Guyana, sitting on the top right of the land mass of South America, is among the least known and most mysterious of that continent’s countries, something that is almost as true today as it was when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used it as the setting for his 1904 novel, The Lost World. Home to the most intact and least spoiled rain forests in South America, Guyana’s biodiversity is simultaneously staggering and largely undocumented, and cascading from its mossy, permanently cloud-topped peaks, fall several of the world’s largest waterfalls. Guyana is also unique on a human-scale, having the distinction of being the only English-speaking nation in South America, and, perhaps because of this, of having been among the world’s largest producers of natural latex for the manufacture of cricket balls

The cricket-loving population is a heterogenous mix of Indian, African, European and native peoples, roughly in that order of volume. However, like much of the English-speaking Caribbean, Guyana also has a tiny, but significant, Cantonese population — a legacy of the same forces at work during the days of the British Empire that also relocated large numbers of Tamil and Gujurati Indians there to work as indentured plantation workers. Numerically insignificant, the lasting impact of these Hong Kong Chinese has been on local commerce and the cementing of certain southern Chinese dishes, the most popular of which is chow mein, in the diverse local cuisine.

Of course, the chow mein enjoyed in Guyana bears only a certain resemblance to that eaten in Canton and other parts of China, I am sure. Indeed, Chinese food all over the western world has been amended to suit local tastes and ingredients, and so it is in Guyana where access to even basic Chinese staples like soy sauce was not always possible. Similarly, the inevitable mixing between local gastronomic cultures, namely the addition of a sly pinch of West Indian curry powder that seems to find its way into all kinds of unlikely dishes across the Caribbean, is what makes this chow mein recipe inherently Guyanese, not to mention the bright yellow noodles, made with soft wheat and plenty of food coloring. Other local variations on the original include the addition of yellow squash and green beans.

We had never eaten this dish before, but we’d experienced it up-close at several West Indian parades both in New York City and London, where it was served in trays with plastic forks as street food, and where the searing perfume of garlic and curry managed to cut right through the ripe fragrance of perspiring dancers. In truth, the flavors, with the combination of curry and soy sauce, aren’t that dissimilar to the popular Singapore noodles found throughout South-East Asia and at many British Chinese restaurants, and they should feel relatively familiar to anyone who has eaten both Chinese and Indian take-out food before. So, while you (or we) may never get to visit exotic Guyana and witness first hand either it’s beautiful landscape or delicious cuisine, you should try making this dish. It only takes about twenty minutes to prepare and will satisfy a host of your ethnic food cravings.

For more authentic Caribbean recipes, check out Cynthia at Tastes Like Home.

Though a resident of Singapore, then a part of Malaysia, during the early 1950s, I doubt very much if my father ever had much of an opportunity to experience its astonishing variety of cuisines. Confined mostly to the Changi district (now better known for its international airport) and the company of other expatriate British military families, his diet hardly differed from that of his older brother, Roger, who stayed in England at boarding school throughout the family’s four year sojourn in the east.

A child of the gastronomic wasteland of post-WWII rationing, when food was extracted from a can and then boiled to the point of annihilation, my Dad is still a picky eater, ever-ready to pull a face if served something strongly flavored. In the broader context of his early years, these culinary proclivities aren’t so surprising. Well into the 1990s (by which time rationing had been over for more than forty years), I remember visiting my paternal grandparents and noticing that their oven was spotless in spite of being nearly twenty years old, having been used exclusively as extra storage space for canned goods.

Widely read, well traveled and knowledgeable about many things, gastronomy is one of the few areas of which my Dad is entirely ignorant. Exposure, at such a tender age, to such perfumed and harmonious dishes as Singapore and Malaysia offer in abundance could have had a profoundly transformative influence on his tastebuds. Instead, the insipid and farty flavors of boiled beef and cabbage became the signature flavors of his youth.

