cheese are two very popular options. Since we were fresh out of salt cod, I decided to go the cheese route. Obviously, a Spanish cheese  would have been appropriate, but I was not interested in going to the store, so instead I folded a handful of cheap provolone into my cooked sauce with salt and pepper for good measure.

As I mentioned earlier, croquetas are shaped like small logs. But how to give shape to liquid bechamel sauce? The answer is to chill it. Most recipes seem to recommend chilling the bechamel overnight before proceeding. Crunched for time, I got away with just an hour and a half of chilling.

After the bechamel was cold enough to work, I formed pinches of it into cylinders and placed them on a plate. Then, it was time to bread: separate dishes of flour, eggs, and bread crumbs and a fanatical observance of “wet hand, dry hand” rule make this a clean and efficient process. As the croquetas were breaded I placed them on a sheet pan to wait for their date with destiny—a pot full of 350°F oil.

Croquetas don’t take long to fry, just a few minutes until the breading is golden. If they sit in the oil too long, there’s a risk of the filling exploding out of the breading. They are best eaten very hot, washed down with the aforementioned beer.

We also enjoyed a few other Spanish standards: tortilla española, jamón (ok, prosciutto, but what can you do?) and aged goat cheese.

Making these must have given me the croqueta bug, because just over a week later I was hauling out the oil again for another round. This time, though, I used a recipe from the New York Times that was less traditional: rather than a bechamel, these croquetas were based on leftover mashed potatoes (the recipe was originally published in anticipation of Thanksgiving leftovers). It happened that I had a large amount of mashed potatoes left over from Martha’s birthday and this recipe sitting on my desktop for the past year and a half; it was a croqueta perfect storm, really. I made the recipe as described in the Times, again substituting prosciutto for jamón (but really, there is no substitute).

If using leftover mashed potatoes seems too convenient and not a little questionable to you, your suspicions are well-warranted. These croquetas had good flavors and were a good way to use up leftovers, but the heavy mashed potatoes just can’t compete with gooey, creamy fried béchamel. All considerations of time and convenience aside, I’d take traditional croquetas every time. But in any case, there’s plenty of room in our lives for all kinds of croquetas.

And therein lies the real joy of making croquetas at home: if you order them in a restaurant, you can expect three to five to a plate accompanied by a crazy urge to order more. Too much of this can break the bank. At home, relatively cheap ingredients are transformed into enough fried goodness to satiate anybody’s croqueta cravings.

As January comes to a close, it’s really starting to feel like 2010. This weekend, while less activity filled than, say, our cross country ski marathon, was well enjoyed. On Saturday morning I was inspired by Bon Appétite to prepare crêpes for breakfast. With only one so bad it had to go straight to the trash (that was #3, one and two came out just fine), I am no longer afraid of this thin egg pancake with a French accent. Bon Appétite may be right, “crêpes are a cinch, with no special… pan required.” We enjoyed ours with a mix of cheeses inside (gruyère was the clear favorite) along with chopped cilantro and green onions and the occasional splash of chipotle Tabasco. If you’d like to try your hand at the recipe, hop over to Bon Appétite’s website. Don’t worry if you don’t have buckwheat at home; not about to run out on a Saturday morning, I used a mix of rye and whole wheat flours instead.

Martha: café con leche, largo de leche (left). Tom: tinto (right).

See you in February!