December 2010
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SOUTHWEST FLAVOR
A Southwest Christmas
Serve up a feast of wild game, corn, sage, and green chile
Story and photography by Lois Ellen Frank
My mother’s side of the family is Native American, my dad’s side is Sephardic Jewish, while I was growing up we always celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah—my mother thought it best to celebrate love and joy inherent in both holidays. For me, it’s a time for family, stories by the fireplace, and warm winter meals, and now I, too, host two dinners: one each on Christmas and one of the nights of Hanukkah, both for family and friends. This year, the eight days of Hanukkah are December 1–9, so there will be plenty of time for me to host first a Hanukkah dinner, then a wonderful Christmas meal.
For the Christmas dinner I’ll celebrate my Native American heritage, with a focus on ingredients that are parts of the rich, diverse Native communities of the Southwest. Native Americans of the Southwest have always celebrated and feasted with foods that they have gathered, grown, and dried from autumn’s bounty.
Many Native families are also skilled hunters of game. For example, wild turkeys have been a part of the New Mexico landscape for thousands of years. Some indigenous groups domesticated them, using the birds for their feathers as well as their meat. In fact, archaeologists working at what is now Bandelier National Monument have found evidence of wild turkey pens among the Ancestral Puebloan ruins. Small game birds such as squabs and robins have always been hunted in this area, but the most popular were probably the quail and the dove. The quail is my favorite of all game birds, and the quail designs on Pueblo and Mimbres pots indicate the bird’s importance in ancestral times. It has been a part of the Native American diet of this region for centuries.
Cook's Tips: Ask your local supermarket or butcher if they can get quail for you; if not, this recipe will work wonderfully with game hens. You can also use this stuffing in a larger bird, such as a chicken or turkey. If so, double or triple the amount of stuffing. |
This year I’m making stuffed quail, served with a sauce made from wild-harvested three-leaf sumac berries. The three-leaf sumac (Rhus trilobata), a.k.a. the lemonade berry, is a rounded shrub that grows up to six feet high and reaches its maximum size on the sandy bottoms of broad canyons. In their book, Wild Plants of the Pueblo Province: Exploring Ancient and Enduring Uses (Museum of New Mexico Press, 1995), William W. Dunmire and Gail D. Tierney state that this bush was found at such places as Puye, Tsankawi, and other prehistoric villages in the homelands of the Pueblo people. The plant is thought to have been not domesticated but managed; that is, encouraged and manipulated.
Not long ago, I purchased some three-leaf sumac shrubs from a local nursery and planted them at home. Since then, I’ve been harvesting the berries from these and shrubs in the wild. The bright red berries, coated with a hairy stickiness, have a pleasantly acidic, lemony taste, which explains their other name.
With the exception of various willows, the three-leaf sumac is the shrub most widely used in basketmaking among the Apache, Paiute, Navajo, and Hopi. Many Tewa eat the berries whole or ground; some say that sucking on the acidic berries can relieve thirst because they stimulate the flow of saliva. Some people even make a refreshing beverage from the berries, one particularly welcome on hot summer days.
Also in this special Christmas dish will be black walnuts (Juglans nigra), a species of flowering tree in the hickory family. Also known as the American walnut, the black walnut is native to North America and grows primarily in riparian zones from southern Ontario, west to southeast South Dakota, south to Georgia and northern Florida, and southwest to central Texas, as well as regions of the Southwest. In this meal, the walnuts bring a rich, earthy flavor to the stuffing. Combined with the organic sweet yellow corn, chives, and crumbs of bread baked in an adobe oven, this stuffing has a wonderful flavor.
In New Mexico, many Native households have an horno, or adobe bread oven, in which they bake yeasted bread for a variety of occasions, including feast days and ceremonies. I make breadcrumbs from adobe-oven bread (if I can’t get any, I use day-old bread from my local bakery or farmers’ market). I cut the bread into small pieces, place it on a baking sheet, and dry it overnight in the oven with only the pilot light lit. Then I use the crumbs in recipes throughout the year—when completely dried, these homemade breadcrumbs will last for months in a glass or plastic container.