All of which, to me at least, is a great shame since the laksas, curries, stir-fries, biryanis and sambals – culled from an ethnic and religious make-up as varied as any nation – that he could have tasted, are the signatures of a country that for milennia has been the regional cross-roads and melting-pot.

Book Review:
Susheela Raghavan’s family, on the other hand, embraced this tantalizing concoction, and in her new book, The Flavors of Malaysia: A Journey Through Time, Tastes and Traditions, she draws together a collection of recipes from across the full range her country’s diversity into a harmonious whole that is as interesting and educational to read as it is jam-packed with deliciousness. From opening chapters that place her and her family at the heart of Malaysia’s ethnic variety, to much-needed ethnographic and geographic explanations of how it all came to be, to charming anecdotes of recollections and family stories, The Flavors of Malaysia really is a cook book you can read and learn from. In fact, as you read, what you really notice is what a tour de force Raghavan has performed in creating something coherent and comprehensive out of such marvelous diversity.

The Malay fragrant rice that accompanies the lamb peratil (a sort of dry curry) above perfectly encapsulates the depth and complexity of Malaysian cooking (which is why we chose to make it). Using the predominantly Indian spice blend almost as a tea to perfume the cooking liquid, the addition of garlic, ginger, sugar and soy sauce to the rice makes for as cross-cultural a dish as any I can think of. The lamb, on the other hand, is representative of the profound influence south Indian cooking has on Malaysian cuisine, demonstrating that although mixing and borrowing takes place, the country’s resident non-Malay groups have maintained their own traditions too.

If the recipes we made sound exotic, then they should. The food of Malaysia is perhaps the world’s most pungent, combining the abundant spices of Indian cuisine, the fragrance of Thai and Vietnamese herbs and rhizomes, the simplicity of local Malay techniques, the incorporation of Portuguese ingredients and Dutch or British implements, and rounding it out with the balance of sweet, salty, sour and spicy native to Chinese cooking. That this has become a fascinating and unique brew and not a toxic hodgepodge speaks to the generally harmonious philosophy of a country whose moderate Malay Muslim majority lives cheek by jowl with Indian Muslims, Indian Hindus, Eurasian Christians, Chinese and Thai Buddhists and native animist groups.

It would be easy to be intimidated by this exoticism, and certainly, it’s unlikely the average pantry will contain even half the required items – some spice mixes reading like an apothecary’s top shelf – but the spectacular results make it worth persevering. To be fair, though the recipes are remarkably easy to follow, this isn’t really the kind of tome the owner of an average pantry would seek out. One needs to be prepared for an experience quite unlike anything one may have tasted before, and while I would love to suggest this book will fly off the shelves, my feeling is that only the adventurous will seek it out. The fact that not all dishes are pictured convinces me of this (150 recipes, 16 pages of color photographs), as a leap of faith is necessary in making something you have no clue what it looks like. If there were a large Malaysian community in America where one could get accustomed to this kind of food things might be different. For those of us looking for something tantalizingly new for our taste buds though, I can heartily recommend this book. Not only will your house be filled with fascinating aromas, and your stomach filled with astonishing dishes, but your intellect will be stimulated by a country and people of marvelous history, culture and depth.

During his show on Panama, Anthony Bourdain observed that Chinese food somehow gets shinier the further west one goes. He might also have mentioned that it changes in other ways throughout the western hemisphere too, on the whole, becoming less and less Chinese-like. In a similar way to Panama, to which Chinese laborers flocked to help build the eponymous canal, Peru experienced large-scale immigration of Cantonese mine workers during the latter half of the 19th century too, and still has the largest Asian population of any nation in South America. Largely isolated from its home country for the intervening century and a half, the Peruvian Chinese community, like many New World immigrant groups, developed its own distinct peculiarities.

