Hungry Travelers - Page 18 of 82 - Bringing the tastes of travel back home

Mole coloradito brightens any early winter meal

Posted on January 2, 2021December 31, 2020 by Pat and David

As one of the seven classics, mole coloradito occupies the sweet spot between the bright punch of mole amarillo and the luscious richness of the darker moles. Brick-red in color and somewhat thinner than many other moles, it is straightforward to prepare. This recipe uses only guajillo peppers, a moderately hot chile with thin walls and a smoky, fruity flavor. The sauce is fairly harsh when you first start cooking but becomes smooth and mellow somewhere around the two-hour mark. The finished mole is surprisingly fruity and pairs nicely with cold sauvignon blanc wine. Coloradito is very versatile when it comes time to serve. Traditionally, it's ladled over a pork roast, over roasted leg and thigh of chicken, or over enchiladas. In Oaxaca, the sauce...Read More

Mole amarillo meets champagne for New Years Eve

Posted on December 26, 2020March 2, 2021 by Pat and David

If there's one shortcoming of Mexican mole sauces, it's that many of them are not exactly wine-friendly. Mole amarillo, however, is an extreme exception. It's a bright, sprightly sauce with a nice acidic tang and a heady combination of sunny spices. Amarillo is a perfect riposte to the cold and dark days immediately following the winter solstice. It also pairs spectacularly with sparkling wines, champagne included. One of our favorite choices is Gruët Brut, a terrific American sparkling wine from New Mexico made by a family with roots in France's Champagne district (gruetwinery.com). They blend it from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grown at 4,000-5,000 feet of elevation between Albuquerque and Las Cruces, New Mexico. (The company's Blancs de Blancs and Blanc de Noirs also go...Read More

Starting on Oaxaca’s seven moles with mole rojo

Posted on December 19, 2020March 2, 2021 by Pat and David

For many years we cooked a Christmas Eve spread for around 25 family members. Since we have only our own palates to please this year, we decided to make the holidays festive by beginning a marathon of cooking dishes often associated with good times and holiday cheer, at least in Mexican and Latinx households. We're talking about tamales and moles (MOH-lays, in case you were wondering how to pronounce it). This will be the beginning of a series with recipes for our versions of the seven classic moles of Oaxaca and some ways to serve them. Why Oaxaca? Mexico has a rich variety of regional cuisines, but we think of Oaxaca as the mother kitchen for them all. The Isthmus of Tehuantepec was the spice...Read More

Our modest addition to the Christmas cookie canon

Posted on December 12, 2020December 11, 2020 by Pat and David

A plate of Christmas cookies isn't the same without some form of shortbread cookie. We love traditional Scottish shortbread and fondly recall Pat's mother's chocolate chip shortbread bites. But our personal favorite is the saffron shortbread we first concocted nearly a decade ago. We hope it could become one of your favorites, too. When we could travel, we often purchased saffron in Spain, which is one of the world's largest producers. This year we had to resort to mail-order. One good choice is the Afghan saffron from Vanilla Saffron (www.saffron.com) in San Francisco. The best buy is by the ounce (28 grams). We find the flavor virtually identical to Spanish, and the Afghan product from Vanilla Saffron is of the highest grade, with very few...Read More

Finally, vegan cookbook whose recipes hit the spot

Posted on December 5, 2020 by Pat and David

In the foreword to her new cookbook, Karoline Jönsson writes, ‶Happy Vegan Comfort Food is the book I needed when I decided to quit eating animals. It would have saved me years of finding my way in the green jungle.″ To that, we'd add that Happy Vegan Comfort Food (Pavilion/Rizzoli, $19.95) is the vegan cookbook we've been waiting for. We're omnivores, but we eat less and less meat and other animal products. This book broadens our culinary horizons with some really tasty dishes. Instead of being all about what the author doesn't or won't eat, the cookbook is a wholehearted embrace of really good food that—oh, by the way—is entirely plant-based. Rarely does Jönsson fall back on meat analogs. She does use tofu and seitan,...Read More

