is called for here; others like less.
1 lb (500 g) dry pinto, Peruano, or black beans
1 to 3 cloves garlic
6 cups (1.5 liter) boiling water
½ cup (125 ml) corn oil
½ to 1 teaspoon freshly ground cumin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
In a large pot, wash and sort through the beans and eliminate foreign matter and spoiled beans. Add garlic and water; bring back to the boil. Turn the heat to low and simmer beans for 1 to 1½ hours or until tender. (Freshly harvested beans take less time than older ones.) Drain the beans and reserve the liquid.
Pour the oil in a large frying pan. Turn the heat on high and carefully (they splatter) add drained beans and 1¼ cups (315 ml) of the bean liquid. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 6 to 8 minutes or until the beans are fairly soft. Add more liquid if the beans are getting dry. Turn the heat down and mash them a little at a time with a potato masher. Again, add more bean liquid if they get too dry. Add the cumin and salt and pepper, adjust the seasonings, and remove from heat. Serves 4 as a side dish.
Beans, primarily dry ones, are a staple in the Mexican diet. The dozens of varieties differ subtly in both flavor and texture, as seen in these two dishes of refried beans made with different types of beans.
Toasted Vegetables
The most common vegetables that are toasted in Mexico are onions, garlic, tomatoes, tomatillos, and small green chilies. The handiest and most traditional way to toast them is on a comal. This flat cast-iron griddle is invaluable for Mexican cooking, inexpensive, and available from many mail-order sources and Mexican markets. (I now keep one on the stove at all times for warming tortillas and toasting bread, nuts, vegetables, and herbs.)
To toast vegetables, heat the comal over fairly high heat and place whole tomatoes, hulled tomatillos, halved and quartered large onions, small green chilies, or unpeeled garlic on the comal. Turning occasionally (chef’s tongs work especially well), cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until the vegetables start to blacken. Once cooked, sweat tomatoes and chilies for a few minutes in a paper or plastic bag for ease of peeling. Peel the toasted vegetables. They are now ready for making into sauce, soup, or salsa. (Rick Bayless, Mexican cooking maven, recommends lining the comal with aluminum foil before roasting tomatoes to avoid the juicy mess. Diana Kennedy suggests that, if roasting large quantities, you broil the tomatoes on a baking sheet a few inches from a hot broiler for 10 to 12 minutes, turning them occasionally.)
If you don’t have a comal, use a dry cast-iron frying pan or griddle. Roasting vegetables on an outdoor charcoal barbecue or gas grill works well too, especially for large batches of vegetables.
Roasted Peppers
Roasting large chilies calls for a different technique, as the peppers are seldom smooth and the skins need to be evenly charred. You can roast a few large peppers by holding them on a fork in a gas cooktop flame for a few minutes. Turn them constantly to make the skin blacken and blister evenly. If you have an electric stove, put them under the broiler and char them the same way, or char them over a gas grill. If using the broiler of a home oven, brushing the chilies with a little oil helps them to roast more quickly and evenly. (The goals are to have the chilies roasted but still somewhat firm inside and to make the skins come off readily.) Put the charred peppers in a paper bag to steam for a few minutes for ease of peeling. Scrape the skin off, and stem and seed the chilies. At this point, you can leave them whole for stuffing, cut them into strips, or chop them, depending on the recipe. (If your hands are sensitive, use latex gloves. To prevent burning your eyes, do not rub them while you work with chilies.) Roasted chilies (and tomatoes, too) freeze well in sealable freezer bags.
Comals like this one are important tools in the Mexican kitchen. If you don’t have one of your own, you can use a dry cast-iron frying pan.
Dried Chilies
Mexicans appreciate the deep, toasty flavors of dried chilies and use them in salsas, most soups and stews, and numerous appetizers. Because the flesh of the majority of hot peppers is thin, they are easy to dry. Further, some of the varieties arguably taste better in that form. One thick-walled pepper, the jalapeño, is also dried—in this case, by first smoking it. The smoked and dried jalapeño, called a chipotle, adds a lovely smoky flavor to sauces and soups.
To dry thin-walled peppers, first choose peppers that are fully ripe and unblemished. If you live in an arid climate, you can dry peppers on a screen in a warm dry place out of the sun and dew. Stir the peppers every day or so to promote even drying. If the peppers are large, they dry more readily if you cut a slit in the side. In rainy climates, or if the peppers are unripe, they must be dried in a dehydrator, in a gas oven using only the pilot light, or in an electric oven at 150°F (65°C) for about 12 hours. Cut slits in the side of the peppers and rotate them occasionally. (The tiny bird peppers dry so readily they need only to be placed on a sunny windowsill for a few days.) Once your peppers are brittle, to keep them dry and the insects under control, store them in a jar with a lid or in a sealable freezer-strength plastic bag.
To bring out their rich flavors, dried chilies are often toasted on a hot comal for 30 seconds or until they release their perfume. To reconstitute the chilies, break them into a few pieces, put them in a bowl, pour hot water over them, and let them sit for 20 to 30 minutes before draining. For some recipes the water is retained and added to the recipe. The chilies can then be ground into a paste and added to sauces or combined with garlic and other spices to create a mole or salsa.
MOLES AND SALSAS
No discussion of Mexican cuisine would be complete without covering salsas and Mexico’s special sauces.
Salsas are ubiquitous in Mexico and the fastest-growing segment of the North American condiment market as well. Chilies, both fresh or dried, are the common denominator in salsas and the infinite variations range widely in flavor and spiciness, depending on the technique and ingredients used. While the most common salsas are tomato based, in Mexico, one also enjoys salsas of different roasted, fresh chopped chilies mixed with a little lime juice, green salsas made from either cactus paddles or cucumbers, tomatillo-based salsas, and even one made with ground pumpkin seeds and Mexican crema (similar to crème fraîche).
For centuries, most salsas and moles were made into a paste using a lava rock molcajete, a mortar, and a tejolote, a pestle. This process grinds the ingredients and produces a characteristic desirable texture. Few cooks today use these ancient tools; the blender makes it easier to purée sauces and some salsas (not a food processor, as it does an uneven job). Ingredients to be blended must first be chopped or they will blend unevenly and become too soupy by the time the large pieces are done. Blend on low to control the texture. Blender aside, many fresh tomato and tomatillo sauces have the best texture if you chop the ingredients by hand.
Mexican salsas and moles are spicy affairs. Chilies, of course, but also toasted garlic and onions and many spices, including black pepper, cumin, coriander, cloves, and cinnamon, are common ingredients.
Mole Verde (Green Mole with Vegetables and Seeds)
Moles are an integral part of Mexican cuisine and have numerous variations. Nancy Zaslavsky, author
