I often think that living in a small scruffy New York City apartment is akin to a pioneer life in a log cabin somewhere remote. Sure, the commute is easier, but the myriad quotidien affronts and man traps of a city existence certainly resemble the perils of life on the range.

This is never more true than in winter when leaving your apartment on an icy weekend is about as enticing as wading through thigh-deep snow while being pursued by a pack of ravening wolves. On the those days, when opening your front door results in a nasty swirl of city trash blowing across your threshold, there is nothing better to do than hole up and compensate for your super’s inattention to heating your building to legally established levels by braising something porky for however many hours it takes to chase the chill back, at least as far the verminious bathroom and its dripping condensation.

In this case, it was some seriously chunky pork neck bones – whose original owner must have been a champion of his breed – braised in a rosemary-scented Guinness broth. Typical of parts of the English Midlands where malty, hoppy ales abound and rare breed pigs grow fat on acorns, apples and whey, this is an ancient recipe and in it lie the origins of the famous baked bean dish that, when transposed to the rather more Puritanical colonies, banished the beer in favor of the sweetness of readily-available sugar coming up from the Caribbean, so becoming Boston baked beans. For those pioneers, the presence of such a stew on the table during a long Massachusetts winter must have been even more important than for us hard-pressed city dwellers today.

It is also very similar to a stew my Great Auntie Annie used to make when a crowd of family descended on her Solihull semi-detached so that the grandkids could spend the day riding around the garden on her husband’s 1/16th scale-model railway. It’s not clear to me how often Great Uncle Roger used his train when there were no young guests in the house, but I rather enjoy the idea that if you peeked through the box hedges of a quiet Birmingham suburb on any given weekday morning you might find a highly eccentric retiree rushing around his back yard on a toy train.

For we grandkids, all the excited shreaking and ducking under low hanging bushes as the train chugged around at a decent clip always left us red-faced and famished. My Great Aunt, the youngest of nine kids, knew instinctively how to cater for large groups of young ‘uns, stretching a cheaper cut of meat with white beans, potatoes, and iron-rich ale.

The quality of the final product relies greatly on the quality of the beer used in the braise. Lager is of no use here and light beer (if it is ever worth drinking) should be completely avoided. A fine malty and/or hoppy English-style brew that will give strength, depth and some sweetness to the stew is what you’re seeking. Auntie Annie used to use Flowers’ Original, a floral English ale (then) made in nearby Stratford-upon-Avon. Similarly, pork necks with plenty of connective tissue and marrow are ideal because the former breaks down to thicken the sauce and latter makes a simple and rustic dish somehow luxurious.

Of course, unlike life in the country where heating is controlled by the number of logs on the fire, your apartment heating is bound to come on, clanking and groaning itself into overdrive, just as you plate this dish, forcing you to sweat through it, and all night long in your bed, in spite of the open window. The following morning, perhaps only to escape the dry, oppressive internal conditions, the grey, freezing city will magically appear more inviting and your struggle on the subway marginally less onerous.

I’m not very old, but for much of my youth in the north west of England, it was almost impossible to find fresh foods that weren’t local. Today such a statement seems like an echo of Victorian times, but, literally, that’s how it was until a supermarket was built behind the Knutsford courthouse in the late 80s.

I often tell my wife about the cheese stall at the weekly market only kept five kinds of cheese – Cheshire, Cheddar, Lancashire, and sage Derby were ever present, with perhaps a Wenslydale reasonably common too. If anything as unusual as a Stilton, from distant Nottinghamshire, appeared, it would generate as much commotion among the town’s housewives, who elbowed their way to the front of the queue to catch a glimpse of this highly perfumed foreigner, as if Julio Iglesias showed up sporting his tennis shorts. My wife usually responds that I should count myself lucky because when she was young there were only four kinds of cheese at her local supermarket: white American, yellow American, cheddar and Swiss and had anything else been available it would have been looked upon with extreme suspicion. Touché.

Making our weekly Tuesday rounds of the covered (indoor) market (the outdoor market sold mostly fruit and veg, bric a brac, and live pets, believe it or not) with my mother, on the cheese man’s left was the egg man, or “mister Chookie” as I knew him, on account of his perennial sales pitch “come tek a look at these lover-lee chookie eggs I’ve got for yuh!”. Unlike his fellow stall-holders, whose wares fell within a particular genre, the egg man also sold milk, orange juice and yogurt due to him being one of the younger siblings of the Sheldon family that owned the local dairy, and who, excepting market days, delivered these provisions to the doorsteps of the town’s residents.

