State-by-State Redux: IV of X - The Mountain West and Southwest Revisited - Bison, Fajita-Style

We start forging our way eastward now, hitting that Continental Divide.  For this post I wanted to figure out how to meld the tastes of the Mountain States with those of the Southwest.

Snacking State-by-State Redux IV of X: The Mountain West and Southwestern States

What are the Mountain (or Interior) West States?: Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming; sometimes Arizona, New Mexico
What are the Southwestern States?: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas; sometimes California, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma, Utah
Important Cities: Albuquerque, Austin, Billings, Boise, Cheyenne, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Santa Fe, Tucson, Tulsa
Regions and Subregions: Big Sky Country; Southwest; Rockies; Mountain, West South Central (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison (southern Alberta & Saskatchewan, eastern Montana and Colorado, parts of eastern Wyoming and New Mexico, Oklahoma, interior Texas). Chile Pepper (southern and central Arizona, southern New Mexico, western Texas, Sonora, Chihuahua, western Coahuila), Corn Bread & BBQ (southeastern Oklahoma, northeastern Texas), Gumbo (coastal Texas) Pinyon Nut (southern Idaho, Nevada, western Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, northern Arizona, northern New Mexico), Salmon (Idaho)
Foods the Region is Best Known For: frontier foods (beans, prairie breads, etc), Native American foods (pine nuts: Great Basin; wojapi, pemmican, wahuwapa wasna, etc: Big Sky and Great Plains; Three Sisters: Southwest); Southwestern (Tex-Mex in eastern Texas & Oklahoma, New Mexican in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah); bison, beef; potatoes (Idaho); huckleberries, blackberries (Northwest)

- - - - -

To fuse the Northwest with the Southwest, my mind went straight to fajitas.  I'm not sure why that was the first thing to pop up in my head, but it was, and it never left.  Sufficiently Southwestern and Mexican as it is, I sought to fuse that with bison, an animal you're quite likely to see in the Rockies and the Plains but not really in much of the Southwest.  The end result: bison fajitas, paired not with red bell peppers, mind you, but with some of the delicious Hatch chiles I bought and froze when still in season.  And what fajita wouldn't go with guacamole?

The Recipe: Bison and Hatch Chile Fajitas with Guacamole

While I mostly winged this recipe, I did get one part from an outside source: the (seemingly no longer updated) 10 Cent Diet blog, where a recipe for bison fajitas was posted in 2009.  The only part I used was the blogger's marinade for her bison strip loin steak (or in my case, flank steak, which several other recipes suggested). Further credit where it is due: the 10 Cent Diet blogger adapted her recipe from one she found on Epicurious.  And the citations go on.

For this recipe you will need the following:

* bison steak, in this case flank steak ($18/lb at Gunpowder Bison!  I justified it by saying that I don't buy this very often - I don't; I just don't have that kind of money.  If you have no locally available source of bison steaks, since most supermarkets don't carry bison and the ones that do pretty much only have it ground, get beef steak instead)

For the bison marinade, you need:
* garlic (I have both the cloves and garlic paste pictured.  I found it easier to just use the paste)
* cumin (had it - make sure you grind it up)
* salt (had it)
* lime juice (three limes for $1.50)
* olive oil (had it)

To assemble the fajitas, you will also need:

* Hatch chiles (if you can't find any or didn't get them when in stores - truly one of the few vegetables to appear in the supermarket "in season only" these days - just go ahead and use bell peppers, which won't have that Hatch chile flavor or heat.  Anaheims and poblanos will, however)
* onion (a few dimes for one)
* guacamole (I whipped up one from an avocado I bought, adding to that garlic, onion, tomato, jalapeño and leftover cilantro);
* And of course, large flour tortillas (not pictured.  Typically, I don't like the flour ones, much preferring the flavor and texture of the corn tortillas, but for a fajita you really need a large flour tortilla.  I bought the low carb whole wheat ones for about $3 at Harris Teeter)

Juice the limes - this will yield you about a little more than 1/4 cup.

Mix the lime juice with the rest of the fajita marinade ingredients in a large zip locked bag.

Put in the bison and let it marinade for about a day in the fridge.

The next day, you will want to fry up your bison - this flank steak took a total of about 15 minutes, with me constantly turning it over every few.

Lookin' nice, there...

Once out of the pan, put the bison on a plate and tent it with aluminum foil.

