South Carolina

Carolina Chickpea Chili with Hanging Tostaguac

Julia P. (original recipe)

When I was kid we drove down the Eastern Seaboard from our home in New York to visit my aunt and uncle in Florida, so it stands to figure I've been through South Carolina. All I can remember from the trip there was the Spanish moss, and since you are first Southern state on the primary schedule, you can have it!

Reading between the lines, Julia is poor, so I thought, what is the cheapest chicken substitute? And obviously it's chickpeas! I have an unused can of pink beans left over from our visit to New Hampshire, so why not make due with the scraps of subsistence and pull together a chickpea chili worthy of the cold Northern winter.

Little Julia is in luck because I have half an avocado left over too! The recipe calls for sliced avocado as a garnish, and honestly this is probably the best serving suggestion. But in the photo it looks more like a fancy avocado crema, which got me thinking, if poor little Julia got her hands on half an avocado, surely she would take the opportunity to do some kind of stupid upcycling of it, something crazy and fancy, and so it hit me, Spanish moss! And this inspired the hanging tostaguac.

Ingredients

• 2 dried Guajillo chiles

• 1 to 4 dried Chile de Arbol

• Olive oil

• 1 medium Shallot, chopped

• 3 cloves Garlic, minced

• 1 15-oz. can Pink beans, drained

• 1 15-oz. can Chickpeas, drained

• 2 cu. Water

• 2 Tbs. Un-chicken powder or 1 cube no-chicken bouillon

• 1 7.5-oz. can Corn, drained

• 1 small Jalapeno, sliced

• 1 1/2 tsp. ground Cumin

• 3/4 tsp. Smoked paprika

• 1/2 cu. tightly packed Spinach

• Pepper

Guacamole

• 1/4 Avocado

• 1 small clove Garlic, minced

• 1/8 tsp. Mexican oregano

• Juice from 1 Lime wedge

• Pinch of salt

Avocado Crema

• 1/4 Avocado

• 2 Tbs. raw Cashews, soaked

• 2 Tbs. Almond milk

• Juice from 1 Lime wedge

• Dash of salt

To Serve

• Fried Corn tortilla

• Shredded lettuce

• Diced Tomato

• Pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

Preparation

Chili is a pretty time-consuming lunchtime preparation, but luckily they keep really well so I made the chili the day before. First we cut open the dried chili peppers and remove the seeds and stems. I used all four chili de Arbol and it is quite spicy! You may want to use fewer. Toast them however you like. I put mine in a 250-degree oven for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, you can chop your vegetables. When the chilis are toasted, pulverize them in a spice grinder.

Heat your oil in a medium pot. Add the shallots and cook, stirring frequently, over low-to-medium heat for about 7 minutes (I don't like raw shallots!). Then add the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds. Mash up half the chickpeas and add everything to the pot except the baby spinach. People say you shouldn't pepper your food before a long cook but you will inevitably be tasting it the whole while through so you may as well pepper it now. Cook for an hour, stirring frequently, or until it reaches the desired consistency. You don't need to cook it this long so if you are impatient just use less water. With 2 minutes left, add the baby spinach.

You could obviously eat it now, but I will instead fast-forward to the next day and our final preparations. All that's left to pull together for lunch is the guac, crema, fried tortillas, and garnishes. Easy!

Hopefully you remembered to soak your cashews the night before. The guacamole and avocado crema are pretty similar except you can mash the guac with a fork and throw the crema ingredients into the blender. I pan-fried two tortillas, one cut into supports and the other left whole, to form the base of the hanging (or floating) tostaguac. Spoon the guac into the center and drizzle the edges with avocado crema. Lettuce and tomato would complete the dish (I didn't have any). Sprinkle with pepitas at a minimum!

Discussion

Pleasantly spicy, balanced nicely by the avocado. I had a little trouble getting the tostaguac to float. Next time I would consider employing tortilla chips as the supports. The idea is to keep the tostaguac from getting soggy and to provide a three-dimensional structure for the "moss" to hang from. Then you get to destroy the tostaguac with your utensil and watch it sink into the sea like the Louisiana coastline.

Most chilis I've made before contain tomato. Since this recipe omits it, I thought I would add spinach instead. It was pretty good and contributed to the rainbow of green.

New Hampshire

South Carolina The first U.S. state to secede from the Union (because of slavery)

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