Mexican Stews

  Stews are such wonderful, versatile concoctions!  The traditional European stew combines meat with vegetables and legumes, and the meat is cooked along with the vegetables, after perhaps a bit of browning before – but in Mexican stews, the meat is not combined with the other ingredients until the final heating just before serving.  Join me below the fold for a discussion (and some recipes) for the different kinds of Mexican Stews!

  There are three types of Mexican stews – the mole, the pipian, and the tinga.  The mole is the best known in the US and elsewhere, probably because of the Mole Poblano, the chocolate-based dark stew that was originally created by the nuns of the Santa Rosa convent in Puebla in the 16th century.  In moles, the base of the stew is made with ground/processed chilies, mixed with chopped tomatoes, that are sauteed in hot lard.  Lard is the traditional cooking fat of Mexico, although you can use corn oil or safflower oil instead.  The chili/tomato mixture is put in the saute pan with hot lard, and the tradtional sizzle is a hallmark of making mole.  Lower the heat immediately, and stir constantly with your spoon to keep the sauce from burning.

  Here is a simplified (simplified from the hand-prepared recipe created by those nuns with all their novices who were there to help in the kitchen) recipe for Mole Poblano.

1 pound ancho chiles
1/2 pound guajillo or dried mirasol chile
1/2 pound dried cascabel chile, or rattle chile
2 pounds tomatoes, chopped
1 pound Mexican green tomato or tomatillo, chopped
Corn oil 

 4 slices white bread
1 cinnamon stick
4 to 5 cloves
4 to 5 whole peppercorns
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 pinch cumin
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1/2 cup shelled peanuts
1/2 cup blanched almonds
1/2 cup small raisins
1 1/2 plantains, chopped
1/2 cup walnuts
1 small onion, roasted, then chopped
1 small garlic clove, roasted, then minced
1 corn tortilla
1 piece unsweetened chocolate square, Mexican chocolate is preferred
1/2 cup chicken stock, plus 2 1/2 cups
3 tablespoons vegetable shortening

4 cups cooked turkey meat or chicken, in pieces

Toast ancho, guajillo, and cascabel chiles in a heavy skillet until skins blister. Remove from skillet and stem, seed, and devein chiles. Set aside.
Place tomatoes and green tomatoes in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Drain and blend in blender or food processor and set aside.
In a large saucepan, heat corn oil over low flame. Cut the telera bread or 4 slices of white bread, into pieces and fry in the corn oil until golden brown. Add cinnamon stick, cloves, peppercorns, thyme, cumin, sesame seeds, peanuts, almonds, raisins, plantains, and walnuts. Stir ingredients together. Add more corn oil, to coat ingredients lightly. Add chopped roasted onion and minced roasted garlic. Continue to fry over low flame for about 20 minutes. Add blended tomato mixture. Remove from heat and set aside.
Place corn tortilla over open flame and cook until burnt and crispy. Cut up and set aside.
In a medium frying pan, fry roasted chiles in corn oil along with burnt tortilla pieces for a few minutes. Combine tomato/spice/nut mixture with chile mixture in large saucepan. Add chocolate piece and cook until melted over a low flame. Add about 1/2 cup chicken stock to mixture and stir. Place mixture into blender or food processor and puree until all ingredients have combined completely. More chicken stock may be added to smooth out sauce.
In a large saucepan, heat vegetable shortening. Cook the puree in the shortening, stirring constantly. Add more of the chicken stock until you achieve the right level of consistency that you’d like. Warm sauce for another 30 minutes over a low flame.   Add the turkey or chicken to the sauce and heat through and serve!

  Pipians are like moles, but rather than using  just chilis as a base, ground nuts or seeds are the base, along with the tomatoes and other vegetables.  Pumpkin seeds, pistachios, filberts and squash seeds are favorites in making the base for pipians.  Although not as popular in the US as mole, pipians are very tasty, and use similar cooking techniques (along with the hot-lard-sizzle!) as the moles.  The different kinds of seeds and nuts make for a wide variety of pipians.

  Here is a recipe for a delicious chicken pipian that also uses ancho chiles.

