The Mexican Slow Cooker: Recipes for Mole, Enchiladas, Carnitas, Chile Verde Pork, and More Favorites (21 page)

Heat a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add all the chiles and toast on both sides, turning occasionally and pressing down with a spatula, until they soften and blister. Remove from the pan. When the chiles are cool enough to handle, tear them into small pieces and place in a heatproof bowl. Add the hot water and soak the chiles, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes.

In a blender, combine the chiles and their soaking liquid, and the salt, pepper, tomatoes, garlic, onion, and oregano and puree until smooth. Pour into a 5-quart slow cooker.

Add the beans to the slow cooker and stir in the water. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours, or until very tender. Serve hot.

The
charro
(cowboy) lifestyle is alive and well in the beautiful mountains of northern Mexico. Here cooking often revolves around a big pot and a wood-fired cook box, where
frijoles
cook slowly overnight while the herd dozes under the stars.
Frijoles charros
always start with big handfuls of chipotles and epazote, and then, to paraphrase one cook, “you add whatever you got,” whether it’s chunks of beef, pigs’ feet and skin, vegetables, or tomatoes. When cooked, the
frijoles
should be brothy but full of beans and pieces of meat. Serve with flour tortillas and, if you like, a spoonful of
Salsa Mexicana
.

Place the beans in a large (at least 5½-quart) slow cooker.

In a large, heavy skillet, heat the lard over medium-high heat. Add the beef and brown on all sides, until it is a rich, deep brown. Transfer the beef to the slow cooker. Wrap the pork hock firmly in a piece of cheesecloth or tie with string; this will allow the flavor to permeate the beans while keeping the small bones in one place. Add the pork to the cooker along with all the remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 10 to 12 hours, or until the beans and meat are very tender. Remove and discard the epazote sprigs. Pick any meat from the pork hock and add to the pot.

Lightly sweetened with piloncillo sugar, corn bread is a favorite festival food in northern Mexico, where the batter is cooked in small cast-iron pans that are greased with plenty of sweet butter. Serve with more butter and a sprinkle of crushed piloncillo for a sweet treat, or offer it as a side dish to help temper the heat of a spicy
guisado
or entrée. This recipe, like that of all the cooks I spoke to, uses commercially available pancake mix. When I adapted the recipe to the slow cooker I tried using a homemade pancake mix, but it just didn’t work as well.

Rub the bottom and sides of a 5-quart slow cooker with 1 tablespoon of the butter. Cut a piece of aluminum foil and line the bottom of the slow cooker, pressing it smoothly into the corners and halfway up the sides. Butter the foil with another 1 tablespoon of the butter.

Place the sugar in a heavy plastic bag and pulverize with a small cast-iron pan or wooden mallet. Add the crushed sugar to a blender along with the corn and water and pulse until just combined, leaving some chunks of sugar. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and stir in the pancake mix. Melt the remaining 6 tablespoons butter and stir into the batter.

Spoon the batter into the slow cooker. Drape a length of paper towel or a linen kitchen towel tightly across the cooker—this will absorb condensation that may form and drip onto the surface of the cornbread. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours or on high for 1½ to 2 hours, until the sides are well browned and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve hot.

Mexican farmers cultivate more than three hundred distinct varieties of corn, so it’s no surprise that corn forms an integral part of the everyday Mexican diet. Fresh corn is a popular street treat, served from pushcarts that are often just cauldrons of boiling water on wheels. The earthy-sweet flavor of the corn shines through the messy, delicious combination of butter, lime, salty cheese, creamy mayonnaise, and a sprinkle of mild chiles.

Shuck the corn and cut each cob into 3 pieces or leave whole. Combine the corn, water, butter, salt, and epazote in a 5-quart slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 2½ to 3 hours, stirring once. The corn may be held on warm for up to 2 hours more. To serve, drain the corn thoroughly. Pile the corn on a warm platter and drizzle with the butter. Sprinkle with a little of the ground chiles and cotija cheese. Serve with limes and and a small bowl of mayonnaise on the side.