Sonoran Cheese Soup - Caldo de Queso de Sonora

Photo by Greg Bryan, Arizona Daily Star.

Yesterday's Arizona Star had a feature on Mexican cheeses that included a recipe for Caldo de Queso (inexplicably titled Caldo con Queso) from Adolfo Cabrera, executive chef at the Doubletree Inn in Tucson. Caldo de Queso is a Sonoran specialty, and I found several recipes online from Sonoran cooks. The recipe that follows is my adaptation of these.

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 red or white boiling potatoes, 3/4" pieces
1 white onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1-1/2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
6 cups of vegetable broth
1 cup of tomatoes, diced
1 cup of roasted Anaheim peppers, diced
1 large or two small ears of corn, cut in 1" slices
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons butter
red pepper flakes to taste (optional)
1/2 cup milk, half and half or cream
8 ounces queso fresco, diced
8 ounces queso panela, diced
salt and pepper to taste

For garnish:
tortilla triangles
cilantro leaves

In a non-stick pan, saute the potatoes in half the olive oil until they are lightly brown, but not fully cooked. Set aside.

Add the rest of the oil to the pan and saute the onion, carrot and celery until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic and oregano and saute a couple of minutes longer.

In a stockpot, combine the sauteed vegetables, the vegetable broth, the reserved potatoes, the tomatoes and peppers and simmer until the potatoes are nearly done. Add the corn and simmer a minute more.

Meanwhile, in a clean, dry pan, toast the flour until it is lightly golden brown. Add the butter and cook until it is melted and mixed well with the flour. With a spatula, scrape this mixture into the stock pot (along with the optional red pepper flakes) and simmer for five minutes.

Add the milk and cheeses and simmer two minutes, or until fully heated through. Garnish with tortilla triangles and cilantro. Serve with hot tortillas or French bread.

Bittman's Zuppa Arcidossana

In today's Minimalist column, Mark Bittman has a terrific sounding recipe for Zuppa Arcidossana.

I see a couple of ways to make this into a vegetarian recipe. You could replace the four ounces of sausage with vegetarian sausage. Or you could just omit sausage altogether and season the soup with sausage seasoning -- fennel seed, marjoram, thyme, nutmeg, red pepper flakes. You could substitute four ounces of garbanzo or white beans for the sausage and also add sausage seasoning. Or, as Bittman suggests in the video, you could simply leave out the sausage.

Mexican Cheeses

Photo by Greg Bryan, Arizona Daily Star. Clockwise from bottom left: Oaxaca, queso fresco, Meononita or Chihuahua, Cotija (queso seco), Cotija (enchilado), panela and requesón.

Today's Arizona Daily Star's food section has several great features on Mexican cheeses, including this primer on the different varieties. Since the paper's content is available online only for a week, I'm copying and pasting instead of linking. Here's the article:

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Mexican cuisine cheeses
Karen Hursh Graber, senior food editor for Mexico Connect, a monthly electronic magazine on all things Mexican, lists the cheeses most frequently found in Mexico:

Fresh cheeses:
• Queso blanco — Creamy, white cheese made from skimmed cow's milk and described as a cross between cottage cheese and mozzarella. Softens when heated but doesn't melt. Good for stuffing enchiladas.
• Queso fresco — A spongy white cheese, used to crumble over snacks as well as on enchiladas and taquitos. Usually made of cow and goat milk. A very mild feta is an acceptable substitute.
• Queso panela — Also called queso de canasta because it carries the imprint of the basket in which it is molded. A soft, white cheese most often served as part of an appetizer or snack tray. It absorbs other flavors easily, and is sometimes coated with a garlic-and-chile paste, or wrapped in toasted avocado leaves, to be served with cocktails.
• Requesón — A loose, ricotta-like cheese used to fill enchiladas and to make cheese spreads. You may substitute a mild but not salty ricotta.

Soft cheeses:
• Queso añejo — An aged version of queso fresco. Classified as a soft cheese, but can become quite firm and salty as it ages. Used primarily as a garnish, crumbled or grated over a variety of dishes. Substitute Romano.
• Queso Oaxaca — Also called quesillo. The most popular cheese for quesadillas. A stretched curd cheese, kneaded and wound into balls. Pull it apart into thin strings before using to fill tortillas or melted on cooked food. Substitute mozzarella or string cheese.


