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

TEXAS TEMPRANILLO AND BEEF STEW

Usually you pick a wine to go with the food you're serving.

But I did just the opposite. I created a dish, actually a whole meal, to show off a wine that was really special, a Tempranillo from Texas. 

Never heard of Texas wine? Well you will, because Texas has enough wineries to make it the fifth largest wine region in the United States, and the potential for growth there is big.  

The wine I had was the 2017 Texas Hill Country Estate Tempranillo from Spicewood Vineyards. The Texas Hill Country, where this wine was produced, is one of eight AVAs (American Viticultural Areas) in the state.   

Owner Ron Yates fell in love with Tempranillo while studying Spanish in Spain and visiting vineyards in Ribera del Duero. Tempranillo originated in Spain, and Yates thought it would also do well in the warm Texas climate.  

A sixth generation ranching Texan, he now grows the grape in six locations including Spicewood. It's "my favorite wine to drink by far," he says.

Tempranillo does so well in Texas that other wineries produce it too. One of them is Pedernales Cellars, co-founded by David, Julie and Heather Kuhlken. The  Spicewood estate wine is 100% Tempranillo. The Pedernales 2017 Texas High Plains Tempranillo blends 86% Tempranillo, 9% Mourvedre and 5% Teroldego. The High Plains is another Texas AVA.

Like Spicewood, Pedernales belongs to an organization called Texas Fine Wine, which presented a webinar about Texas wine in collaboration with the International Food, Wine and Travel Writers Association.

The Spicewood Tempranillo was sent to me to sip while attending the webinar. Other members of Texas Fine Wine that took part were Duchman Family Winery, Brennan Vineyards and Bending Branch Winery.

Yates aged his estate Tempranillo for 20 months in 60% new French oak and 40% neutral oak to give it more intensity and duration in the Spanish style.  "It has a nice balance of savory and fruit on the mid-palate," he says. Loyally, he chose the red and yellow of the Spanish flag for the label. This is the Spicewood cellar, as seen in the wine class. 

Like other Texas wines, Tempranillo goes well with lively Texas food such as barbecue and fajitas. So I matched the Spicewood wine with a beef stew to which I added red chile salsa (for Texas) and smoked paprika to represent Spain. 

Dry, with lively tannins and a deep cherry red in color, the wine showed ripe fruitiness that stood up to all the dishes I served that night, including Mexican squash cooked with tomatoes, corn, onion and garlic (above).

It even held up with pan de elote, a slightly sweet corn cake from a Latino bakery in Los Angeles (above). And it's a natural to go with rice and Texas style cornbread. 

Here is how everything looked on the plate, followed by the recipe for the stew, which I cooked in an Instant Pot. If preparing the stew stove top or in a slow cooker, the cooking time would be longer and the amount of liquid would have to be adjusted, using less for a slow cooker and enough to keep the meat from drying out stove top.  

TEXAN/SPANISH BEEF STEW

1 pound beef stew meat
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium tomato, peeled and diced
1/4 cup red chile salsa
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
8 pearl onions, peeled
1/2 cup sliced carrots
2 whole garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups water

Trim off fat and cut the meat into 1- to 1 1/2-inch cubes.

Press saute/more on the Instant Pot. When hot, add the olive oil and then the beef and cook, stirring, until browned on all sides. Add the tomato and cook until softened. Stir in the chile salsa, tomato paste, paprika and brown sugar.

Now add the onions, carrots, garlic, bay leaves, salt and water and stir.  

Lock the lid on the Instant Pot, set to sealing and press beef/stew. The indicated time will be 35 minutes, plus the time it takes to reach pressure, which will be 10 to 11 minutes.

When the stew is done, let the pressure drop naturally until entirely gone and the float valve has dropped, about 15 minutes. Press cancel. Unlock and remove the lid. The stew will contain quite a bit of liquid. You can return to sauté mode and reduce the liquid as desired in the pot. Or transfer the stew to a large saucepan and simmer until slightly thickened. The additional cooking time makes the stew even more flavorful and tender.

Spoon onto heated serving plates and accompany with sides such as squash, pastel de elote (corn cake), rice and cornbread.  

Makes 4 servings. 

Baja Wines--Now Coming into the USA

So sad, the annual harvest festival in Mexico's Valle de Guadalupe had to be canceled this year. The culprit, of course, was Covid.

Otherwise, this wine district just outside Ensenada in Baja California would have been bustling with tastings, lunches, dinners, concerts, a paella contest and much more, from July 30 to August 23. 

The annual festival, known as Fiestas de la Vendimia, was a great time to explore what is still a little known wine region. When I wrote about it for The Los Angeles Times in 1993, there were just six wineries, two of them in Ensenada. Now there are more than 200, accounting for 85% of the wine produced in Mexico. 

