Ancient Cuisines: Pueblo Chicken

Long overdue. But perhaps just in time for Thanksgiving, if your family, like mine, does not care too much for roast turkey.

Pueblo Chicken

Based on a recipe from Spirit of the Harvest, North American Indian Cooking by Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs

The original recipe uses rabbit, a major source of protein for Southwestern tribes. Rabbits were hunted by lighting fires around an area where they were abundant; the hunters then gradually moved in, trapping the animals from all sides. Rabbits were offered as ceremonial sacrifices and then eaten as part of ritual foods.

I haven't eaten rabbit but I am told it is like a leaner version of chicken, which is slowly fading in popularity at our dinner table but is still preferred to turkey.

• 4 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp red chilli powder
• 1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
• Salt to taste

1. Dice chicken into bite size pieces
2. Heat oil in a heavy stockpot and brown the chicken well.
3. Add onion, chicken broth, water, red wine vinegar and red chilli powder.
4. Simmer, partially covered for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the chicken is tender.
5. Add salt and then slowly add the cornmeal, stirring as you pour. You do not want lumps.
6. Simmer for another 10-15 minutes until the sauce is slightly thick.
7. Serve with Ute tortillas

This is a great tasting thick stew. We imagined ourselves to be sitting by an open fire with the stew simmering over it. We ate with our hands, tearing pieces of the tortillas, to dip into the stew. We licked our fingers as the stew dribbled down them and decided to cook this stew the next time we went camping in the mountains. What a treat it will be to eat it out under the stars!

Ancient Cuisines: Mohegan Succotash

The word 'succotash' comes from the Northeastern Narraganset Indian word "Msickquatash" which means "a whole ear of corn."

Spirit of the Harvest, North American Indian Cooking by Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs

There are many variations of succotash. The Pennsylvania Dutch, who are really of German origin, make this with milk or cream. Some recipes have bacon, fish or meat. It is quite understandable why succotash was a very popular dish during the depression.

Mohegan succotash is slightly different from other succotash recipes - the corn is left on the cob. And that is something I love! Once I have eaten the corn off the cob, I love to dip the cob back into the sauce or the juices and suck and chew on the sweet cob. Fresh succulent veggies in butter is what this dish is all about. It has a wonderful earthy flavor with no seasoning that many might mistake for bland.

Mohegan Succotash

• 3-4 ears of fresh sweet corn
• 1 packet frozen lima beans
• 1 and 1/2 cups water
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 bunch spring onions, sliced
• 1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
• salt and pepper, to taste

1. Clean the corn of its husk, silk and fibers. Cut the cobs into pieces that are about 1-2 inches in length. You will need a very sharp knife to do this or you culd end up hurting yourself!
2. In a large saucepan, add oil, lima beans, water, salt and pepper. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat.
3. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for another 10 minutes
4. Add the green onions and peppers. Simmer while covered for another 6-10 minutes until the beans are tender. The peppers should be tender yet crisp.
5. Remove lid and cook over high heat for 3-4 minutes until the liquid is reduced to about 1/2 cup.

I prefer to skip the buttery flavor (1/4 cup butter) and use just a little bit of vegetable oil instead. The original Mohegan recipe calls for bear grease instead of butter, so I am just taking it one step further in substituting it with vegetable oil. In fact, the oil is something I could skip completely. Vegetable stock or chicken broth could also be used.

Succotash is unbelievably satisfying. For this versatile recipe, use your favorite vegetables when you want to be seduced by their inherent flavors. It is something I relish when my body calls for a systemic cleansing of spice overload. It is almost detoxifying in its effects.

I served this with Ute Tortillas and Pueblo Chicken.

Ancient Cuisines: Native American Ute Tortillas

It was driven home on every field trip and every vacation that the ancient people, the Anasazi, and their descendants were very close to the land they lived on. Almost like a symbiotic co-existence. Fish, turkey, quail and wild game were the main courses. Texture came in the form of seeds, nuts and roots. Sugary sweetness came from berries, fruits and sap from trees. Fresh corn to dried corn to ground corn was used in cooking to add sweetness, thicken sauces and provide texture.

They reused almost every part of the wild game they hunted. Buffalo bladders were used as pouches to store and carry water. Buffalo stomach liners also served a similar purpose. I remember all the kids going yeow in unison and they each swore that they never would have drunk that water. Buffalo fat and even bear grease was used in cooking. Animal sinew was used to make bows and arrows and to tie sharp spearheads to long wooden spears.

