EatMx: Real Mexican food, at home and on the road

A Ranch Kitchen That Really Sings

One extraordinary dish after another lined the counter at La Cocina Que Canta, the cooking school and culinary center on the grounds of Rancho La Puerta at Tecate.

This was a breakfast like none I've ever had, most of it based on produce harvested from the six-acre farm just outside.

The counter was the broad chopping block island (at top) where students work during cooking classes. It's at one end of a large room facing an enormous window that looks out to the farm.  A small, flowery patio leads to the entrance. Inside and out, the building is warmly Mexican in design. You can see in the photo the traditional cut paper, papel picado, that decorated the kitchen for the breakfast.

La Cocina Que Canta means "the kitchen that sings," which gets you ready for an upbeat experience. I went there on a media tour. Although there were only four of us, the staff set out enough food to almost cover the counter, starting with bowls of strawberries, melons, pineapple and mangoes (above).

Executive chef Denise Roa saw to it that we tasted everything from traditional Mexican food to healthy ranch specialties such as the pancakes (above). They're gluten free, made with rice, tapioca, potato and quinoa flours. Even better, there was ranch-made mulberry jam and soft, light strawberry jam to spoon on top.

We ate eggs scrambled with kale, onion and sweet red peppers along with potatoes just harvested from the farm. 

Roasted ranch vegetables (above) were so delicious that I've already made them at home, following Denise Roa's instructions. You season the cut-up vegetables with olive oil, agave syrup, gluten free soy sauce and lots of fresh herbs, then bake them at 350 degrees until tender. The vegetables in the photo are beets, parsnips and carrots. 

Because we were in Mexico, we had what Mexicans often eat for breakfast, cheese-topped chilaquiles--tortilla hash (above).

To spice up the chilaquiles, there were chopped fresh salsa and traditional red and green salsas (above). 

Who could resist these cute miniature chocolate and banana muffins (above)? They're doubly chocolate, because they contain both chips and cocoa, and doubly banana, because they're made with banana chips as well as the fresh fruit.

After breakfast, we went outside to see the farm, and ate carrots and radishes (above) that Roa pulled out and washed. 

Then we saw what radicchio looks like as it grows (above).

Cooking classes at La Cocina Que Canta aren't only for spa guests. Rancho La Puerta offers Saturday excursions out of San Diego that anyone can take part in. They include spa activities, a spa meal and a cooking class that ends with lunch or dinner.  

Even if you don't go, you can still taste the banana and chocolate muffins. The recipe below is for a loaf, but you can turn it into muffins instead. Roa uses 72 % chocolate chips, which you can see in the muffin on my breakfast plate (above).  

CHOCOLATE BANANA BREAD
From La Cocina Que Canta at Rancho La Puerta

12 ounces pitted prunes
2 cups water
2 medium bananas
2 large eggs
1 cup unbleached all-purpose or whole wheat flour
½ cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts
½ cup banana chips, broken into small pieces
1 cup good-quality semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter a 9x5-inch loaf pan, and line the bottom with a piece of parchment paper.

Cook the prunes and water at a slow simmer until the prunes are very soft. Drain any excess liquid. Puree the prunes, bananas and eggs in a blender until very smooth.

Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and
cinnamon into a mixing bowl. Stir in the banana mixture and combine thoroughly. Gently stir in the walnuts, banana chips and chocolate chips.

Turn the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50 to 60 minutes. When the bread is done, a sharp knife inserted in the center will come out without any raw batter, although a bit of melted chocolate chip may cling to the knife.

Turn the loaf out of the pan onto a rack to cool. Cut into thin slices to serve. 

Makes 1 loaf. 

The Hatches are Here--Don't Miss Out

If you want to try Hatch chiles, you'd better move fast. These big, meaty green chiles (above) are only here for a short time. In New Mexico where they come from, people buy huge quantities during the season, then roast and store them in the freezer.

I just finished roasting 5 pounds, a nice stash to have on hand for chile verde, rajas and many other dishes.

Roasting improves the flavor. It also softens and shrinks the chiles so that I could stuff almost the entire five pounds into a single large plastic storage bag.

But I didn't freeze all of the chiles. Instead, I used a few in a chicken dish from "Melissa's Hatch Chile Cookbook," new this year from Melissa's/World Variety Produce. You can read more about the book in the story I wrote for LA Weekly's Squid Ink. Want a copy? Melissa's site tells how to get it. It's also on Amazon. 

The book is full of great ideas, and not just Mexican dishes.You can learn to make this griled corn and baby heirloom tomato salad.

Or these corn muffins, which contain Cheddar cheese.

Or grilled shrimp.

Even sandwiches.

One of my favorites is Hatch chile ice cubes. They're fun to drop into lemonade, which gets progressively hotter as the ice melts.  

The recipe I tried (above) is a handy one dish meal, combining chicken with Yukon gold potatoes, chiles, tomatoes, fresh herbs and Parmesan.

The recipe below is the way it appears in the book.  You can vary it as I did, using less chicken and more potatoes, browning the chicken separately and then placing it in a baking dish with the other ingredients. 

BAKED CHICKEN AND YUKON POTATOES
From Melissa's Hatch Chile Cookbook

1 (3-pound) fryer chicken, cut into 8 pieces
Herbed sea salt
Freshly ground rainbow peppercorns
7 tablespoons canola oil
6 Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
4 Hatch chiles, roasted, peeled, stemmed and seeded
1 cup roma tomatoes, crushed
2 tablespoons Italian parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon chopped basil leaves
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Rinse the chicken pieces under cold running water and pat them dry with paper towels. Season the chicken pieces all over with the herb salt and pepper.

