Frijoles de la Olla Con Chochoyotes (Beans with Masa Dumplings)

My grandmother came from my mothers side came not so long ago to visit us from Texas, so that's why I been dishing out lots of Mexican dishes & posts lately :) hope whoever is reading them is enjoying lol.

Anyways what are "Chochoyotes" they are dumplings made out pre-dominantly of corn masa (masa harina) & tastey pork fat with salt to taste. They are rolled into balls, an indentation is made on them with your thumb or whatever, and added to soups or stews. They taste like a dense tamale.

These things called "Chochoyotes" are something fairly new to me, my mother, grandmother and other family friends had no clue such a thing existed (even though they're Mexican) the reason is that Mexican Cuisine can vary A LOT and be very regional depending where your from, I learned about these from a woman who shared her way of making these dumplings who's family is originally from Oaxaca, Mexico, those dumplings are popular in that area's cuisine, so yup that's how I learned them :) the recipe that was shared involved squash blossoms, sometype of chile colorado all cooked together with these dumplings, so I was like "oh I'm sure it'll be good in a pot of soupy pinto or black beans) and thus came this recipe, plus I saw a newspaper article where someone made black beans with some sort of masa dumplings as well.

Ingredients:
-1 lb. pinto, flor de mayo, peruvian, or black beans (either one of those are suitable I used Pinto this time)
-1/2 a large onion
-2 cloves garlic
-1 serrano chile (optional I use it sometimes gives a peppery taste)
-a small bunch of epazote (optional I know it's hard to come by for some people, but if you live in Southern California you'll find it at any Mexican store)

Ingredients for dumplings:
-1 1/2 cups maseca (masa harina)
-about 1 cup or more of water (you'll add it slowly and see how much you need)
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1/4 cup of lard (best if it's "asiento" which is the bottom part of the pot when rendering lard with all the pork rind powder, but lard can be used)

Ingredients to serve/ garnish: (you don't have to use all of them, just what you like, I always have to have the tomatoes, onions, peppers, and cilantro. the rest I use them if I have it on hand)
-a small bowl of chopped tomatoes
-a small bowl of chopped onions
-a small bowl of chopped green chili peppers (jalapeno or serrano)
-1 small bowl of chopped cilantro
-chopped avocado in a bowl
-cubes a fresh cheese queso fresco
-mexican cream

Directions for dumplings:
(1) Add maseca, and salt to a bowl, stram in water a little at a time, running your hands in circular motion DO NOT PRESS the dough just swoosh it around, when it forms crumbly and a little moist, begin to press together until you get a compact dough.
(2) Add melted lard, and work the dough 4-5 minutes until everything is well married.
(3) Make little balls out of it, not to little like umm a tiny gulf ball & make an endentation with your thumb or index finger.
(4) Arrange in a plate, cover with damp cloth until ready to use.
Directions for beans and the rest of the stuff:
(1) Wash and rinse beans, bring to a boil together with water, onion, and garlic (enough water to submerge them 2 inches or more), cover lower heat and allow to cook about 1 1/2- 2 hours til tender (that's how long my beans took, you can soak em overnight if you'd like, or cook them the same day it works for me)

(2) When beans are tender add salt to taste (I use about 2 teaspoons) remove onion and garlic throw away, and add epazote if using,
the masa dumplings,
bring to a boil and allow to boil over medium covered about 5-7 minutes. Turn off heat and remove from heat. DO NOT. I REPEAT DO NOT allow the masa dumplings to boil to long they will disintegrate into the beans and you'll get a gruel. It'll be terrible (it's happened to me before it isn't the first time I've cooked this I learn from trial and error lol.) oh and remove the epazote/ discard
(3) Serve in a shallow bowl, and add any of the toppings/ garnishes, mix up and enjoy :)
PLEASE NOTE:
(1) For those that may get a panic attack from using some lard in cooking, feel free to use extra-virgin olive oil, or some other type of oil, but it won't be as tastey ;)

(2) And please please please heed my word do not let these dumplings cook too long in your pot of beans they WILL start breaking and be mush.

