Frijoles (beans)

Along with corn another staple New World food are beans. There are a variety of ways to serve beans and prepare dishes made with beans but there is a core way to cook beans which I will discuss here. There  are a variety of common beans than are often used in Mexican food and this is often dictated regionally by the varieties common to the indigenous peoples of the area. In Arizona pinto beans are the prevalent variety, elsewhere black beans and white beans can be found in dishes in Central and Southern Mexico. Nonetheless the methods for the basic preparation is the same. For the methods below I will be using an Italian variety of bean that is quite close in appearance and flavour to the pinto bean.

Beans

pinto beans after the fast soak method

So one of the most important steps to making beans is soaking. Soaking does a few things: It shortens the overall cooking time while producing a softer less gritty bean; it also removes much of the soluble  carbohydrates which feed the bacteria responsible for gas production... less flatulance. So take a pound of beans (500 grams) and sort through them to check for stones or any other foreign material. Next add enough water to cover the beans by a couple volumes, the beans will soak and nearly double in volume so add enough water that they remain covered. From here you can go one of two ways. The first is overnight soaking for 12+ hours in water, drain and wash the beans before cooking. The other is the "fast soak" method where you cover with water as before, but then immediately begin heating the beans and bring it to a boil for 15 minutes, then turn off the heat and let the beans sit for an additional 45 minutes covered. Next drain and wash the beans.

Pinto beans with onion and poblanos before cooking

After you have your soaked beans by either method it is time to cook them. Cover them again with as much water as you used for soaking. Add one yellow onion, quartered, some hot green chiles like jalepenos as well as some milder chiles. Then a little smoked pork (a few oz; 50-100g), this can be bacon, smoked pork hock, etc. Now turn on the heat and sit back, add water to keep the beans covered it will take several hours until the beans are soft... unless you have a pressure cooker then it takes under an hour. After soft add salt to taste. There is the basic process for beans. Here are some variations:

Frijoles rancheros (ranch beans, recipe I stole from my friend's aunt): After your beans are done cooking, in a skillet fry up some bacon until crispy, remove the bacon. In the grease fry up diced red onion until soft, then add chopped tomato. After the mixture is hot, chop and add the bacon back then use this to top a bowl of beans with some chopped cilantro (fresh coriander). Serve with tortillas and salsa.

Frijoles refritas (Refried beans):

Despite the name these beans are never fried. They are just smashed beans with fat, lard is the best (you can use vegetable shortening or butter). I take the beans, prepared as above, add a tablespoon of lard and blend with a hand blender. If they are too thin you can keep heated until they evaporate enough (if you plan on making refried beans I try to adjust the liquid before blending as it is much easier to burn the beans after blending). These go with almost everything, for instance burritos with chile verde (below). Tortillas from previous post, salsas and chile verde to come...

Tortillas de maiz... the corn tortilla.

Corn tortillas are something that I often took for granted. It seemed no matter where I went in the U.S. I could find good to fantastic corn tortillas. Norway has few options: import tortillas or make your own. I had originally been bringing masa and tortillas from the US but I was not quite satisfied with the results from masa. Therefore I decided to start from scratch.

Corn tortillas are made from corn yet the process is not so straight forward. As a kid I tried making them from corn flour/meal with unsuccessful results. The reason for my failure was that the corn had not been treated/processed before it was ground. This process is called "nixtamalization" and this can be done at home. Nixtamalization utilizes an alkaline solution to denature proteins in the corn to make them bio-available (digestible) to us humans. It also makes the resulting dough sticky, allowing it to be used for a tortilla. For this process you can use calcium hydroxide (CaOH) also referred to as pickling lime (this is what I use) as well as wood ash (I have not tried this yet).  Here is the process:

Nixtamalization (for tortillas, tamales, sopas...)

You'll need:
1kg or 2lbs Dried corn (not popcorn nor sweet corn)
CaOH 1 tablespoon
Water

Combine a tablespoon of CaOH (careful this is caustic) with a few oz or a dl of water mix in a stainless bowl and set aside. In a stainless steel pot add the corn and enough water to cover the corn by 1.5 volumes (for example if you have corn filling the pot to 1 liter then fill with water to 2.5 liters).  Add the CaOH solution and set on the burner and bring to a boil for 10-15 minutes. Cover and let the corn sit overnight, 12+ hours.

White corn after sitting overnight in CaOH solution.

White corn before nixtamalization (left) and after (right).

Now the corn is treated the next step is wash the corn and remove the shell. This is done by rubbing the kernels together until most of the shell (the shell should be like peeling skin from a sunburn) is removed (below). 

Grinding the corn 

So this was a bit of work finding a grinder/mill but I ended up finding an antique that works pretty well, although you can also purchase a Corona Corn Grinder at brewer supply companies in Norway or a good food processor might work. Here's a short video of mine at work: 

Here is the resulting flour:

After ground I take warm water and dissolve enough salt until the water tastes like sea water. Here is an important note: too much water and your tortilla will stick to everything and won't stick to itself. So add water slowly until the dough just comes together.

finished dough

Almost there.

Preheat a griddle or pan, you may want to lightly oil the surface to begin with. Next take make a small ball (golfball size) by rolling between your hands. The place between two pieces of plastic and press to a thin tortilla (see below).

Carefully peel back the plastic and set on the very hot griddle

when the tortilla begins to bubble, flip once for another 30-60 seconds depending on heat and remove

Done... here is the basic corn tortilla. We will come back to these in the future to make a variety of  tacos, chips, tostados and other dishes. 

I will next be adding some other basic staples such as beans, rice and salsas so you can start putting together some dishes.