Beyond Mr. Chookie was the fish man, Mr. Scales, as my mother used to call him, although at the time her pun was lost on me. Above his stall ran the legend “fresh daily from Fleetwood, Lancs”, referring to the port just north of blackpool where much of Britain’s catch was landed. That his stall was only open Tuesdays and Thursdays didn’t seem to matter. Whether it was due to her upbringing in blackpool where there is – rightfully – a great deal of local snobbery about the quality of the fish that goes into their fish n’chips, or whether because of an innate suspicion of fishmongers, my mother always eyed mr scales’s wares closely, casting a wary eye over his glossy fish, as if trying to discern if there was anything untoward hiding among the cockle-shells. Because we rarely had fish except on Fridays when we weren’t allowed anything else – even in our lunchboxes at school we had to mark the end of the week with evil-smelling “salmon paste” sandwiches – and because mum worked a full day on Thursdays, whatever we bought on Tuesdays had to last on ice in the bottom of the fridge until then (freezing fish made it taste all woolly, she always said), so freshness was absolutely crucial otherwise it/we wouldn’t survive.

Typically, the fish was cod, but often halibut or hake did service in the flaky white fish department. This was usually broiled and served with oven-baked chips, since as a nurse my mother couldn’t countenance deep-frying at home lest it give the townies the impression she was a hypocrite in her dietary exhortations, and homemade mushy peas, flecked with mint and tangy with a splash of malt vinegar. Apart from a distinctly non-traditional and rather dodgy-looking “curry” she made every so often, friday night fish suppers were my dad’s favorite – he still demands it to this day and he is about as agnostic an Anglican as you’ll find.

Instead of waiting for Friday, and going against my mum’s rubric of no-frying, but keeping with the buying of white fish on a Tuesday, we made a version of the Provencal classic, aioli garni, with a pan seared halibut fillet, steamed fennel and butter beans. Rather like much of the cooking I experienced growing up, it doesn’t look like much on the plate – the pale colors and the two sauces lapping against one another may seem bland – but the sharp tang of the garlicky aiolli with the surprising hot peppery-bite of the brown sauce against the muted flavors of the white fish and butter beans makes for an unusually rewarding dish. I am convinced that my mum would’ve enjoyed this dish a great deal, even though she would have asked why we didn’t save it for Friday night. As for my dad, well, sadly, he wouldn’t touch it on account of it humming with garlic. Too bad for him.

While Queens may have the reputation for being the most ethnically diverse area in the United States, our very own borough of Brooklyn is certainly not bereft of global flavors. From the side-by-side Mexican and Chinese neighborhoods of Sunset Park to the century-old Italian areas of Carroll Gardens and Bay Ridge, to the more recently established Caribbean community of Crown Heights, there is rather more than a smattering of diverse flavors available to the curious epicure. Even gentrified Park Slope and Prospect Heights reflect the enduring presence of their Puerto Rican and Dominican populations with a wide selection of places offering “Spanish food”, a phenomenon which took me a while to decipher as it certainly isn’t Spanish in the European sense.

Dishes typical of Spanish-speaking countries, especially those ringing the Caribbean, but which also may be derived from actual Iberian cooking — known predominantly on the east coast as Spanish, or Spanish American — it’s basically a catch-all term that to me connotes delicious, often with tropical ingredients, but always complex and filling food. We’ve made mention of several of these neighborhood eateries in several previous posts – El Viejo Yayo, Los Pollitos, Bogota among them – but our most recent crush is on the wonderful Windsor Terrace institution, Elora’s.

Serving Mexican and Spanish food, whereby you can select from the greatest hits of Mexico as well as these Spanish-speaking Caribbean classics, Elora’s serves all these in such volume that one dish could easily feed a hungry family of four. And it is perhaps because of this, and their consequently narrow profit margins, that our regular server at Elora’s should, by rights, be enjoying the benefits of a comfortable retirement.

Pushing 80 years old, Don Nicolas is without doubt the oldest but also the most charming and interesting waiter we have ever had the good fortune to be served by. Born to Sicilian immigrant parents in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and trained as a tango and opera singer, it is his daughter for whom the restaurant is named. His musical career spanned several decades and took him the length and breadth of the Americas, before he retired from singing, settled in Brooklyn and went into the restaurant business with his marital family.

On our most recent visit while we waited for our heavily-laden plates to arrive, Don Nicolas was explaining to us the secret of his youthfulness – “if I stop moving, I become stiff and I might not get started again! When you are young you don’t think about these things and spend all your time on the couch!” Indeed, many less energetic thirty somethings might have struggled with the amount of food he was charged with lugging from the kitchen. But manage he did, depositing immoderate orders of pernil, bistec encebollado and chicharrones de pollo on our table before returning spritely with sides of beans, rice, and tostones. Still not done, he surveyed the table and in a trice was back with a deep bowl of raw garlic in oil. “Prefieren un poco de salsa de ajo por su tostones, no?” (you’d like a little garlic sauce for your plantains, right?), he asked.

When we congratulated Don Nicolas on his fitness and asked if his health is reflection of his restaurant’s hearty fare, he responded diplomatically that he enjoyed the beans and rice and the pollo guisado (stewed chicken) most weeks, but found the Mexican dishes to be too hot for his Argentine tastes. “No tenemos alimento picante en Argentina,” (we don’t have spicy food where I come from.) he explained.

