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.

With over 61,000 pizzerias in America, how many do you think have really got it right? My guess is about 100. I’ve had some really, really, really shitty pizza in this country (Colorado!? San Francisco!!?) I’ve had some really, really shitty in my own neighborhood of New York City! I still have yet to find a place that really rivals the pizza I’ve eaten in Italy, until now when I realized I can make it myself in the comforts of my own home.

There’s place called Franny’s here in Brooklyn that is one of those annoying, overpriced and over-trendy but packed every night. When we finally decided it was time to see if it lived up to the hype, we were totally disappointed. When I eat something as simple as pizza, I don’t feel like dealing with a pretentious, trendy, annoying hipster attitude or staff. I don’t feel like being charged $16 for a pizza the size of a medium-sized plate and leave hungry. We ate reasonably-priced pizza at Isabella’s Oven, but the crust just didn’t quite do it for us. So, we decided to take matters into our own hands. We will never eat thin-crust pizza around New York City again. There’s no reason. For $20 worth of ingredients, a $15 pizza stone (genius, will never live without it – GO BUY ONE NOW), a $9 bottle of Chianti and my ipod, I can have a better, less expenisive, tastier and more relaxing culinary experience in my small Brooklyn kitchen then going to any of those shit-house, wannabe, up-their-own-asses Italian-style pizza places up the street (sorry, I think you’re finding out my true feelings on Frannys). Remember folks, there’s a difference between the type of pizza we’re going to show you how to make here and the many delicious New York City Pizzeria’s I love and adore (Lombardi’s, Arturos, John’s, Pino La Forcetta, Grimaldi’s, Di Fara, Totonnos, etc. etc.).

In fact, if you don’t feel like making pizza dough from scratch, go ask your local pizzeria for some fresh dough. More than likely, they’ll sell it to you. Just make sure it’s simple – nothing more than flour, yeast and water. No crazy bits of roasted garlic, no honey, no nothin’. The other thing that you must, must have, as I mentioned earlier is a pizza stone. This is KEY to making the best pizza at home. Third thing you must have is a really, really simple sauce recipe. Naturally, I recommend using my sauce recipe - it’s simple and delicious – just make sure you simmer it much longer than what is called for. The sauce should not be very wet, but more concentrated. Fourth is space to roll your dough out and a bit of muscle. I can’t toss friggin’ pizza dough in the air for the life of me so I spend my time rolling and rolling and rolling this pizza dough till it FINALLY does what I need it to do – roll out thin. Finally, you need a hot oven. If your oven has a hard time making it past 425 degrees, this may not work as well for you. You need to whack it up as high as it goes (550F+) and allow the pizza stone 20 minutes to heat up before you heat up the dough. Follow these simple instructions and you’ll have perfect pizza every time.

Here’s pictorial of all the pizza’s we’ve made recently to give you some ideas of toppings, most recreated from ones we ate while in Italy. Immediately following the picture you will find a really great recipe for pizza dough from Jeffrey Steingarten’s book It Must’ve Been Something I Ate. Buon Appetito!

Pizza with Cipollini Onions and Tonno

Pizza Romana (Pizza w/ Capers and Anchovies)

White Pizza with Mushrooms, Leeks and White Truffle Oil

Pizza with Anchovies and Cabrales (or Gorgonzola)

Bresaola, Arugula and Parmigiano Pizza

Pizza Romana (Capers and Anchovy) with Cracked Egg on Top

So, hope your mouth is watering and now YOU will think about a new pizza with toppings you love! Check out how to make pizza dough below.

PIZZA DOUGH ALA JEFFREY STEINGARTEN (an adaptation)

Ingredients:

• 6 to 6 1/2 cups of flour

• 1 1/2 tsp instant or active dry yeast

• 1 tbsp. plus 1 teaspoon salt

• 3 1/4 cups cold water

• 1/2 cup cornmeal or semolina flour

What to do:

1. In the mixer bowl of your food processor, stir the flours, yeast and salt together. Pour in the water and stir vigourously with a wooden spoon until everything comes together into a “shaggy dough”.

