Charro Beans & Mexican Brownies

As soon as my feet hit the floor this morning I knew I would be in the kitchen all day. My cooking urges come in surges - kind of like mood swings, only much more productive (and infinitely more pleasant). Persistent rain is almost always an omen.

My first urge was to make some charro beans. I thought these would be a nice addition to the chicken we're smoking this afternoon.



My favorite Mexican restaurant serves a pretty good version of the charro beans, yet somehow I feel (as I almost always do) that I can do it better (et voila, read on!). As usual, I perused several recipes on line, then ventured off down my own path. I started with pintos, unsoaked. I never, ever soak my beans. It's a complete waste of time and you can get the same tender results in a couple of hours if you just stick to water (with a little bacon fat in this case) and refrain from adding any salt until the beans are tender. Once the liquid in the beans boiled out a little, I replaced it with a bottle of beer rather than adding more water - this imparts a really nice flavor (remember, beer makes it better). At this point, as long as the beans are tender, salt away. As my beans were heating back up after the beer addition, I fried up a few slices of bacon (hallelujah, say amen) and sauteed a big chopped Vidalia onion with a chopped serrano pepper in the pan drippings. I added the crumbled bacon, cooked onion & pepper, and a can of drained diced tomatoes back to the beans, popped in a few drops of liquid smoke & simmered everything once more for good measure. After I pulled the beans off the heat, I finished them off with bunch of chopped cilantro (and I literally mean an entire "bunch" - most people either really love it or really hate it - there is usually no middle-of-the-road where cilantro is concerned). The beans are, in a word, divine (and far superior to the restaurant's version, as expected...).





The next wave of inspiration that hit me today was Mexican brownies. I started with two packages of Valor pure chocolate, to which I added a stick of salted butter over heat until both were melted. I then added about a cup of brown sugar, a generous tablespoon of cinnamon, and a big pinch of smoked sea salt. I'm embarrassed to say that, while I am usually fastidious about keeping a wide variety of dried peppers on hand in my freezer, I found myself fresh out of chipotles today (damn it). After a short cursing fit, I remembered that I had recently purchased some chipotle bouillon which, while not optimal, would have to do (and just one of these cubes actually worked very nicely - they are surprisingly strong). Moving right along, I whisked in 3 eggs, one at a time, and about a teaspoon of almond extract. Finally I threw in about three-quarters of a cup of whole grain spelt flour, which I find works much better in baking than refined flour, with the possible exception of cake baking...











Tossed the brownies in the oven at 325 for about 30 minutes, and while waiting on them to finish I decided to whip up some dulce de leche icing (and on this I cheated somewhat, both in terms of ingredients and time). Just took a can of condensed milk & cooked it over medium heat until it had caramelized a little bit - I really prefer it to be very dark but didn't have the time or the inclination to fool with it any longer so I cut it short. One resource I found made the interesting suggestion to leave the milk in the container, punch two holes in the top of the can & simmer the whole lot in a water bath on the stove top for about 4 hours on really low heat to get the richest result without all the pot-watching. I'll definitely give that a try next time - especially since it's rather difficult to whisk constantly with one hand and text constantly with the other hand - I came dangerously close to caramelizing my Blackberry. In my distracted state of mind, I also decided that testing the smoking hot dulce de leche on my finger would be a good idea - remember I said this was a recurring problem? And yet I'm completely surprised by the pain EVERY time. By now I wanted to be done with the whole project, so I did a fairly sloppy icing job, but who cares? The finished product has just the right amount of sweetness followed by a very subtle warmth from the chipotles - a nice complexity of flavor that is nothing short of sublime.









And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off too muddle some lime, mint & sugar so that I can make myself a wicked little mojito to reward myself for all my effort (though I have to say that blogging is far more work than cooking)...cheers & happy Memorial Day - remember to kiss a solider (or at least thank one)!