Last year, with the help from our friends at Mule Radio, we started our very own podcast. It’s been great fun, we’ve learned a lot, and hopefully our listeners did, too.

We’ve got other ideas for Salt & Fat, so we’re going to be winding the podcast down. Today’s episode, fittingly, is all about starting fresh, and it will be the penultimate one. We want our last episode, in 2 weeks, to be all about our listeners, so if you’ve been holding off on asking a question or just saying hi, now’s the time to call (260-225-7258) or email.

We love Salt & Fat and want it to be the best it can be — the first thing you’ll notice is we’re going to be writing here more. We’re thankful for everyone who tuned in, especially thankful to Mule Radio for giving us a chance to try out our radio voices, and can’t wait for what’s next.

Freshly made tortillas have the potential to completely change your cooking game, taking you from the playground of bland, store-bought, flour flats to the big leagues of big corn flavors and wonderfully soft dough textures. What follows is a basic corn-tortilla recipe with a shocking twist: the use of corn stock instead of water. If you don’t already have corn stock in the freezer (we wrote up a mock recipe a while ago) just use water and you’ll be making regular corn tortillas. Those are still great, though I really dig the roasty, sweet, hyper-corny flavor of the stock-based ones. Whenever I have extra corn stock, I’ll be saving a few cups for them.

Ingredients

• 2 cups masa harina (such as Maseca)
• 2 cups corn stock (or water)
• 2 tsp salt

Makes ~16 tortillas

Directions

Place the masa harina and the salt in a large mixing bowl and stir with a fork to combine. Add about 1 cup of the stock while folding/mixing with a spatula. Once the dough is sort of coming together (it’ll still be very dry and rough) switch to kneading with your hands. Mash, fold, and punch the dough.

Add more stock slowly, 1/4 cup at a time. Depending on your masa harina, you may need anywhere from 1 1/2 cups of stock to the full 2 cups. Masa dough doesn’t really mind if you overwork it, so feel free to add more masa harina or liquid to balance it out. Make sure the dough is even, with no dry pockets.

The final product should take no more than 5 minutes of kneading, and it’ll feel like putty: flexible, moist, but not wet or sticky. Nothing should be sticking to the sides of the bowl or pooled at the bottom of it. Shape the dough into a rough ball, cover the bowl with a towel, and let rest for 15 minutes up to an hour. You may need to moisten it slightly with water if it feels dry after resting.

In the meantime, prepare the following hardware:

• Two nonstick pans, teflon or cast iron or similar. You can also use one long griddle over two burners.
• Tortilla press. If you don’t have one—and they’re pretty cheap and small, really—you can press your tortillas with a round, see-through pie pan. Press straight down and look through to make sure it stays even. But do consider getting a press, ok?
• One gallon-size ziplock bag, cut open into two plastic covers large enough to cover the two sides of your tortilla press.
• Tortilla warmer, or, a large, clean towel, slightly moistened and folded in half.

Set one pan (or one end of the griddle) over medium-low heat. Set the other pan over medium-high. Make sure they preheat for at least 3 minutes.

The flow of your hardware should be: masa bowl > tortilla press > medium-low pan > medium-high pan > tortilla warmer. Arrange these in a way that makes sense to you and fits your kitchen space.

Break off a golf-ball-size piece of the dough and shape it into a rough ball. Don’t worry too much about making it perfect; the dough should cooperate willingly. Cover the bowl with the towel again.

Press it gently onto the first piece of plastic on the bottom side of the tortilla press, just enough to flatten it a bit. Again, don’t worry about the shape too much, as long as it stays together.

Cover it with the second piece of plastic and work the press: press down. Open the press and rotate the tortilla 180º. I don’t mean flip it; rotate it while flat against the bottom and press down again to make sure it’s even.

Open the press again and lift the plastic-sandwiched tortilla. Remove the top piece of plastic carefully and place back on the press. Now transfer the tortilla, dough side down, onto your other hand, then peel off the second piece of plastic from the top. Always peel the plastic from the tortilla, not the other way around.

Gently place the tortilla onto the first, medium-low-heat pan. You can flip it over carefully, or touch the end of the tortilla by the bottom of your palm to the pan, then move your hand out of the way and let it drape over the pan.

Give it 30 seconds on this side, then flip it over. You can use a spatula, but as the tortilla won’t really stick to the pan, it’s easier to just do this using your fingers. Give it another 30 seconds.