2. Put the bowl on the mixer and attach the beater – not the dough hook. This dough is too wet for regular kneading. Mix on low speed for a minute then beat on high speed for 3 1/2 minutes, scraping down the beater and bowl halfway through.

3. ***Steingarten explains the way to knw when your dough is perfect: With well-floured fingers, pull off a piece of dough about the size of a walnut and roll it in flour. You should be able to stretch it with the fingers of both hands without breaking for at least 3 inches across.

4. Scrape the dough out onto a heavily floured work surface. Fold one side over the other and allow to rest for 10 mintues. After 10 minutes, cut dough into 4 equal pieces and shape each piece into a ball and place each in a well-oiled bowl to rise until double in size – about 3 hours. ***NOTE: Steingarten likes to then put his dough balls in the fridge for an hour… if you have the time, do so, otherwise, I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary.

   

5. Preheat your oven to as high as it can go (at least 500 degrees!) and allow the pizza stone to heat up for a half hour to one hour.

6. On a well-floured surface, pat each dough ball into as flat of a circle as possible. Stretch it by draping the dough over your fists, knuckels up, passing it from hand to hand until it reaches about 12 inches. ***NOTE: This is the thing, do not despair at this point if it’s not going as perfectly as you want. This is not as easy as Steingarten says. With practice, it’ll be easier. But, we give the fist to fist way a try for a bit, then bust out a well-floured rolling pin and litterally attack the dough with our pin until it gets as thin as we need it to be. We like it to be about 1/2 a centimeter thick when we first cook it on the pizza stone.

   

7. ***This is where I do things a bit differently than Steingarten. Using oven mits, take your pizza stone out of the hot, HOT oven. Scrape your pizza dough off your floured surface and place on the hot stone (it will begin to cook immediately) and place back in the oven for two minutes or until there is a tiny bit of color on the surface and edges of the dough. Remove from oven and place back on your work surface. It will be ‘stiff’ but not fully cooked.

8. Depending on what type of pie you are making (red pie, white pie, olive oil and herbs-brushed pie), put down your ‘wet’ ingredients first (ie: tomato sauce). Don’t put too much on, just a thin layer for taste.

   

   

9. Add your toppings (go light like the italians! you don’t need to have 2 inches-worth of toppings to make this pizza taste good) and then your cheese (get low-moisture mozzerella and fresh buffala mozzerella that’s as low-moisture as possible – the moisture in the cheese could moisten your crust and cause it to be too wet and heavy).

10. Add the topped pizza back to your pizza stone and put back in the hot oven for 4 to 7 minutes, making sure all the cheese is melted and bubbley and the crust has some color to it. Remove from oven and allow to rest for a moment before biting in.

    

***If you’re interested in learning how we made any of the pizzas you see pictured above, let us know. We don’t mind posting the recipes. For the most part, you can kind of get a feel for the recipe by looking at the picture and the title of the pizza. But, we’re here to help. You’ve gotta give these thin-crust pizza’s a try!

It was as if it was divine intervention. We finally found morcilla (see picture of sausages below – it’s the black one) in a specialty store up the block but we weren’t prepared to make a fabada or cocido – two other Spanish dishes which call for morcilla. I picked up one of my favorite Spanish cookbooks, The Food & Wine of Spain by Penelope Casas and looked up morcilla in it’s index. One recipe caught my eye, so I turned to the page and everything in the world just seemed be right. The recipe was for a traditional Spanish Easter bread called hornazo – basically a sausage-stuffed country bread. Whoa, sausage and bread all in one? Here in New York City there’s sausage rolls similar to this one from Proud Italian Cook. There’s also stromboli’s and calzone’s that can be stuffed with sausage, but they will also include sauce and/or cheese and maybe some extra ingredients.