(3) It wouldn't hurt to boil the beans with some pork ribs or pork neck bones but that'll be another story or post ;)

(4) If your short on time, or intimidated to make the dumpling dough from scratch, but fresh prepared masa from a Mexican super market (the kind used to make tortillas not tamales) and use about 2 cups of that, and add 1/4 cup lard and salt to taste and work that dough a bit and well you know the rest.

... y oye tengan quidado porque despues de comerse un platazo de esto se van a tirar unos bombasos asi que mejor ir a la casa de tu peor enemigo despues de comer esto ja ja j/k.

Mole Negro Oaxaqueño (Black Mole, Oaxaca-style)

Like I've said in previous posts, mole is a type of complex Mexican sauce TYPICALLY involves spices, dried chiles, & chocolate. It's prepared with either chicken, pork, rabbit, or turkey. You can think of it as a type of "Mexican curry" and it's not pronounced like the animal "mole" it's pronounced "mo-lay" haha cuz if it was mole as in the animal that name would sound kinda gross...

There are TONS of variations and types (black, yellow, white, green, poblano, manchamanteles, almendrado, chichilo, rojo, coloradito, de olla, etc. all with a variety of ways to prepare them and recipes that vary from cook to cook) the most popular Mole sauce is "Mole Poblano" that's what most people are familiar with in the states and popular through out Mexico. The provinces most well known for their Mole is the state of Oaxaca as well as Puebla, yup yup.

Anyways today I want to share how I make "Mole Negro" I am VERY well known in my family for making a BOMB @$ delicious Mole Negro, I make it ONCE a year or ONCE every 2 years for special events (someones bday, my grandma from my Mexican side when she visits us, or holidays). Be warned it is fairly simple, BUT very very time consuming (give yourself 5 hours) that is the reason it is considered "special" the marriage of the smokey peppers, chocolate, sugar, sweet spices, nuts is unique but delicious they actually go very very well together... oh and one more WARNING PLEASE if you are making this don't get lazy along the way and try to rush it because you may ruin all your hard work... I tried to make this for one of my friends couple years ago (Travis) and was rushing while making it and trying to multi-task, I accidentally over charred the dried chiles in the oil because I was getting distracted trying to chop other stuff here and there, etc... and it made my whole batch of Mole BITTER T_T so please take your time and be careful with it okay.

Ingredients for the stock:
-4 1/2 lbs chicken (I used 2 large breasts, 5 drumsticks, and 2 thighs with leg skin on bone-in)
-1 large bell pepper
-1 onion
-6 cloves garlic
-2 medium tomatoes
-1 tsp. cumin
-1 tsp oregano
-1 tsp ground black pepper
-3 bay leaves
-4 teaspoons chicken bouillon powder
-3 or more teaspoonfuls salt to taste
-water enough to cover all ingredients

Main Ingredients for the sauce:
-5 chiles chilhuacle negros (dried chile negro)
-5 chiles mulattos (dried mulatto chiles)
-5 chiles pasillas (dried pasilla chiles)
-5 chiles guajillo (dried guajillo chiles)
-2 chiles chipotles (dried chipotles or in adobo)
*****here's a picture, the one's on the far left are guajillos, followed by the beige one's those are chipotles, then the mulattos which are dark, followed by the chile negro, and lastly the chile pasilla or ancho they look similar to the mulatto chiles but have a black reddish tinge, the mulatto is completely black.***
-5 tomatillos (green tomatillos) halved
-3 roma tomatoes halved
-1 medium onion quartered
-8 cloves garlic peeled
-1 frying banana/ plantain ripe
-2 slices of bolillo or french bread or white bread
-1/2 cup black or white sesame seeds
-1 small handful of each almonds, pecans, and peanuts (optional you really don't need them at all, alot of people don't use them)
-1 handful raisins
-1 stick cinnamon
-1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
-3 cloves
-1/2 tsp oregano
-1/2 tsp. thyme
-2- 3 bars/ round tablets of Mexican Chocolate (such as Ibarra chocolate, or Chocolate Abuelita)
-salt to taste
-sugar to taste (I use 1/8 of a cup)

Ingredients to make the mole black:
-1 corn tortillas turned into ashes (optional, you may not be able to do this because it needs to be outdoors CANNOT be done inside your home)
-the seeds and stems of the dried chilies turned into ashes((optional, you may not be able to do this because it needs to be outdoors CANNOT be done inside your home)

Directions for making the stock:
(1) Wash chicken very well, rinse several times, drain, last rinse do it with salt, vinegar, water, rinse again and pat- dry.