Now flip the tortilla back onto the first side onto the second, medium-high-heat pan. Press it down gently with the back of your hand or a flat spatula; this will help it really absorb the heat quickly, resulting in the crucial final step of puffing up. The tortilla should basically inflate over the next few seconds.

Once the tortilla puffs up—and if it doesn’t, press it down again, and consider perhaps boosting the heat a bit?—it’s ready to come out and go into your tortilla warmer.

So, 30 seconds on each side in the medium-low pan, then flip over again onto the medium-high pan and wait for it to pillow up. You’ll get into the rhythm of it eventually, rolling and pressing tortillas while waiting for the previous batch to heat and puff up.

Your tortillas should stay warm for up to an hour in a proper warming dish, 15-20 minutes in a towel. Stored in a bag in the fridge, they will keep for up to a week. To reheat them, microwave for 1-2 minutes in a moistened towel.

Serving suggestion: tacos filled with our mole.

Notes

You’ll find masa harina in the Hispanic section of your supermarket. (Please note that this is not the same as cornmeal, corn starch, or other ground corn products.) The Maseca brand is ubiquitous and cheap. For extra credit, consider asking your local Mexican taqueria if they’ll sell you some fresh masa, in which case you can skip the mixing steps and go straight to the press. Masa is the stuff that gets dried and packaged for commercial sale as masa harina; it tastes better fresh, but it’s extremely inconvenient to grind and nixtamalize your own masa at home.

Depending on your corn, how much of it you use, and how much you let it reduce, your corn stock may be anywhere from a refreshingly fragrant water to a thick, sticky syrup. I reduce mine quite a bit, until it resembles unfiltered apple cider or rich chicken soup.

The two-pan method of grilling tortillas, described by your most trustworthy source on Mexican cooking, Rick Bayless, is essential; I made about 150 tortillas using the single-pan method and never got them to puff up as nicely as when I added the second, high-heat pan. What happens is that the first pan seals the sides of the tortilla, and the high heat of the second pan makes it expand quickly the only way it can: by separating the two outside layers and inflating from the inside. It is this double-layer nature of properly puffed tortillas that gives them their soft, never-cracking texture and fresh taste.

Instead of counting to 30 every time you add a tortilla to the pan, consider placing a big analog clock near your stove. I pulled up the big clock display on my iPad and set it on the counter.

Whether you use corn stock or water, these will be so much better than anything you can buy in the store. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself eating them plain—but what am I saying, there’s nothing plain about these tortillas!

One of the most frequently asked questions we get is “what _____ should I buy?” and, over the years, we’ve amassed opinions about all sorts of cooking gear. We figured it was about time to compile them all in one place, organized from essential to ideal, with a handful of cookbooks.

We’re calling it Stock & Larder and it’s here just in time for the holidays. We personally vouch for everything there and try our best to avoid the overpriced and unnecessary.

Everything is also an Amazon affiliate link, which means you’ll get a square deal, awesome service, and fast shipping, while we get a little kickback. It’s a great way to equip your kitchen and support Salt & Fat at the same time.

We hope you find it helpful, be sure to follow @stockandlarder on Twitter for updates.

Mexican mole is a contentious dish, subject to endless debate over authenticity and correct preparation. The king of moles, mole poblano, deserves all this attention: made the traditional, long way, it’s a symphony of flavors. However, it’s also an investment of many hours (possibly days) of work, starting with 26 different ingredients.

Luckily, I make no claim to authenticity with my mole; I can only say that it’s tasty, rich, complex, and not grossly out of line with traditional Mexican cooking. It’s based on other non-canonical dark moles I’ve had, and it features “only” 13 ingredients and takes 2-3 hours to make.

Ingredients

• 7 dried pasilla chiles
• 3 dried ancho chiles (or substitute mulato or New Mexico chiles)
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds, peeled, unsalted
• 1/3 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds
• 1/2 medium onion, sliced thick
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1.5 oz unsweetened chocolate (preferably Mexican)
• ~10 black peppercorns
• ~6 cloves
• 2-3 segments star anise (not whole stars)
• 1.5” cinnamon stick (or 2 tsp ground)
• 3 cups chicken stock, unsalted (preferably homemade)

Directions

Put on your kitchen gloves and remove the stems from your dried chiles, then slice into them and pull out the seeds and any dried pith. Reserve 1 tbsp seeds. Tear the chiles in half and flatten them a bit. Discard the gloves.