The two wineries in Ensenada then were Bodegas de Santo Tomás, which is the oldest winery still producing, and Cavas Valmar, now relocated to the Guadalupe Valley. Pioneers in the valley were Monte Xanic, Casa Pedro Domecq, Bodegas San Antonio and L.A. Cetto. Cetto's large facility houses the wine shop above.  

It was such fun to roam around during vendimia, meeting winemakers and chefs and joining other wine enthusiasts for al fresco lunches and dinners. 

This was the ideal time to stock up on local cheeses and artisanal products such as nopal preserves, honey and olive oil.   

You probably know the famous drinking song "Brindisi" from the opera "La Traviata." When I hear it now, I don't think of an opera stage but of Monte Xanic, where a highlight of the annual vendimia concert was a rousing performance of this duet by opera singers from Mexico. I still wave my glass to and fro as I did sitting under the stars, surrounded by dark hills and looking off toward scattered lights in the valley.  

I couldn't do that this year. But I can still drink plenty of Baja wine and at least dream of the beautiful places where I used to enjoy it, including the restaurant Corazón de Tierra, above.

On my trips I could only bring one bottle home, and it was difficult to find Baja wines in Los Angeles. But now I can have all I want, delivered right to my door. 

This is possible through La Mision Associates in San Diego, California, which imports and distributes more than 150 Baja wines. La Mision is owned by Yolanda Martain, daughter of Fernando Martain, who founded Cavas Valmar in 1983.

I couldn't have waded through La Mision's mind-boggling list without help from Stacie Hunt (above), sommelier and all around wine expert whose Baja knowledge runs deep.

Stacie recently gave an hour-long webinar on the Valle de Guadalupe for the International Food, Wine and Travel Writers Assocation. She packed every minute with up-to-date information, so I learned that the incidence of Covid is low in the valley, and access is limited to keep it that way. Meanwhile, the virus is active in nearby Ensenada and Tijuana.

I sent Stacie a list of 16 wines, which she whittled down to 10, eliminating some of my choices and adding others that she thought I should try. I wound up with 11 bottles, because I wanted two of the 2017 Tempranillos from Cavas Valmar, above. 

Tempranillo does well in Baja, and I ordered another from Vena Cava, a winery constructed from salvaged boat parts (above).

Vena Cava winemaker Phil Gregory (above) and his wife Eileen also have a boutique hotel, La Villa del Valle, a beautiful place where I've been for tastings. 

One of the two white wines I bought was the 2019 Sauvignon Blanc from Viñedos Mina Penélope. This winery was founded in 2014 by Veronica Santiago, who is the winemaker, and her husband, Nathaniel Malagón. Malva, an outdoor restaurant in their vineyard, specializes in local ingredients grilled over oak or cooked in a wood-fired oven. 

The other white was the 2018 Duquesa, a blend from Viñedos de la Reina. The grapes for this wine were grown in the Valle de San Vicente, another vineyard site in the region, but the label doesn't say what they are. 

Here are the two white wines along with the 2019 Grenache Rosé from Vena Cava.

Nebbiolo has a long history in the Guadalupe Valley, and Stacie suggested trying the Trasiego Nebbiolo 2016. Camillo Magoni, who made this wine, left Italy for Baja and has lived there for decades, renowned for his work in developing the area. 

These four red wines from my new collection are blends.

The 2018 Canto de Luna from Finca La Carrodilla, shown here in the winery tasting room, blends Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Tempranillo.

The 2016 Dominó Tinto from Vinisterra combines Grenache, Tempranillo, Mourvedre and Syrah. There's a white Dominó too, composed of 82% Chenin Blanc and 18% Chardonnay and recommended for seafood. The winemaker at this beautiful place is Christoph Gaertner. 

Emevé's Armonía de Tintos 2018 blends equal parts Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Shiraz. Emevé is the way the initials of the founder, Mario Villarreal, would be pronounced in Spanish. Above is the entrance to the tasting room on a hot day in 2009.

The remaining blend is the 2014 Valle de Tintos Tempranillo, which contains 22% Carignane (Carignan in Spanish). This young winery is located in El Sauzal, the first community on the highway leading from the Pacific coast into the Valle de Guadalupe.

The highway continues on to Tecate. It's a peaceful drive through vineyards, rock-strewn hills, a few roadside eating places, an occasional market, stands displaying local products and turn-offs to the wineries.

Beyond this entrance is the winery Las Nubes.

The winery building at Finca La Carrodilla (above) blends naturally into the landscape. 

During my early trips to the valley, I was lucky to spend time with industry pioneers, among them Hugo d'Acosta, who started at Santo Tomás, then opened his own winery, Casa de Piedra.

In 2004, d'Acosta founded a school for winemakers at what had been an olive oil factory. Known locally as La Escuelita, its formal name is Estación de Oficios el Porvenir (above). 