(2) Add chicken to a pot, cover with water, add all the stock ingredients (onion, garlic, bell pepper, tomatoes, bay leaves, salt, pepper, cumin, oregano)

(3) Bring to a boil on high, lower heat, cover and simmer for about 1 hour. When done turn off heat.

Directions of the sauce: (do this while your stock is being made/ boiled)
(1) Remove the stems and seeds from ALL the peppers, except chipotles. Set aside in a bowl.

(2) Make sure you have all the ingredients for the sauce on hand, like have htem all on your kitchen counter ready to use. Gather everything you need.
(3) Heat a medium sized pan, add 1/3 cup lard, and 1/3 cup oil or all lard. The rest of the procedures are pretty much frying all the stuff your gonna use for your sauce.
(4) First fry your plantain slices, over medium high, about 3-4 minutes on each side, until caramelized, pull out of oil, drain, and set aside.
(5) Fry your cinnamon stick, cloves, peppercorns, and if using your almonds, pecans, and peanuts when cinnamon stick opens and pops, remove everything you added set aside.
(6) Fry your raisins, less than 30 seconds set aside in large empty bowl, get your bowl of chiles and briefly about 20 seconds each, fry it in the oil, in batches, drain and set aside into another empty bowl you'll have on hand. (Don't panic at this point I bet the chiles are absorbing most of the oil that's fine you'll still have some left)


(7) Fry the slices of bread until golden, and set aside.

(8) Now fry the onions, garlic, and tomatillos, do not stir constantly let them brown and caremelize, fry the tomatoes at the end. Set aside.
(9) Fry the sesame seeds briefly like 30 seconds until you hear a popping sounds, set aside.

(10) Toast all the chile seeds until they smell a little bit and slightly change color. Set aside

More Directions for the sauce:(1) Okay you have everything fried now, pretty simple just time consuming and make sure you don't burn anything... by now your stock should be made, get a medium pot, add your chiles & raisins, cover with the hot chicken stock, and bring to a boil for about 10- 20 minutes until tender.
(2) Now puree/ blend/ liquify EVERY single ingredients including spices EXCEPT chocolate for your sauce in a blender, using the chicken stock, do this in batches. Empty the contents into a very large pot or bowl. Set aside.

(3) Now heat a large pot on the stove, when hot, strain the blended mole sauce ingredients through a strainer, adding stock to the strainer to help get it through (this is to get rid of any seeds or pulp, and hard spice pieces that didn't get liquified enough).
Bring to a boil, add chocolate tables, salt, and sugar to taste.

(4) Allow sauce to boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally for 30 minutes- 1 hour.

Directions to blacken sauce (optional I know it's a hassle but I did it, it makes a difference, and as opposed to what many think it won't make the sauce bitter TRUST ME)
(1) Get 2 corn tortillas, and practically burn them until they can't even ignite on fire, turn it to ash, DO NOT do this indoors, the smoke will make your fire alarms go off, smell really bad, and make you choke and cough

(2) The way I did it was I charred the tortillas until they can ignite on the stoves fire, then put it in a pot broken up, over medium high heat, covered the pot with it's lid, and wrapped the top around the lid with a WET very DAMP cloth towel, this is so the smoke doesn't get released into your house. DO this for about 10 minutes.

(3) Carefully move it outside (I took it to my balcony) open it carefully not facing it, ITS hot be careful, allow smoke to go outside, and stir and see if it turned to ashes/ super black and can't ignite.