Food was cooked in the most simple manner possible. Meat was boiled, roasted or baked in pits lined with charcoal. Seeds and nuts were eaten raw or they were toasted. Berries were ground into the meals. Seasoning, as we know it, was limited to wood ashes, salt, chiles and sharp berries.

Food often simmered for hours and in general, there was always enough food to welcome guests with. The native Americans ate according to the seasons, storing dried corn, seeds and nuts for use in harsh winters. During hunting season, there was always an abundant supply of fish and meat. Whatever could not be consumed immediately was cut into strips and either smoked or dried. Almost all meals were eaten directly out of the pot by hand and stews were eaten with a variety of breads.

The white man brought with him both disease and new influences. Native American food absorbed these new influences, without losing the simple earthiness of their food. The three recipes I tried were:
- Ute Tortilla, from the South West
- Mohegan Succotash, from the North East
- Pueblo Chicken, from the South West
These recipes are based on recipes from Spirit of the Harvest, North American Indian Cooking by Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs, a very well written book that delves deep into native American heritage: their food, their customs and some history.

Ute Tortilla

Most breads are fry breads and are an integral part of their cuisine. They are everyday food and they are also served at festive occasions like powwows. Fry bread is often served with some kind of sweetener, like berries, powdered sugar or honey. There are savory versions of fry bread with chopped onions and chillies mixed into the dough. The recipe varies from tribe to tribe but the ingredients remain essentially the same.

• 3 cups unbleached flour
• 2 tsp baking powder (3 tsp at high altitudes)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 and 1/2 cup warm water or milk
• 1 tbsp oil or shortening

1. Combine all ingredients except for the oil and knead until smooth.
2. Rub oil all over the dough and cover. Let this dough rest for about half an hour
3. Divide the dough into 10-12 equal parts and either pat or roll out into a circular shape that is about 1/8 inch thick and about 6 inches in diameter.
4. Cook these on charcoal grill or over open fire. I cooked these on a cast iron tava and then did the final roasting over the gas flame, where they puffed up almost like rotis.

Notes

• I used a half-and-half mix of unbleached white flour and whole wheat flour
• These Ute Tortillas tasted a lot like whole wheat pita bread.
• They complemented the succotash and the chicken very well.
• I tried patting these out but the dough kept springing back. So I rolled them out quickly and threw them on the tava, where they shrank even more!

Navajo Fry bread can be made using this same recipe. Instead of being cooked over an open fire, it is deep fried in oil. Based on the pictures in the book, you can get creative with the shape! I preferred to make Ute Tortillas for obvious reasons. Although given a chance, I would love to have Navajo Fry Bread, especially the savory kind!

What did they eat?

My knowledge of native American tribes and their customs was limited to what I saw in the movies. Inscrutable faces, masked further by paint, on rugged bodies that rode horses on narrow seemingly-impassable trails. Bows and poisoned arrows, spears and guns. A language that was barked, rather than spoken. The first humanization, so to speak, of native Americans came in the guise of Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves. This movie was very poignant and showed how close the Sioux were to the land they lived on. The overall message was much deeper and rather relevant to the Save our Planet impetus.

Last year when Medha started learning Colorado history, which included the lives of the ancient people or the Anasazi, I was transfixed. I would wait for her to come home and tell me what she had learned at school! Cliff dwellings, kivas, petroglyphs and pictographs, their art, their food, their animals and their pottery. Coiled pots got a new meaning!

I was a parent chaperone on a field trip to the Boulder History Museum and the CU Henderson Museum of Natural History. Having a van gives you an edge as you can transport up to 5 kids! That we got lost and I went to Boulder History Museum first instead of the CU Museum is another story. All the thank you notes that came back voted that adventure as the "most fun" part of the day!

This is an ancient pot in the Anthropology Section. Photography of the exhibits was not allowed but I was allowed to take pictures of the kids when they were being addressed by the museum personnel. The picture above is a crop from one of those pictures!

As the projects rolled in, Medha started doing research online and while helping her find information and pictures, I found an intriguing set of pictures of Mesa Verde National Park. I had hoped to make it there some time this year but the stars and the planets did not align well enough for that to happen. Instead, I made a new friend who is a reading specialist in New England and a world traveler.

We did, however, make a quick trip to Moab, Utah over Labor Day. There we saw a lot of petroglyphs in their original environs. Below are Ute petroglyphs that were carved into the rock between 1650 AD and 1850 AD. These are located at the base of the trail to the Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, Moab.

