Masa Griddle Cakes with Poblanos and Goat Cheese

"Pretty freaking good!"

With those words, I have reached the summit. The husband is completely on board with this cooking thing and those three little words sealed the deal. Yes!

Masa Griddle Cakes with Poblanos and Goat Cheese

TOTAL TIME: 1 HR
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups masa harina
1 cup cold water
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 poblano chiles
1/4 cup pure olive oil, plus more for frying
1 onion, finely chopped
Pinch of dried oregano, crumbled
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
One 15-ounce can black beans, drained
4 ounces chilled fresh goat cheese, crumbled

Directions
In a medium bowl, stir the masa with the water and the salt until a soft dough forms. Divide the dough into 12 balls and flatten them into 2-inch cakes. Transfer to a plastic wrap-lined baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Roast the poblanos directly over a gas flame or under a broiler, turning, until charred all over. Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let stand for 10 minutes. Peel, core and seed the chiles, then cut them into thin strips.
In a medium skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil until shimmering. Add half of the onion and cook over moderate heat until softened, about 7 minutes. Add the poblano strips and oregano and cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper and keep warm. In a medium saucepan, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil until shimmering. Add the garlic and the remaining onion and cook over moderate heat until softened, about 7 minutes. Add the beans and cook, coarsely mashing them with a potato masher just until creamy, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and keep warm.

Heat a griddle. When it is hot, generously brush it with oil and add the masa cakes. Cook over moderately high heat, turning once or twice, until they are golden and crisp, about 4 minutes. Transfer the cakes to a platter and top each with a dollop of the beans and a mound of the poblano mixture. Garnish with the goat cheese and season with salt and pepper. Serve right away.

Because these appeared to be little side dishes or appetizers, we cooked steaks to accompany them. That make it a pretty good meal. I halved this recipe and came up with five little masa cakes. And this masa stuff is interesting. It's corn flour, not corn meal like this Southern girl is used to. It's for tortillas, not cornbread. But it mixed up into this crumbly dough that packed well and flattened just fine. Kind of like slightly wet sand at the beach.


One thing that needs to be added next time is more heat - and by heat, I mean Tabasco sauce. We determined the beans could benefit the most from added heat, and the poblanos (of which I used two) didn't seem to add any heat at all. They rank just above "complete wuss" on the Scoville scale. The goat cheese is awesome, adding a dash of tangy goodness to the whole mix. I didn't have a griddle for the masa cakes, so I just used a pan brushed with oil. They probably could have gone for a little longer in order to achieve the optimum crispiness, but our steaks were ready and we didn't want them to be cold.

Finished product, all five of them

A close up - you can see the way it's all piled onto the cakes

This is a dish I would make again with a few adjustments. More heat is needed, plus I have to figure out a way to keep the cakes warm, specifically the beans. The beans and poblano/onion mixture cooled down very quickly after it all came off the stove. I even nuked the beans and poblanos before I plated everything and it still cooled down a good bit. So that needs to be overcome, but otherwise it's "pretty freaking good."