Semi-soft cheeses:
• Queso asadero — Specifically a melting cheese, used to make the Mexican fondue called queso fundido, a dish that adapts well to other ingredients and is usually eaten as a late-night supper. Fontina and Monterey Jack are fine substitutes.
• Queso Chihuahua — Also called queso Menonita, after northern Mexico's Mennonite communities where it was first produced.
It is pale yellow and varies from mild to a nearly cheddarlike sharpness. Used in a variety of dishes; especially good in queso frito, a breaded, fried cheese dish. Chihuahua cheese is available outside Mexico, so substitutes shouldn't be necessary. However, you could use a very mild cheddar or a flavorful Jack cheese in many recipes.
• Queso jalapeño — A smooth, soft white cow's milk cheese with bits of jalapeño chile in it. Serve as a snack or use to make quesadillas.

Semi-firm cheeses:
• Queso criollo — Pale yellow; a specialty of the region around Taxco, Guerrero. So similar to Munster, one easily can be substituted for the other.
• Queso Edam — Although not considered a Mexican cheese, Edam has become such an intrinsic part of Yucatecan regional cooking that it is worth including here. The cheese round is scooped out, filled with a seasoned meat picadillo, and steamed in the oven the same way a custard is prepared. It then is presented whole, accompanied by a salsa roja.
• Queso manchego — Introduced to Mexico from Spain's La Mancha region. Buttery yellow and also popular outside Mexico. Good for melting or serving with fruit or crackers. Widely available in the U.S., but Monterey Jack may be used instead.

Firm cheeses:
• Queso añejo enchilado — Queso añejo with a spicy red chile coating. Aged to the point where it serves as a condiment. A strong feta cheese could be substituted for it.
• Queso Cotija — Named for the town of Cotija, Michoacan, where it originated. A sharp, crumbly goat cheese called "the Parmesan of Mexico." Usually served over beans and salads.
• Queso manchego viejo — As its name implies, this is manchego aged to the point where it hardens with a more intense flavor. Quite often shaved over botanas, appetizers or snacks.

Information from Karen Hursh Graber. More information and recipes, here.
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It's my sense that most, if not all, of these cheeses are available at the Food City markets in Tucson.

Chihuly at Desert Botanical Gardens, Phoenix

Today we drove up to Phoenix to see the Dale Chihuly exhibition at the Desert Botanical Gardens. The gardens are well worth seeing anyway, but the Chihuly installations were outstanding.

This doesn't really have anything to do with vegetarianism. Well, we did find several vegetarian options at the Terrace Cafe. We had veggie burgers and an order of garlic fries, and there were several other options as well. And we did stop at Ikea on the way back to replace the frying pan I ruined by forgetting the flame was still on low and not off, and compounding the error by leaving a rubber spatula in it.

But mostly I'm just looking for an excuse to post a pictures of a few of the Chihuly installations.

A few more from Dale Chihuly

MORE Chihuly

These two are from Mr. Gastronome, who is a better photographer than his wife.

Meatless "Chicken" Strips

Although these are quite expensive, I do keep some on hand because they are so convenient. The Morningstar Farms Meal Starters Veggie Chicken Strips are regularly priced over $11 a pound, but Safeway often has them on sale for $3.50, which brings them in at a more tolerable $7 a pound.

Trader Joe's Chicken-Less Strips are 2.99 for a half pound package. They taste remarkably like the Morningstar Farms chicken strips. And there's a reason: both products are made by Gardein.

I haven't personally used Quorn products, but they were recommended in recipes from the late, great vegetarian restaurant Tipu's Tiger in Missoula, Montana. Tipu's Tiger was a wonderful restaurant, and if Quorn is good enough for them, that's all the recommendation I need. Originally sold in health food stores, it was slow to show up in grocery stores, but is now available at QFC (Kroger), Albertsons and Fred Meyer stores.

I use these faux chicken strips not only in recipes calling for chicken, but in any recipe calling for white meat, including pork and white-fleshed fish.

If you prefer not to use meat substitutes, garbanzo beans can be used instead.

Fideos

Fideos are a Mexican wheat noodle, like pasta. They typically come rolled up in little bundles (bottom picture)and are often sauteed until golden (top)and then cooked with broth. Sometimes they are added raw and cooked in the soup itself. In recipes calling for fideos, vermicelli or thin spaghetti is a good substitute.

Three ounces of fideos is a reasonable serving for one person. I get them in 12 ounce packages at the hispanic market for 75 cents a package, or less on sale.

Fideos - Sopa Seca de Fideos

4 cloves of garlic
6 oz. fideos
olive oil
1/2 white onion, sliced
1 14 oz can tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon chipotle puree, or to taste
1/2 Mexican grey squash, chopped
2 Anaheim peppers, roasted, peeled and chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
1/4 cup peas
crema, sour cream or Greek yogurt, to taste
1/2 avocado, sliced
cotija cheese, crumbled
green onions
pickled onions and/or green olives
chopped cilantro or Italian parsley

Roast the garlic in foil in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

Saute the fideos in oil in a nonstick pan, in batches if necessary, until they are light golden. Remove and dry on paper towels.