Regular readers of this blog will know of our penchant for the immigrant groups of the Americas, where they came from, how and why they arrived, and how they went about creating their new and entirely unique cultures on foreign soils, often in the teeth of vicious discrimination from those who had arrived earlier. So it was for the Chinese in Peru. Principally from the Chinese province of Guangdong, these immigrants were not just coming for a short time to work, earn a living, and then return home. In a way that is almost unimaginable for us today, given the global mobility many of us have, those who journeyed to South America to work in its silver, copper and silicate mines had to virtually abandon any thought of ever seeing their homes again. It must have been all the harder without any of the comforts of home either – as traditional Cantonese ingredients were (mostly) unavailable in 19th-century Peru.

Culinarily, this isolation and a lack of familiar foodstuffs led to the development of an entirely Peruvian-Chinese phenomenon known as Chifa. Derived from a local corruption of the Mandarin “chi fan” or “eat rice”, chifa cuisine is characterized by somewhat curious ingredient pairings. In the most popular chifa dish, lomo saltado – a beef stir-fry, this manifests itself in the carbohydrate combo of rice and french fries, and the flavoring mix of soy sauce, red wine and spicy Peruvian yellow aji peppers. Purists may quibble that chifa is less fusion cuisine and more mish-mash food given the apparent clumsy pairing of local meat and potatoes with Cantonese stir-fry, but I, for one, find that lomo saltado actually offers the same salty, spicy, sour and sweet tastes typical of Chinese cooking, just with different ingredients.

Understandably popular among hard-working Cantonese miners, chifa cuisine was also a surprise hit among the higher echelons of Peruvian society, and though initially limited to Lima’s Barrios Altos, chifa restaurants soon began to spring up outside of Chinese neighborhoods too, eventually expanding across the capital (where there are now more than 6,000 chifa restaurants) to most parts of the country. Indeed, so popular has it become that today one can find Chifas, as they’re known, throughout the rest of South America. From Argentina and Chile all the way north to Venezuela, chifa cuisine is almost as well known as Peru’s other great gastronomic export, ceviche. Evidently, this trend is growing among the Yanquis too: Chef Jose Garces of Iron Chef America fame, opened a chifa-style eatery in Philadelphia recently, naming it, rather unimaginatively, Chifa.

On a visit to Argentina, Anthony Bourdain commented that the common Porteno carb combo of pizza and chickpea faina must have been invented by drunk people, and rice with fries would seem to fall into the same category. Sure, double starch is weird, but that doesn’t mean to say it’s not good, drunk or sober.

Ever have one of those days where the only thing that gets you through is knowing you are going to have a good meal later on?  I have no idea where I read about this dish, but one day, trying to unwind after a long, frustrating and tiring day of putting out the fires that are usually started by teenage drama (I moonlight as a school counselor, in case you forgot), a mental picture of this dish formed in my head and I immediately went to the store to try and make it.  This dish is definitely not for the nut-hater.   But, maybe it could be?  As a girl who used to eat peanut butter on a spoon every day for breakfast (I’ve now matured to peanut butter spread on multigrain toast), this dish made me very, very happy.

It’s not surprising that Pollo en Salsa de Cacahuate  is a traditional dish from Puebla, Mexico.  Puebla is often thought of as the gastronomic mecca of Central Mexico and happens to be the birthplace of mole, that beautiful, dark, chocolatey sauce made of over thirty ingredients including nuts and seeds, and pipians, another sweet yet savory sauce using ground nuts and seeds.  Peanuts have been part of Mexican cooking since long before Spain invaded in the 15th century and are often used as a thickening agent.  Poblano cuisine, specifically,  is typically made of indigenous and local ingredients and, let me tell you, Pueblo is on my “must go” lists of places to travel to (and eat, eat, eat in).

Traditionally, this dish should be made with dried chiles.  We used dried chiles in ours and I really just wanted to kick it up, so I added some chipotles in adobo.  For me, it added extra spice and the adobo added more flavor than the dried chiles did. In fact, I think you could leave out the dried chiles if you don’t have any on hand and just add some chipotles in adobo. It’s rare I’ll move away from the traditional but, in this case, flavor-wise I think it would be ok.  I also did not make this in a mortar and pestle and, again, although not traditional, a blender worked just fine.

