Lucito
The Padrino asked me a few days ago for a recipe to make some onion dip. I guess that at their very elegant retreat on top of a mountain overlooking Vienna, they spend their indolent evenings on the terrace overlooking the city nibbling on crudités and sipping Champagne, and they got bored of their plain botanitas and needed something to stimulate their bored palates. Here is a simple recipe for a tasty onion dip, and if you want a little bit of variety we recently proposed a pair of other dips here and here.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups sour cream
3/4 cup thick plain yogurt
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups finely diced sweet onions
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbs brandy
juice of 1 lime
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
Preparation
1. Add olive oil to a sauté pan over medium-heat.
2. When hot add the onions, garlic, sugar, and 1/4 tsp of salt.
3. Sauté the onions until caramelized, about 15-20 minutes.
4. Add 1 tbs of the brandy, and when it boils light it up to flambé.
5. When the flames die down, cool down the onion mixture and refrigerate for about an hour.
6. In a bowl mix the sour cream, the yogurt, the rest of the brandy, the lime juice, the rest of the salt, the pepper, and the onion mixture until well incorporated.
7. Refrigerate at least another hour until serving.
Lucito
Last weekend was a very lazy one. On Saturday morning Normita went out with some friends to celebrate the birthday of Viky over breakfast, and I stayed home to work. In the afternoon I was getting very lazy and I was not in the mood to prepare anything elaborate in the kitchen. Normita mentioned that she was in the mood of some pasta with maybe pesto, so I jumped in the car to go to the super and pick up some fresh basil, some pasta, and a bottle of white wine. I prepared a quick and dirty pesto, which takes about as much time as boiling the water for the pasta. I had bought some tagliatelle pasta, but you can substitute the pasta of your choice. It is a true lazy Saturday dish…
Ingredients
5 quarts water
1 1/2 tbs salt
1/2 pound dry tagliatelle pasta
1 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves
1 large clove elephant garlic or 4-5 cloves regular garlic
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
Salt and pepper to taste
Parmesan to taste for garnish
Preparation
1. In a large pot bring the water with salt to boil and cook the pasta until tender.
2. While waiting for the water to boil, in a sauté pan over medium high heat toast the 1/4 cup of pine nuts until golden brown. Make sure not to burn them. Set aside for garnishing.
3. Using a food processor or blender place the roughly chopped garlic and basil, the 1/2 cup of pine nuts, and the olive oil. Pulse until smooth.
4. Drain the pasta when cooked and return it to the pot. Pour the pesto sauce over it and toss over medium heat until the sauce and the remaining water is well absorbed into the pasta.
5. Server and season with salt and pepper to taste and top with freshly grated parmesan.
Lucito
Here is the spicier brother of the other dip I prepared for this afternoon’s event. It can be made as spicy or mild as you want and it makes a nice contrast with the other dip.
Ingredients
2 cups plain unsweetened yogurt
1 cup sour cream
2 tbs curry powder
1 tbs sweet and sour paprika
1 tbs marinated sushi ginger very finely chopped
1 tsp Sambal Oelek (fresh ground chili paste)
1 tsp Spiracha (spicy oriental salsa)
1 tsp salt
3/ tsp black pepper
Preparation
1. Place all the ingredients in a bowl and mix with a spoon.
Lucito
We are invited to a meal at Normita’s boss’ place later this afternoon and Normita was asked to bring some veggies and dips. I just finished cleaning and preparing the veggies, and I prepared two different dips to go with them. We are bringing some baby carrots, celery, cucumber sticks, and some jicama. I made one of the dip fairly pungent but mild tasting and the other one a bit spicier. We bought a container of plain yogurt and of sour cream last night and I did the dips with what I had at hand this morning. The first recipe is for the nice garlicky dip that I made with some great elephant garlic I have lying around in the fridge. It could be made with some regular garlic, but the flavor would be a tad sharper.
Ingredients
2 cups plain unsweetened yogurt
1 cup sour cream
1/2 clove elephant garlic or 2-3 cloves regular garlic very finely chopped
3 tbs fresh parsley very finely chopped
1 tbs dried herbes de Provence
1 tbs dried ciboulette
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
Preparation
1. Place all the ingredients in a bowl and mix with a spoon.
Lucito
We suffered from major power trouble here at the office since late last week, and we were mostly offline as we could not plug the server in as the voltage was way too high blowing al the UPS in the office. After 3 trips from the electrician to fix the worse of the problems including the main electrical entrance wires not being screwed in at all, and no ground connection in the entire place we finally had a bit more reliable power. The voltage is still too high, but we will not hold our breaths waiting for the city to fix the problem.
