| I must be honest. I haven't looked this cookbook over thoroughly. I was on a mission: Making some amazing, authentic, vegan Mexican food. Would this book deliver?
I started in the table of contents, and found what I wanted: posole, tortillas, horchata, mojitos, sopes, refried beans... but no tortilla soup. First of all, I give this book a lot of credit for its authenticity. When it comes to ethnic cuisines, there are often two versions: the Americanized version, and the real thing. This book is the real thing. That said, I'm curious about the omission of tortilla soup. Is it some American invention that real Latinas don't eat?
From there I looked at the other recipes, preparing for a trip to the store. Fortunately, there's a Mexican grocery nearby. I figured I'd see what I could get at places that sell organic food and then head to the Mexican grocery for the rest. The recipes looked fantastic, but I must admit I was a little disappointed that they called for a lot of canned and pre-processed ingredients. Canned beans, canned hominy, canned tomatoes, and store-bought masa harina. I didn't want to buy masa harina for my tortillas, I wanted to make it! Alton Brown came to my rescue with a recipe here.
As it turns out, it wasn't the author's fault that she instructed readers to buy masa harina and hominy. I looked, and looked, and looked. Your choices are to either buy it or don't eat it. I really did not want to eat canned hominy due to the BPA issue, so I settled on a rather overpriced bag of dried hominy from Whole Foods and a less expensive one (that also looks a lot less like hominy) from the Mexican grocery.
You can buy popcorn, corn meal, grits, corn flour (which I assume wasn't treated with lime although I'm not sure), corn on the cob, canned sweet corn, canned hominy, and even dried hominy, but you can't just find regular CORN - the same stuff that grows on more than 25% of this country's cropland. And forget organic corn. I couldn't find "cal," the lime you need to treat the corn with, either. I bought the non-organic masa harina and crossed my fingers that white corn it's made from wasn't genetically modified. (UPDATE: From the comments, you can get organic masa here.)
After hitting three grocery stores, I hit the kitchen. I used my own recipe for tortilla soup but used the recipe in the cookbook for the tortillas. While the tortilla soup simmered, I made the tortillas. They were incredibly, incredibly EASY. The recipe consists of only masa harina, water, and salt. Each tortilla is made of a ball of dough about the size of a walnut. Place the dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper, roll them out with a rolling pin, and then cook on a hot cast iron pan for 30 seconds per side. Keep the finished tortillas warm in a towel while cooking the rest of the dough, and serve immediately. I've had a cast iron pan for years and this is the best use I've found for it yet.
Tortilla Soup
My recipe is nothing like the "real thing" since I couldn't find chili powder (I guess we ran out) and I put carrots in it. I also added some garnishes that I saw and enjoyed in posole in Mexico. So maybe those are posole garnishes and not tortilla soup garnishes... sue me. They taste good.
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 carrots, diced
About 2 lbs roma tomatoes
1 c. pinto beans
1 Anaheim (or other) pepper, without seeds
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. coriander
Cayenne to taste
Water
Salt
Garnishes: chopped cabbage, lime wedges
Soak your beans overnight. Begin to cook your beans before you start on the rest of the soup, since they take a while. Use a pressure cooker for the beans if you have one. Start by sauteing the onion in a saucepan for about 5 minutes, until translucent. Add garlic, saute for 1 minute. Add carrots and pepper. Cut off the tops of the tomatoes and puree them in a blender or food processor. Toss them in the pot. Then add water (I think I added 6 c.) and spices. Bring the soup to a boil then lower the heat and simmer. When the beans are ready, add them to the soup. Then ladle the soup into the bowls, top with shredded cabbage and a lime wedge, and serve with warm or fried tortillas.
Coming soon: Refried beans, horchata, mojitos, and posole. |