In the oil remaining, saute the sliced onions for a few minutes until they are translucent. Remove the garlic from the foil and peel.

Put the garlic, onion, tomatoes and chipotle puree in a blender and process until smooth. Return the puree to the pan and add the fideos, the squash,the chile peppers and the oregano. Bring to a simmer and cook until the fideos are done and most of the liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes. If necessary you can add a little additional hot water or broth. Add the peas and cook until they are heated through.

Put the fideos on plates and garnish with the crema, avocado, cheese, onions, olives and cilantro or parsley. These quantities make two servings, or three if you have other courses.

NOTES: If you don't have Mexican grey squash, zucchini is a fine substitute. If you don't have cotija cheese, feta will work well. If you don't want to bother with roasting the garlic, you can sautee it with the onion. If you don't have a white onion, use red or yellow. No one will notice.

"Pork" in Chile Verde

This is based on a pork in chile verde dish my carni-vorous friends enjoy at the Chile Pepper Mexican restaurant in Seattle. (I usually have their excellent chiles rellenos, although their cheese enchiladas in mole are pretty terrific too. But I digress).

I make this dish using either Trader Joe chicken-less strips or Morningstar Farms meal starter chik-n strips. In fact I often use faux chicken strips in recipes calling for pork and even white fleshed fish.

If you prefer not to use meat substitutes, you could use garbanzo beans instead. Or this would be a fabulous brunch or supper dish with hard boiled eggs, chopped, added at the last minute. (Or poached eggs for masochistic cooks.)

4 to 6 ounces faux chicken strips
1 tablespoon butter, oil, or a combination
1 white onion, quartered and sliced
1 clove of garlic, minced
4-6 pasilla or anaheim chiles, roasted and chopped
1-1/2 cups salsa verde
1 t dried Mexican oregano, crumbled
3/4 cup broth, water or a combination
chopped cilantro
salt and pepper to taste

Cut the strips into fairly uniform chunks. Heat the butter and/or oil in a nonstick frying pan and saute the strips until they are lightly browned. Remove from the pan.

Saute the onion until it is becoming translucent. Add the garlic and saute for a couple of minutes more. Add the chiles, salsa, oregano and broth. Stir well to combine and simmer for ten to 15 minutes. Add the chopped cilantro and the strips and cook until the strips are just heated through. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over white rice.

This makes about three servings. Two if ravenous, four if there is a lot of other stuff going on. If you have the salsa verde already on hand and can buy roasted chiles, this is a pretty quick and easy supper. If you're starting from scratch, better start before lunch.

Green Sauce - Salsa Verde

1-1/4 to 1-1/2 pounds tomatillos
3 or 4 poblano or anaheim chiles, roasted and coarsely chopped
1/2 white onion, coarsely chopped
1 or 2 cloves of garlic, quartered
chopped cilantro to taste
salt and pepper to taste, if necessary

Husk the tomatillos, rinse them and cook them in simmering water for five to ten minutes until they are soft and have lost their bright green color. With tongs, remove them to a blender. Reserve the cooking liquid. Add the chiles, onion and garlic to the blender and process until well combined.

Put the sauce in a non stick frying pan. Add about a cup of the cooking water to the blender and process briefly to get the bits sticking to the sides of the blender. Add the water to the frying pan, stir to combine. Simmer the sauce for about ten minutes, until it is the thickness you want and the onion and garlic have lost their raw taste.

NOTE: Traditionally this sauce would be sauteed in lard or butter. If you want a richer sauce you can melt butter in the frying pan before adding the liquid ingredients, but I don't think it's necessary. The roasted peppers give the sauce a rich, smoky taste.

Add cilantro, and salt and pepper if necessary. I find that salt and pepper are usually unnecessary. The salsa is best if used promptly but will keep for a day or two in the refrigerator.

Mole Verde de Cacahuate - Green Mole with Peanuts

This is adapted from a pork recipe in Diana Kennedy's 1978 cookbook Recipes from the Regional Cooks of Mexico. The original recipe is from Veracruz state.

5 ounces shelled peanuts, unroasted, unsalted
1-1/2 pounds tomatillos
1/2 white onion
4 cloves of garlic, whole
1 bay leaf
6 sprigs of cilantro
jalapeno or serrano chile(s) to taste, seeds and stems removed
salt and pepper to taste


Toast the peanuts in a 350 degree oven until golden.