What really drew me to this recipe, besides the use of my beloved morcilla, was the timing. Easter’s almost here and as you can tell we’re mildly obsessed with Spain… this recipe just seemed special. I really love authentic food traditions because, in America, we’re losing them every year. This month, Saveur magazine had a fascinating article about the southern Italian bread called pane di San Giuseppe (Saint Joseph’s bread) eaten in Sicily on the Feast of Saint Joseph on March 19th. The article was particularly interesting to me because as an Italian-American, I’ve always been intrigued by my Italian background and I always wished my grandmother offered up more stories growing up. Like some other first-generation Americans, my grandmother “conveniently” forgot certain parts of her history as she got older. It was as if the past was the past and they needed to look ahead. Anyways, according to the Saveur article, Saint Joseph’s bread was very popular in Italian communities in the US until recently, when most of the first-generation Italian-Americans died off. Many southern Italians living in America do not make this bread anymore – the tradition is dying off with the generation that used to make it. It just made me think about how sadit is that we all came from immigrants from various countries and it’s important to hold on to some of the traditions of the past. Talk to your grandparents. Ask them to share stories. Write things down. My grandmother is not around anymore, but my mother shares things with me – like my grandmom’s famous (well, famous in our family at least!) sausage and peppers sandwiches.

But, back to Easter and bread made around the world during this time. Easter bread is different in depending on the country. The Russians have kulich, the Ukranians have paska, the Greeks have tsoureki, the English have hot cross buns. The Spanish have hornazo. According to research, this Salamancan bread is traditionally eaten to celebrate the end of Lent. Obviously, a great way to celebrate a fasting of meat is to eat lots of it (with the sausage). Back in the day, eggs were looked at as a ‘sort of meat’ since they came from chickens and were not allowed to be eaten during Lent. They were preserved by hardboiling them and used in hornazo. Legend has it that this may actually be the beginnings of the term “easter egg”, according to Wikipedia. Also back in the day, during Lent, prostitutes in Salamenca were ordered across the river so that the men in town were able to concentrate on their religious observences. The men celebrated their ho’s coming home after Easter was over by partying and eating hornazo (maybe the word hornazo comes from what the men got when their ho’s returned?). This is how the “Monday of the Waters” festival began. Gotta love how Christianity puts a temporary bandaid on lustful thoughts and actions.

Even if you can’t find morcilla to add to your hornazo, you could still use this fabulous bread recipe and stuff it with whatever you choose. I know I’m going to make it all year round – why wait for Easter!? Happy Easter, everyone!

I refuse to ‘sugar coat’ what pork roll and scrapple are. So if you’ve eaten it your whole life without knowing what it actually is, please stop reading now. To give you a bit of background, I grew up around Philadelphia, eating both of these tasty treats as a ‘breakfast side dish’, but only once a weekend since they were “bad for you”. Pork roll and scrapple were also often used in egg and cheese sandwiches too, which could possibly give you a coranary five minutes after you finished eating one. I never asked what exactly either of these two treats were – for some reason, I just knew not to ask. I remember my family telling me not to even look on the side of the package to read the ingredients because I may just never eat it again. Sometimes, I thought, it was just better not knowing.

But my desire to know a bit more has led me to write this post. I’m at a different stage with my eating than I was years ago. I now will eat cow balls if I’m in a country where cow balls are the local delicacy. I’m not afraid of knowing what exactly I’m eating – I’ll still try it. So, bring it… I’m not afraid anymore. Well, I wasn’t until I read this explanation of pork roll on one website:

What is pork roll made of, you ask? Well, it’s a secret concoction, which consists mainly of pork ground up with bits of fat and seasonings, and then hung and cured in cotton bags…the rest is best left unsaid.

Does that help you understand it any better? Me neither. According to one of the oldest and most popular pork roll manufacturers, Taylor Provisions, it is “a type of sausage-like pork product made from coarsely ground pork shoulder”. It is also smoked. Most people from New Jersey will call pork roll “Taylor Ham” after the Trenton-based manufacturer. Maybe they do this to make it sound more edible? Where I grew up, outside of Philadelphia, it was just simply called pork roll. It is supposedly called this because of the ‘roll’ or tube-like cotton sack that it comes in when you buy it. You can also buy pre-cut slices so you don’t have to figure out how to get it out of that damn sack. It looks like a big, long salami when it’s packaged whole. Pork roll is often grilled or fried (for a double heart-attack) and should be cut slightly with either 2 or 4 slits on the outer edges so that it cooks more evenly and doesn’t curl. Now, on to scrapple.