In fact, chicharrones de pollo, deep fried chicken, or more accurately translated as chicken cracklins’, are a popular Dominican dish, sometimes also claimed by Puerto Ricans as their own — we’ll leave it to them to fight over where it truly originated — in which chunks of chicken are marinaded for a lengthy period in adobe, lime juice, rum and either soy sauce or worcestershire sauce before being lightly dusted in corn starch and tossed into hot oil. If you like fried chicken (and those who don’t must ask themselves some searching questions) then you should try this recipe. It goes perfectly well with the tostones we had at Elora’s or the beans and rice we prepared more recently, but it is just as good on its own with a jigger of hot sauce and a cold bottle of Presidente Dominican beer. And, sure, it won’t necessarily help you live well into your 80s, but it will make the next couple of hours more enjoyable.

Almost seven years ago I journeyed from Santillana del Mar to Santa Maria de Lebaña via San Vicente de la Barquera. So many saints, so much devotion, that it was little surprise to learn that beyond the monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana and through the Picos de Europe lies the hallowed ground of Covadonga.

It was at the battle of Covadonga in 718 that Christian Spain under Pelayo, King of Asturias, began the reclamation of Iberia from the Muslim Moors. Nestled deep within the Asturian mountains, Covadonga is as important to the Spanish national myth as Hastings is to the British or Lexington to Americans. However, history defies such over-simplification – the linear narrative of one thing followed by another – and it is too easy to say that simply because certain events turned out the way they did there were no other possibilities. Indeed, a sentence stating that the defeat of a Moorish army by a Spanish king at Covadonga began the reconquest of Spain – which culminated in Ferdinand and Isabella vanquishing Boabdil, Emir of Granada, in 1492 – encompasses more than 700 years and glosses over seven whole centuries of war, shifting borders, switching alliances, inter-marriage, suffering and grief.

It is with this in mind that I wonder if it’s an exaggeration to suggest that had the battle at Covadonga ended differently the whole course of western history, and therefore of the world, would have been affected. Spanish historian Claudio Sanchez-Albornoz does not believe so. “Si los musulmanos no hubiesen conquistado el España en el siglo VIII, los españoles no habrian conquistado America en el XVI.”* For him it follows that what began there in the 8th Century resulted in a militarized and battle-hardened Spain conquering much of the New World.

For me, and my own personal sense of history those seven years ago, a dinner of beans, pork belly, chorizo and morcilla suggested just as plausible a theorem: that had not the Asturian armies under Pelayo feasted on fabada in preparation for the fight the next day, there may have been another outcome. And while personal experience suggests that after a hearty meal of this kind one is utterly disinclined to remaining awake, let alone to feeling lively enough to bum rush a horde of scimitar-brandishing Berbers, I still feel that this notion has validity. After all, how could one’s sense of local patriotism and desire to defend one’s homeland fail to be stirred by such a dish? That the culinary use of saffron arrived in the far north of Spain via these same Moorish invaders and the integral ingredient smoked pimentón wasn’t to be discovered for another eight centuries following the conquest of Mexico doesn’t disprove this hypothesis, rather it merely serves to highlight, once again, the non-linear path of history.

(If the Muslims had not conquered Spain in the 8th century, the Americas wouldn’t have been conquered by the Spaniards in the 16th.”)

“I eat my candy with pork and beans.
Excuse my manners if I make a scene.”
-Pork and Beans, by Weezer

I could begin this post with a rose-tinted anecdote about how, during the run-up to our wedding in Italy, as Amy and I were lingering romantically over a typically rustic Tuscan dinner one warm June evening against the background of a bucolic, rolling landscape with honey-colored buildings dotted sparingly among neat rows of vines and olives — our eyes locked together over a tablescape of starched cloth, antique silver and leaded crystal — the air, heavy with the scent of lavender and the hum of cicadas, seemed to stir momentarily, as if a gust of breeze from we knew not where had suddenly, and unintentionally, loosed itself, darkening our moods and furrowing our brows with its unwelcome interruption.

I could conclude such an anecdote in lyrical fashion thus: as the sun’s dipping parabola cast its final, limpid rays upon the radiant skin of my betrothed’s temples, she recoiled in anguish, reeling like a punch-drunk prize-fighter, at the rancid bouquet now squalling through her nostrils.

I could also proceed with a lengthy explanation of why it is that fagioli e salsiccie is the quintessential Tuscan peasant dish, having sustained generations in that part of Italy, and how it sits proudly among the best of pan-European cucina povera alongside fabada and ollo podrida.

Instead, I could just as easily explain that during said nuptials we enjoyed many of the delicious bean dishes for which Tuscany is famous and, consequently, experienced the oh-so familiar sensation of, ahem, flatulence.

These days many people are aware of the wonders of Tuscan cuisine; the saltless bread, the magnificent steaks, the peppery, fruity olive oil, the tangy Pecorino, the bread and tomato soups, as well as the widespread use of beans that has earned Tuscans the moniker “mangiafagioli” or bean-eaters. What still mystifies most people though, is if beans always give us wretched and disgusting gas, why do we continue eating them?

