Last week I wrote a little about repetition. About trying old things again until they’re new. This week I’m putting that into practice. There really isn’t anything new in this week’s menu. Different variations of these dishes have appeared in other editions – sometimes more than once. The recipes themselves are new, or tweaked, changed, or modified, and I haven’t combined them all as a single menu in the past – though lets face it, there are a couple of items that always go together, so you’ve seen prior iterations beside each other before.
I’m pretending that the familiarity of this week’s menu is intentional, that I’m continuing on some of last week’s theme and… and that’s a little dishonest. I’ve got a handful of menus in the hopper – cooked tested and photographed – and picked this one because it was the easiest. The easiest to cook, the easiest to write, the easiest to finish up on a hot, humid, sort-of-kind-of-rainy Wednesday morning when there’s not enough coffee in the world and I’m distracted by everything except getting the newsletter done and there’s a dog running around outside and I should really polish that glassware and … where was I?
How’s your day goin’?
This is a simple summer menu. It could be a picnic if you wanted. Or just a weeknight dinner. Or a weekend dinner. Some of the components - like the charred tomato broth – can be made in advance and honestly, pretty much everything here is just fine reheated – because it’s that time of year. When you’re ready for the best part of summer and tired of summer at the same time.
Bacon and Hatch Green Chile Spoon Bread
I’m not sure “spoonbread” has a concise definition – but I was always told it’s a soft, rich cornbread that doesn’t really hold up to slicing. Or that it’s something close to a “corn soufflé” or a savory corn pudding. Or … like I said, I’m not sure there’s a concise definition. This recipe leans on a bit of a weird trick to make the dish tender and moist. The corn meal is cooked into a porridge first, then the other ingredients are folded in.
The result – studded with bacon, chilies, and corn kernels, is tender and smokey, sweet and browned around the edges. A little soft salted butter, some honey or molasses, and this could be a meal all on its own … at least if you’re me.
Also and completely unrelated, my autocorrect suggested CORN SNUFFLE and now I want to make corn snuffle even though I’m pretty sure that’s not a real thing.
2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 cups yellow corn meal
1 cup sweet corn kernels
¼ cup or one small can peeled and diced Hatch green chilies
2 strips smokey bacon
½ cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 tbsp melted butter
½ tsp baking powder
Add the milk to a thick bottomed pot over medium heat and bring to a slow simmer.
Whisk in the cornmeal a little at a time, until a thick porridge forms.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
Lightly beat the eggs.
Add the eggs, sugar, butter, and baking powder to the porridge and stir until smooth.
Cook the bacon in a large cast iron skillet, turning frequently, until the bacon is crisp, and the fat has rendered.
Remove the bacon and drain – but reserve – the bacon fat.
Wipe out any brown bits in the skillet.
Finely chop the cooked bacon.
Add the cooked bacon, corn, and chiles to the batter.
Preheat your oven to 375°F.
Return the strained bacon fat to the skillet and heat until almost smoking.
Pour the batter into the hot fat, titling to ensure it’s even, and immediately transfer to the oven.
Bake until browned and cooked through – about 35 minutes.
Allow to cool slightly.
Serve warm.
Cilantro Lime Shrimp
I think I’ve said this. before, but I’m going to rehash it anyway.
As a kid I was obsessed with Red Lobster’s "shrimp fest” (or whatever it was called) commercials and would basically beg my parents to take me there. They didn’t. In fact I never went' to a Red Lobster until sometime in my mid twenties when an office holiday lunch landed there because of lack of other options.
I was obsessed with it because of the Sizzling Shrimp Scampi. As a kid, shrimps were pretty much the only seafood I would eat (other than a brief and not entirely consensual affair with lunches composed of frozen fish sticks, peas, and whatever fruit we had in the house.) The scampy, as depicted on what I now realize was grainy poorly received 1980’s-80’s local broadcast TV looked amazing. Bubbling with butter, dancing with shrimpy deliciousness. Even at 8 years old I knew garlic butter was the real deal and that shimp were fancy so this must absolutely totally completely be the best thing ever.
Now, quick cut record scratch fast forward 40 years ahead and I can eat or make whatever I want. I could even go to Red Lobster if I wanted. ut instead I’m gonna another kind of sizzling shrimp dish, one spiked with cilantro and lime and a littel bit of spicy (if you want.)
If you want this to truly sizzle, the key is to pre-heat the serving vessel. Put an oven proof plate, ramekin, etc in the oven on essentially the hottest setting while you prepare the dish - then after cooking the shrimp, transfer the entire mess into that hot container and serve immediately - it’ll sizzle all the way to the table.
1 lb peeled, deveined shrimp
2 large limes
1/2 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves and stems
1 serrano pepper
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt
Peel trim, and finely mince the garlic.
Stem, and coarsely chop the serrano - leave the seeds for more spice.
Use a microplant to zest both the limes into a non-reactive bowl.
Juice the limes into the zest.
Add the lime juice, the zest, the cilantro, half the garlic, and the serano to a blender, or food processor and quickly pulse until finely ground.
Pour the marinade over the shrimp and allow to rest, refrigerated, for 30 minutes.
To finish, heat a large non-stick pan over medium high heat.
