It seems to be the nature of pumpkins and squash and that sort of plant to grow abundant vines and millions of tall stalks with blossoms bursting forth at the ends. Without looking up some resource on the physiology and morphology of these types of plants, I am guessing that these tall blossoms, that never turn into something like a squash, zucchini, or pumpkin, are the “boy” parts, releasing pollen.

These blossoms are constantly visited by bees which turn a sunny orange-y yellow from their visits into the pollen laden blossom interiors. You can stand in a patch of these plants, surrounded by MANY buzzing bees and not fear a sting. They are pollen-besotted little fuzzy things not unlike the salmon obsessed grizzlies in the Kenai in Alaska.

I have been mostly enjoying the bee circus without much thought for the blossoms until Curt of Bucky’s BBQ and Bread Blog suggested that I pick them and fry them up. I filed that away in the virtual recipe box (the brain) with a thought of getting around to it before the blossoms were all spent.

When one of my beefsteak tomatoes fell early and green I decided it was time to make some fried green tomatoes and squash blossoms!

Recently, I have been reading “Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats” by Sally Fallon, a book that helps you understand just how bad transfats and vegetable oils are once used for cooking. A good alternative is organic coconut oil, which has a very high burning point. One wants to use only these sorts of fats in high temperature cooking because oils like canola and corn and such will break down and form all manner of DNA chewing free radicals.

I can not recommend this book highly enough.

Finding organic coconut oil can be hard and once you do, it will make your eyes water due to the expense. Why organic? High throughput (industrial) methods of preparing coconut oil uses nasty organic solvents (organic as in chemistry) that remain partitioned into or “stuck” in the coconut oil, no matter how “pure” the manufacturer claims it is.

I went out to the garden and harvested squash, zucchini, green and lemon cucumbers, and blossoms from spaghetti squash, pumpkins, and zucchinis. I had to evict quite a few bees and other nectar-loving bugs. One or two bumblebees put up quite a fight.

I will write about the cucumbers I made into lacto-fermented pickles in a while, once they have had some time to set up and I can try them (and shoot them).

I pulled out my Japanese tempura batter (instructions all in Japanese so I just use 1 cup ice water to 1 cup mix), made it up and stuck it in the freezer to cool (with a few ice cubes in it too). I also used panko crumbs.

I cut the green base off the bottom of the squash blossoms and double checked for occupants. I didn’t wash them, didn’t seem the right thing to do.

I sliced the tomato, zucchini, and scallopini squash into 1/4 inch slices, dipped them and the blossoms in the cold tempura batter and then the crumbs and then fried in a cast iron pan with a 1/8 inch layer of medium hot coconut oil.

This slideshow will give you a sense for that process.

Once cooked, I removed them from the oil and salted them. Anything fried is fantastic but if its fried in coconut oil? Oh my goodness, it is fantastically delicious, miles and miles better than any fried item I have tasted before.

Give it coconut oil a try, you will not be sorry. Munch on your fried blossoms as you read your new copy of Nourishing Traditions.

Technorati Tags: nature, pumpkin, squash, blossom, zucchini, bee, pollen, besotted, salmon, grizzlies, Kenai, Alaska, Bucky’s BBQ and Bread Blog, fry, beefsteak, tomato, fried green tomatoes, quash blossoms, Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, Sally Fallon, transfat, organic, coconut oil, canola, corn, DNA, coconut, oil, partitioned, garden, squash, zucchini, lemon cucumbers, cucumber, pickle, Japanese, tempura, batter, panko, scallopini squash, fried

Arepa de huevo is a Colombian food that I remember from my childhood. Other countries may do this but I do not know much or really anything about other varieties. Arepas are made from a very finely ground corn meal. I will put a recipe or guideline below for making that as well as how-to photos on how to make the arepa with egg below.

My first experience with it was when we visited Colombia 25 years ago. As in other latin american countries, street vendors sell all manner of things. We were on foot somewhere in Bogota, Colombia, and literally by the roadside there was this large woman sitting next to an enormous wok-like pot filled with boiling hot oil. She also had dozens of eggs and arepas. I didn’t really know what to expect when we walked up. I watched her cut open a large arepa (size of your hand, I am used to seeing them more like 1/2 that size), break an egg into the steaming middle of the arepa, pinch it back closed, and slip it quickly down the side of the wok-pot down into the boiling oil. Next thing I know, I am holding a napkin with a steaming hot arepa de huevo inside, tasting it for the first time.