Set a large roasting pan on the stove over medium-high heat. Add 4 tablespoons of the canola oil and heat the pan until the oil shimmers. Carefully add the chicken pieces to the pan and sear on all sides until golden brown.

Add the potatoes and cut-up chiles to the pan, placing them in between the chicken pieces. Add the tomatoes, parsley, basil and garlic. Season with additional herb salt and pepper. Sprinkle on the cheese and drizzle the remaining 3 tablespoons of canola oil over the chicken and vegetables.

Cover and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes, or until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 170 degrees.

Makes 6 servings.

Asao: Mexican Food Reinvented

You know about Baja Med. And Peninsular Cuisine is on the rise. But what about plain old Mexican food?

Well, maybe not so plain the way two gifted young chefs, Eulogio Rivas and Edgar Olvera, are preparing it at Asao in Tecate.

Rivas (above, showing off his tattoos) and Olvera met at culinary school in Tijuana. Now they work in an open kitchen facing Asao's high ceilinged, serene dining room (at top).

"Our kitchen is Mexican. We use Mexican products. We are Mexican cooks," Rivas says proudly. Techniques are traditional too, not borrowed from any other country. But presentation is clever and imaginative and will make you think about Mexican food in a new way.

Here is their take on tacos gobernador, which they have reworked into quesadillas filled with shrimp and smoked marlin. These are topped with pico de gallo and set on a plate sprinkled with black salt. The leaf of Mexican oregano behind the purple flower perfumes the entire dish.

These tomatoes are crosshatched with nopales strips that have been "cooked" following indigenous tradition by rubbing with salt. This "prehispanic salad," as the chefs call it, has updates such as a pesto of almonds, Parmesan and epazote added to lightly grilled tomatoes. The shredded leaves mingling with pico de gallo on top are oregano, epazote and spinach.

For the yellow sauce, the chefs cooked lemon peel for eight hours and then prepared an emulsion with olive oil. The cheese cubes are local queso fresco.

An estofado, or stew, of vegetables accompanies local rabbit in a slightly sweet red wine sauce (above). The stew includes eggplant, sweet peppers and mushrooms. The wine came from the Guadalupe Valley.

And here is Mexican beef rib eye on a dark sauce that will really wake you up. It's made with double strength brewed coffee and instant coffee powder. If you take sugar in your coffee, you'll like this, because the sauce is sweetened too.

At the upper right of the plate is chard with chipotle and tomato. Powdered chiles form the crumbly path leading to it.

Traditional Mexican food without rice and beans? Almost. The beans were reserved for dessert (above). Sweet and warm, they're under a layer of aniseed atole. On the plate are tiny crisp buñuelos sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.

Asao is part of the Santuario Diegueño, a complex that includes a boutique hotel, another restaurant and an event center. It's on a hill at the edge of town that is so close to the border you can see it from the parking lot. 

Touring a Magic Baja Town--Tecate

No wonder Tecate has been named a Pueblo Magico, or magical town, by Mexico's Secretary of Tourism. That title only goes to places that offer scenic beauty, cultural riches and intriguing history.  

Just passing through, you get a sense of peace and pleasantness, and you want to linger.

The main plaza (at top) is filled with leafy trees, promising a cool place to relax in the shade. Nearby Mt. Kuchumaa, revered by the indigenous Kumiai as a sacred mountain, sends positive vibrations. There it is (above) as seen from the grounds of the  spa Rancho La Puerta. 

You can learn more about the Kumiai at the Tecate Community Museum, where a small Kumiai style building presents their traditions and lifestyle. Wanderers who didn't care much about clothing, at least in the past (above), they searched for pine nuts and ground acorns into a staple food. 

There's much more to eat in Tecate today. It's the home of a famous bakery, which boasts about the quality of its bread in its name, El Mejor Pan de Tecate (The Best Bread of Tecate).

The line to buy bread and pastries there is always very long.

Beer drinkers will head to the Tecate brewery, which looms over the town like a sudsy monument. Founded in 1944, it is now owned by Heineken.

You can take a tour there, but don't touch. Those cans are hurtling by at breathtaking speed. There's a beer garden outside, however. At the end of a hot afternoon, it was nice to have an icy Heineken, bottled in Veracruz. 

I stayed at the Estancia Inn, an 89-room motel that suits the rustic atmosphere of the town. Its restaurant, El Mezquite (above), fits that mood too. Rather than clever contemporary food, it puts out the hearty dishes that local people like. You can get Sonora beef steaks, grilled chicken, bacon-wrapped shrimp, flank steak fajitas and red or green enchiladas. Hamburgers and pizza too. 

Who wouldn't like this assortment of grilled foods? It includes a little of everything----flank steak, chicken, shrimp, bright red chorizo, onions, queso fresco, yellow chiles and bowls of spicy beans. 

El Mezquite has a few fancier dishes, such as beef tenderloin with chocolate and Cabernet Sauvignon sauce; three cheese-stuffed chicken with poblano chile sauce, and, for dessert, this tiramisu. Each serving of tiramisu has a different chocolate motif on top.

When you're ready to go home, you'll be happy that the California border is right there, at the edge of town (above). On a Friday at noon, it took only about 20 minutes to cross.