Next, strip the Hatch chile skins off, and de-seed them (I roasted them before freezing.  If roasted before freezing, the skins really come off like magic once you thaw them)

Pan fry the Hatch chiles with the onion.  They won't be crispy, since they are thawed.  Bell peppers will more likely keep their crunch though.

While that is cooking, throw together the guacamole.  I like mine chunkier like you find farther south in Mexico, not the thinner northern kind.

You are just about ready to put together some fajitas.  Heat up your flour tortillas.

Slice the flank steak thinly along the grain.

And throw a few pieces of bison in your tortilla with some chiles, onion and guacamole.

I didn't bring mine out in a fancy fajita pan, and mine were not sizzling at the table.  Still, I had some juicy, wonderful bison piled on top with spicy Hatch chiles and their distinctive vegetal taste.  I don't know if I can ever eat a fajita with just bell peppers again.  It is a filling meal and I only could eat about two at one sitting.  

- - - - -

We keep wending our way Back East, as we hit the prairies and the Great Lakes to sample hearty Midwestern food in this series just one more time.

Sources:

The 10 Cent Diet (blog).  "Bison Fajitas".  Posted January 27, 2009.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia and from the Food Timeline State Foods webpage.

Snacking State-by-State: Wyoming II - BAAAAAALLLLLLLSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Way back when I had started this project, I was contemplating doing the Rocky Mountain oyster for one of my Colorado recipes.  I opted instead for a nice Southwestern-style bison burger  However, I never completely let go the idea of trying out that most legendary organ meats, that which makes men (probably women too but definitely the menfolk) shudder - simply because of what part of the body you are slicing up and frying.  For my final Wyoming post - and my final regular State-by-State post (yes, this is, technically, the last one, though I've got a few more coming to tie it all up) - I've finally decided to tackle those balls.  Finally.

Official Name: State of Wyoming
State Nickname: The Equality State, The Cowboy State
Admission to the US: July 10, 1890 (#44)
Capital: Cheyenne (largest)
Other Important Cities: Casper (2nd largest), Laramie (3rd largest), Gillette (4th largest); Jackson (largest town, would be 10th largest city - this is the town in the middle of Jackson Hole) 
Region: West, Mountain West, Big Sky Country; Mountain (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison, Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: Montana (north), South Dakota (northeast), Nebraska (southeast), Colorado (south), Utah (southwest), Idaho (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: bison (mammal), cutthroat trout (fish), western wheat grass (grass) 
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Native American (Shoshone) and frontier foods, especially beans, beef and bison; game animals such as deer, elk and moose; sheep; bread

For the few of you who still haven't figured out what I'm talking about: Rocky Mountain oysters are testicles.  Bull testicles.  And you slice them up and fry them.  I really haven't found any other recipes for them on the internet: you just skin them, slice them, bread them and fry them.  That's it.   But the difficult part comes in the prep work: these things have to soak for a while in water, and depending on the recipe, they then have to soak in milk.  This is after you complete the arduous task of carefully slicing them out of their tough pouch.  I actually did this wrong at first - and they turned out so not well that I had to try it again.  The following photos are from that second attempt.

If you are curious about trying this yourself, you can go to any good Latino or international supermarket for real beef bull balls (say that five times fast).  There are a few good such markets in the DC area that sell organ meats such as bull testicles (one or two in Prince George's County near Laurel comes to mind).  However, you could opt instead for bison balls instead of bull balls if you have access to them.  Strange as it may seem, in Baltimore I was able to get my hands on some bison balls (...ahem...) by driving up 83 to Gunpowder Bison, where they have all sorts of bison / buffalo organ meats.  And yes, they do have balls.  Since they were surprisingly cheap, I got a few - I spent about $7 or $8 for three frozen bison testicles - in case I messed up on one.  They only take a day in the fridge to go from rock solid to soft, squishy balls.

For the recipe, I found a few useful ones, but was entertained by the following video from Youtube user "maestrojed", which showed step-by-step how to make Rocky Mountain oysters while playing goofy music in the background.  The entire second half of the video shows reactions of people eating Rocky Mountain oysters (of course, it will not play below but you can play the whole video on Youtube).

The text for the video reads as follows:

A party born from a night of crap-talking and a challenge to try rocky mountain oysters. Using both Buffalo and Yak testicles we documented the prep, cooking and party reactions. [maestrojed 2010]

So it's even closer to what I attempt than I thought, since they're using buffalo balls too.  Don't ask me where to get yak balls.