As a general rule, the smaller the bird you’re stuffing, the smaller the breadcrumbs should be. For quail, I crumble the bread quite small. Should you adapt this stuffing recipe for a turkey, coarse crumbs will work fine.
In addition to stuffed quail, I’ll be serving a potato au gratin made with this year’s harvest of New Mexico green chile. All of these ingredients make for a very special meal. I’m happy to share these recipes with all of you, with wishes for a very special Southwest Native Christmas.
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RECIPES
Baked Stuffed Quail
A feast of wild game harks back to the days of the Ancestral Puebloans.
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon organic sweet butter
1 cup organic sweet yellow corn kernels
½ cup shelled black walnuts,
very finely chopped
1 cup adobe-oven breadcrumbs, homemade
1 teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons fresh sage leaves, chopped
¼ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves,
finely chopped
1 cup organic chicken stock
6 quail, backbones removed
1 dried corn husk, ripped in thin strips
for tying quail legs together
2 tablespoons organic unsalted butter, melted
whole sage leaves (garnish)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Stuffing: In medium-size saucepan over medium to high heat, sauté onions and garlic in 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter. Add corn and cook 2–3 minutes. Add walnuts and cook 1 minute more, stirring to prevent burning. Add breadcrumbs, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add sage and thyme, sauté 1 minute. Stir in stock and mix well. Remove stuffing from heat and set aside.
Quail: Wash each bird under cold water. Season with ½ teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon pepper. Generously fill each quail with stuffing and place in oiled glass baking dish. Tie quail legs together with strips of cornhusk. Set aside and make Lemon Sumac Sauce.
Baste quail with 2 tablespoons melted butter. Spoon some Lemon Sumac Sauce over quail, then place dish in oven. Bake 40 minutes, basting every 10 minutes with remaining melted butter.
When quail are baked, gently reheat reserved sauce. Serve quail dressed with sauce and garnished with whole sage leaves.
Serves 6.
Lemon Sumac Sauce
Three-leaf sumac berries, a.k.a. lemonade berries, were used by Pueblo peoples and give this sauce its tart taste.
½ cup three-leaf sumac berries OR ½ cup pink peppercorns + 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (see Cook’s Tips)
2 cups cold water
3 cups organic chicken stock
8 tablespoons (½ stick) organic unsalted butter
Place sumac berries and water in blender and process 3 minutes. (If you can’t obtain the three-leaf sumac berries, substitute ½ cup pink peppercorns and 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice.) Strain liquid through fine sieve or cheesecloth into saucepan, squeezing out as much liquid as possible. Discard solids.
Bring liquid to boil, then reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Add stock and butter. Continue simmering until sauce has reduced by 1/3 to ½ (about 20 minutes). Set aside.
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Farmers’ Market Organic Potatoes Au Gratin
Green chile gives this popular comfort food a Southwestern twist.
1 tablespoon organic sweet cream butter, softened
1 cup organic heavy cream
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1½ pounds New Mexico fingerling potatoes, washed, sliced about 1/8-inch thick
1 cup mild New Mexican green chile, roasted, peeled, finely chopped
½ cup grated Gruyère cheese
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
½ teaspoon mild New Mexico red-chile powder
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Rub butter on bottom of 1½-quart micaceous-clay or glass baking dish.
In small bowl, whisk together cream with salt and pepper. Put sliced potatoes in the cream mixture and mix well, to keep potatoes moist and to ensure that they are covered with cream. Pour a little cream over bottom of baking dish, then arrange layer of potatoes atop layer of cream. Sprinkle 1/3 cup chopped green chile over potatoes, then sprinkle about 1/3 of each cheese over chiles. Continue layering potatoes, green chile, cheeses, and cream until you’ve used them all, ending with remaining cream mixture poured over final, top layer of potatoes and evenly spread over entire casserole. Sprinkle red-chile powder over top layer of cream.
Bake 1½–1¾ hours, until potatoes are tender and golden-brown on top. Cooking time will depend on your oven and how thickly potatoes are layered. (The deeper the layers, the longer the cooking time.) Remove from oven, let stand 5 minutes before serving with Baked Stuffed Quail.
Serves 6.