Fill a large bowl with about 2 cups of hot water. Heat 1 tbsp neutral oil (grapeseed, corn, or canola) in a large Dutch oven or saucepan over medium heat. Add the chiles and fold once to coat with oil, then press against the bottom for a few seconds to fry. After 1-2 minutes the chiles should be fragrant; as soon as you see any smoke, drip them off, pull them out onto a paper-towel-lined plate, and pat dry. Place in the hot-water bowl and cover with a plate to keep them submerged. Rehydrate them like this for 15 minutes up to an hour.

Add the raisins and the reserved chile seeds to the same pot and fry for 1-2 minutes, until the raisins begin to inflate a bit. Add to the same water bowl with the chiles.

Next, add the pumpkin seeds to the pot and fry for 2-3 minutes, folding occasionally, until they’re browning just a bit; don’t let them burn or blacken. Place in a large mixing bowl which will eventually hold all your ingredients.

Add the chocolate to the mixing bowl.

Add another tbsp of oil to the pot if it’s dry and fry the whole garlic cloves and the sliced onions for about 5 minutes, until soft and slightly golden. Add to the large mixing bowl with the pumpkin seeds.

Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat and add the peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon, and star anise. Toast for 2 minutes or until fragrant, tossing occasionally. Give them a few minutes to cool down, then grind in a spice grinder, coffee grinder, or small food processor. Add to the mixing bowl.

Toast the sesame seeds in the same nonstick pan for 2-3 minutes, until slightly golden but not brown. Add to the mixing bowl.

Drain the chiles and raisins and add to the mixing bowl. Fold everything until evenly mixed; don’t do this step in the blender bowl from the next step as the blades will make mixing difficult.

When the mix has cooled down to no more than slightly warm (this should only take a few minutes) add it to the jar of your blender. Add 1/2 cup of chicken stock and begin to blend. If the mix is too dry to move smoothly in the blender, first try turning off the blender and mixing a bit more using a spatula; if that doesn’t work, add a bit more stock. (Avoid adding too much stock since liquids don’t get ground properly.) Blend for 1-3 minutes, pausing occasionally to scrape down the sides of the jar. The final blending time and the smoothness of the product will depend on your particular blender, but do your best to get it to a smoothie consistency. There should be no visible chunks, pieces, or seeds.

Run the mix through a chinois or a fine-mesh strainer, working in small batches to make the task of pushing the thick mass through easier. Set aside up to half an hour for this step; it’ll feel like real work. You can add a tbsp of chicken stock to the strainer to help things move, but don’t do this too much.

You’ll be left with up to a cup of unstrained solids. For extra credit, you can add this back to the blender with another 1/4 cup of stock, then blend and strain again. Don’t forget to scrape the outside of your strainer’s mesh with a clean spatula to get all the mix that has stuck to it.

Wipe the Dutch oven with a paper towel; just remove any solids you don’t want in the final, smooth mole, but don’t worry about the burnt coating on the bottom. Heat 1 tbsp of oil (or lard) in it over medium heat, then carefully add the smooth mix. As it heats up, it will bubble in strange ways. Adjust the heat to keep it moving, but not violently popping. Fold and fry for 5 minutes, scraping the sides of the pot, until the mix loses some of its moisture and darkens and thickens a bit.

Slowly pour in the remaining chicken stock and stir to form an even sauce. Add 2 pinches of salt. Turn the heat down to low (adjusting again to make sure it moves but doesn’t burn or roll) and simmer for 30 minutes, folding and scraping down the sides occasionally. It should thicken, darken, and developer a deeper, more savory flavor. This process will continue in the fridge over the next day or two, so feel free to make the mole ahead. Before you serve it, fold to make sure it’s even and, if needed, thin down with a bit more chicken stock. Salt to taste.

Mole is traditionally served over roasted turkey or chicken. When doing so, I prefer to cut up the de-boned meat into bite-size pieces, then fold it into the mole. (If you’re not serving all of the mole right away—and it keeps in the fridge quite well—combine and heat the meat and a smaller amount of mole in a different pot.) It’s a great way to dress up leftover roast chicken or Thanksgiving turkey.

This will feed 4-6. Serve on tacos or with a side of Mexican rice and black beans and our pickled onions. Sprinkle with sesame seeds for garnish, and keep a napkin handy—mole is one delicious mess.