The Recipe: Rocky Mountain Oysters

For your Rocky Mountain oysters, assemble the following:

* bull, bison or other large animal testicle - the fabled Rocky Mountain oyster!  Try to get more than one in case you mess up, but don't get TOO many, in case you just don't like them.  The ones I got cost me a total of about $8 for three of them.  I honestly thought they would be pricier, but I guess there isn't a big demand for bison testicles.  Bet you never thought you'd read those words, huh?
* milk (for dredging and soaking)
* cornmeal and flour (also for dredging)
* cayenne, garlic powder and salt (again, for dredging)
* vinegar (some recipes call for this, and the first recipe I used required it, but the video above does not.  You can do fine without it)
* oil for frying (of course, choose an oil with a high smoke point, like peanut or rice bran oil)

The ingredients shown above were from the first and more unsuccessful attempt.  Most of these didn't change, so I still used this photo.  However, I also assembled the following that are not pictured above, but were in the second and more successful recipe shown in the video:

* red wine (still had some from the handy screw top Bota Box of Cabernet Sauvignon)
* Tabasco sauce (actually did not have this on hand, so I picked up a small bottle)

Rinse your buffalo ball.  I decided to do just one at a time in case I wasn't too into balls.

Slice open the hard pouch, and carefully remove it from around the testicle.

Try your best not to cut open or into the testicle, though I found this difficult.

Are they sure this isn't Rocky Mountain brains?

Soak your denuded bison testicle in water for 30 to 60 minutes.

And then soak it in milk for as long.

Poach the bison testicle in boiling water for about five or six minutes.

And get ready to slice your ball.

It will be a bit hot to handle - okay, you can let it cool down a bit first.  Slice up your ball.

Now for the dredging part: have three bowls ready.  Dip each slice of testicle into each in the following order.  The first will have milk.

The second will have your powdered ingredients.

And the third will have your red wine and hot sauce.

Fry in hot oil for about three to five minutes, or until golden brown.  Eat with hot sauce.

Ummm, what can I say?  Well first of all, I've never eaten bison testicles before.  They are a little on the gamey side, though I suspect bull testicles would be as well.  I can't say I'm sold on eating these things again.  It isn't the mental block of eating testicles that gets me (note to self: refrain from whatever Brokeback jokes your very un-heterosexual mind is concocting as you type this).  It's the combination of the flavor - again, a bit gamey - and the texture.  I can't really describe it because I've never eaten anything like it.  It's one part spongy to ten parts soft and pudding-like, but a hard pudding.  It's a weird feeling in my mouth and the hot sauce doesn't do much to mitigate that.  But at least now I can say that I've had Rocky Mountain oysters, finally.

Now, does anyone want that last frozen bison testicle I have sitting in the freezer?  I'm probably not gonna finish it.

- - - - -

That's it!  That's the last post in this series!  Well, the last one that I had originally planned to do.  Yes, there is one more mashup coming up.  But what comes after that is one final, ten-post retrospective of different regions of the country.  And then after that, that will be the last post in this series.  For the first of those last ten posts, I am heading back up north to Alaska, a state I explored very little the first time around, to give one more go at the Last Frontier's unique seafood.  Last time it was salmon on a cedar plank.  This time?  Snow crab.

Sources:

Lee, Hilde Gabriel.  Taste of the States: A Food History of America.  Howell Press: Charlottesville, VA, 1992.

"maestrojed" (Youtube user).  "Balls: The Movie - Rocky Mountain Oysters".  Posted July 9, 2010.

Steele, Dennis, and Molly Myer.  "Bit-O-Wyo Beans".  Bit-O-Wyo Ranch, date unknown.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Wyoming" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Wyoming".

Snacking State-by-State: Wyoming I - Yeah, well I'm sick of beans.

Here it is!  I've reached the literal end of the State-by-State series with the last state in alphabetical order, Wyoming.  True, there are two Wyoming posts coming.  Plus, as I said in the final Wisconsin post, I am doing ten more of these to tie up things on a region-by-region basis.  But when I started on November 21, 2010, with my first Alabama post (which I later split into two posts), I had only hoped I would get this far.  Now here I am, folks.  Here I am.