We decided to fix the problem by purchasing a bunch of big voltage regulator and a bunch of new UPSs. I reinstalled everything yesterday and brought back the server online and will return to regular postings shortly.
Lucito
Here is another new recipe from last Saturday when Johnny Boy dropped by. When we left for the market I asked Normita what she felt like eating, and she wanted some fish. Our fish merchant had some nice thick robalo filets, a common fish here from the snook family, fresh from Golf Coast. We selected a particularly thick one and had 6 nice fish sticks about 1" square and 5" long cut out of the filet. I still was not sure how I would prepare them, but I finely decided to do something simple and bread them in a crust of peanuts and pumpkin seeds.
The fish turned out meltingly juicy and tender, in a nice crispy crust. A great tasting combination, from a very simple and easy recipe.
Ingredients
1 1/4 pound robalo cut into 8 fish stick about 1" square by 5" long
4 heaping tbs flour
1 heaping tsp onion powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white pepper, freshly ground
2 eggs
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp heavy cream
3/4 cup ground peanuts
3/4 cup ground pumpkin seeds
2 tbs butter
1 tbs olive oil
Preparation
1. Prepare 3 bowls wide enough to be able to dip the fish sticks in them.
2. In the first bowl place flour, onion powder and salt, and mix with spoon until well combined.
3. In the second bowl break the 2 eggs, add the tsp of olive oil, and the tsp of heavy cream.
4. With a fork whisk the eggs gently until you have a smooth homogeneous mixture.
5. In the third bowl place the ground peanuts and pumpkins and mix together well.
6. Take a fish stick and place in the flour bowl until well coated on both sides.
7. Pass the fish stick through the egg mixture until well coated on both sides, then let drip the excess.
8. Place the egg-coated fish stick in the nut mixture until all sides are coated well.
9. Place on a wire rack to dry.
10. Rinse your fingers and repeat with the other fish sticks.
11. Place the wire rack in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes for the breading to dry.
12. In a large frying pan on a medium fire melt the butter and add the olive oil.
13. Cook fish sticks in the butter 3-4 minutes per side, until well browned for a total of around 7-8 minutes.
14. Put on a plate lined with paper towels to drain, and serve.
Lucito
erday we had had a friend of Normita’s from work drop by for supper. For desert I made a version of a simple fruit pudding based on my mother’s recipe. She used to bake those all the time during the berry season, mostly with strawberries or raspberries.
I had some manila mangos leftover from the previous week and I decided to create a version of the pudding with them. It turned out very nice and was a nice finish to the meal. The only problem is that everybody was very full after it…
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups white flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup margarine
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup dark rum
6 tbs dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tbs vanilla
1 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tbs finely shaved orange zests
1 tbs finely shaved lime zests
5 medium manila mangos peeled and cubed
Preparation
1. In a buttered baking dish place the mango flesh and top with brown sugar and rum.
2. Cover and let marinate for half and hour to an hour.
3. In a large bowl place the margarine and white sugar and mix until well blended.
4. Add the maple syrup, the egg and the vanilla and mix again.
5. Mix the flour, the baking powder, and the salt, and then add to the sugar and egg mixture.
6. Mix well and add the milk, the orange juice and the zests, yielding a thick running batter.
7. Pour the mixture over the fruits in the baking dish and smooth the top.
8. Bake in a 350F for about 35 minutes, until the top is dark gold and a toothpick inserted in it comes out clean.
9. Serve with a nice dollop of heavy clothed cream.
Lucito
Some weeks ago, when we had Normita’s friends over, I made a nice seafood salad. There was some fresh cooked crab and shrimps leftover from that meal, and I had frozen them that afternoon. Since that day I had a craving for some nice crab and shrimps cakes. I never got around to making them and when I decided to take a day off from work last Saturday the craving came back. Since the idea had been hovering around the back of my mind for some weeks, and I was feeling like having something a tad more adventurous than my regular crab cakes I started looking around what I had in hand to prepare a nice meal. I did not feel like going out shopping so my primary goal was to spruce up the crab cakes with whatever I could find in the refrigerator.