Before you start clicking away, tut-tutting about the sheer childishness… the puerile subject matter… they should know better, etc., you might consider the anthropological significance of the humble bean. Not only are beans among the world’s super foods, being packed with protein (containing more than twice the protein of most meats), fiber, and complex carbohydrates, the simple act of growing them fixes nitrogen to poor soils enabling land to remain fertile without requiring artificial fertilizers (meaning they are not just good for you, they are also good the Earth), but, in addition to being nutritionally complete, beans are easy to grow, and, as a result, have been (pun intended) essential to human societies since way before bread was even conceived of. Thus, the histories of the bean, the fart, and the very survival of humanity are inextricably connected.

Not that our survival this past weekend was predicated on eating beans, but as we struggled back up to our fourth floor walk-up apartment wet and cold from chilly April showers, it certainly felt that way for a few moments. The idea of the silken texture of perfectly cooked cannellini beans bathed lovingly in a tomato, garlic and bay-scented broth, and complemented by fennel or hot pepper-spiked pork sausage hung like an apparition in front of us as we stuffed our shoes with newspaper and festooned every available hanging place with damp clothes.

Sadly, we hadn’t had the foresight to soak our dried beans overnight (we only had four hours to soak them), so we tried the oft-mooted, but untested, option of using the pressure cooker to make amends. Various online sources suggested pressure-cooking them for anything between 12 and 25 minutes, neither of which we found to be nearly enough. After three abortive de-pressurizations, and a total of around 40 minutes cooking, the beans had achieved the smooth, toothsome texture we were looking for. Having browned the sausages in the pot before adding the beans, onion, garlic, bay, vegetable stock and tomato paste, all they required was an additional five minutes simmering among the beans for the dish to be ready.

Settling into our meal, we were astounded by the restorative qualities of simple pork and beans, washing the warming combo down with something red and Portuguese and in the $8 range. The following morning, we were similarly astounded by the metabolic reaction of human intestines and beans. Happily, our marriage, having begun with flatulence, and now securely founded on a mutual understanding of the universality of these kinds of things, was able to accommodate such seismic eruptions. Our day proceeded with a long walk in the park, having left our apartment, windows open, to air out.

During last fall’s McCain-Obama Presidential election season, TV channel Comedy Central’s website had a feature called “remember when you cared about…” which reprised some of the now (& then) farcical action from the previous Presidential campaigns of W. Bush and John Kerry. The 2004 race was my first such campaign-season as a resident of this country, and Comedy Central reminded me that my particular favorite of the farces that staggered me at the time, for no other reason than I found it to be among the most ridiculous things I’d ever heard, was the furore over coma-patient Terri Schiavo’s right to live/die. This tragic, though utterly irrelevant coincidence captured the moral outrage/derision of an entire country for a while, managing somehow to obfuscate the abject performance of the Bush administration’s first term, and win them a second.

So, shamelessly parroting a humorous idea from said TV channel (while simultaneously removing the humor), we’re re-posting a meal we made a little over a year ago because it’s a great dish that we make regularly, and, ahem, because you, quite clearly, don’t remember that you didn’t care about it last time…

Sopes are a delicious and easy alternatives to your boring old tortilla.  We love piling these cornmeal “cakes” up high with a variety of toppings – beef, pork, pulled chicken or even just beans.  One of our obsessions is La Morena’s Chipotle Sauce.  I could drink this stuff.  It’s better than ketchup… yes, I said it.  Mixed with a bit of lime juice and cream/crema or sour cream and you’ve got a great topping for steak, chicken or sopes!  Give these crispy sopes a try and use your creativity to top it with whatever delicious things you find.

What’s originally from India, can be green or yellow, starchy or sweet, is consumed throughout West Africa, the Caribbean, and Central & South America, and (best of all) can be used to mimic a phallus in hilarious kitchen antics? Yes, that’s right, it’s the plantain – aka banana plantain, cooking plantain, beer banana, bocadillo plantain, tostones, maduro, patacon, chifle, dodo, etc. – and like almost all the best kinds of foods (to us at least) it is most deliciously prepared deep-fried.

Throughout the Caribbean, Central America and the northern half of South America, starchy green plantains, aka patacones or tostones, are one of the principal components of almost every meal, and, depending on where you are and who is doing the cooking, you’ll find them sliced into rounds (Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic), cut on the bias to make wedges (Honduras, Cuba), or sliced length-wise into, well, long, um, sausages (Venezuela, Colombia, Jamaica, Trinidad)…Typically, the plantain is fried once before being lightly flattened (in some places this is done with a special tool, but we used a meat mallet or rolling pin to good effect) which gives more surface area, exposing more of the starch to oil, and hence creating crispier patacones/tostones. Then, it’s tipped back into the fryer and cooked until crispy and golden on all sides.

In many places, nothing more is done to it and it’s eaten just like that, maybe with some salt or sliced avocado. In Haiti, Dominican Republic and Cuba they are often dipped in criole/creole/criollo sauce and eaten with chicken or shrimp, whereas in Venezuela and Colombia they often go into sandwiches with meat and vegetables. Let’s face it though, they’re good anyway you like them. They’re like potato chips on steroids and will fill even the hungriest belly in double-time.

