“An Oaxacan Lasagna”

I’ve always loved mole (pronounced mo-LAY).  Hailing from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, mole is a deeply flavorful sauce made from roasted chiles (don’t worry, they’re pretty mild), nuts, seeds, dried fruits, spices, and a little cacao.   The result is staggeringly complex yet completely harmonious, and goes down easy like comfort food – on rice, with meat, or over enchiladas (which we then call enmoladas).  The problem is, a good mole needs a few dozen ingredients, and a day or more of cooking.   Meanwhile, the stuff from a can usually isn’t worth it. Luckily, there’s a new brand called Ya Oaxaca that finally gets it right.  We’ll start there.   

There are vibrant green moles and piquant red moles.  I love them all! Here, we’re going to use the most famous mole, black mole, mole negro, which is mild and sweet.  Traditionally, mole is paired with pork, but we’ll go vegetarian with butternut squash, Pumfu™ (an awesome pumpkinseed tofu that’s high in protein), and black beans.  You can even go full vegan if you swap out the dairy for plant cheese.  And of course you can use chicken or pork, too, although I find they work better without the butternut, and with a sharper mole rojo.   (The dish on the right, above, is exactly that).

The end result is simple to make, super-delicious and quite healthy: nuts, seeds, plant protein, black beans, whole grains, and some vegetable.  And it serves like lasagna.   

Serves 6

INGREDIENTS

• 1 jar Ya Oaxaca mole negro
• 1 15-oz can black beans, drained
• 1 10-oz bag frozen cubed butternut squash
• 1 ½ C broth (mushroom, vegetable, chicken…) or even water 
• 1 8-oz package Pumfu™ 
• 8 corn tortillas (I used sprouted corn)
• 6 oz shredded “Mexican blend” cheese 
• Optional: pickled onions or radish, cotija cheese, lime

DIRECTIONS

1. In a 12-inch Dutch oven or high-walled saucepan, simmer the mole with the beans, butternut and broth until it thickens to coat the spoon, about 5 minutes. 

2. Slice the Pumfu™ into thin planks about an inch long.  Add to the sauce and stir to coat.   

3. Remove and reserve 2/3 of the mole mix from the Dutch oven.  Spread the remaining third evenly across the bottom, and place four corn tortillas on top. 

4. Continue layering: spread half the cheese over the tortillas; half the reserved sauce/stew over that. Lay on another 4 tortillas, the rest of the cheese, and the remaining mole. 

5. Bake at 400 around 20 minutes, or until everything looks nice.   

6. Let it cool before serving, otherwise it will fall apart.  (Conversely, just let it fall apart).   Serve with pickled onions, radish, cotija cheese, and lime.   

This is the first dish I ever “invented” for myself in college, and I remember being quite proud of it at the time. It tasted great, contained all the food groups, was idiot-proof, cheap, and filling. I was a genius!  As the decades passed, my pride diminished somewhat (for example, I now recognize this as basically a low-rent jambalaya), although my enjoyment remains intact.     

With all its veggies and protein, this dish is a one-pot meal. It’s mostly not rice. But the rice is the glue that holds everything else together.  To be clear, this is no delicate, refined basmati pilaf where every grain is separate. We make this with short-grain brown sticky rice. It’s a sticky dish. It sticks to the ribs. 

Can you leave the meat out? Absolutely!  (You can sub in some veggie meat, or nothing at all).  Can you top it with fried egg? Absolutely! Same goes for sliced avocado or even a dollop of sour cream. Can you change up the vegetables, the spice palate, and the proportions? You bet. This is a very forgiving recipe.  

Serves 6

• 1 C short-grain brown rice
• 1 15-oz can pink or black beans, drained
• ¼ C extra virgin olive or raw sesame oil
• 16 oz ground turkey
• 1 medium-large red onion
• 1-6 cloves garlic
• 4 medium carrots
• 4 stalks celery
• 1 large or 2 medium bell peppers
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 small can (6-8 oz) tomato paste
• ½ cup pecorino romano cheese (the real stuff, if it doesn’t say “pecorino” don’t use it)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Start your rice cooking. Two parts water, one part rice, simmer on low, covered, for around 45 minutes. Check towards the end if it’s drying out, and add more water as needed.  
2. Chop all the vegetables into pieces roughly the size of beans. Feel free to add some chili peppers if you like it spicy.  
3. In a Dutch oven or similar heavy-bottom pot, over medium heat, brown turkey in the oil, breaking up the pieces with a wooden spoon.  ¼ C oil is perfect if you’re using dark meat turkey. For leaner white meat, use a little more.  
4. Add all the other chopped vegetables, and continue cooking until they’re sort of soft, but not super-mushy.
5. Add the tomato paste, cumin, and oregano, and cook until the tomato paste starts to brown around the edges of the pot a little bit.  That browning gives you a little extra flavor. You’re going to want to stir and scrape regularly at this stage, with a wooden spoon. 
6. Now stir in the beans, cooked rice, and romano cheese. Adjust salt and pepper. Sprinkle on some more cheese if you want and/or some hot sauce. Or a South Indian podi (flavoring powder). Whatever. Enjoy! 