Truly fantastic.

I have always respected the potent possibilities of food poisoning and GI upset that can happen when you eat things in a region where you have not acclimated yourself to the local bugs in the water. On this trip, I experienced food poisoning also for the first time but it was NOT from the Arepa de huevo I had from the street vendor.

Why?

Because this treat is deep fried, making it less likely to be a vector for forborne illnesses.

More important than all of that, it is very delicious!

I had not eaten one in all that time until just the other day, when I finally got down to making them in my own kitchen. They came out so much better than I had anticipated. I hope you will try them too!

Arepa de huevo

Ingredients:

Arepas:

• 1 C “La Venezolana” or “ArepaHarina” precocida masa harina (extremely fine precooked corn meal – you simply can not use any substitutes here, find this ingredient)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 C boiling hot water
• 4 eggs (or more, depending on how far your masa goes)

Hogao:

• 5 large ripe tomatoes, chopped
• 2 bunches of green onions, finely chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon of ground cominos
• Pinch of ground annatto seeds
• 1/2 cup of packed, chopped cilantro
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• salt to taste

Directions:

Saute the listed “hogao” ingredients in the olive oil until wilted, set aside.

Mix the harina and salt and then add the boiling water. Mix until incorporated and set aside for 15 minutes.

Wet hands with cold water and shape hand sized pancakes of harina (about 1/6 inch thick) or use a tortilla press. I used the press in this case but I think I would prefer to recommend the hand method as you get a thicker arepa. With the press, its a delicious crispy thing, just a bit different than I remember.

To use the press:
Put a ball of masa on the press (which you have lined with a freezer ziplock bag, cut to size).

Gently push down on the press so that you mash it flat but not TOO thin.

Open the press and rotate the arepa 180 degrees and press just slightly more to try to even the thickness all around.

Peel back the plastic and either toast in a hot pan like you do with most arepas (below shown with smaller ones), or slip the raw arepa into the hot oil until it puffs up.

Remove and allow to cool.

Carefully cut into the side of the arepa to form a pocket.

Put a spoonful of hogao in the bottom of the fried arepa.

Put an egg into a small cup and then slip the egg into the pocket.

Mend the edge with raw dough and then slip it back into the hot oil for a couple of minutes (until it hits the color you want, light golden brown).

Enjoy hot!

Related Posts:

• How-2 guide on how to make Platanos (fried plantains or tostones)
• Yucas Fritas (Fried Yucas or Cassava Root) Recipe and How 2 photos
• Empanadas – The Recipe
• Flash Flickr Movie of How to make Colombian Empanadas
• Chicharron – Deep fried pork belly – How To
• How to make Colombian Empanadas – directions
• Latest full recipe for Colombian Bunuelos (2006 post)
• Last year’s Christmas Bunuelo Decadence
• A Colombian breakfast How-2 guide
• Colombian Frescos
• Lechona preparation

What is a Mantis Shrimp?

Well, you are looking at three of them in the photo above. I was walking through the IBSS and came across some Southeast Asian seafood purveyors who had some interesting displays, this one included. These animals are much larger than most shrimp, you would likely need two hands to hold one of them. They tend to be about 30 cm (11.8 inches) in length but have been known to grow to 38 cm (15 inches).

While they are referred to as shrimp and are in the crustacea subphylum, they are not actually shrimp at all. Their name comes from the fact that they look like a cross between a praying mantis (terrestrial) and a shrimp. They are also much more intelligent and fierce than your average shrimp. Their odd looking appendages in the front are not just funky eye candy. No, the mantis shrimp can use these claws to attack prey and predator (including fishermen’s fingers), with great force.

Pet mantis shrimp are so tough they can even break through the double glass walls of an aquarium.

“A truly pugnacious stomatopod (ed: mantis shrimp) can threaten not only aquarium fish but also the aquarium itself. In 1998, a 4-inch mantis shrimp at the Sea Life Centre in Norfolk, England, shattered the quarter-inch-thick glass of its aquarium. The power puncher was promptly christened “Tyson.” ” Source = NWF

Yikes, this guy is not going to be added to any aquarium I have!

One other interesting fact about these curious sea creatures is that their eyes are the most complex eye structures known in nature. They are the only animals to have something called “hyperspectral color vision.”