Another key person was Luis Agustín Cetto, whom I interviewed in his office at Cetto's location in Tijuana. Hans Backhoff, the oenologist instrumental in founding Monte Xanic in 1987, guided me through tastings there. After one late party inside the winery, I drove away through the valley in deep night, the only car on the road.

Traffic may be just as light now, because there are few tourists, but one day we'll all be back, tasting new wines, meeting new winemakers and celebrating the vendimia.

Despite the quarantine, it's still possible to visit the Valle de Guadalupe although options are limited. Stacie Hunt advises checking first to see if tasting rooms are open and if reservations are required. Restaurants are open by reservation and with outdoor seating only.

"Mexican wine is still very much a wild frontier of wine," she says. It's just a little wilder now, thanks to Covid.

The 1993 article that I wrote about the Valle de Guadalupe, titled "The Other California Wine Country," is available online through The Los Angeles Times. It has three parts, an overview of the wine region, profiles of the wineries and an article about local food with recipes from a cooking contest at Cavas Valmar and from Ensenada restaurants Punta Morro and El Rey Sol, which was the elite place to eat in those days and is still thriving after 73 years in business.   

WHEN YOUR DINNER'S A TOTAL SURPRISE

What's she carrying? Bags of delicious food, a luxury dinner from Surprise Me Kitchen delivered straight to my door and ready to eat without any reheating or transferring to serving dishes.

And I didn't even have to order from a menu. All I did was tell Surprise Me Kitchen what I didn't want to eat (liver, tofu) and the chefs then crafted a four-course fine dining menu just for me.

The ingredients came from local farms, and the food was packed in compostable and recyclable materials, including a dinner plate, so there wasn't any cleanup afterward.

Opening the bags--two for each of the two people who were going to eat--I found an elegant black box full of goodies. It was like Christmas morning, opening gift after gift, only these gifts were food, so beautifully arranged I couldn't wait to eat. Some of the dishes were sprinkled with edible gold leaf--wow!

Each person received a totally different menu, so the photos here are from two dinners.

First courses included heirloom cherry tomatoes with pureed fresh mozzarella, pesto, shaved Parmesan and basil (above).

Shrimp and scallop ceviche (above) was as fresh as if it had just arrived from a Mexican seaport. 

Crunchy guacamole fritters (above) were rolled in crushed tortilla chips. Chipotle sour cream sauce came with them. 

Mexican flavors predominated--and they didn't even know I love Mexican food. But there were Italian influences too, such as the tomato salad and creamy gnocchi with bits of honey-roasted butternut squash (above).

My main course was a lamb shank (above) that had been braised with seven types of Mexican dried red chiles, tomatoes and onions. It's on a bed of pancetta black bean puree.

The red rice on the side was perfectly done--and I have eaten and cooked a lot of Mexican red rice so I don't say that lightly. 

My dessert was yet another surprise. What looked like a bowl of nachos, guacamole, salsa and sour cream was the same idea transformed into a sweet version with fresh summer fruits, avocado and sweet cream (above). Wonton crisps replaced the corn tortilla chips.

The other dinner ended in a quinoa pudding (above) made with coconut milk, cream, cinnamon, pureed strawberries and raspberries, diced fruit, mint, basil--and gold leaf.

Surprise Me Kitchen is Los Angeles-based and brand new. If you want to learn more about this unique concept, go to www.surprisemekitchen.com. And thanks to Chef Arturo Robles, who created these dinners. 

A Lenten Bread Pudding from Mexico

Lent may be a time for fasting and sober thought, especially in this corona virus epoch. On the positive side, it's also the season to eat a buttery rich, syrupy sweet and totally fabulous dessert, the Mexican bread pudding called capirotada.

Alex Peña (above) is an expert in making capirotada, and in all Mexican breads. His capirotada is on the right. On the left is another of his bread-based desserts, budín.

Peña grew up with Mexican baking at his family's panadería and market, La Morenita in Cypress Park, California. Now, he's director of development for Pak Group, producer of Bellarise yeast and other commercial baking supplies. In his lab in Pasadena, California, he tests and fine-tunes everything to do with bread baking.

For capirotada, Peña bakes his own bread, often using round, sweet picones (above).

Or else he makes bolillos (above). At home, you can use store-bought bolillos, which you then cut up and dry in the oven. 

Many Latino supermarkets provide ready made dried bolillos for capirotada such as these displayed at a Northgate Gonzalez market in Los Angeles. 


I even found them at AA Marketplace in Garden Grove, a pan Asian market that also carries Mexican ingredients.  

Some Latino markets and bakeries sell readymade capirotada such as this version in the prepared foods counter at Northgate Gonzalez. 

Assembling the pudding is easy. Once the bread is prepared, you place it in a baking dish, then add melted butter, raisins, roasted peanuts, grated cheese, candies and a syrup spiced with cinnamon and cloves.