Her (George is short for Georgina if you were confused) top five of: Home made mayo mixed with either garlic, lemon or harrisa, Sambal Olek, Chilli jam (home made), Balsamic vinegar, and Extra Virgin Tuscan olive oil, was by some distance randomized to the head of the list in front of such other notable luminaries as Cebca and Lo. Congratulations George! A bottle of said sauce is on its way to you now, which given your obvious proclivities for spicy condiments, we feel confident you’ll enjoy!

And speaking of a taste for capsaicin, it seems George is not alone. The vast majority of you showed your appreciation for all things spicy. From tabasco to Frank’s hot, Encona to Crystal hot, to Cholula, hot sauce was one of the few things almost everyone agreed on. That said, it seems like some of you have rather exotic tastes when it comes to spicy condiments, suggesting some which were new to us: sambal olek (spicy south-east asian condiment), sinamak (chile-infused vinegar), and sriracha (Thai hot sauce), to name a few.

We also learned about what you guys think of as condiments: olive oil, jam, guacamole, vinegar, and butter. None of which we would have thought of, but are, when you really get down to it, in fact condiments.

Above all, we learned that condiments, domestic and humble, common, or exotic, remain wildly popular, in spite of contemporary fears about “industrial foods.” Your favorite condiments, it seems, are here to stay.

Lately, we’ve been making a lot of southern European dishes and we felt we needed a break, but we were also looking for a dish that wouldn’t take all night to make and require us to buy a load of ingredients we’d use for one dish and then sit and rot in our refrigerator. So, we decided to go old-school Japanese-American style and make a dish so reminiscent of the 1980s that you’d almost expect to look up from your plate and find Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-san across the table.

But instead of accompanying this dish with some studied fence-painting or the practicing of our wax-on, wax-off technique, we went for a really simple scallion salad called Pa Muchim we’ve been loving at Korean restaurants lately.

Both of these dishes are unbelievably easy and are perfect for a weeknight evening in, especially if you’re lucky enough to have the Karate Kid trilogy on hand for some post-dinner entertainment…

We’re entering this into this week’s “Weekend Herb Blogging” event hosted by Coffee and Vanilla.

Broiled Miso-Glazed Salmon with Udon Noodles

Ingredients

• 1 lb salmon fillet
• 4tbsp miso paste
• 1 x 8oz package ready to eat udon or soba noodles
• 2tbsp mirin
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
• 1tbsp ginger, crushed chopped
• 1tbsp (reduced sodium) soy sauce
• 1/2 carrot julienned
• 1/2 red bell pepper julienned
• 3oz green beans
• 1tbsp peanut oil

Recipe

• Turn on your broiler to high and place a sheet of aluminum foil over a baking sheet and oil lightly.
• Cut salmon fillet into two roughly equal portions and coat lightly on all sides with miso past, probably about half of it.Heat your wok or skillet to very high heat and add peanut oil. Then, quickly toss in the carrot and green beans. Allow to cook, moving constantly for about a minute until beans start to wrinkle a bit.
• Hit pan with ginger and garlic. When you can smell these nicely, add the mirin and soy sauce, followed after a couple of seconds by the udon noodles. Stir these together so noodles are well coated with sauce and vegetables and then remove to a plate.
• Slap salmon under broiler (skin side down first). After between 1-2 minutes or until miso starts to caramelize, turn fish over and broil for another 1-2 minutes skin side up.
• When skin is crispy and glazed-looking, remove fish and serve over the noodles and top with scallion salad (pa muchim).