Reading, seeing, and researching led to lots of information about native Americans. But what did their food taste like? There are no restaurants that I have come across that serve native American food. I knew then that I would have to either befriend someone who preserves their culture, including food or cook it myself. I haven't had the good fortune when it comes to the former, so the latter it had to be.

So we made Mohegan Succotash, Pueblo Chicken and Ute Tortillas. Recipes coming up in my next posts.

For now, I have to head out as we have a Hallowe'en costume to build!

Ancient Cuisines: Persia

I have always loved and been intrigued by Parsi food, with its medley of sweet, sour and spicy flavors and the abundant use of nuts. And I often wondered how different Parsi cuisine was from Persian cuisine that the Zoroastrians who fled Persia and sought refuge in Gujarat brought with them. I found my answer and a whole lot more in The Legendary Cuisine of Persia by Margaret Shaida.

I am not surprised that I love this book. It is not unlike yet another of my favorite cookbooks, Grains, Greens and Grated Coconuts. It is filled with history, cultural nuggets and bursts with recipes.

Persia is the hinge between the Far East and the Middle East. Straddled between the Caspian Sea in the north and the Persian Gulf in the south, it forms a natural highway—and part of the ancient silk route—connecting Europe with Asia. It is a big country, its rhombus shape spanning more than 2,000 miles in each direction; and it is a high country, criss-crossed and encircled with mountain ranges. The central plateau has an average elevation of more than 3,000 feet and most of Persia's major cities, including the capital, Tehran, are between 4,000 and 5,000 feet above sea level; many of its smaller towns and villages are much higher.

I couldn't stop reading. Mountains have defined Persia. They have protected its lands from invaders, only allowing through armies that were the most determined and most fierce. The cuisine of Persia was made even more rich and varied because of these invaders. It absorbed the new influences and made them its own. There are many recipes and dishes that Persia has in common with Turkey, Greece, Italians and of course, the Arabs.

Persia - like Colorado - is high country with desert and semi-desert. However, unlike Colorado, the soil of the Persian plateau is more fertile. The mountains form a rain shadow over the plateau but they drop a lot of snow on the peaks. This snow has served to form natural reservoirs that provide a continuous source of water through the long, hot and dry summers. To save water and to minimize loss due to evaporation, the Persians built a series of underground aquaducts or qanat to carry cool waters from the foothills to the scorched plains. Some were as long as 100 to 150 miles! Despite modern pumping systems, this complex system of distribution of water still exists in Iran today.

As I leafed through the book, I found that I could relate to so many of the dishes. Their names, their ingredients and the method. And, I also thought: hmm! A few green chillies would really enhance the flavor of this dish! Persian cuisine is the delicately spiced version, with a lot less heat, of the Parsi cuisine that I love.

If you have lived in Bombay, then you have to have at least heard of the Iranian restaurant, Britannia, if not eaten there and gorged on their famous berry pulao. Berry pulao uses dried barberries and the original recipe is called Zereshk Polow, the recipe for which is in Margaret Shaida's book. Persian cuisine is known for the way they cook their long grained rice, their liberal use of saffron, dried lemon, and the combination of meat with fruit and nuts.

Anita wrote a short dissertation on saffron a few months ago. I found out some more about saffron in The Legendary Cuisine of Persia.

Saffron or Za'faran is native to Persia. By 500BC, it had spread to India in the east and Egypt in the west. The rulers of the ancient empires really had a good time with this spice. They used it to enhance the flavor of their food, to dye their robes and to perfume their banquet halls. In India, the robes of the elite Buddhist priests were dyed orange with saffron. In Egypt, it is said that Cleopatra used saffron for her complexion. Nero had the streets sprinkled with saffron water to honor his return to Rome.

Saffron was also valued for its medicinal properties. It was considered to be a good tonic for the heart. And, to relieve depression. Too much saffron could produce a state of euphoria and even death from compulsive laughter. It was also used as a sleep-aid. No Ambien CR for the wealthy, just bedding dyed in saffron. Saffron, despite its various properties, made its lasting impression in food. And it continues till today.

It takes over 80,000 blossoms of crocus to produce one pound of dried saffron. The process of collecting and drying saffron is labor intensive and it is no wonder that it is sold by weight in carats, like gold.

The leading exporters of saffron are Kashmir, India and Iran. Most of the saffron grown in Europe comes from Spain and southern France. And Spanish saffron is what we are used to buying in the US. And, although Anita will disagree, the Iranians believe that the most fragrant saffron in the world comes from the sunny plateau of Iran.