3 1/2 pound chicken — (3 1/2 to 4)

chicken giblets

1/2 onion, sliced

2 cloves garlic, peeled

a sprig of parsley

a bay leaf

a little thyme

1 Tb kosher salt, or to taste

water to cover

6 chiles anchos & hot water

1 tablespoon ancho chile seeds (or more to taste) well toasted

1/2 stick cinnamon

3 whole cloves

5 peppercorns

3/4 cup sesame seeds

3 Tablespoons lard

The ground seeds and spices

The soaked chiles

1/2 cup reserved chicken broth

1 clove garlic, peeled

3 cups the reserved broth

1 Avocado Leaf

Put the chicken, giblets, and the rest of the ingredients into the pan, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Lower the flame and simmer the chicken until it is just tender — about 40 to 50 minutes. Let the chicken cool in the broth, then cut it into serving pieces and set aside. Strain the broth and reserve it.

Toast the chiles lightly on a griddle or comal. When they are cool enough to handle but still pliable, slit them open and remove the seeds and veins. Save the seeds.

Cover the chiles with hot water and leave them to soak for 15 to 20 minutes.

Add the toasted, cooled seeds and the spices to the spice grinder and grind them finely. Set them aside.

In an ungreased pan, toast the sesame seeds well, until a deep gold color, and set them aside to cool off a little. Add the toasted, cooled seeds to the spice grinder and grind them very fine.

Melt the lard in a large flameproof dish and fry the ground seeds and spices over a low flame for about 3 minutes, stirring them constantly.

Transfer the chiles with a slotted spoon to the blender jar. Add the broth and garlic and blend to a smooth puree. Add the chile puree to the fried spice mixture in the dish and let it cook fast for about 5 minutes stirring constantly. Add the remaining 3 cups of reserved broth and let the sauce continue cooking over a low flame for about 20 minutes, or until it thickens and is well seasoned. Add the cooked chicken, salt to taste, and let the chicken heat through.

Toast a large avocado leaf, fresh or dried on a warm comal or griddle, grind it finely and add it to the sauce.

This pipian is a deep-red, earthy-looking sauce. When it is cooked it should just lightly cover the back of a wooden spoon.

In Mexico this would be served with hot tortillas only, but plain white rice goes very well with it. It should not be very picante (“zingy”), but have just a pleasant afterglow from the chile seeds.

The sauce can be made several days ahead if you have some good chicken broth handy. The chicken can then be poached ready and heated through in the sauce when you are ready to serve. The sauce freezes extremely well.

  The tingas are more like traditional European stews.  They do not include sauteed chilies or ground nuts/seeds as a base, rather the garlic, onions, tomatoes and other ingredients are sauteed and simmered until reduced, and the pre-cooked meat and sausage are added at the last.  The broth that is created is delicious!  Here is a recipe for a pork tinga that goes very well with pork tostadas!

3 pounds fat-trimmed boned pork shoulder (butt), rinsed and cut into 2-inch cubes
1 white onion (8 oz.), peeled and sliced

9 cloves garlic, peeled
15 sprigs (8 in. each) fresh cilantro, rinsed
6 sprigs (6 in. each) fresh mint, rinsed
3 dried bay leaves
About 1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 pounds chorizo sausage
1 1/2 cups chipotle salsa (you can get this in cans at just about any grocery store)
1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled

1. In a 5- to 6-quart pan, combine pork, onion, garlic, cilantro, mint, bay leaves, 1 teaspoon salt, and 6 cups water. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat and simmer until pork is tender when pierced, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. With a slotted spoon, lift meat from broth, leaving behind other solids. Reserve broth for another use. When meat is cool enough to handle, tear into coarse shreds.

2. Set 5- to 6-quart pan or a 12-inch frying pan over medium-high heat. Squeeze sausage from casing into pan; stir often until meat is browned, 6 to 10 minutes. (If using ground pork, crumble pork into pan and add chili powder.) If there’s more than 1 tablespoon fat, drain off and discard extra. Stir in shredded pork, chipotle salsa, vinegar, and oregano.

3. Stir often over low heat until tinga is hot and juices are slightly thickened and no longer runny, 4 to 6 minutes. Add more salt to taste
 

Tags: Mexican food