Scrapple truly is made up of “lips and assholes”, although they don’t actually advertise that on any of the websites. According to Wikipedia, scrapple is a savory mush (yes, that is what they said) of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and flour, often buckwheat flour. The mush is formed into a loaf and that’s how it comes when you buy it. You must slice it, like pork roll, and fry it up till the outside is crispy and the inside is nice and soft and warm. Scrapple got it’s name from the fact that it’s made of scraps the butcher was either going to throw out (aka, lips and assholes) or parts that are too small to be sold. Wikipedia actually offers a really wonderful description of the cooking process (which actually sells the product to non-believers better than I can – maybe I’m being too harsh with the ‘lips and assholes’ thing?):

Scrapple is typically made of hog offal, such as the head, heart, liver, and other scraps, which are boiled with any bones attached (often the entire head), to make a broth. Once cooked, bones and fat are discarded, the meat is reserved, and (dry) cornmeal is boiled in the broth to make a mush. The meat, finely minced, is returned, and seasonings, typically sage, thyme, savory, and others are added. The mush is cast into loaves and allowed to cool thoroughly until gelled.

Sounds good, huh? Both pork roll and scrapple really are delicious. If you’re still not sold on either of them, think about all the other things that are made from seemingly ‘gross’ things but taste pretty darn delicious – haggis, tripe, fried sheep brains, marrow, pigs feet, pigs ears, etc. etc. Next time you visit the store, ask if they have scrapple or pork roll. It may be hard to find, but I’ve read it is sold in some places in Florida and California. If you really are interested in tasting pork roll or scrapple, check out some of these mail order websites:

• http://www.jerseyporkroll.com/
• http://www.jerseyboyporkroll.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi
• http://www.buynjporkroll.com/

Does your city or country have a dish that others may look down upon or think would be nasty if they knew what it was made of?  I’d love to know!

Just to get your excitement level up even more about salt (if you aren’t already on the edge of your seat panting), I’ll continue with my brief history lesson. We kind of take salt for granted. Unless it’s fancy like that fleur de sel or that Hawaian lava salt stuff, people kind of think, “Whateva… It’s just salt” and then throw it over their left shoulder as if it were nothing or get a giggle out of loosening the lid on a shaker at a diner and watch someone use it (heee heee, teee heeee heeee!) only to waste it as it falls all over the table and floor. But salt IS something. God damn it! If salt was a person, she’d be older than God (salt’s the oldest known food additive), or at least Jesus. Hell, she IS God (can you imagine cooking without it?). Did you know that at certain points in time and in certain places, salt was used as currency? Wars were supposedly waged in the name of salt. Hell, Northwich, Cheshire (United Kingdom) wouldn’t be the awesome, contemporary and trendy metropolis it is today if it weren’t for their salt mines – they even have a museum dedicated to it! ***Note: My husband wanted to let you all know that the Salt Museum was so stimulating to him that on a fun, weekend trip at age seven, he fell fast asleep on a pile of salt – ok, it was a bench, but whatever.****

One of salt’s main use back in the day was in preserving fish (remember, besides salt, you also seem to take ice and refrigeration for granted – are you feeling like shit yet?) and other foods. Ever eat bacalao/bacala? Yes, thanks to the days before fridges and freezers, the Portuguese and Spanish used a “wet” method to salt-preserve their fish on-board their boats while the French and English used the ‘dry’ method by drying their fish on racks onshore (www.saltinstitute.org). Maybe this is also why salt is mentioned in the Bible 30 times?

Which leads me to the point – baking a whole fish in salt seems natural to me now. When I decided to cook this after seeing Jose Andres do it recently, I couldn’t believe how delicious this cheap, easy and simple way of cooking a fish could be. Please, I beg you to give this a shot. I’ve read that you can cook chicken and squid as well as many other things in a salt crust. I recommend a whole fish mainly because you can fillet it and remove or not eat the skin. Yes, you remove most of the salt from the fish after it has been cooked, but there is still a very, very salty residue on the skin. Just eat the moist meat under the salty skin with just a squeeze of fresh lemon and a drizzle of really good olive oil. So rustic (see picture – I couldn’t really plate this in a pretty way), so “salt-of-the-earth” kind of a meal (pun kind of intended) and so freaking easy. Paired with some crunchy, spicy okra fritters and you’ve got a great and pretty healthy meal. This is also a great meal to have around Lent or Easter (meat free) – kind of seems a bit Biblical to me.

