Sauce killer

You have no idea, dear readers, how much time I spend culling through and trying new recipes to find good ones to post here for you. I've posted the occasional stinker, but mostly I've done a decent job separating the wheat from the chaff. A lot of the time I'm searching for vegetarian main dishes you can all enjoy. Mom likes most everything we try, but we've had some decidedly so-so dishes lately, including Red Lentil Chickpea Loaf and Ginger Turmeric Chickpeas with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes. Both were from trusted sources, which is doubly disappointing.

Another relatively trusted source is the "Genius Recipes" column by Kristen Miglore at Food52, but we recently had another meh experience with the Moro's Warm Squash & Chickpea Salad with Tahini that was touted as a genius recipe. (Chickpeas are the common element in all of these pedestrian dishes of late, so maybe I should just stick with Chickpea Curry and Hummus.) The tahini in this recipe is part of a tahini sauce that also includes lemon juice, raw garlic, and olive oil. You mix some of the sauce with the the other components of the dish—roasted winter squash, canned chickpeas, and raw red onion—and then pass the rest of the sauce at the table to serve over the individual helpings.

There's nothing Mom loves better than extra sauce to put on her food, so she was spooning this stuff pretty liberally over her plate. At one point, she reached for the serving spoon, misjudged, and sent the spoon flying off the table and onto the floor where it landed, with a splatter, on the heavily trafficked area between the kitchen and our bedroom. She waited a few seconds, then got up, picked up the spoon, and put it back in the sauce. Horrified, I exclaimed "What are you doing?!" Mom genuinely had no idea what I was talking about until I explained that you can't take a spoon that's picked up who-knows-what germs from the floor and chunk it back into the food we weren't done eating yet. Mom tried to explain that she thought I adhered to the "5-second rule," but I told her that "The sauce is dead to me now!" Which was probably a good thing anyway, given how bitter the sauce was, but that didn't stop Mom from eating the rest of it.

And just to fulfill the stated objective of UaKS ("Cooking, and other unsolicited advice, for my children"), let's be clear that the 5-second rule is not really a thing. A Scientific American survey article ("Fact or Fiction?: The 5-Second Rule for Dropped Food") concludes that while "allowing dropped food to linger on the floor certainly increases the risk of bacterial transfer to that fallen indulgence, it’s better to think twice before eating anything that touches an unsavory surface." That's because most studies have shown that "bacteria transfers to food immediately on contact," including one experiment demonstrating that "E. coli moved from floor tiles to cookies and gummy bears well within five seconds." And the transfer is even more likely to happen instantaneously when the surface in question is hard (like the wood laminate in our dining area) and the food is moist (like the tahini sauce on the offending spoon in question).

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Even if Mom is a convicted sauce killer, I do appreciate how much she enjoys just about everything I serve her, even when I think the dishes are less than stellar. This is apparently an inherited trait, as I recently made this Chile Verde for Grandma Judy and Pop-Pop, both of whom praised it effusively. Grandma even said it was one of the best things she'd ever tasted, which maybe went a tad overboard, but it is tasty and we polished off the entire batch in one sitting. The notes to the original recipe say you can substitute ground turkey for the ground pork, but I don't know about some kind of vegetarian substitution.

Chili Verde

Adapted from Ellie Krieger via the Washington Post and SFGate

Time: 1:10

The original recipe says to serve the chili with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt, a sprinkle of unchopped cilantro leaves, and a lime wedge. I think the lime wedges are essential, but the rest is up to you. I served the chili ladled over plain white rice and sprinkled with grated Monterey Jack cheese and chopped cilantro, with a squeeze of lime. The recipe calls for 12 ounces of ground pork, but I buy frozen packs of about 16 ounces each from Free Union Grass Farm and use the whole thing. I only found 25-ounce cans of hominy, so I used about two-thirds of a can, which was plenty.

1 to 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 large or 3 medium (~9 ounces total) poblano peppers
1 medium to large jalapeño pepper
1 medium-large (~8 ounces) white or yellow onion
½ teaspoon kosher salt, plus a pinch and more as needed
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¾ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon ground coriander
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper or to taste
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
12 to 16 ounces lean ground pork (see note)
2 (15.5 ounce) cans cannellini or other white beans, drained and rinsed
4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth or stock or chicken broth or stock
1 (15.5 ounce) can hominy, drained and rinsed (see note)

To serve (see note)
lime wedges
¼ cup fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped
grated Monterey Jack cheese
cooked white rice

    1. In a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat until shimmering. While the oil is warming up, dice the poblanos, jalapeño, and onion, in that order, stirring them into the hot oil as you finish dicing each vegetable. You should have about 1½ cups each of diced poblano and onion and about 3 tablespoons of diced jalapeño. Season with a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the veggies are softened but not browned, about 8 minutes.
    2. While the veggies are cooking, measure the cumin, oregano, coriander, ½ teaspoon salt, and cayenne pepper into a small prep bowl. When the veggies are ready, add the spices and garlic to the pot and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
    3. Stir in the pork. Cook, breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon, just until no longer pink, about 3 minutes. Stir in the beans and the broth. Bring to a boil, then cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally and adjusting the heat as needed to maintain a steady, but not overly aggressive, simmer. After 15 minutes, use the wooden spoon to mash some of the beans (less than a quarter) against the side of the pot.
    4. Stir in the hominy. Taste for salt and cayenne pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, and still at just a steady simmer, for 15 minutes more.
    5. Ladle into soup/serving bowls. Serve promptly, topped as desired (see the note above). The chili can be refrigerated for up to 5 days. Makes 4 to 6 servings.