Mexican – Courage in the Kitchen

Tony is a former 3M colleague of our friend Chris. Tony now lives in Eclectic, Alabama, with his wife on his grandparents’ farm. Chris, who lives near New Richmond, is the guy who has served as camp cook for many years when our cabin becomes hunting headquarters during deer season. When he and his wife Lorraine visited Tony and his spouse this summer, Tony introduced Chris to Cowboy Candy, a spicy relish that Chris really liked. Tony gave Chris permission to share the recipe with me. When I decided to try it, I asked Chris for Tony’s phone number.

Chris gave me the number and told me, “Tony spends lots of time outdoors, so you may have to leave a message, but he’ll call you back.” I left a message and within an hour Tony and I were having a good conversation. Tony and Chris had both retired from the Animal Health Group at 3M, and both enjoyed farm work (in moderation). Today Chris cares for a couple of saddle horses, cuts hay in the summer and works with St. Croix County Fair Animal Projects; Tony returned to Eclectic, bought the 100 acre farm his grandparents had worked and now tends a large garden.

He explained that he first made Cowboy Candy when he was swamped with jalapeño peppers from that garden. He likes to cook and belongs to an online cooking group, so he looked there for any recipes that might use lots of those little peppers. He decided to try Cowboy Candy and was pleased with the result. Their friends enjoyed it too, and when Chris took a jar to his son and daughter-in-law in Texas, they devoured it and proclaimed it excellent.

When Chris and Lorraine returned to New Richmond Chris brought me a copy of the recipe with his recommendation that I make it. Chris has shared several good recipes that he treasures, a couple of which are already on Courage in the Kitchen. Here is another one.

INGREDIENTS:

3 lbs. firm, fresh jalapeño peppers

2 cups cider vinegar

6 cups white granulated sugar

1/2 tsp. turmeric

1/2 tsp. celery seed

3 tsp. granulated garlic

1 tsp. ground cayenne pepper

PROCEDURE:

Wash the peppers and protect your hands with kitchen gloves. Remove the stems by slicing a small disk off the stem-end of the peppers. Discard the stems. Slice the peppers into uniform one-eighth to one-fourth-inch rounds and set them aside in a bowl.

Stir all the other ingredients in a large pot or Dutch oven to dissolve the sugar and spices into the vinegar. Keep stirring while the liquid comes to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer it for five minutes.

While you are heating the liquid, wash and sterilize seven half-pint jars. Put seven jar lids into a small bowl and cover them with hot water a few minutes before you fill the jars.

Add the pepper slices and simmer them for four minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the peppers to the jars, filling them to within a quarter inch of the rim. Raise the heat under the remaining liquid and bring it to a full rolling boil. Boil it hard for six to eight minutes to create a syrup.

Ladle the boiling syrup into the jars until it is above the sliced peppers. Use a chopstick or a thin knife to release any trapped pockets of air and add more syrup if necessary. Wipe the rims of the jars with damp paper towels and seal the jars with canning lids and rings to finger-tip tightness.

Place the jars in a canner and cover them with water to an inch above the jars. Bring the water to a full rolling boil and set a timer for ten minutes. Remove the jars when the timer goes off and cool the jars on a rack. Let the jars cool thoroughly, wipe them with a damp dishcloth and label them.

NOTES: For the best flavor allow this relish to mellow for at least two weeks. Tony says a month is even better.

Chris introduced the recipe this way: “The end result is delicious with a very mild level of “heat”. Tony likes it as a garnish for hot dogs, I believe it would be fantastic on brats!”

Tony also noted that the leftover syrup is “wonderful brushed on meat on the grill or added to potato salad or, or, or… in short, don’t toss it out!”

I remember a time when I thought that a farmers’ market was the local feed mill, railroad shipping point or dairy. My grandfathers were both farmers. Grandpa Hopp milked eight to ten cows, called them all by name and stored the day’s milk in cans immersed in cold well water until the milkman arrived with his truck to pick up the milk and deliver butter and cheese to grandma and grandpa.

