SER's Beet Gazpacho with Goat Cheese Foam and White Anchovies (Boquerones)

At a recent dinner at SER, we had a beet gazpacho topped with Cabrales cheese foam, garnished with white anchovies. We've re-created it here, using goat cheese, and it turned out wonderfully -- earthy, rich, not too beet-y, and the cheese foam and anchovies elevate it to restaurant level. For the gazpacho, you'll need a powerful blender for a smooth texture, and for the foam, you'll need an iSi whip cream siphon. We got a large tub of Boquerones from a restaurant supply store. 

Make the gazpacho and foam, and chill both. Plate the gazpacho then top with foam and boquerones; garnish with grind of black pepper.

Beet Gazpacho

I started with recipes from the New York Times and Washington Post.  The quantities below don't need to be exact, but these (barely) fit in our vintage Vitamix blender. We normally sieve our tomato gazpacho but didn't feel the need for that here.  Pre-cooked and peeled beets made this very quick, and we used canned tomatoes because it's now after tomato season; you could cook and peel fresh beets and use fresh tomatoes, of course.

500 g        1 pound   cooked and peeled Beets, roughly chopped

400 g     14.5 ounce   canned crushed Tomatoes, unflavored

225 g      1/2 pound   English Cucumber, skinned, sliced

1/4                    Red Onion, sliced

1/2                    Red Bell Pepper,  sliced

  4 cloves             Garlic

 60 ml     1/4 C       Extra Virgin Olive Oil

 30 ml       2 Tbs     Sherry Vinegar (to taste)

 10 g      1/2 Tbs     Kosher Salt (to taste)

Add the Beets and Tomatoes to the blender and blend, adding the other ingredients one by one. 

Blend until very smooth.

Taste and adjust Salt and Vinegar.

Chill for at least 2 hours.

Goat Cheese Foam

I used this recipe, cutting it in half for a few servings, but you'll need to double the below quantities to provide for the amount of gazpacho above.  We have a little 0.25 L iSi, which is fine for this amount, but you'll probably need the 0.5 L model for a double batch. If you have any flecks in your ingredients (pepper flakes or herbs in the cheese) you will need to sieve it to prevent clogging the iSi, but our cheese was plain so we didn't need to. Here too, the quantities don't need to be exact. The small amount above was too little volume for our Vitamix so I used a stick blender; a food processor might work, but might also be too large for this amount.

125 g     4.4 ounce  soft Goat Cheese

 65 g     2.2 ounce Sour Cream

 11 ml   0.75 Tbs  Extra Virgin Olive Oil

  5 g     3/4 tsp Kosher Salt

 65 g     2.2 ounce Heavy Cream

Blend the Goat Cheese, Sour Cream, Olive Oil, and Salt until smooth.

Add the Heavy Cream and blend briefly to combine (you don't want to whip the cream yet) or stir in thoroughly.

Load it into the iSi Whipper: I filled a ziptop bag then snipped off the corner and used it like a pastry bag to get the thick cream mixture into the whipper.

Add the lid, and charge with 1 Nitrous Oxide cartridge (2 for a 1 L whipper).

Chill for at least an hour

Smoky Pork Chili

In the past two chili competitions our friends host, we've come in #2 and #1; we hope to keep our crown this year with a pork-based chili that focuses on smoke.  It uses smoked pork, smoked oil, smoked tomatoes,  smoked tomato water, and smokey chilis. 

TL;DR: we came in tied for 2nd place in this year's competition!

Smoked Tomatoes and Tomato Water

We got bulk tomatoes from the farmers market. 

To skin easily: freeze hard, remove, and soak each for a minute or two in water.

Nick the skin in an X at the bottom and peel it off; it should slip off pretty easy, but if not, let soak a minute more and try again.

While still semi-frozen, cut each in half at the equator.

Put on wire racks, cut-side down, over trays (like lasagna pans) to catch the drips as they thaw and smoke.

Cold smoke several hours.

You may be able to do this while you smoke the Pork and Oil below, if you've got lots of room.