After eating them prepared in a similar way at a restaurant near us in Brooklyn, we spread our patacones with mashed avocado, but then gilded that lily adding sauteed onions, our world (ie: home) famous black beans, crumbled morcilla (blood sausage) and chunks of chorizo. A little squeeze of sour cream and hot sauce finished things off. If you can’t find, or won’t eat morcilla, it would still be delicious with just chorizo, but we can imagine topping patacones with shredded chicken, roast pork, shrimp, fish, or anything you like really. Half a green plantain each made a decent “light” dinner, but these would make fantastic finger-food at a party if you cut them into bite-sized pieces. Viva el patacon!

In honor or one of our commenters (Elra), we thought it would be helpful to actually post a recipe instead of posting an idea of how to make this. So, here ya go:

PATACONES (serves 2 as a meal and 4 as an appetizer)

Ingredients:

• 2 green plantains 
• enough peanut or veggie oil to fry
• lime
• salt

Optional toppings:

• Our “famous” black beans
• Smashed avocado with a bit of lime or homemade guacamole (avocado, lime juice, cilantro, bit of garlic)
• Sauteed onions and green peppers (saute some sliced onions and green peppers in some olive oil w/ a bit of lime juice and salt for about 8 minutes until semi-soft)
• Sauteed chorizo and/or morcilla sausage (again, slice chorizo into small pieces and crumble morcilla into similar small pieces, then saute in until warm and a bit charred – about 6-8 minutes)

What to do:

1. With a sharp knife, slice the plantain skin lengthways downwards about 1/2 inch deep.  Do not puncture the plantains, you only want to make it easier to remove the skin.  Remove skin.
2. Slice the plantian in half lengthways (from top to bottom).  Heat up oil. Fry each half of plantian for about 1-2 minutes then remove to drain on a paper towel.  Let cool for a moment.
3. Grab your mallet or tostonera, flatten the plantain as best you can until it is about 1/4 of an inch thick.  We basically just smashed ours with a mallet, but be kind of careful not to hit too hard because you don’t want it to split. Once they are all flattened, fry again until golden brown, the time will be determined by how hot your oil is.
4. Remove from oil and allow to drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with some salt and a squeeze of lime juice and top with your favorite toppings!

We are fortunate enough to live in a city with a ridiculous amount of diversity when it comes to restaurants, and one place we frequent often is a ‘hip’ Colombian restaurant (what the hell, it is Brooklyn). When we go there it’s because of two things: 1) We’re friggin starving and are ready to eat till we drop and 2) we want to get drunk. They have very strong drinks, and the food, shall we say, ain’t exactly light either. Maybe the strong drinks are to help your appetite and enable you to eat more?

One of the favorite menu items is the very popular and typical Colombian dish Bandeja Paisa. Yes, I wasn’t lying when I called it a “gut buster”. There is no way in hell I’m not unbuttoning my jeans when I decide to order this one. Originating from northwestern Colombia (the province of Antioquia), this dish’s name stems from bandeja, meaning tray or platter, and what the people of the region are known as, paisas, or country-folk. The idea is that this mixed platter would be eaten at lunchtime after a hard morning working in the fields and would be followed (like there would be a choice!) by a lengthy siesta before anything resembling work could resume.

In 2005 the Colombian government planned to make bandeja paisa the national dish, but instead with the name of bandeja montañera (mountaineer’s platter). This move was actually faced with widespread opposition, citing that only a small percentage of the population actually eats bandeja (perhaps unsurprisingly, or they’d all be in cardiac arrest and/or 500lbs). However, the government persisted and now you can find all sorts of Colombian tourism paraphernalia advertising bandeja as the national dish – perhaps in a daring bid to encourage obese gringos to head on down for a feast…?

Anyway, like many traditional dishes the exact combination of ingredients/items often differs depending on who you ask, but, again, like many traditional dishes, there are a number of ingredients that all versions contain. Arepa (a thin shallow-fried corn cake), grilled marinated skirt steak, pork chicharron (crispy, deep-fried pork belly cracklins), a fried egg, chorizo, red beans (stewed red beans) and rice. [Note: some versions contain other foods including morcilla (blood sausage), sweet fried plantains, avocado, vinegary shredded red cabbage salad, fried potatoes, tomato sauce, and hogao (aka criollo sauce made with onions, tomatoes, pepper, oregano, cumin, and salt).] We combined our beans with the chorizo, substituted the rice with yucca fries, and cut the richness of the meal with the traditional Colombian condiment, aji.

Estimates vary, but it’s a meal of between 1,500-1,800 calories (that’s most of your daily intake), and yes, that’s right, and it’s all eaten for lunch. I, who can hardly sit up straight at my desk after a sandwich and an apple for my midday repast, find it almost impossible to imagine engaging in manual labor even after only half a plate of this magnitude. Combine this with the nearly year-round equatorial heat that part of Colombia enjoys, and I’d be retiring to my hammock for forty (or more) winks, which is why we tend to save up our bandeja eating for the colder months, and happily for us (but not our cardiologist) those months are on the way. So, get out the largest plate you own, starve yourself for a couple of days ahead of time, consider cancelling your plans for the afternoon, and get stuck into a bandeja paisa - it’s only your waistline at risk!