Scallion Salad (Pa Muchim)

Ingredients

• 3-4 medium scallions (spring onions/chinese shallots)
• 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 2 tsp white sugar
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (chili flakes)
• 1 pinch coarse/kosher salt
• 1tsp toasted sesame seeds

Recipe

• Slice scallions lengthwise into fine strips (1-2mm or 1/16inch wide) and submerge in cold water until curled – 30mins-1hr.
• Drain well and place in a bowl then dress with remaining ingredients. Serve either as a garnish, side dish or panchan (mixed korean starters) to your favorite Asian dish.

Check out some other posts you may enjoy:

• SWEET ANISE-FLAVORED SALMON IN A POUCH (SALMON EN PAPILLOTE)
• PROVENCAL RABBIT WITH OLIVES AND CAPERS
• PASTA (PERCIATELLI/BUCATINI OR SPAGHETTI) AL’AMATRICIANA (ROMAN CLASSIC PASTA DISH)
• VEAL SAUSAGES WITH HERBED POLENTA AND ROASTED BEETS
• OKRA FRITTERS WITH LOUISIANA REMOULADE
• BREAD-CRUSTED FISH WITH LEMON-BUTTER SAUCE
• WHOLE FRIED SNAPPER WITH GARLIC AND PARSLEY SAUCE

Since we’re always on the search for the traditional and authentic, we really wanted to do the steak taco justice. In Mexico street food is rampant, fresh and delicious. You won’t see Old El Paso pre-made, fried taco shells, pre-packaged “taco seasoning” or over-salted ground beef plopped in the middle of the tortilla. The meat, veggies or fish and toppings are fresh and the food is cheap. Carne asada (grilled steak) is one of the most popular dishes of many parts of Northern Mexico. It’s synonymous with barbecue – the verb, not the noun version as is often used in America to describe the sweet sauce brushed on various bits of meat and poultry. Even more interesting is that “a carne asada” or “una carne asada” in Mexico also refers to the party/social gathering/event surrounding the making of the actual meal. I think that’s pretty kick-ass. I feel like Mexicans always find a good reason to party! They’ve got tequila AND ‘una carne asada’!

You may also be interested to know that tacos have been around for a long time. No, I mean a really long time. Like, longer than a Britney Spears marriage (cheap shot and bad joke, I know). A Spanish soldier named Bernal Diaz del Castillo wrote about the taco in the 1500′s but he’s not the inventor of the delicious, utensil-less, portable meal. Anthropologists discovered evidence that those who lived in the lake region of the Valley of Mexico made tacos filled with fish (hey, they lived by a lake). In other parts of Mexico, tacos were filled with live insects, locusts and/or snails. Fillings were determined by what was local and available, same as many other culture’s meals, except America, of course. Today, this still holds true. Although you may not find many taco stands selling insect or locust tacos, fillings will be different depending on the geographical region you are eating them in.

The first taco recipe found in America comes from a California cookbook published in 1914 called “California-Mexican Spanish Cook Book“. The recipe went as follows:

The tacos are made by putting chopped cooked beef and chili sauce in tortilla made of meal and flour; folded, edges sealed together with egg; fried in deep fat, chile sauce served over it.

Very different from what the Mexicans and Americans look at as tacos today. The above quote seems more like a tortilla empanada or chimichanga? A real, traditional carne asada taco will always be pretty bland and never spicy. The meat, usually finely cut flank or skirt steak, should be seasoned only with some salt because the delicious flavor of the beef is what is to be tasted. No cumin, no chili powder – nothing but salt. The spiciness and other flavor comes from the various toppings you can put on your carne asada. Salsas, chopped white onion and cilantro are just a few traditional toppings. This dish is also traditionally made with corn tortillas, although we (ok, I) forgot to pick some up on my grocery trip and I couldn’t be arsed going back to the store.