(4) If not repeat step... it's a bit tedious but work it. Now puree it/ blend it with the chicken stock and strain it into the mole pot.
Simmer additional time until mole darkens.
It won't make it bitter though TRUST, it's actually tasteless (I tasted the ash lol.) I don't know how healthy that is to do (probably not so much because of all the carcinogens) but I learned that technique from other people and it contributes to taste & supposibly makes it easy to digest the sauce.

More directions/ tips
(1) Only use enough stock to puree the ingredients, you are not making soup, teh sauce should be like a loose gravey or regular gravey consistency. If it came out to soupy puree in blender about 1/2 cup of masa harina flour with some of the leftover stock, and thicken the mole with that.

Directions to serve:
(1) Place a piece of chicken on your plate, that you have aside in the pot that it boiled in, ladel the mole sauce over it. Serve with whatever you'd like (Mexican red rice that you can make using leftover stock, refried beans, etc. or just warm corn tortillas) I served it with a Mexican yellow rice, fire roasted poblanos sauteed with onions in cream (chile en rajas con crema), and refried peruano beans.
P.S.I originally got the recipe many years ago from an online website called "Mole Pages" the URL was www.ramekins.com/mole/molenegro.html the website no longer exists, but it said it was from "Chile Pepper Magazine, Jan 95 couresy of Michael Bowers (mkbower@ucdavis.edu)" BUT I changed the recipe a bit but used it as a guide to get a good idea, and also learned from watching other cooks, and asking friends and relatives (I learned to fry all the sauce ingredients from my aunt Sylvia from San Antonio, Texas, and the making of the ashes from "Angrychrisjavi" from Dallas, Texas, she's one of my favorite youtube Mexican cooks. I also tweaked the quantities of ingredients and omitted and added some, and the results are very good, I get nothing but compliments for this mole and have also learned from trial and error :) It's my own but I want to give tribute to where I learned it from/ got the idea from :)

Notes:You will probably have leftover sauce, it freezes well, or you can cook any other meats and top it with the mole sauce, or sautee some onions, add beaten eggs to scramble, then add mole sauce to simmer YUM good breakfast with corn tortillas, or even poach eggs in the sauce... or you can eat a hot bowl of just the sauce with corn tortillas and beans... or use the mole sauce in place of the red enchilada sauce to make some "enmoladas" :)

Agua Fresca de Platano (Banana Drink)

"Agua Fresca" means "fresh water" or "cooling water" they are a category of Latin drinks, typically any variety of fruit sometimes cucumber, blended with water & diluted with sugar to taste, in giant pitchers with ice. Popular one's are melon, honeydew, papaya, watermelon, strawberry, etc. certain varieties have some milk added to them to lighten the color and give a little extra richness. The banana version which I present here sometimes has flavoring like vanilla or cinnamon added to it, and tastes similar to the Mexican horchata (rice milk drink) it is one of my favorites, and it's easy whip up whenever because most people have bananas, milk, sugar, and water at home which are the basics, as well as vanilla or cinnamon in a well stocked pantry.

This drink is also really good if your in the mood for an alcoholic drink, you can serve yourself some in a tall glass with any clear colored rum and lots of ice.

Makes 4 quartz
Ingredients:
-2 bananas (yellow stage or super ripe, up to you BUT NO GREEN ones or unripe because it'll be to astringent)
-juice of 1/2 lime (optional, my mom say's it helps the drink not oxidize/ preserves freshness of banana)
-1 1/2 cups white sugar (more to taste)
-1 tsp. ground cinnamon (optional)
-1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
-12 cups water
-4 cups milk

Directions:
(1) In a blender peeled bananas, 1/2 juice of lime, 2-3 cups water, sugar, cinnamon powder, and vanilla extract.
Blend on high for atleast 1-2 minutes you want it as smooth as possible.

(2) I used 2 pitchers, each holds 2 quartz, I divided the mixture I blended into 2 seperate parts, you can use 1 giant pitcher that can hold 4 quartz. Dilute mixture with the rest of the water but leave space in the pitcher to add the milk,
stirring as you add the water, and stir in milk towards the end.
The milk is used to give it some richness and a nicer color. Taste for sugar and adjust :)

P.S.
Recipe can be cut in half, it's best consumed within the same day, as the banana tends to darken in color over time.