Recipes | hungry sofia

Jul 28

Summer Favorite

I had planned on a new post but plans were hard to hold onto this weekend – temperatures soared, ovens broke, and friends got married. So in lieu of a new post, I decided to let life be life and repost one of my favorites from last summer.

But Is It Cuban?
Looking back at my summer posts, I noticed a lot of limes on the side or off in the corner – standing by to restore the balance to anything too heavy, too rich, or just too fried. With Labor Day coming up, it’s was only right to bring them front and center in a key lime pie. I thought it would be a departure from my Latin American desserts when I came across a few references to the Cuban pastel de limón. Made with juice from limones criollos – also known as key limes – and condensed milk, the custard is topped with meringue, and poured into a cookie crust made from galleticas Maria. Could the key lime pie be Cuban? According to Maria Josefa Lluria de O’Higgins, a version of the pie was brought to the Florida Keys in the late 1860′s with Cuban settlers during our war for independence. Other alleged sources include self-made Florida millionaires, their cooks and local fisherman. While I can’t pretend to be impartial, I will say this – creole limes, condensed milk, meringue – it certainly sound like us. Read more

Jul 21

6 Comments

Grilled Corn and Quinoa Salad

The last couple of weeks I’ve been indulging in early Saturday market runs. Loaded down with corn, currants, peaches and herbs, I head home with my haul, spread it out then have a moment of what now. As inspring as the weekend farmer’s market can be, sometimes the summer goes to my head and I overbuy (or just haven’t found a gooseberry recipe to love). That’s partly why I was so happy to make this grilled corn and quinoa salad, the first recipe I’ve tried from Lourdes Castro’s new book, Latin Grilling. Read more

Jul 14

4 Comments

Guayaba y Limón

When it’s warm, I miss the cold and when it’s cold I miss the warmth, though I miss my Snoopy sno-cone machine more than both combined. This weekend I tired out different granizado recipes for a Devour post armed with little more than a metal pan and a fork. I never get the results I want from my ice maker and there are worse places to spend a boiling New York summer day than half in the freezer. Loading up on guava, passion fruit, and mango pulp from a nearby market, I headed home and started mixing. Read more

Jun 28

6 Comments

Pollo Frito A La Criolla

Last week, for no particular reason, the idea of brunch bothered me. Though I’m sure it’ll pass (most likely around 1130ish next Saturday), the designation of brunch as the catch-all weekend shared meal just didn’t interest me. Normally, I enjoy it – the poached eggs, the flowing coffee, the kicky cocktails, the displaced Brooklyn washtub bands strumming away. But I wanted to cook for friends this weekend and it wasn’t going to be ebleskivers and mimosas (again nothing against either). Read more

Jun 19

2 Comments

Sopa Paraguaya

Of course, my father had every reason to expect a boy – they already had a girl after all. Though I rarely met him even halfway (tee-ball, soccer and tennis were disasters), I did prefer Star Wars to Barbie (there was a princess in it), wasn’t squeamish about what went in the frituras de sesos he love to make, and stayed awake during The Right Stuff – so I don’t think he minded too much. A foodie before the word, he gave me sugar cane to cut my teeth on, took me to the docks to buy fish as the boats came in, presented me with meltingly tender Italian prosciutto like it was a visiting dignitary, and charmed a fast melting cooler of Mexican guanabana ice cream through customs. Read more

Jun 13

6 Comments

Causa de Betarraga Rellena de Pollo y Palta

Summer seems to be about buying fresh ingredients and getting out of their way – charring and grilling, chilling and serving. Though suitable for the time and the produce available, I still miss getting lost in my kitchen and was looking for a project when I decided to try a variation on Peruvian causa I’d seen on Yanuq. In addition to the usual mashed potatoes, lime juice, and ají amarillo, pureed beets are added to the mix, making it all go pink – a potato salad in Batman technicolor. Read more

Jun 5

3 Comments

Huevos Falsos

I’ve never liked canned fruit and didn’t understand why my grandparents served it with so much ceremony. They loved they’re fruit cocktail but it was never a good dessert day for us. It wasn’t until years later that I realized canned fruit was something of a delicacy where the punishing tropical climate could make fresh fruit hard to hold on to, passing from ripe to way too ripe before your eyes. Away from the central A/C of Florida, I appreciate that now – especially with surface-of-the-sun conditions in my own kitchen during the summer now. Read more

May 27

8 Comments

Casting Mojitos

There are so many stories around the mojito but the one I hope is true is that its name comes from the African word for “mojo” or casting spells. This makes perfect sense because, as a friend pointed out, mojitos make everyone happy. Assuming all other conditions are equal and in moderation, a strong mixed drink can make someone pensive or low key, exhilerated or stupefied, wild or reckless, but a mojito – happy. It’s even hard to think of a mojito without smiling, it’s a charming little cocktail. Read more

May 16

2 Comments

Sorvete de Carambola

Some days, Manhattan’sChinatown could pass for Miami’s Little Havana. I have better luck finding tropical produce there than some of the smaller bodegas or upscale markets where a few tiny specimens are overpriced and undersold. A couple of weeks ago, I took the long way home, working my way through the East Village going along the Bowery to Canal St. where the fruit carts are piled high with pitayas, sapotes, and fresh guavas. Coming across a stack of carambola, I heard music. Read more

May 7

3 Comments

Crêpas de Castaña con Miel

I hope I’m never too old to play in my mother’s room. Stocked like a beauty counter at Saks and filled with back issues of ¡Hola! (similar to the UK’s Hello! magazine but with fewer Windsors and more Grimaldis), my sister and I treat it like a duty free shop where everything is actually free. Searching through her neat drawers and tables, we call dibs on new masks and eye creams, bracelets and rings we’re sure our grandmother would’ve wanted us to have, charms and trinkets that we casually discarded like the wicked stepsisters when we were younger but now want to reclaim for sentiment, or irony, or both. Overcome with the mami-can-I-haves from the moment we land, we can be pretty tough to take, though in our defense, she gets pretty spoiled when she comes to visit us. Read more