I Am the Greatest Cook in the World
… and these are my secrets.
(Page 2 of 2)
Gravy is always served with biscuits. Also with slices of fresh tomato, when available, and with some onions and cucumbers marinated about fifteen minutes in heavily peppered vinegar. During the hot summer months, fresh okra rolled in two parts cornmeal to one part flour and fired in oil or bacon drippings is compulsory. Forget all the crap you’ve heard about dipping okra in egg yolk. Okra is born with all the sticky stuff it needs. Folks in the East have never heard of okra, a vegetable introduced by African slaves from seeds smuggled from their native lands, but Thomas Jefferson is said to have been addicted to it. Jefferson believed its absence in the diet explained the weakness in British character.
Like all good Texans, I have my own secret recipe for red chili: I buy a package of Wick Fowler’s and follow directions.
STATE AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONER JIM HIGHTOWER suggested during the last election campaign that Governor Bill Clements complete a course in Spanish in order that he might become bi-ignorant. Sound advice. I lived for about six months in the small Mexican fishing village of Zihuatanejo largely through the exercise of bi-ignorance. This is how I happened to learn to love the traditional fish salad, ceviche. It’s made with lots of onions and hot chiles and is not for the timid. One Peruvian recipe I read recently advised: “Do not touch the eyes or genitals after handling chiles.” More sound advice.
I discovered ceviche one blistering-hot day while drinking beer under a palapa near Zihuatanejo’s grubby downtown beach. After every fourth or fifth Carta Blanca I drank, the old lady who ran the place served a bowl of chopped fish, onions, and peppers. I’m not wild about fish, but this didn’t taste fishy. It tasted refreshing and made me believe I was on the road to long life and prosperity. I’d eaten several bowls before I realized the fish was raw.
Most ceviche served in this country tastes like iceberg lettuce soaked in cod-liver oil. But you can make the real thing yourself with a minimum of effort. Marinate two pounds of any fresh filet of fish in lime juice for four or five hours. Any firm-bodied fish will do—red snapper, bonito, sea bass, even octopus or squid. Shrimp will fall apart. Drain off the lime juice and mix with a variety of chopped vegetables. For two pounds of fish I use two or three ripe tomatoes, two onions, eight to ten fresh peppers (both bell and hot), a jar of green salad olives, a bunch of fresh cilantro, two tablespoons of olive oil, and black pepper. Allow the vegetables and fish to intermingle for a few hours before serving on a bed of lettuce or spinach with a slice of avocado.
Refrigerated, ceviche will keep for two or three weeks. After that, take it to a lab and have it tested. The lime juice cooks and preserves the fish and makes it magic. It is worth reflecting on the fact that human flesh retains little, if any, vitamin C, while marinated fish contains it in abundance. If certain tribes of cannibals in South America had merely alternated roast rump of missionary with a few bowls of ceviche, they wouldn’t have gone belly up with scurvy.
A good thing to serve with ceviche is tostadas or chicharrónes (fried pork skins), along with a bowl of refried beans. This brings me to the subject of pico de gallo, the secret of secrets as far as I’m concerned. Loosely translated, pico de gallo means “rooster beak.” It’s that green or red salsa found on most tables in Mexico. (I always keep a bowl in the fridge.) Like almost everything else in Mexico, the creation is devilishly simple: throw some onions, tomatoes, tomatillos (“Mexican green tomatoes”), bell peppers, hot chiles, and cilantro into a Cuisinart.
Remove a few scoops as needed and add a little vinegar, replacing the remainder in the fridge. You can use the salsa in a hundred ways—on nachos with refried beans and goat cheese, on chicharrónes with a squeeze of fresh lime, on eggs, on melted cheese, on ham, in cold soup. In fact, you can add some tomato or V-8 juice and some lime, and it becomes cold soup. You can add more tomatoes, a little sugar, and some spices and cook up a good ranchero sauce. Or you can just eat it with a spoon when you feel an onset of the vapors.
A LOT OF WRITERS DON’T COOK, or at least don’t admit it. Many of the authors who contributed to The Great American Writers’ Cookbook, brainchild of that famed epicurean and literary gadfly Willie Morris, proudly confess that they couldn’t find the kitchen with a road map. “The only time I ever go into a kitchen,” says John Cheever, “is when I’m being chased out the back door.” An annoying number of writers’ recipes begin in this spirit: “First, open a bottle of gin and consume contents.”