Husk the tomatillos and rinse them in cold water. Put them in a saucepan along with the onion, 2 cloves of garlic and bay leaf. Cover generously with water and bring to a simmer. Cook for about 10 to 15 minutes, or until the tomatillos are done.

Transfer the tomatillos, onion, and garlic to a blender, reserving the cooking liquid. (The sauce will puree more easily in the blender if you chop the onion and garlic a bit. If you are using a food processor, this isn't necessary.) Add the remaining 2 cloves of garlic, the cilantro, the jalapeno or serrano pepper(s) and the roasted peanuts. Add 3/4 to 1 cup of the cooking liquid and process until smooth. If it seems too thick, add a little more cooking liquid. The sauce will keep for a few days in the refrigerator and it freezes well.

I use this with faux chicken, either Trader Joe's or Morningstar Farms. Cut the "meat" strips in uniform sizes, and saute briefly in butter or oil in a nonstick pan until they are just starting to brown. Remove from the pan. Add more butter or oil and saute some white onion (sliced, slices cut in thirds) until it is becoming translucent. Add some of the mole to the pan along with a cup or more of the tomatillo cooking liquid (or broth or water if you are using mole from the freezer) and simmer the sauce and onions for about 15 minutes. Just before serving, add the "meat" and cook just to heat through. Serve over rice.

If you prefer not to use faux meat, this is also good with sauteed mushrooms, garbanzo beans, or both.

Black Bean Chili Supper

This is a good menu for a casual evening with friends, as everything can be made ahead and chili is familiar to carnivores and therefore not too threatening.

Starters:

Salsa
Guacamole
Sliced carrots
Sliced jicama
Tortilla chips

Salad:

Mixed greens with walnuts, dried cranberries and blue cheese.

Main Course:

Black Bean Chili, served over:
Polenta

Garnishes:

Roasted poblano peppers, diced
Greek yogurt (or sour cream)
Sliced green onions
Crumbled Cotija cheese

Dessert

Lemon sorbet with blueberries

or

Lemon cake with blueberry sauce

Spanakopita Pie

This is basically spanakopita, but baked in a pie shell instead of filo dough. I don't have the patience for filo dough. This is a forgiving recipe, and you can vary the amounts of everything. The dill is essential, but you can substitute a smaller amount of dried dill for fresh if necessary. You don't need salt at all because the feta is so salty.

This is a good dish for a picnic, or a potluck. It's what I always take to friends when there's been a death in the family because it will keep for several days, and it's familiar enough that it doesn't frighten carnivores. You can serve it at room temperature, or reheat it in a moderate oven until heated through. It also freezes well.

2 10-ounce packages frozen spinach, thawed
2 small yellow onions or one large, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
4 eggs
3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
3 to 4 ounces crumbled feta cheese
1 pie crust

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Squeeze all the water from the spinach and put the spinach in a mixing bowl. Saute the onions in the oil until they are soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook a couple of minutes longer. Add the onions and garlic to the spinach and mix well to combine. I find bare hands work best for this.

Add the eggs, dill and feta, and stir well to combine (NOT bare hands!).

Put the crust into the pie plate and poke holes in the bottom of the crust with a fork. Add the spinach mixture and spread it evenly. Bake the pie until done -- about 50 minutes to an hour. Check the pie occasionally and if the exposed crust is getting too brown, protect it with a pie crust shield or strips of foil. I find the crust shield usually needs to go on at about 40 minutes. If you are going to be serving it right away, let it rest for five to ten minutes.

White Rice Mexican Style - Arroz Blanco

1 cup of rice
1 tablespoon of butter or oil
1/2 small white onion, chopped fine
1 clove of garlic, minced
1-1/2 cups water, broth or a combination
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 to 1/2 cup minced celery (optional)
1/4 to 1/2 cup peas (optional)
1/4 to 1/2 cup minced carrot (optional)
the juice of half a lime (optional)


Soak the rice in very hot water for ten minutes. Drain, rinse in cold water and drain again. Heat the butter or oil in a nonstick frying pan and saute the rice for a few minutes. Add the onion and continue to saute until the rice is nearly translucent. Add the garlic and saute a couple of minutes longer. Add the water or broth, the bayleaf, salt, and any of the vegetables and/or lime juice you are using. Bring to a simmer, cover, turn the heat to very low and continue to simmer until just tender.

The rice can be made a day or two ahead and reheated in a steamer, in the microwave, or, covered with foil, in the oven. For the last two methods, you may need to sprinkle the rice with a little additional water or broth.

TIP: If I don't have any vegetable broth prepared, I add a couple of stalks of mustard green along with the water and then remove the stalks before serving. This enchances the flavor of the cooking liquid.