Add the oil, and once it’s shimmering, add the shrimp, salt, and the remaining garlic to the pan - leaving most of the marinade behind.
Quickly toss the shrimp in the hot pan so that they cook evenly.
Add the a few tablespoons of the marinade to the pan, and toss to coat.
Transfer to a preheated serving plate or bowl and serve hot.
Black Beans Revisited
I’ve made black beans for this newsletter at least twice I the past. Probably more than that, and of course I’ve made them probably hundreds of times just … because. This recipe is a simple modification of my go-to black bean recipe. The modification? No bacon, no chicken stock. Sometimes you need or want vegetarian versions of things – whether for health reasons, for guests with different traditions or eating habits, or because you’re out of bacon.
I wasn’t actually out of bacon. That would have been an emergency. If I was out of bacon, I wouldn’t be writing this at the moment. I’d be in the critical bacon ambulance on the way to the bacon store.
Here, a little olive oil help keep the beans tender and rich, and works to help carry the other flavors (you need a bit of fat or the beans come out sort of tasteless. I suggest being a little more heavy handed with the salt than if you were using bacon or pork fat, it helps make the flavors brighter.
1 ½ cups black turtle beans, soaked overnight with ½ tsp baking soda
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
2 bay leaves
4 cups water or charred tomato broth (below) or a mixture
1 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste.
Soak the beans overnight in enough water to cover them by ~2 inches. Add ½ tsp baking soda to the water.
Drain and rinse the beans in cold water.
Trim the onion, cut in half
Peel and trim the garlic.
Add the beans, oil, broth or water, onion halves, garlic, cumin, 1 tsp kosher salt, and bay leaves to a large pan over medium heat.
Bring to a simmer.
Cook until the beans are tender 60-90 minutes.
Discard the bay leaves and onion.
Serve with chopped white onion, cilantro, and sour cream or crema.
Better Rice
This rice uses a charred tomato broth to add a layer of flavor and color to a pretty common dish. It also omits the fresh tomato or tomato past that’s commonly added to a lot of “Spanish” rice recipes. The end result looks a lot more like a dirty rice, but has a nice mellow tomato flavor and a lot of roasted notes.
1 cup long grained rice
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium jalapeno pepper
1 small onion
1 tbsp minced cilantro leaves
1 ¼ cups Charred Tomato Broth (below)
Peel, trim, and finely dive the onion.
Stem, seed, and finely dice the pepper.
Add the olive oil and rice to a lidded pan over medium heat.
Cook the rice – dry – in the oil, stirring constantly, until the rice looks opaque, but isn’t browned (don’t worry too much about a few browned bits, but be careful not to burn any grains)
Add the cumin, onions, and pepper.
Cook, continuing to stir, until the onion is just translucent.
Add the broth, bring to a low simmer, cover and reduce to the lowest heat your stove offer.
Cook for 20-30 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed.
Add the minced cilantro, toss with a fork, and serve hot.
Charred Tomato Broth
1 medium onion
1 large tomato
1 small carrot
1 rib celery
1 jalapeno pepper
handful of cilantro stems
1 bay leaf
Peel, trim, and half the onion.
Half the tomato.
Half the pepper.
Arrange the onion, pepper, and tomato, cut side down, in a large stock pot or soup pan over medium heat.
Cook until the onion and tomato brown and nearly blacken on the cut side – about 5 minutes.
Add 2 quarts cool water, and all remaining ingredients.
Bring to a simmer.
Cook covered for 1 hour, adding additional liquid as necessary to maintain around 1 ½ - 2 quarts.
Strain through a fine mesh strainer or flour sack towel.
Maple Chipotle Chicken
Quick summer chicken dishes are a lifesaver. No, not really, they won’t save your life, and tossing bits of chicken to an overboard sailor won’t get them back aboard – though it will make the seagulls happy.
No, I don’t have kids. Why do you ask?
It’s like dad joke central here today.
This is one of those BBQ dishes where the marinade becomes the sauce, or where you’re marinating the chicken in the sauce – I suppose it depends on how you look at it. In this case, the sweet smokeyness of chipotle and the smoky sweetness of maple combine to make a greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts sauceglazemarinade. Just make certain that - because it’s been in contact with raw chicken - any of the sauce you use is cooked. If you want to use it separately, divide the sauce in half and keep part separate from the chicken.
4 bone in, skin on chicken thighs
1 small can chipotles in adobo
2 large cloves garlic
¼ cup dark maple syrup
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lime Juice
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp kosher salt
Peel and trim the garlic.
Add the garlic, lime juice, garlic, maple syrup, oil, and the full contents of the chipotle can to the container of a blender.
Blend until mostly smooth.
Season the chicken well with salt on both sides.
Add the chicken and the puree to a zip top back, press out as much air as possible, and massage the bag to ensure the chicken is evenly coated with the chipotle puree.
Refrigerate and allow to marinate for at least 4 hours and up to overnight.
Preheat your oven to 375° or prepare a BBQ grill with medium indirect heat.
Remove the chicken from the bag.
Roast or grill over medium high heat, occasionally brushing with additional marinade, until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 170°F.
OOPS. I forgot to include the amount of cornmeal in the spoonbread recipe. It's 1 1/2 cups. I've updated it on the site.