Bandeja Paisa

So, because this is a meal made up of many constituent parts, and because, with our version, we tinkered with the traditional ingredients a bit, what follows is basically a run-down of recipes starting with the most time-consuming preparations.

Stewed Pinto/Red Beans with Chorizo
See this recipe here we made a while back.

Yucca Fries

• 1 medium sized yucca (cassava), peeled and cut into 1/4inch (1cm) rings or half-moons
• 2 cups vegetable oil, heated to 350-375F
• 1tsp kosher salt
• Fry yucca rings until golden and crispy. Remove to plate covered with paper towels to drain, and sprinkle with salt.
• Keep warm in oven if not eating immediately as they get chewy and tough if left to cool

Skirt Steak

• Sprinkle steak lightly with salt, pepper and rub generously with sliced garlic.
• Marinate in olive oil until ready to grill.
• Heat skillet or grill to screaming hot. Brush marinade off steaks and grill on each side for about 2-3 minutes (depending on thickness – use poke test regularly) for a nice medium-rare.
• Cover with foil and allow to rest for 5-10minutes.

Shredded Red Cabbage Salad

• Shred or finely slice 5-6oz red cabbage after removing tough outer leaves
• Put cabbage in a bowl and mix with 3tbsp granulated sugar, 1tsp kosher salt and 1/2cup white vinegar
• Allow to marinate and grow together for as long as a couple of days.

Colombian Arepas

• 1 cup masa harina (fine cornmeal flour)
• 1/4tsp salt
• 1/2 cup hot water
• 4oz vegetable oil
• combine corn flour, water and salt into a sticky dough
• make a ball out of some of the dough and roll into a circle about 4-5inches across and 1/4 thick
• heat 1tbsp oil at a time, and fry dough circles until golden and crispy
• drain on paper towels, then dress with butter/margarine and serve immediately while still warm

Spicy Colombian Aji

• 1 sweet pepper, finely diced
• 2 jalapenos, finely diced and de-seeded
• 3 small cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1/4 onion, finely diced
• 10-15 stems cilantro, finely diced
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• juice of 1/2 lime
• 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
• Combine all these ingredients together and let sit for at least an hour or as long as 2 days for the flavors to improve

Pork Chicharrones
We used the great recipe we found at Nikas Culinaria, and encourage you to do likewise.

Then, combine all this goodness on a plate (we suggest you share it with at least one other person unless you want to drift into a food coma you may never come out of) and enjoy with the latin cocktail of your choice (avoid beer, it makes everything swell up), or perhaps, as the Colombians would, accompany it with a few shots of aguardiente!

Thank you to about.com for featuring this post in their Colombian food section.

Disclaimer: Our dear Colombian friend kindly let us know that our too-styled, “pretty” version of Bandeja Paisa is a bit less authentic because of the way we put things on the plate. Hear our Juan Camilo discuss Bandeja Paisa and all things Colombian in our exclusive podcast interview.

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”
- William Blake

Have you ever thought, as you sit red-faced, breathing shallowly, “just… one… more… bite”? Have you ever then taken that extra bite and thought to yourself — in your blood-starved brain — “maybe, after all, I could manage another one”? And, finally, upon swallowing said final mouthful and feeling a previously unknown thickness on your tongue, have you ever thought, “perhaps I’ve overdone it”? It is at this point, as your mouth slowly stops salivating, your breath becomes labored and characterized by sharp exhalations and sighs intended to revitalize your flaccid organs, and your belly feels so tight and distended that if it weren’t for the shocking quantity of food you’ve just ingested (and several other flabby bodily areas), you might resemble a starved Ethiopian child, that you begin to understand why gluttony was included among the seven deadly sins.

Such was my state of mind as I sat, gravely concerned that I might actually suffocate myself internally as my stomach pressed up hard on diaphragm and lungs, at Casa Portal restaurant in Madrid, after a meal that would make a man’s recommended weekly caloric intake appear somehow unlikely to provide sufficient nourishment. The culprit you ask? Well, apart from my own greed, gluttony and propensity to exceed normal physical boundaries, the culprit was fabada. Fabada Asturiana to be precise. The famed bean and pork stew of the Asturian mountains (Picos de Europa) in northern Spain.

As earlier posts have described, I passed a vacation several years ago traveling in northern Spain and found it to be a formative experience. The food, the landscape, the culture and the climate had a profound impact on me and have kept me returning to Spain as regularly as possible given the intervening years in which I’ve gotten married and moved to the United States. Enjoying fresh seafood, doused in garlic, parsley and olive oil, and washed down with non-carbonated local cider in the beautiful, secluded harbor town of Luarca is one particularly evocative memory. And so it was that when we were in Madrid recently I wanted to recollect these memories, so we spent most of a morning walking across the city in search of an Asturian restaurant that had been recommended to us.

