by Gwyneth Doland on
Chef Mashon Swenor combines cooking with fun.
YOU CAN CALL Mashon Swenor a ham. He won’t mind. Over six feet tall, covered with tattoos, and wearing a black chef coat, Swenor plays a lot of roles. He’s chef, teacher, and host; charming, irreverent, informal, sassy, and, FYI, a little potty-mouthed. Picture Anthony Bourdain, Muhammad Ali, and the Fonz blended to a smooth consistency. Sprinkle in a dozen guests who have “pre-lubed,” as he says, with a glass or two of wine, and the stage is set for three deliciously diverting hours of the Mashon Swenor Show. Technically billed as a cooking class, it’s more like a party he throws several times a month at Sanctuary on the River, in Ruidoso.
“Are you guys hungry?” he asks the dozen or so young, hip locals squeezed into tiers of close-set chairs that rise in front of him. “Yes!” they gamely respond. “Good!” he says, “because I can’t wait to put something in your mouth!” He gets the giggles and guffaws he sought from this friendly crowd and launches into a preview of the night’s menu.
Standing at a stainless-steel prep table near a busy, six-burner Wolf range, he announces a lusciously layered tostada as a first course that he swears will prove “unbelievable.” “If I don’t get at least three marriage proposals tonight, I’m doing something wrong,” he says. The guests eat it up as he moves on to the entrée and, like a true New Mexican, describes a key ingredient with a piquant detail. “I have to warn you: the green chile is effing fire,” he says. “But the red? C’est magnifique.”
He can cater a class to students’ desires, but typically his recipes lean toward the kind of complicated, multifaceted dishes you’d get in a nice restaurant. Some require so many ingredients and steps that most people won’t make them at home. He knows that. His classes deliver good times first, learning second, theater always. If you pick up a few tips on searing a whole beef tenderloin or finishing a delicate beurre blanc, he’s happy. But if you just enjoy a great meal, drink a little wine, and laugh at his jokes, great. Chances are you’ll do a little of both, because Swenor is an exceptionally talented chef who delivers infectious, irreverent fun.
Swenor grew up in Ruidoso, where his dad served as chief of police and where he discovered a love of cooking in the culinary program at Ruidoso High. After cooking in restaurants through his college years at UNM, he deejayed at 94 Rock and spent 13 years running a marketing firm. He moved back home in 2014 to care for his dad and took a job as executive sous-chef at the Alto Lakes Golf and Country Club. He spends his free time riding a vintage motorcycle, hanging out with his friends (mostly tattoo artists and other creative types), seeking out live music, and sipping craft beers.
Moonlighting at Sanctuary on the River fires up the feedback loop that chefs often miss. “It’s like the best feeling in the world when you serve something to somebody and you see the look on their face and they’re just blown away by what you put on the plate,” he says. Swenor never cooks at home, partly because his place came with an electric stove, but also because why bother if there’s no audience?
Swenor gets to work while narrating the recipe for his blue corn tostada dough, which intriguingly includes nutmeg. He forms a golf-ball-size hunk of the purple masa, rolls it out, and slips it into a shallow pan of oil. His assistant fries the rest of the disks as Swenor moves on. “We want to be New Mexico–centric, but we want to mix it up, too,” he says, explaining why he blends Korean hot pepper paste into refried black beans, simmers the chicken with the flavors of Mexican mole, and scents the red chile with cinnamon and cardamom.
Soon, the tostadas land in front of us, stacked high, garnished with an Asian quick pickle, and dolloped with avocado crema. One bite and I realize Swenor’s breezy braggadocio is well deserved. Since when is shredded chicken the highlight of a New Mexican dish? These flavor-infused filaments exude layers of spice and nuance that I’ve never tasted before. In that one bite, the tostada, beans, chicken, and toppings deliver a tsunami of sweet, sour, salty, crunchy, soft, savory, and creamy. The experience so beguiles me that I briefly reconsider my recent marriage.
I suspect I’m not the only one, especially because Sanctuary on the River draws a steady flow of the soon-to-be-betrothed during Ruidoso’s busy destination-wedding season. Owner Debbie Nix had intended to turn her light, airy A-frame building into a retreat for her life-coaching clients but quickly realized that its setting within the trees along the Ruidoso River made an ideal wedding venue. Last September and October, she hosted three ceremonies a weekend. The “bride tribes,” as Nix calls them, love to pamper themselves with on-site spa services and a beauty salon, then relax and socialize with a cooking class.
The week after I was there, Swenor was also expecting a party of eight ladies. On vacation and in the mood to party, they tend to make a prime audience for his shtick. “You would think that at some point, a pole would come down and I take off my clothes. It’s crazy!” he jokes about their pre-wedding exuberance.