Grandpa Rang was older and retired from farming, but grandpa milked a couple of cows and babied the team of horses he loved. Grandma and Grandpa (and we grandkids) drank the milk and Grandma churned the cream into butter. Occasionally she sold some eggs to the feed mill in Hayward where my mother also sold extra eggs. Before I was born, Grandpa Rang raised potatoes, of which he was very proud. He and Grandma still planted a big garden which produced enough potatoes to fill a few bags for storage in the enormous root cellar that could hold enough potatoes to fill a train car.

Growing up near a small city where most families had gardens, I never saw anything like the farmers’ markets one finds today in cities throughout the United States. I saw my first farmers’ market on a September morning in Bad Reichenhall, Germany, where I was a student on a fellowship in Germany. It was not called a Bauernmarkt (farmers market) but simply der Markt (the market). Like our farmers’ markets today, local vendors sold food, flowers and some handicrafts.

After I moved to Münster, which is a much larger city than Bad Reichenhall, I was quickly introduced to a market that was the primary source of fresh food and flowers for many residents in that city of over 180,000 people. You could buy fish, fowl, meats, breads, pastries, cheese and a wide variety of household necessities ranging from hot pads and tablecloths to vases, coffee cups and tableware made by local artisans. Here are two photos that we took at the market when we visited Münster in 2014.

My new student acquaintances taught me how to bargain with salespeople to stretch my limited budget as they did. One technique I still use was to arrive near the end of the market day when vendors were willing to cut prices on their inventories. One of my favorite memories from that year was of a rather stout farm woman in a gray dress who was negotiating with a thin old man in a dark suit. She was selling eggs. As I walked by, he exclaimed to her, “Sie sehen wie Taubeneier aus!” (They look like pigeon eggs!) The two were smiling, so I think it was a familiar routine for both buyer and seller.

I still look for bargains at our local farmers’ markets. Not long ago I found some small poblano peppers. They were about four and a half inches long, so I got four of them for a dollar. I planned to make chile rellanos with them, but they were really too small for that, so decided to stuff them with a mixture of chorizo and rice. The result was a delicious main course for Jerri and me. If you enjoy Mexican dishes, you should try this recipe soon.

INGREDIENTS:

4 small poblano peppers, four to five inches long
1 tsp. vegetable oil
1/2 lb. bulk chorizo sausage
1/2 cup cooked rice
3 T diced onion
5 T taco sauce, divided
1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
3/4 tsp. ground cumin
2 T cold water

PROCEDURE:

Start by cooking some rice, if necessary. To make about a cup of cooked rice, put a half cup of uncooked rice into a one quart saucepan, add a half teaspoon of salt and a cup of water. Bring the pan to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer covered until most of the water is absorbed, about fifteen minutes. Turn off the heat and leave the rice in the covered pan for five minutes before serving.

Peel the peppers while the rice is cooking. It’s not difficult. Preheat the oven broiler to 450º and rinse the peppers. When the broiler is hot, place the peppers on a baking sheet and set them under the broiler for about four minutes. Turn the peppers and broil them for another four minutes. The skin of the peppers should have begun to blister. Put the peppers in a paper bag and let the peppers cool for a few minutes in the closed bag.

Reduce the oven temperature to 350º.

While the peppers are cooling, make the stuffing. Heat the vegetable oil in a small skillet and cook the meat slowly over low heat, breaking it into small pieces. Clean and dice about three tablespoons of onion and shred the cheese while the meat is cooking.

Peel the transparent outer skin from the peppers and cut them lengthwise halfway through. Remove the seeds and pulp from the peppers and butterfly them with the stems on.

When the meat is a uniform gray, remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the rice, onion, cheese, cumin and three tablespoons of taco sauce.

Lightly grease a glass baking dish and put the butterflied peppers into the pan. Stuff each pepper with a generous portion of the meat mixture. Top each one with a teaspoon or two of taco sauce and pour a couple tablespoons of water around the peppers. Cover the pan loosely with aluminum foil and bake the peppers for about fifteen minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and allow the peppers to cool for a few minutes before serving.

Serve with the extra rice, bread and salad for a light dinner.

Tag: Mexican

Tony’s Cowboy Candy

Chorizo-stuffed Poblano Peppers