Santa Fe Gastronomy

We spent the Memorial Day weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico, mostly ate, visited an ancient native American village called Taos and soaked in some mineral enriched warm springs.

Santa Fe is beautiful, set amidst the towering Sangre De Cristo mountains, full of structures built in the adobe style and offering flavourful and spicy south western food.  The high altitude desert seems to stretch on endlessly, stark in it’s beauty and the never ending expanses offering some brilliant views of lightning strikes.  Add to this, the relaxing experience of soaking in a private mineral springs under the stars, the weekend was perfect in every way.

The food though, was the highlight and that shall be the focus of my post. This was our first taste of New Mexican food, it is the most flavourful local cuisine we have had in the US so far, the use of chilli being a key contributor to it’s excellent taste.

Cafe Castro

Chili Relleno

On our way to Santa Fe from Albuquerque, we stopped at Cafe Castro for a late lunch. We picked the place based on excellent yelp reviews.

It was homely, diner like and  had amazing chili releno. The chilies themselves were spicy, the batter light and fluffy and the ancho chili infused red chili sauce super spicy, though all very flavourful.

A delightfully new  thing to us were the sopapillas,  soft, puffed, fried corn dough very similar to the Indian batura. This was to be torn into little pieces, honey added to it and eaten.

Sopapillas

La Boca

La Boca is a tapas restaurant, small with closely placed tables, lots of chatter and a general air of fun and well being.  The blood orange sangria was good, fruity though a bit dilute from the ice.  I don’t recollect  the exact tapas we ate, but I do remember some cheese with pickled peppers which was excellent, good patatas bravas, an excellent eggplant puree with really soft pita and a salad with mejdool dates which was also very good.  We finished with an excellent dessert wine,  one of the ports on the recommendation of our server.

Chocolate Maven

We found this place based on a list of restaurants that Giada Laurentis had visited during a weekend getaway.  They do serve good hot chocolates, but otherwise it is hardly all about chocolate as it’s names suggests. The place is predominantly a bakery with a cafe serving lunch and dinner.

Blue Corn Enchiladas

We ate here on two occasions, the first of which I had blue corn enchiladas with a green chili sauce, spicy and quite excellent.  The next time I had the New Mexican tofu scramble which was flavoured with red chili and I could go so far as to say the tofu had really absorbed the flavour.  Sunil also had a cheese sandwhich on their rye bread which he liked.  From the bakery we tried the cherry tart, buttery flaky crust, thin layer of custard and tart cherry compote, simply wonderful.

The cafe has an area overlooking the bakery,  so you can watch pies, rolls and breads being prepared as you eat.

Bakery

La Casa Sena

Excellent ambience, open air dining set in a courtyard enhanced by  a brief thunderstorm with hail.  We had an excellent Spanish wine from the Rioja region. I had a southwestern vegetarian sampler with blue corn enchiladas and quinoa and Sunil had Mahi Mahi. Dessert was a lavender cream brulee, spectacular.

Tia Sophia’s

We had breakfast at this homely cafe in the heart of the touristy area of Santa Fe.  It was a simple huevos rancheros with hash brown and green chili. Everywhere, the chili was spicy and so flavourful.

Kakawa Chocolate House

Kakawa Chocolate House

Serving both Mesoamerican, Mayan and European hot chocolate drinks,  this place is a real gem.  I had the Aztec Warrior Elixir,  unsweetened cocoa mixed with fragrant herbs and spices, mixed only with water, truely elixir and unsurpassed in it’s complexity of flavour. Sunil had the Mayan Full Spice Elixir, unsweetened cocoa, mixed with spices, chili and sweetened with agave nectar, even better than the Aztec Warrior Elixir.

We spent an afternoon in this cafe sipping these divine drinks and eating chili flavoured dark chocolate.  This has been the best hot chocolate that I have ever had.

This is their website : http://www.kakawachocolates.com/.

Eggs Galore

Whole Foods has a whole new section devoted to eggs which we happened to notice yesterday. There were some rather unusual ones, quail and ostrich eggs! I wonder how the ostrich eggs are to be cooked, their cooking suggestion was to boil them, would probably feed a family of ten.

Ostrich Eggs

Eggs Galore

Dill Idly

Tried out the recipe from this blog, was excellent.

http://arunshanbhag.com/2007/08/05/dill-idlis/

Dill Idly

Neer Dosa

Ingredients

• 2 cups rice (Sona Masuri)
• 3/4 cup grated coconut
• 1 tin (200 ml) coconut juice

Preparation

1. Soak rice overnight. (~8 hours)
2. Grind rice and coconut to a smooth paste. Add coconut water to dilute while grinding.  The consistency of the batter should be close to that of water. Keep the dosa batter aside for 5 minutes.
3. To make the dosa,  heat a crepe pan, spread a thin layer of oil across the pan. Pour the dosa batter such that it spreads across the whole pan. Cover the pan and cook for a couple of minutes. It is not required to flip the dosa, since it is very thin.