Snapping back to reality, I notice that Swenor has moved on to the main course, a take on surf and turf made with local beef and ruby trout. For the turf half, he roasts a poblano pepper and stuffs it with seared cubes of beef tenderloin and cilantro rice. Then he flash-fries strips of trout fillet, perches them on top of the stuffed pepper, and garnishes it with a tempura-battered artichoke heart. He swirls and slathers parts of the plate with a silky beurre blanc, bright-orange saffron cream sauce, and the aforementioned red and green chile.
I dig in. The trout’s crispy cornmeal coating shatters over a sweet, mild fillet. Lean, tender cubes of beef deliver the creamy, tangy beurre blanc. The green chile, as promised, clears my sinuses. Then the red chile sauce, made with a blend of pasilla, guajillo, cascabel, and New Mexico red chile pods and accented with coriander, cardamom, and cinnamon, mesmerizes me with waves of fragrant spices, more complex than hot. It is, as advertised, magnifique.
“That was the best red sauce ever!” gushes one guest, just as photographer Douglas Merriam, who’s been taking pictures of each course in a makeshift studio around the corner, stops by my table with his own half-eaten plate. He gives me an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
The whole dish came together in such a blur that I didn’t really catch much of the technique. But the bliss of the food and the camaraderie of my classmates, slightly tipsy and thoroughly stuffed, means I don’t really care. I know I’m leaving with copies of the recipes, and I consider spending a long weekend trying them at home.
Meanwhile, I’m gabbing in a corner with Nix, who has been watching with a smile of genuine amusement. She doesn’t flinch at his double entendres or his occasional four-letter words. She’s watching the guests have a blast and chuckling along with them. “I’d like to tell you this was more elaborate than usual, but it wasn’t,” she says. “It’s always like this.” Later, I’m not sure if she was talking about the entrée or the narration.
I feel myself starting to slip into a food coma as Swenor begins his final act, a hot sopaipilla stuffed with gelato and topped with melted cinnamon chocolate, homemade caramel, and fresh whipped cream.
Leaning over the stove, he shows us how he spoons hot fat over an inflating triangle of sopaipilla, helping it to cook more quickly and evenly. Then he turns to stir the caramel. “This thing is gonna touch you all the way down to your toes!” he brags. I’m stuffed to the gills, but I know I won’t be able to resist dessert. If this show must go on, then so must I.
This makes one divine appetizer for chef Mashon Swenor’s cooking class at Ruidoso’s Sanctuary on the River—or a main course for your family. The techniques you’ll learn for each step will transfer to other recipes, so give it a try.
Blue Corn Tostada Mash-Up
If you have time, try to make the chicken mole the day before so the flavors can settle in overnight. If you want to simplify this dish, you can use store-bought tostadas, but you’ll miss out on the texture, flavor, and hot crunch of a homemade tostada. Crema Mexicana is a saltier, tangier version of crème fraîche. Look for it in a plastic bottle in the refrigerated section of your grocery store or specialty food store.
Serves 6
Blue Corn Tostadas
Makes 8
Chicken Mole
When you hear the Spanish word mole, you probably think of chocolate, Swenor says, but mole comes from the Nahuatl word for “sauce,” and that’s how he interprets it here, with some of the same flavors but without the thickness of the chile or the richness of the chocolate. This full recipe makes more than enough for six tostadas, but resist the urge to cook a smaller amount. You will want leftovers.
Serves 8–12
Korean Black Bean Refrito
Look for the Korean ingredients used here in jars or tubs at an Asian grocery store.
Serves 6
Go-to Quick Pickle
Use this formula to pickle any combination of julienned jalapeño, carrot, daikon, jicama, fennel, or red radish. Cut the vegetables as thinly as possible to speed up the pickling process.
Makes 1 cup
Avocado Crema
Makes 6 servings
Tall Pines Surf and Turf
By Mashon Swenor, Sanctuary on the River
Serves 4
For the beef
For the trout
To plate
Beurre Blanc
Makes 1 ½ cups
Red Chile
Makes 2 quarts
Quick Honey Gelato
Find a good honey. Local honey. Don’t be cheap and the end result will curl your toes! Serve stuffed in a hot sopaipilla, drizzled with melted chocolate, salted caramel and powdered sugar.
Makes 2 quarts
Sopaipillas
Makes 12
GET COOKING
Mashon Swenor’s cooking classes at Sanctuary on the River cost $45 a person. Private classes are also available (575-630-1111, sanctuaryontheriver.com).