Great Home Cooks : The Oven in the Garden

Stepping into Edna Ramirez’s back yard in Monterey Park is like taking a trip to the northern Mexican state of Sonora.

You’ll see an hornilla , the brick structure topped with a griddle on which Sonoran women bake tortillas; a metate and mano (the metate is a rectangular, slanted mortar and the mano is the grinding implement), and two tahonas , sets of large, heavy stones used to pulverize wheat. Quince and fig trees yield fruit fillings for empanadas.

The tahonas grind no more; they’re garden decorations. The metate , on which Ramirez’s father once ground dried meat for machaca , is rarely used. But every weekend, Ramirez, who was born in the town of Granados, Sonora, bakes flour tortillas on the hornilla , mixing the dough in a batella , an enormous bowl of mesquite wood crafted by her father.

Her husband, Vince, a retired civil engineer and teacher’s assistant at Rowan Avenue Elementary School, built the hornilla , not once but twice. The first, a traditional adobe structure, collapsed in the Whittier earthquake of 1987. The second is made of red brick. The heat source is butane gas, but in Sonora, hornillas were fired with wood. And to avoid a smoky kitchen, they were constructed outside.

Married 29 years, Vince has a stake in keeping his wife at the hornilla . “She likes to cook and I like to eat,” he wrote in a letter nominating her as a Times Great Home Cook.

Edna Ramirez, who works as a clerical assistant at Cal State Los Angeles, cooks Chinese, French, Mexican and what she calls “regular” food, drawing on a vast collection of clippings, recipe notebooks and cookbooks. Her favorite references are the Gourmet magazine cookbooks and books by Julia Child.

But for Sonoran food, she draws on memories of Granados, an agricultural town where her grandfather raised cattle and wheat. Ramirez, who came to California at the age of 7, remembers how her grandmother daily ground wheat on the tahona to make flour for tortillas. She explains how Sonorans collected wild greens, called quelites , to combine with pinto beans, and describes the beef barbacoa that steamed underground for wedding feasts. Christmas was the big wedding season back then because there was no electricity for refrigeration, and in summer the weather was so intensely hot that the makings of the feast would have spoiled. Homes were illuminated with oil lamps in those days; of course now, she says, “everyone has television sets and refrigerators.”

On May 15, the inhabitants of Granados honor the town’s patron saint, San Ysidro, with a fiesta. Breads for this celebration used to be baked in beehive-shaped adobe ovens, like the pueblo Indian horno. Ramirez, an avid baker, kneads the dough for yeast breads in her batella. When Vince brought home a cheese-and-chile loaf that she admired, she set to work on a duplicate. The resulting Ranchero Rolls were in a group of recipes she entered in a contest staged by a national women’s magazine. Ramirez wound up with a prize--a set of knives she’s used for more than a dozen years.

Her tortillas, made with half whole-wheat and half white flour, serve as a meal accompaniment, quesadilla wrappers and even toast. They’re not as large or as delicate as the big, tissue-thin tortillas of Sonora, Ramirez says.

Sonoran dishes that she often makes include picadillo , ground beef with potatoes, olives, green chiles, raisins and tomato sauce; chicken pipian , chicken in a chile-and-squash-seed sauce, and tortitas de huevo , fried egg patties flavored with cilantro, green onion and pinole (finely ground dried corn) and topped with chile-tomato sauce. Following her mother’s tradition, Edna makes the tortitas on Ash Wednesday. Another Lenten favorite is the bread pudding, capirotada.

The following recipes include three Sonoran dishes: Albondigas soup is a colorful assortment of vegetables and tiny meatballs, an exceptionally tasty and attractive version of this popular dish. Cubes of Jack cheese finish off a zesty Sonoran-style potato soup. And spinach stands in for wild quelites in a beans-and-greens side dish for meats.

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Sonoran cooks put cheese right in the pot, but Edna Ramirez prefers to add it to each bowlful.

SONORAN POTATO SOUP

5 Anaheim chiles

Shortening

2 tablespoons oil

2 medium yellow onions, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

4 medium tomatoes, diced

2 tablespoons flour

2 quarts boiling chicken broth

5 cups diced peeled potatoes, about 2 1/2 pounds

Salt, pepper

Shredded Jack cheese, about 1/4 cup per serving or to taste

Wash chiles and pat dry. Rub with shortening. Roast over flame or under broiler until blistered all over. Wrap in towel and place in plastic food bag. When chiles are cool enough to handle, peel, remove seeds and dice.