For our toppings we decided to make another popular Mexican condiment, rajas. As the great Rick Bayless puts it, rajas is “a true-blooded Mexican classic”. The word rajas is spanish for strips and in Mexico that means strips of chile. In parts of central and northen Mexico poblanos grow everywhere, so rajas will feature the poblano chile. Again, just like with the fillings of tacos being determined by the geographic location, so is the rajas topping. Poblano peppers are dark green in color and don’t have much of a spiciness to them. In parts of California these peppers are called “passillas” and in Mexico, “chile verde”. You may have heard of ancho chiles, well these are poblano’s in their dried form. The rajas are basically made of onion, roasted poblano, some garlic and herbs. Ok, now on to the recipe!

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STEAK TACOS WITH RAJAS AND SALSA VERDE (Tomatillo Salsa) – serves 3-4

Ingredients for Steak

• 3 pounds steak (preferably skirt or flank
• Salt
• Corn or flour tortillas (corn preferable)
• Optional toppings: avocado slices, lime juice, crema/sour cream, thinly sliced cabbage, diced onion, jalapenos, scallions etc

Ingredients for Rajas:

• 2 poblano peppers, roasted, skin removed and thinly sliced
• Optional and not traditional: yellow or orange pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• pinch of oregano ,thyme (optional)
• salt

Ingredients for Salsa Verde (Tomatillo Salsa)

• 3 – 4 tomatillos, husk removed, washed and roasted in oven
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 scallion, sliced
  
• Handful of fresh cilantro
• Lime juice
• Pinch of salt
• Optional: Roasted spicy pepper like habenero or Serrano, minced

What to do:

1. Heat oven to 475. When oven comes up to temperature, add your tomatillos and allow to roast whole for 10-15 minutes until soft and slightly browned.
2. Salt your steak on both sides. Roast your poblano pepper by placing pepper directly on the open flame of your gas stove turning frequently. You will do this until the skin is blistered and blackened all over the chile. Remove and place a towel over it until it cools.
3. Remove tomatillos from oven and make salsa verde by placing all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. Taste for seasoning by adding salt and extra lime juice if necessary.
4. Now, make the rajas by heating up a skillet till red hot. Add some oil and first saute your onions and yellow pepper (if using). Allow to sauté for 4 to 5 minutes and then add the garlic. Allow to sauté for another minute or two. Finally, add the roasted poblano pepper and sauté for 30 seconds. Remove all to a plate.
5. In the same skillet, not adding any extra oil, add your steak. This process should be QUICK. We like our steak really pink inside – medium rare. For a thin piece of steak, this will mean cooking each side for about 3 to 4 minutes per side. If worse comes to worse, UNDERCOOK it and then make a little slice in it. You can always cook it a bit more, but never take back the cooking time on an overcooked piece of steak.
6. Remove steak and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat up your tortillas. If using flour, heat in dry skillet for a few moments on each side and wrap in a towel. Or, microwave for 20 seconds wrapped in a towel. If using corn tortillas, you should fry them a bit in some oil in the skillet. You don’t want them crispy, just pliable and cooked.
7. Cut your steak on the bias against the lines of the steak so you get a clean cut. Assemble your tacos by putting all the various toppings you’d like on each! ENJOY.

CHECK OUT SOME OF THESE OTHER RECIPES YOU MAY ENJOY:

• SPATCHCOCK CHICKEN (A TUTORIAL)
• SHREDDED CHICKEN SOPES WITH TOMATILLO AVOCADO SAUCE
• BREAD-CRUSTED FISH WITH LEMON-BUTTER SAUCE
• PROVENCAL RABBIT WITH OLIVES AND CAPERS
• GROUND LAMB KABOBS (Lamb Kubideh)
• HORNAZO (Spanish Sausage-Stuffed Easter Bread)
• PAPPA AL POMODORO (Tuscan Tomato and Bread Soup)

Almost every time we eat out at one of our favorite local Mexican cheap-eats, it is difficult for me to resist the crunchy and tasty sopes. These traditional Mexican dish involves fried masa cakes and can be topped with a variety of things – chorizo, beef, chicken, pork, veggies or beans. Some are made small as a sort of appetizer or first course, we make them larger for a main meal (about 6 inches in diameter). If you kind of ‘pinch’ the sides of the masa, it helps some of your toppings stay on the sopes. I really get excited when I know we’re going to make a weeknight meal out of this because, yes, it involves a bit of frying, and we all know how good anything fried tastes, but the combo of flavors and the layering of flavors is really amazing.