Notes

Most decent supermarkets should carry dried Mexican chiles. If yours doesn’t, look for a Hispanic store. (Larger Asian markets often cater to the same community, so check there as well.) Look for leathery, slightly shiny peppers; avoid anything with a dusty or chalky appearance. Pasillas and anchos often get confused; pasillas are long and skinny, while anchos look more like dried versions of green bell peppers. Neither of these chiles is particularly hot, but I still recommend wearing gloves when handling them, as the seeds can sometimes be quite potent.

Toasting and grinding your own spices makes a noticeable difference in dishes where they shape the flavor so prominently. That said, if you have to use the ground stuff, go ahead.

If you don’t have a blender, you can use a food processor, though it may not work as well. It won’t affect the quality of the dish too much, but it’ll make straining more difficult. It’s still doable, however. Whichever tool you use, don’t overfill the jar/bowl.

Note that this recipe is almost vegan and can be made so by using vegetable stock if desired.

Coming soon, my recipe for a perfect companion to mole: corn tortillas.

It’a shame that Cajun/Creole cooking, perhaps the most authentically American cuisine of all, gets so shortchanged in American restaurants, reduced to a paprika-covered chicken breast or fish sandwich. If it were up to me, families across the country would gather around for a feast of crawfish étouffée and bread pudding on Thanksgiving; oyster po’boys and maque choux every 4th of July; beignets and Sazeracs at Christmas. Until that dawn breaks, let’s start things off easy by making my favorite stew of them all—the one and only gumbo.

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb andouille sausage, sliced 1/4” thick
• 1 lb chicken thighs, boneless & skinless
• 1 catfish fillet, medium size
• 1 qt chicken stock, warm (preferably homemade)
• 4 oz neutral oil (vegetable, grapeseed, corn, or canola)
• 4 oz all-purpose flour
• 1 cup onion, diced (about 1/2 medium onion)
• 1/2 cup poblano pepper, diced (about 1/2 pepper; or sub green bell pepper)
• 1/2 cup leek, diced (white and light-green part only; or sub celery)
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup tomato, diced (1 medium tomato, or use canned)
• 2 bay leaves
• ~6 grinds black pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp thyme leaves, chopped (about 1 medium branch)
• 1 tbsp blackening seasoning (mock recipe below)
• 1 Tbsp filé powder

Makes 6-8 servings. Ready in about 2.5 hours.

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Combine the flour and the oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy pot. Stir with a silicone spatula to combine until smooth and even. Bake the roux uncovered in the oven for 90 minutes until brick-brown, stirring every 20 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, chop your vegetables and combine the onion, poblano pepper, leek, and garlic in one bowl.

In another bowl, combine the tomato, bay leaf, the ground peppers, and the thyme.

After 90 minutes, move the roux from the oven to the stovetop set to medium-to-medium-high heat. Add the first bowl (with the onions, peppers, leek, and garlic) and stir constantly for 8 minutes until the vegetables are soft but not burnt.

Add the second bowl (with the tomato, bay leaf, and spices) and stir for another minute. Carefully and slowly pour in the warm chicken stock, stirring to form a smooth soup. When it begins to bubble again, turn the heat down to low, cover, and set a timer for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, brown the andouille sausage slices in a large frying pan over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Scoop out with a slotted spatula or spoon, drip off, and add to the gumbo.

Pour off most of the sausage oil from the pan. Pat the chicken thighs dry and season with salt and pepper on both sides. Brown in the same pan, over medium heat, for about 5 minutes on each side. Drip off and place on a clean, heat-proof cutting board. Chop into bite-size pieces and add to the gumbo. Wash your knife and grab another cutting board.

Next, pat-dry the catfish fillet, salt on both sides, and dust liberally on both sides with the blackening seasoning. (It’s hard to use too much.) If the pan is dry, add just a bit more oil, and fry the catfish 2 minutes on each side. Use a metal spatula and a quick, decisive scraping motion to flip it. Move to the new, seafood-only cutting board and cut into bite-size pieces. Add to the gumbo.

Note that as with the chicken, the fish may not be fully cooked when it comes out of the pan. This is ok since it’ll continue cooking in the gumbo. Err on the side of undercooking it here so it doesn’t dry out.

By now, your 30-minute timer should be close to going off. When it does, turn off the heat, cover the pot, and leave it alone for another 15 minutes. Your gumbo will look a bit soupy and light at this point.

Before serving, scoop out about 2 tablespoons of the liquid and mix with the filé powder in a small bowl until smooth, then stir back into the gumbo. This should thicken and darken it (in addition to adding a unique earthy and herby flavor). Taste and add salt if needed.