Keep the tomatoes and water to make the chili.

Both are great for other uses, and the smokey water makes a fantastic Bloody Mary.

Pork

   1 Kg   2 Lb  Pork Shoulder, with a moderate amount of fat

   1 L    1 Qt  Olive Oil (as much as you want, it's versatile)

Cut Pork into strips that will fit into meat grinder; arrange on wire rack.

Fill a large low tray -- a lasagna tray -- with Olive Oil and add to smoker.

Cold smoke Pork and Oil; we used apple wood pellets in an 18-inch stainless perforated tube, works well.

Flip the meat periodically to expose all sides.

This smoking runs a bit over 4 hours.

Chill Pork hard before grinding.
Grind through coarse plate, about 3 mm wholes.

Sear in a little of the now Smoked Olive Oil.

The Pork threw off 43g of fat, leaving 607g meat.

Reserve the fat for sauteing later.

Beans

225  g    8    oz  Dried Black Beans (Frijoles negros, secos)
  1  L   32 fl oz  Smoked Tomato Water

Cook beans in Tomato Water, covered, very low, until nearly tender, add water if needed; may take 1-4 hours.

Drain, reserve smokey bean liquid.

Makes 3 C cooked beans.

Chili Sauce Base

Build a base using Irene's Vegan Chili, sans chick peas, and substituting as many smoked ingredients as we can find -- smoked chipotles, smoked oil, smoked tomatoes, ... 

17 g   7 whole  Chipotle chilis, dried

15 g   3 whole  Sweet dried chilis (Costeño, New Mexico, Choricero)

52 g   3 whole  Fruity dried chilis (Ancho, Mulatto, Negro, Pasilla)

 1 L   1 quart  Smoked Tomato Water and smokbean-cooking liquid

Remove stems and seeds from Chilis.

Microwave chilis between two plates in 10 second increments until pliable and toasty smelling, about 30 seconds total.

Add Chilis to Smoked Tomato Water, cover, and microwave until it simmers, about 5 minutes.

Transfer to blender and blend until smooth -- be careful, the hot liquid can explode, so start with slow pulses and cover loosely with a paper towel.

Makes 4 Cups.

Assembly

 230g    1 large  Onion, diced

  ? g    3 clove  Garlic, minced

 10 g  1.5 Tbs    Cumin seed, toasted, ground

3.5 g             Fresh Oregano, or 2 tsp Dried, minced

 10 g    ?        Pimenton

400 g   14 oz     Tomatoes, preferably smoked, fine chopped

  ? g    3 whole  Chipotle chilis from a can, chopped

  ? g    1 Tbs    Chipotle can sauce

 95 g             Smoked dried Chipotle peppers, rehydrated

 20 g             Poblano Chilis from the garden, seeded, chopped

  ? g    1 tsp    Marmite or Vegemite (for Umami)

  ? g    1 Tbs    Soy Sauce (for Umami)

Saute Onions in rendered pork fat, then add Garlic, Cumin, Oregano; drain, reserving fat.

Add part of the drained fat to a large pot for final assembly, and fry chopped tomatoes in the fat. 

Add cooked Onion mixture and cooked Pork.

Add Pimenton, chopped Chipotles and their sauce (this was a 4 ounce jar's worth)

Add 2 C of the 4 C blended Chili sauce, since we had less meat than expected.

Let cook a bit to combine, then adjust salt.

Cook covered, low, until meat is tender, maybe another hour.

Add the 1 C of cooked Beans; this proportion seemed high at first but turned out fine.

Cook a bit more to finish, or let cool, refrigerate, then reheat the next day when the flavors will be married.

If the chili is too loose, or maybe has a bit too much fat, create a slurry of Masa in a little water and add it to the chili a tablespoon at of time until it's thickened as much as you want.

I like to serve this over spaghetti ("chili mac"), with grated Parmesan or Cheddar -- better, smoked Mexican cheese like Cojita -- and some diced onions or scallions. 

For the competition, use 1 C Black Beans; for home, use 3 C.