Palak Tofu (Spinach Tofu Curry)

Ingredients

• 1 packet baby spinach
• 2 sprigs of coriander
• 1 tsp kasuri methi
• 1 finely chopped onion
• 2 cloves of smashed garlic
• 1/2 inch piece of ginger, grated
• 1 medium sized tomato, chopped
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 2 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup water (if needed)
• 1 packet tofu

Preparation

1. Heat 2 tsp of oil in a vessel. Add the onions and saute until soft.
2. Add garlic and ginger, saute.
3. Add chilli powder, coriander powder and cumin powder. Mix in.
4. Add tomatoes and stir till mixed in with the masala.
5. Add the spinach leaves, coriander leaves,  milk and water. Cover and cook until the spinach is cooked.
6. Add the kasuri methi leaves and cook for a minute.
7. Cool and puree the spinach mixture.
8. Cut the tofu into cubes and pan fry in oil.
9. Add the tofu to the pureed spinach mixture and cook on low heat for 5 minutes.

Charchari

Tried this recipe http://bongcookbook.blogspot.com/2007/04/charchari-bengali-vegetable-mlange.html for a Bengali vegetable dish called Charchari.  Followed the recipe as is, with small modifications with respect to the quantities of the vegetables used based on what I had available. Enjoyed the dish, especially the mustard flavour.

Ingredients

• Potatoes (yukon gold) – 2 cups
• Brinjal (small violet brinjals) – 2 cups
• White pumpkin – 2 cups
• Ridge gourd – 2 cups
• Green chillies – 5
• Mustard – 2 tablespoon
• Turmeric – 1/2 teaspoon
• Hing – 1/2 teaspoon
• Panch phoran – 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt – 1 teaspoon
• Sugar – 2 teaspoon
• Oil – 2 teaspoon

Preparation

1. Soak the mustard in 2 tbsp water.
2. Grind the mustard with the green chillies to a smooth paste.
3. Cut the vegetables into equal sized parts.
4. Cook the vegetables  with tumeric and the mustard paste, until done,  in a covered vessel.  The recipes calls for not adding any water, I wasn’t sure, so added 1/2 cup water, could possibly do without it.
5. Heat oil, temper with hing and panch phoran. The recipe calls for tempering with slit green chillies too, I did not since the mustard paste was already spicy.
6. Add cooked vegetables, saute.
7. Add salt and sugar, mix them in.
8. Allow vegetables to cook until all the water dries out.

Serves : 3-4

Bhindi (Okra) Fry

Ingredients

• Saunf or Panch phoran – 3 tsp
• Chilli powder – 1/2 tsp
• Dhania powder – 1/2 tsp
• Amchur – 1/2 tsp
• Onion – 1/2 chopped
• Bhindi – 1 packet (frozen)

Preparation

1. Heat 3 tbsp oil.
2. Add onion, fry for a minute.
3. Add saunf, dhania powder, red chilli powder and amchur powder.
4. Add bhindi and fry till bhindi is cooked.

Balekai (Plantain) Palya

Ingredients

• bananas – 3
• mustard – 3 tsp
• chilli powder – 2 tsp
• coconut – 4 tsp
• jaggery – 2 pieces
• tamarind – 3/4 tsp

Preparation

1. Grind coconut, mustard and red chilly powder, with little water into a smooth paste.
2. Boil jaggery and tamarind with water. Once  the water evaporates, add the ground paste.
3. Add the boiled plantain. Ccook until all the water evaporates.

Banana Gulliappa

Banana Gulliappa

This is a slightly modified version of a recipe I found at this blog. [http://recipejunction.blogspot.com/2007/09/balehannu-appa.html]

Ingredients

• 2 cups rice, soaked in warm water for 1 hour
• 1 cup powdered jaggery
• 1/2  cup coconut milk
• 4 pods cardamom, powdered
• 2 ripe bananaas
• 2 tsp oil

Preparation

• Grind rice into a smooth paste, adding as little water as possible.
• Add jaggery, coconut mik, cardamom and banana and grind till mixed well.
• Add oil to gulliappa maker, fill each mould with the mixture and cook.
• Note : I ground the rice into a paste and stored it in the refrigerator for a day before grinding the remaining ingredients in with it.

Curry Leaf Chutney

Ingredients

• 10 curry leaves
• 2 sprigs coriander leaves
• 4 green chillies
• 1 tbsp grated coconut
• 1 tsp hurgadle
• 1/2 tsp salt

1. Roast all ingredients in 1 tsp oil, add coconut last to the roast mix.
2. Grind with water.
3. Add salt.