Current mood:

accomplished

Pueblo Pie, Take 1
Through most of the early 1990s, my family often enjoyed vacationing in New Mexico. We first went to attend Philmont, a large ranch run by the Boy Scouts of America for camping, hiking, and other outdoor activities, as well as training scout leaders. My mother was active in the volunteer leadership of the BSA, and she led training sessions for several years, eventually serving as chairman for a week. But even after she had spent the maximum number of years one was allowed to teach there and we kids grew out of Boy Scouts, we had become so attached to New Mexico that we continued going nearly every summer for some time. Even now, my father is touring the state performing music from his latest album (itself about the Southwest).

After its spectacular sunsets and desert panoramas, one of the first things that will strike the tourist on his or her first journey to New Mexico is its food. The local cuisine is obviously heavily influenced by nearby Texas and Mexico, but it has its own distinctive touches. It takes as its foundation the ancient American trinity of squash, beans, and corn, and adds to it a fourth member, flame-roasted chile peppers, usually green. The chiles grown in Hatch Valley are as prized as the Vidalia onions of Georgia. It is not uncommon for a restaurant to serve a bowl of stewed chile peppers as a meal, as my father discovered to his great surprise on our first trip. (He thought he was ordering a bowl of Texas bean chili.)

One of our favorite things to eat in New Mexico was pueblo pie from Little Anita's, a small chain of casual restaurants. It was sort of like lasagna, except with corn mush instead of noodles and a New Mexican chile sauce instead of marinara. Unfortunately, Dad recently related to me that the item has been struck from the restaurant's menu, with no plans to restore it. Reminded of how much I liked it, I talked my girlfriend into helping me to try to recreate the dish.

This first attempt wasn't going to be very faithful to the original, because we didn't have any New Mexican chiles and I realized at the grocery store that I didn't know what cut of pork to use to make the carnitas. Instead, I decided to stick with chipotles and ground meat. Here's the recipe we made:

For the crust:

1. Mix 3 cups masa harina (hominy flour) with 3 cups warm chicken broth.
2. Let sit for 20 minutes
3. In a separate bowl, beat 1 cup vegetable shortening (lard might taste better, if you don't mind the cholesterol) until fluffy.
4. Stir the shortening into the masa.
5. Line the bottom and sides of a large casserole dish with the dough.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

We found that 1 hour was perhaps a little long, for while the crust looked fine, the top edges were a little too hard. Next time we'll try just 40 minutes or so cooking time.

For the sauce:

1. Blister the skins of two and a half tomatoes in a skillet without oil on medium-high heat. Do not let them burn, and be careful that the skillet itself doesn't smoke, or it'll ruin the seasoning. (I learned this technique, which lends the vegetables a smoky, roasted flavor, from my girlfriend's father. For the tomatoes, he held them near the open flame of his gas range, which worked much faster and was less awkward to do. We don't have a gas range, so we had to make do with a hot skillet.)
2. Do the same with 3 cloves of garlic.
3. Chop the tomatoes and garlic with a large white onion and 2 chipotle peppers, and puree until smooth. (We only used 2 peppers because my girlfriend's mother is sensitive to spicy food. If you like it hot, use 4 or even more.)
4. Stir in a little cumin, salt, lemon or lime juice, black pepper, and a pinch of cinnamon.
5. Melt a tablespoon or two of butter in a coated frying pan. Don't use an iron skillet, as the sauce is very acidic and might cause it to rust. Pour the sauce into the fat and cook it on medium heat until it reduces slightly and releases a pungent aroma. If you used 4 or more peppers, it might become very pungent — don't let the fumes get in your eyes!
6. Fry a pound or so of ground meat like turkey or beef, and another onion, chopped. Mix into the sauce.
7. Mix in a quarter cup of whole-kernel corn.

This sauce was a little too tomatoey. Next time we'll have a higher onion-to-tomato ratio. We'll also substitute carnitas for ground meat, and instead of pureeing chipotles with it we'll add roasted green Hatch chiles after blending.

We poured the sauce with meat and onions into the crust, then covered it with a layer of refried beans. We used Fantastic Foods' Instant Refried Beans which, although easy to make, are the best I've eaten. Finally, we topped it with shredded white quesadilla cheese and put it back in the oven for 5 minutes to melt it. It probably serves around seven people, since the three of us at a little under half.

It came out very tasty, if probably not too healthy and a bit hard around the edges. Next time we'll make the changes noted above, and maybe we'll even have the presence of mind to snap a photo before we chow down. If anyone else tries to make this, let me know how it turns out!

Now that I've worked out the kinks, I need to figure out when I can cook it for Dad, as a belated birthday present. =)