Faces of Paris at the winter cafés

Posted on November 18, 2020November 18, 2020 by Pat and David

For the last few months, Boston and Cambridge have had a decidedly European flair as both cities allowed restaurants to spill outdoors and set up dining terraces on the streets. Restaurateurs embraced the chance to spread out and lure diners back. Most planned and decorated their terraces with style and diners jumped at the chance to get out of the house and out of the home kitchen. On weekends, Hanover Street in Boston's North End seemed like a giant block party with especially good food. Alas, the party has started to fizzle as New England's weather inevitably turns colder. So we were heartened to learn that Restaurant Strong Winterization Grants are going to help restaurants in Boston (as well as Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia)...Read More

San Marzano DOP tomatoes to the rescue

Posted on November 13, 2020November 13, 2020 by Pat and David

When our garden was hit with the first killing frost (and four inches of snow) on Halloween, we were lucky. We had harvested all our green tomatoes and a bucket of partially ripe cherry tomatoes before the mercury plunged. So we will still be cooking with fresh tomatoes for another week or so. But end-of-the-season tomatoes can't hold a candle to the sweet, juicy beauties of summer. Ditto the greenhouse tomatoes that we buy over the winter. Every year we talk ourselves into their virtues and overlook their faults. At some point great canned tomatoes are superior to just okay fresh ones. Finding the best canned tomatoes in the world We look for cans labeled ‶Pomodoro San Marzano dell'Agro Sarnese-Nocerino DOP.″ Sometimes it's a subtitle...Read More

World on a Plate: Caino’s coffee-dusted cacio e pepe

Posted on November 6, 2020November 5, 2020 by Pat and David

Sometimes culinary genius reveals itself in a brilliant gesture rather than in profound technical flourishes. This tangle of pasta demonstrates the genius of restraint. It also embodies the taste and imagination of Valeria Piccini. Piccini simply calls the dish spaghettone cacio, pepe, e caffè. She frequently offers it as a pasta course at her family restaurant. Il Ristorante Caino (Via Canonica, 3, Montemerano; +39 0564 692 817; dacaino.it) is hidden away in a tiny medieval mountain village in Tuscany's Maremma. But Piccini's cooking draws admirers from all over Italy to the 13th century hamlet where sheep and goats may outnumber the 400 human inhabitants. Da Caino earned its first Michelin star in 1991, and has held two since 1999. The dining public and Michelin's inspectors...Read More

Faces of Pátzcuaro, Mexico, on the Day of the Dead

Posted on October 27, 2020October 23, 2020 by Pat and David

[caption id="attachment_7757" align="aligncenter" width="1832"] Island cemetery in Lake Pátzcuaro is decorated with marigolds. [/caption] In this COVID year, every ‶normal″ celebration seems a little strange, even abnormal. Yet there is something comforting, even reassuring, about marking our festivals. To forget them is to lose continuity with our past. This year, we'll again seek out marigolds to honor family members who are no longer with us. And we'll make a dinner with mole amarillo, the saffron-scented marigold-colored sauce popular in this season in many parts of Mexico. We will also remember the faces of Pátzcuaro, the colonial city of 80,000 in the Mexican state of Michoacán. Thanks partly to Disney's Coco and partly to glossy travel stories, Pátzcuaro has become almost too famous for its Day...Read More

World on a Plate: Day of the Dead in Michoacán

Posted on October 23, 2020October 21, 2020 by Pat and David

Halloween may taste like candy corn and mini-Snickers to most Americans. But Day of the Dead tastes like tamales striped with red chile, green chile, and white crema. At least that what it tastes like in Morelia, the capital city of the Mexican state of Michoacán. The region is famous for its Day of the Dead commemorations. The animated Disney film Coco is set in nearby Pátzcuaro. But somewhat bigger Morelia brings equal magic to the passage of fall into winter and life into death. Around the end of October, it seems like almost every flat surface is covered in marigold blossoms and every building has a prominent Day of the Dead altar to feed the spirits of those on the other side. Surprisingly, the...Read More