Special ingredients such as piloncillo, fat cinnamon sticks and colaciones (at left in front) are available in Latino markets. 

Here, Peña sprinkles grated cheese over the pudding--yes, cheese is an essential component of capirotada. His Guadalajara style capirotada is topped with Jack cheese. In northern Mexico, cooks might use sharp Cheddar.

Peña pretties up the pudding with candies--fat round Mexican colaciones and multi-colored candy sprinkles. You can eat capirotada warm after baking or refrigerated and cold. It's good either way, he says.

And if it's too hard to shop for the ingredients now, capirotada will be good anytime, not just during Lent. 

To see more of Peña's Mexican breads, go to his Instagram site, Baking Evolution.

ALEX PEÑA'S CAPIROTADA
Mexican Bread Pudding

6 cups sliced or cubed bolillos, from 4 bolillos, about 3 1/2 ounces each
2 quarts water
2 pounds piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar cones) 
2 large whole cinnamon sticks
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 1/2 cups butter (3 sticks), melted
1 cup raisins 
1 cup roasted peanuts 
3 cups shredded Jack cheese 
Decorative Mexican candies such as colaciones or candy sprinkles

The bolillos can be prepared a day ahead. Spread the slices or cubes on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes, until dry. 

The syrup can also be prepared a day ahead. Combine the water, piloncillo, cinnamon sticks and cloves in a large pot. Bring to a rolling boil. Cook until reduced to 1 1/2 quarts. If storing overnight, you can leave the spices in the syrup. Before baking, strain the syrup to remove the spices.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Place the dried bolillos in a 10-inch-square baking dish. Sprinkle evenly with the butter, raisins, peanuts, cheese and candies. Sprinkle the syrup over all. Cover with a lid or foil. Bake for 1 hour. 

Serve warm or cold. Makes 20 (3-ounce) servings or 12 (5-ounce) servings. Additional cheese and sprinkles can be added after baking or when reheating for an attractive presentation. 

Green Chicken Chili, an Easy Winner

This Green Chicken Chili is a real crowd pleaser, and so easy to make.

It's from the book "Keeping It Simple" by Yasmin Fahr. And it was a big hit when Fahr appeared for a lunch, book signing and recipe demo at Melissa's Produce in Los Angeles.

The theme of the book is easy one-pot dishes to make weeknight cooking hassle-free. The recipes may be easy, but they are full of flavor and freshness. 

The chili gets its greenness from jalapeño, poblano and New Mexican Hatch chiles, also tomatillos and cilantro. Amazingly, you can make it in only half an hour, plus a few minutes of prep time. 

This is Fahr's first book, an outgrowth of a column she wrote for Serious Eats. It's a winner, if you're looking for recipes that are lively and fun, don't require a lot of skill and give you plenty of leeway to substitute ingredients.

For example, you can make the chili with bell peppers instead of poblanos and canned tomatillos instead of fresh, or even green tomatoes. If you insist on chili with beans you can add those too. 

Here is the recipe: 

30-MINUTE GREEN CHICKEN CHILI
From "Keeping It Simple" by Yasmin Fahr

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 jalapeño chiles, one seeded and diced, 1 sliced for sprinkling
2 poblano or green (bell) peppers, seeded and diced
1 can tomatillos, drained, or 6 fresh tomatillos, husked, or 6 fresh green tomatoes, roughly chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves, grated or minced
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken thighs
2 cups low-salt chicken stock (broth)
1 (4-ounce) can mild or hot chopped green chiles, preferably Hatch
2 limes, juice of 1, 1 sliced into wedges for serving
1/2 cup cilantro, fine stems and leaves roughly chopped
1 Hass avocado, halved, pitted, peeled and sliced for serving (optional)

Heat the oil in a large flameproof casserole (Dutch oven) over medium heat until shimmering. Add the onion, jalapeño and poblano peppers, the tomatillos, salt and pepper, stirring frequently until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, cumin and oregano and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper, then add to the casserole. Pour in the chicken stock and raise the heat to maintain a gentle simmer (avoid bringing to a boil). Cook until the chicken is cooked through, 10 minutes or longer. If the chicken pieces are not completely submerged, then turn them over halfway. 

Remove the chicken and place on a plate or in a shallow bowl. Use a fork and knife to shred the chicken, then add it back to the casserole along with any liquid and the chopped green chiles. Cook until the chicken is warmed through, about 2 minutes, squeeze in the lime and adjust seasoning as needed.

If desired, you can add cooked or canned white beans with the chicken and mash them against the side of the pan. 

Ladle into bowls and top with cilantro, avocado if using and the sliced jalapeño. Serve with lime wedges.

Makes 2 large servings, or 4 for sharing.