I have used saffron while making biryani, in pulaos and in meat dishes. I have either added it directly to the dish or soaked it in some milk before using it. The Persians do it slightly differently. They make liquid saffron, and then use that in their polows and beryan.

Liquid Saffron

1. Ensure that the saffron is completely dry. If you feel it is not, take 20-30 strands in a mortar and place them in a warm oven for a few minutes.
2. Add a pinch of sugar
3. And with the pestle, crush the saffron and sugar to a fine powder.
4. If using within an hour or two, add 4-5 tbsp warm water and allow to infuse to a deep orange color.
5. If mixed with boiling water, saffron ground in this manner can be kept in a jar for several weeks.

Herbs like cilantro, dill, mint, basil, parsley and fenugreek also have a firm foothold on Persian cuisine. I had organic mint, regular cilantro as well as ginger-mango-mint chutney that were begging to be used. I also had a few tilapia fillets. My soul longed for patrani macchi so I went looking for banana leaves, found none and returned with corn husks instead. I made patrani macchi that night wrapped in corn husks and steamed. And with it, I served Sabzi Polow or Rice with Herbs and homemade yogurt.

Mint, yogurt, rice and fish. I couldn't have asked for more.

Sabzi Polow

Rice with Herbs

• 2 cups basmati rice
• 1/8 cup oil or ghee
• 4 tsp liquid saffron
• 1 cup of mixed fresh herbs like cilantro, parsley, dill, chives or leeks in equal portions
• 2 sprigs of fresh fenugreek or 1/2 tsp kasuri methi^optional
• leaves of 2 fresh garlic or 1 clove of garlic

1. Wash the rice in several changes of water and leave to soak for 3 hours or more. There should be at least 1 inch of water above the rice.
2. Wash and dry the herbs so that they do not have any excess moisture
3. Bring about 2 quarts of water to a rolling boil in a 3 quart pot or saucepan. Add salt to taste.
4. Drain off excess water from the rice and add it to the boiling water.
5. Bring it back to boil and boil for 2-3 minutes (longer for me at this altitude).
6. Test the rice to see if it is soft on the outside and firm in the middle. If it is, drain the water and rinse in warm water. Toss rice gently in a colander.
7. Put the drained out pot back on the stove, add oil and 2-3 tbsp water and heat until it sizzles.
8. Sprinkle a layer of rice along the bottom of the pot. Alternate between a layer of herbs and a layer of rice, building it into a conical shape as you go along.
9. Poke a few holes through the rice to the bottom of the pot using a wooden spoon.
10. Wrap the lid of the pot with a clean kitchen towel and place firmly on the pot.
11. Heat on high for 2-3 minutes and then on low for at least 30 minutes.
12. Take about 2-3 teaspoons of the rice and mix with liquid saffron and reserve this for garnish.
13. Gently toss and mix the rest of the cooked rice and its ingredients to a warmed platter in a symmetrical mound. Garnish with the saffron rice and some melted butter, if you like.
14. Also remove the crusty layer of rice from the bottom of the pot and hide it to enjoy later on when everyone else has gone to bed. No! I am just kidding, serve this on a separate platter.

Sabzi Polow, is the traditional dish of the spring festival, No Rooz. In India, we are familiar with it as Navroz or the Parsi New Year.

Notes

• The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup of oil and 1/4 cup of clarified butter. I used about 1/8th cup of oil.
• I have made this rice with just cilantro and mint and it was delicious.
• I have also made this rice the traditional way, as well as skipped right to step 7 using steamed and cooled basmati rice. I prefer the latter as it uses less oil and butter.
• I also mixed the saffron rice with the rest, instead of using it only as garnish
• My Sabzi Polow is an appalling yellow color instead of a rich orange color as I used regular Spanish saffron that I got from my Indian grocer. I can't wait to make this again with the high quality saffron that will be winging its way to me soon.
• I'm sorry the picture isn't the greatest but I was under severe pressure. They had started clanking their forks on their plates and I was afraid the plates might crack.

I am sending this traditional, simple and flavorful recipe from Persia to Sunita for her Think Spice, Think Saffron Event.

Resources on the net:
Saffron on Wikipedia
Quality Saffron Importer in the US, with a lot of information about saffron, in particular Iranian saffron
Persian recipes
Ghormeh Sabzi - Persian recipes