Our meal began with a selection of Asturian appetizers, including a tunafish and tomato empanadilla, a whole steamed morcilla, and a large cooking chorizo simmered in cider, accompanied by chewy bread and a liter of Asturian cider. My wife was then presented with what can only be described as a pond-sized bowl of fish bisque, that we shared but could not finish. Thankfully, a pause of fifteen minutes offered some digestive respite to our already extended guts and allowed our moistening brows to cool. However, when the final assault came, it was one that an hour-long intermission would not have adequately prepared us for.

My fabada arrived in a bowl of similar proportions to my wife’s soup course, and in it, along with the delicious softened, yet still toothsome, large white beans, came half of ANOTHER cooking chorizo, half of ANOTHER morcilla, and an entire pork chop. Maternal warnings of eyes-bigger-than-belly swam in my head as I plowed in, loosening my thickly greased palate at regular intervals with an excellent Crianza from Navarre. The beans were, well, like butter, and the various pork products, each delicious and flavorful in their own way, but the star of the dish, and indeed the entire meal, was morcilla.

This blood sausage, sometimes made with rice, sometimes with grains, which we Brits would class as black pudding, is common throughout Spain and, I’m sure, is widely derided by most tourists — even those with gourmet aspirations — for being disgusting. As I began to labor through the final mouthfuls, it crossed my mind just what levels of dietary deprivation had forced the inventors of morcilla to collect an animal’s blood and congeal it with fat, salt and grains, and fashion it into a sausage for preservation and sustinence later on. In the same way, I often try to imagine the back-breaking work of so many grape-pickers during the annual vendanges as I take my first sip of a newly-opened wine, in order to better appreciate the effort and craftsmanship that goes into the things I enjoy most. However, in this instance, my reverie for Spanish food culture was interrupted (and would not return for a while) by a lack of blood to my brain, as it flooded south to my upper intestine to begin absorbing the porky appetizers of the previous half hour.

An uncomfortable period followed (I know not how long), during which my wife was kind enough to gently pat my limp hand and fan my flushed and fevered cheeks with a napkin, before I was able to even contemplate the short walk to the bathroom — the pressure having eased above was now pressuring a full bladder below. Even upon staggering back to the table and slumping ungraciously into my seat, I was unable to consider taking a glass of refreshing water so full was I. Apparently, until this point, I had been unable to articulate my suffering, but chose this moment to confess that not only might I have overdone it, but that I might also be experiencing a previously unheard of “pork overdose” that could turn out to be prejudicial to health. My wife replied pithily that at least I was advancing medical science by my gluttony.

Eventually, my bloatedness subsided enough for me to leave the restaurant and lurch slowly around the shopping district near the Goya metro stop, ashamed everytime my sagging and pallid features were reflected in a store window. And, lest, you think, gentle reader, that you might be prepared to risk a similarly harrowing experience in the daring pursuit of local specialties, you should know that as a result of my over-indulgence at lunch, I was unable to eat anything for the rest of the day and so missed an entire evenings’ worth of tapas.

If these were the immediate penalties of gluttony, the medium term ones have been even worse. I try in vain to shake off my fabada-induced weight gain each midday at the gym and, so far, I see no change in my girth. Yet, in spite of all this (self-inflicted) suffering, I still feel that it might well have been worth it. One only learns one’s limits by testing them, no?

Unsurprisingly, we have not yet had the courage to make our own version of fabada since returning to the States, though we intend to do so before winter is out. In the meantime, our good friend Nuria at Spanish Recipes Pic by Pic recently posted an authentic fabada Asturiana recipe on her site, which we will be putting through its paces just as soon as we can face it.

THIS IS AMY (the wife) TO SAY SOMETHING: The story you have just read above is not only true, but not even exaggerated. I really have never seen this man react to overeating (which we too often do, unfortunately) the way he did after consuming the fabada this day in Madrid. It was mildly hilarious, but kind of scary as I didn’t know how to say “Where can I get his stomach pumped” in Spanish. We hope to make our own fabada soon since we finally were able to find morcilla for sale in a speciality store. I’m just hoping it doesn’t have the same effect on the man this time.

If you are interested in reading more of our posts on Spain, please check out:

• The REAL Cocido of Spain
• Jamon, Jamon
• Pictures of Madrid
• Unusual Tapas We Ate in Madrid
• Tame Tapas We Ate in Madrid
• Cabrales Cheese: It’s a Bit of an Animal
• Vermut (Vermouth): Rediscovering an Old Classic
• CHORIZO, CHICKPEA AND POTATO SOUP

Ahhh, jerk chicken. One of my favorite dishes. It’s spicy, kind of sweet and when made well should almost melt in your mouth. On a cold winters night, there’s nothing that can snap you out of a cold-weather-depression than cooking up something from the Islands.