You can eat it right away, though the flavors blend better in the fridge overnight. Serve over white rice, sprinkled with chopped green onions and however much simple hot sauce you prefer. Crystal is the original brand of choice.

Gumbo will keep in the fridge for about a week. It also reheats well from frozen.

Notes

Gumbo is often made without filé powder, but I find that it ends up lacking a certain herbal flavor and rich texture that way. You should be able to find filé in larger markets, or consult a local spice & herb store. You can sprinkle on and mix in more at the table if you like your gumbo thicker.

You can also make the roux on the stovetop in about 20-30 minutes, but you’ll have to whisk constantly to make sure it’s even and doesn’t burn. The oven method is slower but more consistent.

Packaged andouille sausage is available in most supermarkets these days. If you can’t find it, go with a simple pork or chicken sausage flavored with garlic and hot, dried peppers. Avoid herby or sweet sausage.

Green bell peppers are the authentic choice for Cajun mirepoix, but I substitute poblano peppers since I find them tastier in almost every case. They’re fairly easy to find.

Celery is also the authentic choice, but Jim is a fan of Thomas Keller’s substitution of leeks for celery, and I tend to agree. I like celery, but I love leeks.

Gumbo is made with just about any meat that’s available to you, from chicken and duck to rabbit and mussels. I like this combination, but you can try using shrimp, for instance. If you have access to good seafood/shrimp/fish stock, try that, too.

You’ll be working with both raw and half-cooked chicken and fish, so please observe food-safety protocol: use separate cutting boards for each meat, keep them away from other foods in case things go flying when you cut, wash your hands and wipe down all surfaces frequently.

I blacken my catfish before adding to the gumbo for added flavor and firmer pieces. You can buy pre-mixed blackening seasoning, but if you think you’ll blacken fish or chicken often, it’s worth it to make your own. Mine includes:

• 6x paprika
• 6x tomato powder (made by grinding extra dry pieces of sundried tomato)
• 2x cayenne pepper
• 2x onion powder
• 2x black pepper
• 1x coriander
• 1x cumin
• 1x celery seed
• 1x allspice

Use your taste and judgment for precise ratios. The seasoning will keep for a few months in a spice jar. Unlike most packaged mixes, this doesn’t include salt, so you can use quite a bit of it without oversalting the meat.

If you’re reading up on the low-carb diets that are in vogue right now, you might find this piece of advice: replace carb-heavy foods with healthier ones; for instance, instead of mashed potatoes, try mashed cauliflower! Technically, it’s true. But it sounds boring, right? Who’d ever choose cauliflower over mashed potatoes?

Try this super simple recipe and see if you’ll even care about dumb mashed potatoes ever again. This is a fluffy, creamy, rich, fragrant substance that plays ice cream to potato’s sponge cake, brandy to its lager, Mozart to its Salieri.

Ingredients

• 1 medium head cauliflower, ~24 oz
• 8 oz heavy cream
• 4 tbsp butter, sliced
• 1 tsp fumee de sel, plus more to taste

Directions

Wash the cauliflower and clean it by pulling off any green leaves around the base. Cut off enough stalk to be able to rest the head flat on the table and discard the tough stalk. Quarter the head, cutting through the stalk, and break up into 2-3” pieces along the florets. If any larger pieces of the stalk remain, cut them into smaller pieces.

Combine the cauliflower, the cream, and the butter in a large saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat until the cream begins to bubble—about 2 minutes— then turn down to low and cover tightly. After about 5 minutes, check occasionally: you’ll want to see steam under the lid and a bit of movement in the cream, but not much active bubbling. Fold gently once or twice to distribute the butter and flip the florets. Cook for 30 minutes or until the cauliflower is bite-tender.

Transfer to a large bowl and allow to cool to room temperature. Season with the salt, then blend in a blender on the “smoothie” setting or similar until thickened and smooth, about 30-60 seconds total. Pause occasionally to scrape down the sides and the lid of the blender. Taste and add salt if needed. Return to a clean pan, cover, and keep warm until serving. It will also refrigerate and reheat well.

Notes

As always, you should cool down the mix before blending; you don’t want to blend hot liquids. It’s safe to do so right in the pan or bowl with an immersion blender, but this may not produce a perfectly even purée.

Feel free to use kosher salt instead of smoked; I like how the smoke plays with the floral smell of cauliflower, but it’s not crucial.

This pairs well with punchy red meats like steak or duck, and it loves deeply red wine.