When the weather starts to get colder, on Sunday nights, I load two sheet pans into the oven: one with savory/spicy sausage and brassicas[1]; one with mild sausage and root veggies. The family picks through and eats what they like. And there are plenty of leftovers for grain bowls and other lunches into the week. The basic format is 2-2½ pounds veggies vs. 12 oz sausage. So 25% meat, 75% veggies.

I cook it low and slow. 375 degrees for an hour or more until everything is tender.  

Sweet Roots Tray

• ¾ pound red beets
• ¾ pound golden beets
• ½ pound parsnips
• 1 package (12 oz) Niman Ranch Apple Gouda sausage
• some good oil and salt

Savory Brassicas Tray

• ½ head cauliflower
• ½ head broccoli
• 1 red onion
• 1 package (12 oz) VT Salumi Red Wine & Garlic Sausage
• some good oil and salt, and maybe some black pepper  

Prep: you don’t want your veggies to steam; you want them to roast. So that means they go into the oven dry. If you’re going to wash them (I have to admit, I don’t), plan plenty of time for them to dry out.

Snap the brassicas into forkful-size pieces. Cut the roots and sausages into forkful-size pieces. They don’t need to be the same size or shape, but they should be the same thickness, so they roast at the same speed. Quarter your onion.

Toss: in a large bowl, toss the roots and their sausage together with enough oil to coat. Do the same with the brassicas and their sausages, but since all the little ins-and-outs of the brassica florets have more surface area, you’ll use a little more oil. Either way, you don’t need too much, because the sausages will start to render.  

Arrange & Bake: spread them out on their sheet pans, with at least some spacing, and only one layer. The more spacing, the more steam escapes, the more they shrivel up when baking. For the same reason, try and use a pan without walls. Bake at 375 degrees about an hour, turning every 10-15 minutes to make sure all the sides get oiled and roasted.  They’re done with they seem done.

Serve: this dish should be served family-style. You could sprinkle the pan with chopped parsley or drizzle with tahini sauce, to look a more artful. But I don’t.

[1] Brassicas (also known as crucifers, or cruciferous vegetables) are the family that includes cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, turnip, canola, rutabaga, choy sum, mustard, and all the radishes. Here, I like to focus on Brassicas developed from flowers and buds: broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sproutsa fork.   

Whole Grain Noodles  |  Organic Greens  |  Wild Boar  |  Cultured Veggies 

Sichuan Chinese cuisine may just be my favorite worldwide, and Dan Dan Noodles are in my Sichuan top 3.  The name means “bamboo pole noodles,” because the legendary street vendor who invented them carried a bamboo pole over his shoulders, with a bucket of noodles on one end, and a bucket of sauce on the other. 

And that sauce!  It’s hard to describe. I don’t have the adjectives. But imagine a richly spiced Chinese take on Bolognese… And having said that, there’s no one official way to do Dan Dan. Some Dan Dan’s are thin and oily, hot and salty. I like the dense ones, with thick sesame paste, browned minced pork, and pickled veggies for funk and acidity.   

At home, Sichuan cuisine has always seemed daunting to me.  The techniques are manageable enough, but the ingredient lists usually a whole handful of I don’t already have, and wouldn’t know what to do with otherwise.  Here we sidestep that issue, and get our Dan Dan sauce ready-made out of a bottle, from the fine foodie folks at Chinese Laundry Kitchen. We use whole wheat linguine instead of fresh noodles you have to get at the Asian market.  And we substitute Western fermented red cabbage (basically, sauerkraut) for the traditional Chinese preserved mustard greens, which you can never find without preservatives anyways.   It all works. It’s better for you. And it is drop-dead delicious.

Serves 3 as a main 

Prepare the Meat (or ***substitute): sautee the wild boar in oil until well-browned.  Add five-spice powder, soy sauce, black bean paste, and coconut sugar, and cook an additional minute.  Set aside.   

Prepare the Noodles and Wilted Greens: in a large pot, cook the noodles as per package directions.  About a minute before they’re done, throw in the bok choy to blanch.  Drain. 

Prepare The Bowls: into each serving bowl, place a heaping tablespoon Chinese Laundry Kitchen Dan Dan Sauce (mixed very well beforehand).  Put 1/3 of the noodles-and-greens in each, and top with 1/3 the meat.  Add 1-2 forkfuls of the fermented cabbage.   (Traditional recipes cook the pickled greens with the meat.  We don’t, so we don’t kill the live probiotics).  

Serve: bowls are traditionally served not already mixed up.  That’s done at the table.  Top each with minced scallions, chopped peanuts, black sesame seed, and whatever else your heart desires.  Bring a little more dan dan sauce to the table in case anyone likes it spicier.   

***vegetarian/vegan substitute for the wild boar…. Try 1 package Pumfu™ pumpkinseed tofu.  It’s like a green, richer, soy-free version of tofu.  Double the oil (since the Pumfu won’t render any fat), and then mash up the Pumfu™ with a fork.