Cooking is one of the best ways I know to break writer’s block—the closest alternative is being staked to an anthill. There is something mindless and therapeutic and faintly atavistic about vanishing into a well-stocked kitchen. Most of the time I’d rather cook than eat. The mere aroma of a pot of simmering beans can seduce me into believing that typing is fun, or at least bearable.
My favorite is pinto, or what my family called red beans because of the intemperate amount of chili powder we mixed therein. There is a ritual to cooking beans—I’m talking about dry beans here—that must be observed. First, remove the beans from the package, shake them into the palm of your hand, and observe the uncommon number of rocks, nails, and unidentifiable objects, which come at no extra cost. You may do with these as you please. Wash the beans thoroughly. If I can remember, I cover the beans with fresh water and soak them overnight, though never longer than ten hours. Beans soak up a prodigious amount of liquid, so the next morning add enough water to provide a good inch or two of cover before cooking. If I forget the overnight soaking, I bring the beans to a quick boil, cover, and allow them to sit for an hour before resuming cooking. This will tenderize the hell out of them. Sometimes I use a pressure cooker, even though cookbooks say you may be taking your life in your hands. It’s not a bad idea to take a walk while the pressure cooker is active. Better yet, take a run.
The secret is the seasoning. For one pound of beans I season with a two-ounce jar of Mexene Chili Powder, a chopped onion, a whole lot of garlic, a chunk of salt pork, and plenty of black pepper. When I can find them, I throw in a few smoked jalapeños (chiles chipotles), which are sold by the kilo in most markets in the interior of northern Mexico but are difficult to find in this country. A fresh jalepeño is a substitute, but a poor one, and will likely kill out-of-state house-guests.
As your are seasoning, bring the little beauties to a quick boil, cover, and simmer for five or six hours, until the beans are soft enough to mush with a fork and the juice is dark red and thick. Check the liquid from time to time, making sure to add only boiling water. The finished product should be slightly soupy. Goes great in chili.
The best thing about red beans is leftovers, which I mash with a fork as they are frying in three or four (or more) tablespoons of bacon drippings. Mexicans call these refritos. Huevos rancheros are made by spreading refritos on a warm tortilla (flour is best, for my taste) and topping with eggs cooked sunny-side up so the yolk is still bight and runny, then with melted cheese, then with either pico de gallo or thick ranchero sauce.
Black beans are prepared the same as reds, only with much less chili powder (a couple of tablespoons is plenty), a few celery tops, and smoked ham hock instead of salt pork. If you cook the blacks until the juice thickens and the ham falls away from the bone, you’ve got the makings of a great soup. Skim off the bone and fat, and run the beans through a blender with a little red wine. Garnish with lemon slices or chopped cilantro or grated Parmesan. Or all three.
Navy beans (called small white beans in most groceries) are not among my favorites, though they make an extraordinarily delicious soup. Wash and cook them as you would any other bean. Season with smoked ham hock, a chopped onion, and a sliced carrot. When the beans are well cooked, stir in these ingredients: some chopped celery tops and a little chopped stalk, one chopped bell pepper, one chopped bunch of green onions, and one small potato, diced. Add more water and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally as the soup boils and begins to thicken. Finally, add a package of chicken noodle soup mix, two jars of pimientos, and half a bay leaf. Tabasco is optional but highly recommended. Cook over medium-high heat for another twenty to thirty minutes or until the soup is rich and thick. Skim off the bay leaf and pieces of ham fat and serve with cornbread sticks, buttermilk (optional), and very cold bottles of Czechoslovakian pilsner poured into slender, tapered pilsner glasses (compulsory).
Finally, a work about what I like to call the happy accident. No accident in the kitchen, short of catching your hair on fire, is without redemption. Here’s where the spirit of adventure comes strongly into play. While researching this story, for example, I invited several people over for one of my specialties, fettuccine Alfredo. After warming up on several bottles of very good and very cold Chablis, I accidentally boiled the Parmesan instead of the pasta. When I discovered my mistake while trying to grate egg noodles, I knew that I’d had another happy accident.
The problem was not the ruined fettuccine but what to do with half a pound of hard-boiled cheese. I simply scooped it into a pie pan, added some allspice, topped it with a graham cracker crust, and baked it for several minutes. Served with raspberry sauce, it wasn’t half bad.
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