Jerk was used as a way to preserve and cook meat and was originally only made with pork. Interestingly, I found that the work “jerk” comes from a Spanish word called “charqui” which means dried meat. This is how we coined the term “jerky” for that awesome, chewy and salty dried meat we can pick up in 711′s or other corner stores or truck stops. Another possible meaning of the word stems from what happens to the meat when you prepare and cook it – you poke it/or jerk it to produce a hole in order to fill it with the spice mixture (which I didn’t do). I also read that it could come from the reaction your body has as you eat the spicy meat – your body jerks. How about the way you cook it – you ‘jerk’ the meat off the coals. Whatever the derivation all I know is that it’s absolutely delicious! What’s even cooler is that jerk pork’s origins can be traced all the way back to 1655 during the pre-slavery days of West African hunters (the Cormantees) through a group of Jamaican slaves (Maroons) that escaped from the British during the invasion of that year. The Maroons supposedly developed and perfected the jerk as a way to preserve the meat while they lived in the mountains fighting the British troops.

Nowadays, various jerk recipes are passed down from Jamaican family to Jamaican family, but each recipe always includes allspice, hot chilies, salt and various spices and herbs. Traditionally it should be grilled slowly over a wood fire made of pimento (allspice) wood, just to infuse the flavor even deeper into the meat, and continuously basted with the marinade. Because it’s winter in NYC and we will be purchasing a new grill this summer, I enjoy oven-cooking my jerk. If you stick on the broiler for a bit at the end, you can get a bit of crisp on the skin. WHOOOO HOOOOOO… absolutely fabulous! Give it a try yourself – it’s easy. Make it along with a some rice & pea and fried green plantains for the perfect balance of salty and sweet. The crunch of the tostones (SEE BELOW FOR A PICTORIAL “HOW TO”) make the dish. Our friend, Bren, has a great piece on all the different ways you can cook plantains

Also, we’d like to thank our friend, Pixie, who gave our recipe a whirl and had a taste of the Islands in the UK one night. THANK YOU!!

JERK CHICKEN WITH RICE & PEA AND TOSTONES (FRIED PLANTAINS) (SERVES 2-3)

For the chicken and marinade:

• 2 breasts of chicken, skin on
• 2 legs of chicken, skin on
• 2 tbsp. allspice
• 1 tbsp. dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon hot paprika
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 scotch bonnet pepper (or other spicy hot pepper)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/2 cup of cilantro (you can substitute 1 teaspoon coriander seed)
• juice of 1 lime
• splash of orange juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 scallions
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• pinch of salt and pepper

What to do:

1. If you are using allspice berries/seeds and whole cinnamon sticks, grind the spices down with a spice grinder. Then blend all the ingredients together in a blender until smooth (or smooth enough – you’ll have a bit of chunks of garlic and hot pepper). I used the olive oil to make it a wet rub. If you feel like you need more or less, adjust so it’s a thick paste.
2. Slab this on your chicken (remember to get under the skin if you can!). Wear some gloves if you have ‘em… this marinade contains hot pepper. Allow this to marinate for an hour at least, if you have the time. If you can marinate overnight, even better.
3. Cook your chicken pieces at 400 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until juices run clear. For the last minute, put on the broiler and allow some of the skin to crisp up a bit. Don’t let the marinade burn!

RICE AND PEA

What to do:

• 1 cup white rice
• 1 can red kidney beans
• 1 small onion, minced
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 scallion, sliced
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional – I really love garlic)
• chicken stock

What to do:

1. Saute your onions and garlic over medium heat for a few minutes (keep em a bit crunchy). Add your rice, the garlic powder, scallions and beans. Add the rice and stir all together.
2. Pour enough chicken stock over your rice that it comes up the width of 2 fingers above the level of the uncooked rice (make the peace sign, put your 2 fingers together, turn your 2 fingers clock wise 90 degrees – that’s how you measure – I’M TELLING YOU – IT WORKS EVERY TIME PERFECTLY). Bring to the boil and allow to cook down until it reaches the level of the rice. When the chicken stock has reached the level of the rice, stir ONCE, turn your heat to low and cover. Cook on low for 20 minutes.
3. After 20 minutes your rice will be perfect, give it a stir and enjoy.

****Traditionally, Jamaican rice & pea should be made with coconut milk. Just replace the chicken stock with 1 can of coconut milk plus enough water so that the total amount of liquid follows the “2 finger rule” (see above).

TOSTONES (FRIED GREEN PLANTAINS)

Ingredients:

• 2 Green Plantains
• veggie oil
• salt

What to do:

1. Heat your veggie oil – you want enough to almost cover the plantains.
2. Peel plantains and cut into slices, about 1 inch thick.
3. Fry your cut plantains once for about 2-3 minutes. Drain on paper towels.
4. Smash with a mallet and then fry again for another 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Drain and season with some salt.

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CHECK OUT SOME OTHER POSTS YOU MAY ENJOY:

• Fabada: A Mortal and Corporal Sin – But Worth It
  
• Free Lunch for Inner-City Kids – If It’s Free Does It Have To Be Crap?
• Pork Roll and Scrapple – The Dirty Culinary Pride of South Jersey/Philly
• WHOLE FISH BAKED IN SALT WITH OKRA FRITTERS
• PERFECT BROCCOLI DI RAPE/RAPINI
• TORTILLA ESPANOLA (Spanish Potato Omelet)
• SHREDDED CHICKEN SOPES WITH TOMATILLO AVOCADO SAUCE