Official Name: State of Wyoming
State Nickname: The Equality State, The Cowboy State
Admission to the US: July 10, 1890 (#44)
Capital: Cheyenne (largest)
Other Important Cities: Casper (2nd largest), Laramie (3rd largest), Gillette (4th largest); Jackson (largest town, would be 10th largest city - this is the town in the middle of Jackson Hole) 
Region: West, Mountain West, Big Sky Country; Mountain (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison, Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: Montana (north), South Dakota (northeast), Nebraska (southeast), Colorado (south), Utah (southwest), Idaho (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: bison (mammal), cutthroat trout (fish), western wheat grass (grass) 
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Native American (Shoshone) and frontier foods, especially beans, beef and bison; game animals such as deer, elk and moose; sheep; bread

Like the rest of the Rockies and Big Sky Country, Wyoming's is a hearty mixture of frontier and Native American - in this case Shoshone - foods.  Native Americans would have subsisted on the ever-present beans, bears and bison.  And as our friends at the Food Time Line point out, the earliest non-Native settlers were prospectors, bringing their food traditions from Back East.  They quote Hilde Gabriel Lee's Taste of the States [1992] in discussing the earliest settler foods of the Equality State:

While the settlers were building their homesteads and planting crops, they subsisted on braised bear meat, venison steak, hominy cooked with dried beef, and sometimes rice with honey and cinnamon. Pioneer women soon became experts at improvising, For coffee they roasted anything that would turn brown over a fire. They used a Dutch oven for everything from boiling water to baking cakes [Lee 1992:235]

They likely used that same reliable Dutch oven for cooking beans, which were more of a staple in Wyoming than I had realized.  It was important for the sheep herders to get these cheap and widely available staples.  And as anyone who's seen Brokeback Mountain will know its most important social message of all, more so than its message of forbidden love between two cow hands in mid-century Wyoming: cowboys hate beans.

Jack and Ennis weren't the only cowboys to (have to) indulge in can after can of beans (all those beans).  Many a cowpoke had to do the same.  So it's no surprise that for my first Wyoming post I would go there.  But there are so many recipes for beans from Wyoming that it's difficult to choose one.  For certain, most of the recipes I've seen incorporate many kinds of beans together, so I was not going to escape that.  In the end, I used a bean recipe from Dennis Steele and Molly Myer at the Bit-O-Wyo Ranch in Cheyenne.  Theirs uses quite a variety of beans.  And I even got to break out my Dutch oven for this one, too.

The Recipe: Bit-O-Wyo Beans (Wyoming Beans)

For these Bit-O-Wyo Ranch beans you will need the following:

First, assemble all of the following types of beans (none of which was more than $1.50):
* garbanzo beans
* black beans
* baby lima beans (the only one I couldn't find in a can; I had to get a bag of the dried variety)
* kidney beans
* generic old baked beans

To add to that, get the following:
* bacon (yes I was out of bacon.  Sue me.  Was about $4.50ish at Harris Teeter)
* ground beef (I only needed half a pound, so I got as much - $7 per pound of Angus beef, so it only cost me about $3.50, again at Harris Teeter)
* Dijon mustard (had it)
* brown sugar (same)
* onion (less than a dollar)
* ketchup (I had this, too)
* apple cider vinegar (how can I be out of bacon but not this?)

If any beans need soaking - to wit: these baby lima beans - soak them overnight.

Next, brown your bacon and beef in a cast iron skillet.

Add to that your onions, and continue to cook until the bacon is rendered.

Next we're going to transfer everything into an oven-safe pot, like this Dutch oven, which seemed like the most logical choice for Wyoming Beans anyway.

Dump all your beans into your Dutch oven.

Add the mustard, ketchup, vinegar and brown sugar.

And then add the onion and browned meat.  I really should have rendered this bacon a bit more, I think, but it was fine.

Bake in the oven at 350°F for about 40 to 45 minutes.

And you end up with this hearty pot of beans!

Like I said, this is hearty.  It's a big mess of beans, I'll give it that - beans I would not normally throw together.  While I probably wouldn't eat these various beans together again, I would recommend this as a filling way to use up a whole mess o' beans.  And it is comfort food: nice, hot comfort food for a chilly day.  Unless you're herding sheep or something.  Speaking of which: let's have the love theme from Brokeback Mountain play us out as we eat our beans.

Sources:

Lee, Hilde Gabriel.  Taste of the States: A Food History of America.  Howell Press: Charlottesville, VA, 1992.

"maestrojed" (Youtube user).  "Balls: The Movie - Rocky Mountain Oysters".  Posted July 9, 2010.

Steele, Dennis, and Molly Myer.  "Bit-O-Wyo Beans".  Bit-O-Wyo Ranch, date unknown.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Wyoming" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Wyoming".