I suppose the requisite Food Network large breasts are history now that Amy won the Next Food Network Star: seeing her in a bikini put me off my feed.
What a fool I've been. Using the stand mixer makes the whole process much easier, and clean-up is the same. I doubt I'll be making dough by hand any timde soon.
These were done on a 23" baking sheet: the funny shape is so I can do 3 at a time. (Since I posted this, I was told by a chef friend that these are misshapen. Now I make one big pizza to fit the biggest baking pan I have.)
I also get much more consistent results since I started weighing the flour as opposed to measuring it by volume.
I usually cook pizza on a baking stone for best results, but if I'm in a hurry and want to make a lot of pizza, I cook it on a lightly oiled baking sheet dusted with corn meal.
To make pizza, you'll need:
For you gringos, papaya rhymes with Medalla, a popular beer on the island. I don't usually drink beer when I'm eating papaya: the beer is there to show scale.
Still, it's great for freezing bananas, fresh bread crumbs, nuts, and anything not too liquid (tomato sauce does not work well). It sucks out all the air (the enemy of all food storage).
Alcapurrias are fritters made with green bananas and yautia (a starchy tuber, similar to taro), and stuffed with a beef filling.
Alcapurrias are made at home, and are also typically sold at little league baseball games, fairs, at the beach, and more. Alcapurrias are not difficult to make, but they are very time consuming (grating the bananas and yautia). They are inexpensive, since we grow the green bananas and yautia on our property.
Carol is in charge of the food kiosk at the little league this week, and she found a woman who makes excellent alcapurrias in her home for a living. She sells them to small businesses in the area, and to anyone else who knows about her. She sells a box of 24 for $9; it's not likely that we will make them again ourselves. Nonetheless, here's how:
This makes 2 loaves using 5" by 7" baking pans, or 18 muffins.
Dry ingredients:Divide the batter into 2 greased pans and bake for 45 minutes to an hour at 350F. When done, a toothpick sould come out fairly clean (sometimes not entirely, since the bread is so moist).
You can also make muffins using this same recipe. Butter the muffin tin, or use muffin papers.
Makes 18 muffins
Whenever I make tomato sauce, I also make meatballs.
Note that I use only beef. Most people will suggest that you use some combination of beef, pork, and veal, but I cook the way my mother taught me. | Here's my mighty 2-piece stick blender. It's a Cuisinart, of course. |
We have two basic fresh breads (pan is Spanish for bread) in Puerto Rico: Pan de Agua and Pan Sobao. Pan de Agua is a basic bread, similar to Italian or French bread, but with a softer crust, and a tight, soft crumb. Pan Sobao is richer, with shortening and sugar. Again, soft texture.
While these are both fabulous breads, I am Italian-American, and I miss the crusty bread I grew up with. I decided to make my own.
I've made bread many times before, but two things are different here: you can't get unbleached flour, and you can't get instant yeast. Instant yeast is fool-proof: you mix it with the flour and salt, add the water, and you're done. Here, I can only get active dry yeast, which is more temperamental. You need to proof it in warm water for 10 minutes before adding additional ingredients. If you don't get bubbles, the yeast is dead. Start over. As to the flour, I can only get bleached, enriched flour here. The nearest Whole Foods in 1,400 miles away.
I found several recipes for bread on the Internet and settled on this:
I made a biga, with 1/2 teaspoon of yeast proofed in one cup of warm water, and one and 1 1/2 cups of flour. I let this sit at room temperature for five hours, then put it in the refrigerator overnight.
The next day:
As luck would have it, shortly after I finished my first blog, my mother-in-law (Carmen) sent me up the last of the Christmas pasteles. Pasteles are somewhat similar to Mexican tamales, but instead of corn for the massa we use Puerto Rican staples.
Pasteles are incredibly time consuming to make, and are therefor typically served only around the holidays, especially Christmas and Three Kings Day. This particular batch was made by Carmen's niece, who lives half a mile up the mountain from us.
Pasteles start with the massa, or paste. This is made up of grated green bananas, yautia, platanos, calabaza, and potato. All of these (except the potato) come from our property, and are our contribution to the feast. You then add achiote for color.You smear some of the massa onto a banana leaf into a rough rectangle, and spoon some pork filling into the middle. The pork filling has green olives with pimentos, tomato, garlic, garbanzos, and spices. You then fold up the banana leaf so that the massa completely encloses the filling, then tie the leaf with string.You cook the pasteles in a pot of slowly-boiling water for about half an hour. They freeze beautifully (unwrap them first).
Here is a reasonable recipe at Rican Recipes. It's slightly different from what we do, but close enough, except they suggest using a food processor to save time. I tried that with my trusty 11-cup, and it's now in Cuisinart heaven.Cocina means both kitchen and cookery in Spanish. My name is Lou, but everyone here calls me Luis.
This is about food in Puerto Rico. It's not necessarily about Puerto Rican food, although there's lots of that, but more about what we eat here. Food is a challenge here for me, an Italian-American having lived in the Boston area for the last twenty years. Now that I live in Puerto Rico, I realize the wealth and diversity of ingredients I took for granted. The nearest Whole Foods is 1,400 miles away, and all my salumi and Italian cheeses come shipped over night from sympathetic family and friends on the mainland.
