Egg & Bean Soup - A not-as-good variation

This recipe comes from our Extending the Table cookbook. It seemed like a good choice as it comes from one of our favorite countries (Nicaragua) and it looked like a simpler version of the Company Egg Dish we made two months ago. Unfortunately it was not up to snuff. Although I put in more/different spices than called for, including our fail-safe (cumin), this turned out rather watery and bland. James didn't even finish his.

Cloud-Forest Pancakes

Readers of this blog will be familiar with several variations on pancakes that we have explored. Today's nutritious and flavorful version is based on a delicious breakfast I enjoyed at CENaturaleza in the Peñas Blancas cloud forest just over a week ago. We were visiting the reserve as part of my annual coffee study tour.

Though it was my third time in the reserve, I had not been aware of the amazing research center near the base of the falls. Our first visit was a treat on many levels. After a wide-ranging discussion of the interactions among climate change, coffee and cloud forests, Alan Bolt and his staff provided us with a wonderful dinner, with many ingredients drawn from the surrounding forest.

Similarly, the next morning, while most of my students climbed to the waterfall (to which Pam and I had climbed last year), I chatted with Alan while he prepared an equally amazing breakfast. This morning was my first attempt to re-create it, combining his verbal instructions with proportions I use in my standard pancake recipe.

Dry Ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together
1-1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda (Alan did not mention these to me, but they certainly did not hurt)
a lot of cinnamon (I dusted several times from a shaker, but will try to grind from bark next time. I do not think it is possible to use too much. Alan ground his directly from bark harvested immediately outside his kitchen.)

Alan (near center) in his cloud-forest kitchen, with one of his
staff cooks (right) and two of my students (left).

Wet ingredients: Blend together and then stir into dry ingredients
2 eggs, beaten
1-1/2 cups orange juice (juice of two oranges plus store-bought; Alan's was all fresh)
zest of two oranges
2 tablespoons blood orange olive oil from E.N. Olivier in Baltimore

I heated our indispensable cast-iron griddle and used butter to cook the pancakes. They cooked up quickly and crispy. All three of us enjoyed them, topped with butter and a bit of honey. Next year I hope to get to Alan's kitchen early enough to study his proportions and technique in more detail.

Nacatamales

For the past several years, I have made traditional, Mexican-style tamales some time between Christmas and New Year's Day. We describe that experience on the Texas page of our Celebrating the States blog.

Each January since 2006, I have had the opportunity to make nacatamales, which is a Central American variation. Larger than a tamale and with a wider assortment of components, it is wrapped in several layers of banana leaf, rather than a single corn husk. Having learned recently that frozen banana leaf is available at PriceRite in Brockton.

As we have in several recent years, we had our lesson in assembling nacatamales at the home of Doña Petrona, one of the women who hosts my students on my annual Nicaragua study tour. Our participation was limited to the assembly; Doña Petrona and other community members had already spent hours creating the components.

Gathering together several pieces of leaf, we placed a cupful of corn dough (masa) in the center. The masa was made from a combination of parboiled, ground corn and potatoes. We then placed a "salad" that was essentially pico de gallo -- chopped tomato, onion, and garlic, soaking in water -- on top. We then added a couple small pieces of bone-in chicken, probably caught from the yard that morning, and a second masa. It was only on this trip that I learned that this red dough was the same as the as the first, except for the addition of achiote powder.

Once we assembled these parts, we had the option of adding a tiny red pepper before wrapping the whole assembly like a birthday present. It is important to wrap these tightly, because of another difference between nacatamales and their Mexican counterparts. Rather than being steamed above boiling water, the nacatamales are boiled in the water; any leakage would create a weird soup and soggy dinners.

Each member of our group assembled a nacatamale - including one vegan and some with more or less pepper. We then participated in some other activities for the rest of the afternoon, rejoining at the Petrona house, where about half of us managed to identify our individual dishes, but all were richly fed.

We include this photo of our student Jen, just because of the juxtaposition of the human and canine activity -- each working unaware of the other. Check this blog in coming months, when we will try our own version, and our dog will doubtless be involved as well.