I decided upon Rick Bayless' recipe for frijoles borrachos, or "drunken beans", which are flavored at the last minute with a splash of tequila (left over from the margarita recipe, which turned out to be a huge hit on this blog). I basically doubled that recipe, used chicken stock instead of water, chopped pork neck instead of shoulder, and roasted the leftover pork neck pieces in some pico de gallo. That last bit yielded enough meat to make some quick quesadillas to accompany the beans. It's pretty simple, but full of flavor and a good alternative to refried beans. Some claim that Mexican fare can't be properly matched with wine, but as always when confronting a spicy cuisine of a tropical region, a sparkling wine is generally a good bet. Here I chose the NV Chandon Rosé. It's basically made like a traditional champagne but with the addition of 10% still Pinot Noir for color, flavor, and body. Good yeast and toast aromas, pleasantly tart with notes of currant. Fruity but definitely dry. Beautiful salmon color.
Through an odd linguistic coincidence, I discovered that pintos go well with pinots.
7 comments:
I heart the "south of the border" theme, Benito. Perfect for Spring. Although I'll probably drink the margaritas with this dish. :)
This reminds me that rose season is quickly descending upon us. I do love roses in the warm weather.
Bayless does have a way with beans. If you have any leftovers of these, you might want to check out his recipe for Quick Cowboy Beans. I plan on attempting his slow cooker method for dried beans soon. Cheers!
Oh, and do you have a source for lard in Memphis? I haven't seen any at my regular haunts.
Storebought lard is generally stablized with something like Crisco, but it shouldn't be too hard to find. If you want a brick of that you should be able to find it just about anywhere in the city. You'll probably want to avoid the gallon-size buckets unless you're doing a lot of cooking with lard.
If you want the real stuff, you pretty much have to render your own.
Your grandfather has a lard kettle in Middle Tennessee. I am sure he would come out of retirement for a "rendering class."
That looks wonderful. I've been experimenting with different recipes for vegetarian black bean and butternut squash chili; i'll do a post on that soon.
If you need Lard, all you have to do is buy about 1Lb. of Pig skin with a good portion of fat on it, cut it into 2x2 inches dice,place them inside a non-stick deep pan, covered with water and simmer with medium heat topped with a good lid. Fat may splash once heated. Be sure to use a wooden spoon to turn around pig skin pieces as frequently as you can. Once the water evaporate you will have 100 % pur Lard. DO NOT OVERCOOK.
It will be smart if you have a bowl with ice cold water, just in case you are burned, if so, just put the wounded are inside the cold water INMEDIATELY.
drink the margaritas is great for sharing.
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