SALT CRUSTED WHOLE SNAPPER WITH OKRA FRITTERS AND LOUISIANA REMOULADE – Serves 2

For the Fish:

• 1 2-lb whole fish (we used snapper)
• 1/2 lemon sliced up
• 2 crushed garlic cloves
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 2 bay leaves (optional)
• 1 big box of kosher salt
• water

For the okra fritters:

• 2 cups sliced okra (thinly sliced)
• 1 cup chopped onions
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup cornmeal
• milk (enough to moisten batter if necessary)
• salt and pepper
• pinch of cayanne pepper
• pinch of garlic powder
• veggie oil for frying

For the Remoulade (this makes alot):

• 1 cup light mayo
• 1/2 cup dijon mustard (if you have creole mustard, even better)
• 1/2 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon hot sauce
• 1 scallion, thinly sliced
• 1 stalk celery, thinly diced
• parsley, chopped
• juice of 1/4 lemon
• salt and pepper

What to do:

1. Prep your remoulade so it has some time to sit and the flavors can meld together. All you need to do is add every ingredient together and stir. Done.
2. Prep your okra fritters. Slice your okra and onions and saute for a few minutes to soften. Add to a bowl and allow to cool for a minute. Add your flour and cornmeal and season with some salt, pepper, cayenne and garlic powder. Stir all together. Beat your eggs with a fork and add to your veggies/flour/cornmeal mixture. Stir. If batter seems way too thick, add a bit of milk and stir. We kept our mixture pretty thick because I wanted a few thick, big fritters instead of a bunch of small ones. You want it thicker than pancake batter, but not as thick as bread dough! Reserve on side for a moment.
3. Preheat your oven to 450.
4. Now, let’s get your fish started. In a LARGE bowl, mix your salt with some water. We used about 2 pounds of salt and a cup or so of water. Lay about a half-inch to one-inch of salt in the bottom of your baking pan. Add two bay leaves (optional) for the fish to lay on.
5. Stuff the fish (where it has been gutted) and add some lemon wedges, some crushed garlic cloves and a few thyme sprigs. Try and close the ‘gap’ as much as possible – you don’t want to get too much salt in there. Lay your fish on the bed of salt and (now the fun part) pile the rest of your salt on top of the whole fish. You want it to be at least an inch or two thick.
6. Once you have your salt mound perfected, throw it in to your 450 degree oven for 25 minutes.
7. While fish is cooking, fry up your okra fritters. Put about 2 cups of vegetable oil in a pan and heat till it’s ready to fry. Using a large tablespoon, shape a fritter and cook in the oil – I pressed down on the fritter to make it more like a flat disk instead of a ball. Allow to cook about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes tops before flipping (depending on how hot your stove is). When finished, allow to drain on some paper towels and sprinkle with a bit of salt and a squeeze of lemon.
8. When your fish is ready, allow to sit for a few minutes and then break the salt crust with a sharp knife. Don’t cut into the fish, though! Throw away the bits of salt crust that come off and when you remove your fish, dust the extra salt off of it.
9. Filet your fish by slicing one side of the meat against the bone. Remove the bone and plate your filets. Squeeze some fresh lemon juice and drizzle some of your favorite extra virgin olive oil on top of the fish. Serve with some okra fritters that are topped with the remoulade. Dig in!

CHECK OUT SOME OF OUR OTHER LENT-APPROVED FISH RECIPES:

• BREAD-CRUSTED FISH WITH A LEMON BUTTER SAUCE
• WHOLE, FRIED SNAPPER WITH A PARSLEY GARLIC SAUCE
• ANISE-FLAVORED SALMON IN PARCHMENT POUCH
• LIVORNESE FISH STEW

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!!

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