One sauce, or salsa, we make often to top our enchiladas, burritos, fajitas and sopes is a delicious tomatillo-avocado salsa. For some of our readers, it may be difficult to find tomatillos, the small green, ‘tomato-like’ fruit with a brown husk surrounding it. They are not green tomatoes, though. Research finds that these beauties never took hold in Europe and the beloved red tomato was taken to Italy where it reigns supreme today. These sweet treasures are used in a lot of Latin American cooking. If you can get your hands on them, I highly recommend giving them a try. Make sure you husk and wash the stickiness off them before you use them!

Please don’t be turned off by what seems like alot of work to make this meal. If you’ve ever made burritos or fajitas, you can make sopes! If you don’t have tomatillos or can not get them, don’t worry, just top with your favorite salsa!

SHREDDED CHICKEN SOPES WITH TOMATILLO-AVOCADO SALSA

(serves 2 for 2 big entree sized sopes)

Ingredients

• 2 cups masa harina
• 1 cup warm water (may need less)
• pinch of salt
• vegetable or corn oil or frying
• 1 large chicken breast or 2 medium sized ones (with or without skin – just take skin off after you boil)
• 1 onion, sliced in 1/2” half moons
• 1 green or red pepper, cut in half and sliced into 1/2” slices
• 1 minced clove of garlic
• juice of 1 lime
• 2 scallions, sliced
• cilantro
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon chipotle powder
• salt
• 1-2 cups of our beans with chorizo and cumin (you can make these without the chorizo as well)
• sour cream as a topping
• cojita, shredded cheddar or monterey jack cheese as a topping
• tomatillo-avocado salsa for topping (SEE BELOW)

What to do:

1. Boil some water and cook your chicken breasts for 12-15 minutes or until it is not pink inside. How long you boil it for will depend on how big the piece is.
2. Make your tomatillo-avocado salsa (see below).
3. Start making your beans w/ chorizo and cumin if you choose to.
4. In a bowl, add your masa. a pinch of salt and the water. You want it to be thick, not like pancake batter. If you need to add water, add more. If you feel like it’s too thin, add more masa. You will want to shape them and fry them about the same time (I’ve found that the dried masa sometimes doesn’t stick together as well as I’d like it to). Reserve this in the bowl until you’re ready to fry your cakes.
5. When your chicken breasts are cooked, allow to cool and then shred using your hands or a fork. Keep handy so you can add them at the end of Step 5.
6. In a pan on medium, saute your onions and pepper in some olive oil. Add your minced garlic. After 4 minutes or so, add your shredded chicken breasts and your spices (cumin, chipotle powder and some salt if necessary). Add the juice of half a lime and stir. Allow to warm the chicken back up, then turn on low to keep warm.
7. Now, it’s time to fry your sopes. Take a lump of masa/water mixture and push it down so it’s about 1”-1 1/2” thick in a circular shape. It does NOT have to be perfect. If you can pinch the sides of it up a bit, this could help your topping from moving. Many times I do not do this, so don’t worry if you just have a disc-like masa cake. Usually mine end up being anywhere between 4″ to 6″ in diameter.
8. Heat your oil up so it’s in frying-mode, making sure the oil level is about 1” to 2” deep. When oil is hot, using a spatula, slowly slide your sopes into the oil. After 1 1/2 minutes check it to see if you can turn. You want them to be a golden color, not very dark. They get very cruchy even if they do not look that brown.
9. Remove from oil and allow to drain on paper towels.
10. Now it’s time to build! On top your your sopes, add a layer of your beans, then a layer of your shredded chicken/onions/peppers mixture and a bit of shredded cheese. Top with your tomatillo salsa, a small dollop of sour cream, a squeeze more of lime on top and scatter some sliced scallions! ENJOY!!

