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Posts from the ‘Recipes’ Category

May 13

3 Comments

Griddle Scallops with Malanga Pureée and Chorizo Oil

IMG_5585 Beginning next week, I’ll be taking a pretty extensive cookbook research break that will keep me away from this site well into June, so I didn’t want to miss the chance to post one more time. In what might be the most boring premise for a reality television show ever – leading up to any trip, I stop buying food and try to only use what I have on hand. That left me with a few links of chorizo bought for garbanzos, an extra 2 pounds of malanga that never became fritters, and a half bunch of parsley because – well there’s just always parsley.

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May 3

8 Comments

Pupusas de Flor de Loroco y Queso

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A couple of springs ago, I went behind the Solber Pupusa stand at Ft. Geene’s Brooklyn Flea to learn how to palmear or shape their famous corn flour cakes.  I loved the process of mixing up the dough with my hands, tucking in the filling until it looks like an overstuffed dumpling, then passing it back and forth until it was a smooth disc again.  They were like the play-dough cakes I would have made as a kid except they turned into something you’d actually want to eat.  The first one weren’t very pretty but they improved with practice. Read more

Apr 17

7 Comments

Dulce de Mora

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The weather is defrosting, but I spent Sunday half inside my freezer where I found the nearly forgotten bag of moras.  Also called Andean blackberries, moras are a little more tart, firmer, and brighter than the blackberries commonly found in the US.  I’d picked them up in an amazing Latin American market in Jackson Heights.  Well-stocked with incredible variety but hard to get to, I brought back as much as I could carry.  A few months later, I’ve barely made a dent in the frozen guavas, jarred loroco, or guasca leaves I stockpiled.  I was looking to change this and remembered a dessert my friend’s mother, Mari Ines, made when she was teaching me how to make ajiaco Bogotano.  In the time it took her to finish the ajiaco, she simmered the berries in syrup and served them with queso fresco.  After calling Mari Ines for the recipes and ratios, I quickly made it for friends that night.  There are so many things I’m looking forward to this summer, but in these in between days, it felt good to take advantage of what I already had. Read more

Mar 29

Capirotada Estella

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Since I started researching my cookbook, I’ve been almost entirely dependent on the kindness and generosity of friends of friends and near strangers.  Whether it’s recipes, or advice, or just a great story, I’m amazed at what people are willing to share when their sharing food.  I think it was wanting to bring some of that back into my site that sent me looking for empadinhas at my friend Claudia’s and prompted me to hit up my family for a recipe for capirotada, a Mexican lenten bread pudding. Read more

Mar 27

6 Comments

Empadinhas de Palmito

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I always loved Palm Sunday when I was little.  There was something about getting those palm fronds that felt important.  For once I had a focus for my fidgeting, and I’d spend the service shaping and reshaping them.  Last Sunday, though I (somewhat guiltily) didn’t attend mass, I fussed with hearts of palm instead. Read more

Mar 25

7 Comments

Almond-Orange Flan

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Whenever I turn out a successful flan, I always feel like I’ve gotten lucky.  Made with with relatively few ingredients, they should be simple but that’s not always the case.   I recently tried to make a Mexican flan imposible (part custard, part chocolate) that turned out to be – well – impossible.  This week, I was determined make this almond-orange flan for the Cooking Channel’s Devour the Blog dairy-free for Passover.  Making flan without my go-to cans (part condensed milk, part evaporated milk) was unnerving, but I had a feeling it would work out in the end.  I was due. Read more

Mar 15

9 Comments

Tinga de Pollo

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Trying to cover a lot of ground on my site, I regret that I don’t get to spend too much time in any one place – picking up terms and techniques without becoming fluent in any one country’s cuisine.  But lately my Cuban cookbook research has kept me at home, literally and figuratively, so I was due for a side trip. Read more

Feb 19

7 Comments

Sopa de Ajo con Huevos

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I was very late to try it, but this week I finally made Jim Lahey’s now famous no-knead bread recipe.  I’m not sure how it came to mind, but around 6 o-clock one evening, I decided that I absolutely could not go another minute without digging it out from a stack must trys I’d had going for a couple of years.  After looking at the online video Mark Bittman created with Lahey, I bundled up and headed out for the ingredients.  By 7, I was mixing up the dough and setting it in the oven for the initial long slow rise.  The next day, after a few turns and second rise, it was in the oven pre-heated to scorching hot.  I was cautiously optimistic. Read more

Feb 8

18 Comments

Churros con Chocolate

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I was in Miami a few weeks ago when the temperature dipped to the high-60s.*  Anywhere else this would have been a non-event in January, but for me it was a big deal.  It had been unusually warm through the holidays so my family and I took no chances that this could be our last opportunity for midnight churros at Las Palmas – freshly fried and served with chocolate so thick that the spoon could stand on its own. Read more

Jan 30

5 Comments

Boniatillo

IMG_3199Deep in cookbook research the past few weeks, this boniatillo has been on deck for awhile.  Now that I’m (almost) ready to return to regular programming, I couldn’t go forward until I posted a favorite and final recipe from last year.  Boniatillo – boiled sweet potatoes cooked down with syrup, spiced with cinnamon and spiked with rum – is a simple kind of dessert that would be easy enough to make before the holidays.  Or so I thought. Read more

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