What I came up with was some crab and shrimps latkes (potato pancakes). I assembled what I had leftover from the past week cooking and came up with a very tasty, if rich, treat. The potatoes had some texture to the crab cakes and the variety of spices bring out the flavor, contrasting the sweetness of the leftover sweetened coconut cream from the other week. It will definitely be a recipe that I will repeat, and if cooking for a crowd I would prepare them just before they arrive, and either refrigerate them, or keep them warm in a low oven, depending on how much time there is before we eat. A nice tangy salad would be an ideal side dish, to cut through the exotic taste of those rich crab and potato cakes.
Ingredients
1/2 pound cooked crab meat
1/2 pound cooked small cold water shrimps
1 large baking potato, shredded with a box grinder
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
1/2 cup sweetened coconut cream
3 large eggs
12 fresh shiitake mushrooms cut into small pieces
3/4 cup heavy cream
2 limes, juiced
3 large green onions, finely chopped
1 inch of fresh ginger, pealed and finely chopped
3 tbs fresh parmesan, grated
2 tbs curry powder
1 tbs cumin
2 tsp chile piquin powder
1 tsp sweet and sour paprika
2 tbs butter
2 tbs olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Preparation
1. In a large bowl place the flour, the panko, and a pinch of salt, and mix well
2. Add the cream, the sweetened coconut cream, and the eggs and mix until you get a very thick batter
3. Add the chile piquin, the curry powder, the cumin, and paprika and mix again
4. Add the shiitakes, the ginger, the grated parmesan, and mix again
5. Fold in the grated potatoes
6. Fold in the crab meat and the shrimps
7. Add the lime juice, salt and pepper to taste and mix into a heavy batter
8. In a large frying pan melt the butter and add the olive oil
9. Pour large soup spoons of the batter in the pan and cook until browned on one side, then carefully flip over with a wide spatula and brown the other side
10. Place the cooked latkes on a cookie sheet and keep warm in a low oven until they are all cooked
Lucito
When we started going regularly to the Jamaica market some months back, we used to take breakfast before leaving. Of course this is not a good idea because most of the merchants give you samples of food to taste, so you ended up having breakfast twice. It is kind of like going to those large surface mega-stores at lunch time where at the beginning of every aisle stands somebody preparing some form of frozen food, but with fresh fruits and food.
The corn season started early this year, and some weeks ago we noticed that the cooked corn sellers had started to sell their wares in quantity. This is not the kind of sweet corn that I am familiar from Canada, but elote the large grain corn with white kernels that is popular here. It is very tasty, but without the extreme sweetness that I am used to. At the market they normally sell it cooked in 3 different ways. The simplest form is simply boiled, and normally they stick a sharpened wood stick in the widest end, and slather it up with lots of mayonnaise, lime juice, grated cheese, and chili piquin powder. I tend to stay away from that stuff as the thought of mayonnaise on corm kind of revolts me. Another way that is it prepared, and that I love a lot, is esquite mainly boiled corn kernels with butter, red chili jalapeño, epazote (a local herb with a peculiar taste and a slightly spicy flavor), and salt. Prepared properly it is great tasting and also a nice side dish. I think that next week I will buy some to accompany some nice large scallops that I have in the freezer.
My favorite way of eating this corn is simply grilled over charcoals. They start it in the husk then open the husk to caramelize the kernels until they have a nice blackened appearance. The texture of the kernels gets very chewy from the process, and since the kernels are large they can develop a nice sticky blackened crust and still be nice and chewy underneath. Those are normally sold in the husk with lime juice and chili piquin powder on them.
A few weeks ago we started our new market breakfast ritual. On our weekly trip to the market we have a small portion of yogurt before leaving, so that our stomachs are not empty, and then enjoy some fresh fruits samples from our regular fruit merchant which we normally visit first. Today she gave us some tasty manila mango, some tuna (the fruit of the nopal cactus, not the fish), some melon, and some grapes. The perfect start to the breakfast of champions! After buying the fruits for the week, we bought vegetables, and then stopped at the corn merchant on our way back to the car. We each picked 2 small ears of grilled corn, roasted the way we like them best, and had them prepared with a lot of lime juice and some salt and chili powder, and climbed back up to the roof of the market where we park the car. We then sit in the car with the doors open, and enjoy our tasty corn before leaving to complete our other shopping chores. There is no better way to start your day…
Lucito
I have just completed a redesign of my personal blog ‘The Sassquatch’s Lair’. Please have a look and let me know what you think of the new digs. Later this weekend I will start serializing some science fiction and fantasy stories I wrote ages ago, so if you are interested in that type of writing go peek at the Lair.
Lucito