TOMATILLO-AVOCADO SALSA

• 4 tomatillos, husks removed and roasted
• 1/2 ripe Haas avocado
• 1 1/2 cups of cilantro (or two big palmfuls)
• 1 scallion (or 1/4 onion if you don’t have a scallion), cut in half
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 tablespoon of sour cream
• 1/2 – 1 jalapeno (if you want it spicy), minced
• salt
• food processor or blender

What to do:

1. Preheat your oven to 457 degrees. Husk, de-stem and wash your tomatillos. Roast your tomatillos on a baking sheet for 10 minutes whole. They will look a bit brown and will be very juicy.
2. In a blender or food processor, add all the rest of your ingredients including the roasted tomatillos. Puree until smooth. Put in a bowl and into the refridgerator to cool down. See, so easy!!

CHECK OUT THESE OTHER POSTS YOU MAY ENJOY:

• PASTA (PERCIATELLI/BUCATINI OR SPAGHETTI) AL’AMATRICIANA (ROMAN CLASSIC PASTA DISH)
• JAMAICAN JERK CHICKEN
• Wendy’s Claims It’s Not Fast Food?  WHAT?
• The Wrong Message from a Former Prophet (Delia Smith Jumps Ship)
• Fabada: A Mortal and Corporal Sin – But Worth It!
• LEMONGRASS BEEF SHORTRIBS
• BREAD-CRUSTED FISH WITH LEMON-BUTTER SAUCE
• WHOLE FRIED SNAPPER WITH GARLIC AND PARSLEY SAUCE
• SALAD NICOISE

Now, I know it’s been two weeks plus since Christmas, but I wanted to share our final two recipes with you. I know you all think I was slightly crazy to attempt all this food, and you are all right, I am! BUT, with that said, every single thing we made you can make too. Although we made homemade pasta (thanks to our amazing Kitchen Aid pasta attachment!), you can totally substitute dried and it will be equally delish. The secret is in the spicy sauce – we like it really spicy and extra garlic-y. You can adjust our recipe, but remember, it’s not fra’diavolo without the spice! I always use Lidia Bastianich’s recipe for pasta. It’s absolutely bang-on every time. Also, this recipe will work well with any type of seafood – calamari, scallops, shrimp-only, crab-only, lobster, clams or all of the above – use your imagination!

FETTUCCINE FRA’DIAVOLO WITH CRAB AND SHRIMP (Fettuccine w/Spicy Tomato Sauce) – serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 to 2 lbs. of fresh or dried long pasta
• 3 1/2 cups of Amy’s Tomato Sauce
• 1/2 to 1 tablespoon peperoncino (hot pepper flakes)
• 1 8oz. package of fresh crab meat (NOT IMITATION – REAL ONLY)
• 2-3 fresh crabs (we used Blue-Claw) – cleaned and split in half
• 1 lb. medium to large shrimp – shells removed
• 1/2 cup white wine
• minced parsley for garnish

What to do:

1. Before you make the sauce, give your crabs some color if they have not been cooked yet by heating up your olive oil and adding the crabs for a few moments till they turn a bit red. This may be completely unnecessary, but I did it anyway.
2. Remove the crabs and reserve on the side. Begin to make your tomato sauce. When you get to the third step of the recipe (at the same time you add your crushed tomatoes), add the wine as well as the crabs back to the pot. Allow this to simmer together for an hour. It will reduce a bit and the flavors will get much stronger.
3. About 15 minutes before you are ready to serve, add the loose, fresh crabmeat to the sauce and stir.
4. 5 minutes before you serve, add the shrimp to the sauce.
5. Toss some of your sauce with your cooked pasta and plate adding some extra shrimp on top if necessary. Top with a half of crab, some parsley and a bit of extra virgin olive oil.

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