Bean Sprout Adventures

This is a partner post to the bean search. I discovered recently that fancy masa is available. It can be heirloom, direct-trade, single origin, organic, etc, all those normal fancy food options.

I was inspired to search for fancy masa after J and I went to a (vegetarian!) Oaxacan restaurant in Brooklyn that makes their own masa using fancy corn. They use the masa in their food products but they also sell it fresh (I got some). Going to Brooklyn all the time for fresh masa isn’t super convenient, though. Fortunately, the company, Masienda, that supplies the fancy restaurants also sells direct to consumers!

While researching them, I came across a couple other fancy masa stores too. These are the options I found!

• Masienda – dry masa in several colors, as well as several heirloom bean varieties and lots of varieties of heirloom/single origin whole corn. They have supplies for doing your own nixtamalization.
• Alma Semillera – very similar to Masienda, but with smaller selection. Many if not all products are also organic, so overall a bit more expensive.
• I Love Mole – even smaller selection of beans, masa harina, and whole corn. This company mostly sells mole mixes and other seasonings.

None of these companies is particularly local to me (in New York). I believe they’re all based in California, although most of the beans and corn are grown in Mexico.

These are the cookies used for making tiramisu. Sibling C is going to make it as a birthday cake!

This recipe is from Joy of Cooking (1976).

Recipe

• 1/3 cup cake flour (sift before measuring)
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar (sift before measuring)
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 whole egg, 2 eggs separated
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

1. (Optional) Let ingredients warm to room temperature.
2. Whip 2 egg whites until stiff. Sift sugar and salt together, and fold into egg whites. Beat mixture until it thickens again.
3. Beat whole egg, 2 egg yolks, and vanilla until thick. Fold into egg white mixture.
4. Resift flour a few times and fold into egg white mixture.
5. With a pastry tube (or spoon), shape dough into strips 3.5-4 inches long by 1.25 inches wide on a cookie sheet. Or pour into greased molds.
6. Bake at 375°F for 12 min.

Over the weekend, we visited Russ & Daughters, a famous and fairly old (1920, continuously run by the original family and at the original location) Jewish “appetizing store“, meaning that they sell things that go with bagels, along with bagels. We went right before Rosh Hashanah, so the main shop was super busy — 45 min just to go into the store to order! We went around the corner to their café location instead. The café also had more meal-food selection.

We got blintzes (we’ve made them at home too), latkes, and a bagel with cream cheese, lox, onion, tomato, and capers.

Modified from The Joy of Cooking (1973) “quick cherry crunch”. I made this to use up some really tart apricots and old peaches with a bad texture. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it, but it was really good!

Recipe

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2-2/3 cup sugar (use the smaller amount if fruit is already quite sweet or has added sugar)
• 1/2 cup melted butter or other liquid oil
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg
• Some milk (I didn’t measure, maybe 1/3 cup?)
• (Optional) 1 cup nuts (either soft/oily ones like walnuts and pecans, or thinly sliced if harder, like almonds)
• 3-4 cups chopped fruit (use the smaller amount if fruit is quite sour)

1. Mix all ingredients through baking powder. Split in half.
2. Mix one half with the egg, milk, and nuts. Put in the bottom of baking dish (~9″ x 9″ x 2″).
3. Add fruit. Top with other half of streusel mixture.
4. Bake 35 min at 350°F.

The original recipe just put half the streusel below and half above the fruit, no milk, egg, or nuts added.

J and I saw several arepa stands at a street fair. They didn’t look amazingly high quality (at least one stand was just heating up pre-packaged arepas), so J took it as inspiration to make our own!

Arepas are Venezuelan and Colombian, mostly. We made the simplest variety, which is a cornmeal pancake cut in half and stuffed with mild cheese. The cornmeal has to be either pre-cooked (masarepa; the traditional way) or nixtamalized (masa harina; will be slightly less fluffy) to form a dough properly. You can’t just use regular old cornmeal, but instant polenta might work.

Recipe

• 2 cups warm water
• 2 cups masarepa or masa harina
• If using masa harina, some baking powder to add fluffiness

1. Mix everything together. Let rest for 10 min. Dough should be moist and able to form balls without cracking, but not stick to your hands too much.
2. Form into patties (standard thickness is 1/2 in). Deep fry, OR pan fry ~3 min on each side and then bake for 15 min.