Heat oil in 5-quart soup pot. Add onions and garlic and saute 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, chopped chiles and flour and saute 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add boiling broth, stir and add potatoes. Simmer over low heat 35 to 40 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add Jack cheese to taste to each serving. Makes 8 to 10 main-dish servings.

Each serving contains about:

253 calories; 830 mg sodium; 1 mg cholesterol; 9 grams fat; 36 grams carbohydrates; 10 grams protein; 1.73 grams fiber.

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Handle the meatballs carefully. Excessive stirring may cause them to break apart. As a variation, add diced potato.

ALBONDIGAS GRANADOS

1 bunch cilantro

4 medium tomatoes, finely diced

2 bunches green onions, minced very fine

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 pound lean ground beef

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves

1/2 cup instant masa

2 tablespoons oil

5 Anaheim chiles, roasted, peeled and finely chopped

1 tablespoon flour

2 quarts boiling chicken broth

Reserve few cilantro stems and leaves for garnish. Chop remainder very fine. Combine cilantro, tomatoes, green onions and garlic in bowl and mix. Set aside 1 cup mixture.

Place ground beef in medium bowl and crumble lightly. Sprinkle with salt, coriander, pepper, oregano, instant masa and 1 cup reserved cilantro mixture. Lightly blend ingredients. Shape into 1-inch meatballs by rolling in palm of hand. Set aside.

Heat oil in 4-quart pot. Add remaining cilantro mixture and saute. Add green chiles and saute 2 minutes. Sprinkle with flour and saute 1 minute longer. Add boiling broth. Add meatballs 1 at time. Simmer, uncovered, 45 minutes.

Just before serving, garnish with cilantro leaves and stems. Accompany with hot corn tortillas or sourdough French bread. Makes 12 cups or 6 large servings.

Each serving contains about:

370 calories; 1,492 mg sodium; 58 mg cholesterol; 23 grams fat; 18 grams carbohydrates; 23 grams protein; 1.39 grams fiber.

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These golden rolls are light and tender. Cornmeal adds an interesting texture.

RANCHERO ROLLS

1 package dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

1 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup shortening

1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese, softened

4 1/2 to 5 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup white cornmeal

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup shredded Jack cheese

1/4 cup diced jalapeno chiles

Additional white cornmeal

2 egg whites, lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon water

Combine yeast with warm water and let stand until dissolved.

Scald buttermilk. Combine with sugar and salt and let stand until lukewarm.

Cream shortening and cream cheese in large bowl. Add yeast, buttermilk mixture and 1 cup flour. Mix well. Add another 1 cup flour, white cornmeal, baking soda, Jack cheese and jalapenos. Add more flour until stiff enough to knead, then turn out on floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes, working in flour as needed until dough is no longer sticky.

Place dough in greased bowl and turn to grease surface. Cover and let rise in warm place until doubled in bulk. Punch down. Let stand 15 minutes, then knead few minutes. Divide dough in half. Cut each half into 12 pieces. Shape each into oval.

Sprinkle greased baking sheets with additional cornmeal. Place rolls on baking sheets, cover with towel and let rise in warm place until doubled. With sharp knife make 2 shallow diagonal cuts across top of each roll. Brush with egg-white mixture. Bake at 425 degrees 5 minutes. Reduce heat to 400 degrees and bake 10 to 15 minutes longer, or until done. Makes 2 dozen rolls.

Each roll contains about:

165 calories; 224 mg sodium; 7 mg cholesterol; 7 grams fat; 21 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams protein; 0.12 gram fiber.

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Freshly cooked pinto beans are better than canned beans for this dish, Ramirez says.

SPINACH AND BEANS

6 slices bacon

1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 dried California or New Mexico chiles, stemmed and seeded

2 bunches spinach, washed and chopped

1 cup whole cooked pinto beans

Salt

Cook bacon in skillet until crisp. Remove and set aside to drain.

Drain fat from skillet, leaving 2 tablespoons. Add onion and garlic and saute 2 minutes. Add whole dry chiles and spinach. Stir until spinach is tender. Add beans, crumble in bacon and cook until beans are heated through, stirring gently. Season to taste with salt. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

294 calories; 415 mg sodium; 23 mg cholesterol; 20 grams fat; 20 grams carbohydrates; 11 grams protein; 2.90 grams fiber.