“ “Mantis shrimp have the world’s most complex color vision system,” according to Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland. “These lowly crustaceans possess four times as many color receptors as humans, four of which sample the ultraviolet, a region of the spectrum to which we are blind.” Stomatopods also can see polarized light. Marshall believes that for a mantis shrimp, polarized vision may be as rich a sensory experience as color vision.” Source = NWF

Ok, one more neat fact and then I will get on the the meat of the matter. These mantis shrimp are not only wily and throw their back into their battles, they are able to create balls of fire in their claws. Remember I said they can break an aquarium wall? Well, with those fierce claws, they can flick them out to attack their prey or tormentor. When the claw is flicked out, a “cavitation bubble” forms (a void that is left behind by the rapid displacement of the claw). Things on this micro-scale (and nano-scale) are non-intuitive for us. We would not expect that this cavitation bubble would flash with light, heat as hot as the surface of the sun, and pop to produce sonic wavefronts that travel away from the mantis shrimp at high speeds (called sonoluminescence).

You can try to view a video of this activity at this link (I could not open the mov file, but thats just me, hope it works for you) – This video was found on this page and they give these credits – “Courtesy of Sheila Patek, Wyatt Korff and Roy Caldwell/UC Berkeley.”

For far more information on this and other aspects of Mantis Shrimp visit “Shrimp spring into shattering action” by April Holladay, a science journalist for USATODAY.com. I have borrowed a few resource links from her excellent article and put them at the bottom of this post.

Good eating, if you can get a hold of it that is.

They taste less like shrimp and more like lobster. The Japanese call it “shako” and eat it raw and tempura fried. The Italians eat it as a stewed dish called “canocie in busara” (stewed mantis shrimp) (found in “Cofanetto cucina del Bel Paese“). The Chinese eat them a million different ways, to be sure. You can visit one off-the-beaten path restaurant in Hong Kong to get your Mantis Shrimp fix, fried, combined with pepper and its own roe. The Spanish call them “galera” and boil them in salt water. They probably serve them as a tapas in some seaside locations.

I hope you have learned something interesting about these odd creatures. I sure have. I am not sure I will be eating them any time soon as they are rarely found in any market I go to and I hear they are quite expensive.

Have you eaten these? Where did you find them? How were they cooked? Did you like them? Share if you can.

Resources for learning more:

• University of California: Secrets of the Stomatopod by Roy Caldwell
• Wikipedia: Pistol shrimp and shrimpoluminescence
• UC Berkeley News: Mantis shrimp may have swiftest kick in the animal kingdom by Robert Sanders.
• Edge-of-Reef.com: Peacock mantis shrimp Odontactylus scyllarus

Books of Interest:

• Cofanetto cucina del Bel Paese

Technorati Tags: Mantis Shrimp, Southeast Asian, seafood, animal, praying mantis, terrestrial, appendage, mantis, shrimp, aquarium, complex eye structure, claw, cavitation bubble, sonoluminescence, video, April Holladay, lobster, tempura, galera, expensive

The full five senses gluttony that is Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday is celebrated in Poland and other eastern european countries on Fat Thursday (TÅ‚usty czwartek in Polish) (The last thursday before Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent). This is a Christian tradition (that has pagan roots, as so much of Christianity does) where all the perishable and decadent ingredients generally given up for Lent (such as sugar, butter, eggs, chocolate, etc) are used up in feasting that would tax even the most conditioned competitive eater.

A relatively large population of Polish immigrants settled here in Central and slightly more Western Massachusetts back in the early part of the last century. Some towns such as Springfield, Greenfield, Chicopee, Deerfield, Ludlow, Ware, Warren, and Palmer (especially the Three Rivers part of Palmer) attracted and fostered identifiably ethnic Polish American populations. As with any situation where an ethnic group coaleses, food is one of the first manifestations and nexi of culture. For example, Three Rivers has a festival every year where you can get your pierogi fix (as well as other dishes of which I am less knowledgable with, I am a relative newbie to Polish food beyond the iconic dishes).

Another obvious Polish identifier is that you can find freshly made PÄ…czki (Poonch-ki) up until either Fat Thursday or Fat Tuesday (depends on the store I guess) in our big chain grocery stores. I have usually steered clear of these because of their decadence (we are not a dessert eating family) but this year I grabbed a few and shot a couple to share here.

What is a PÄ…czki?

A PÄ…czki is a deep-fried piece of dough shaped into a flattened sphere and filled with jam or other sweet filling. A traditional filling is marmalade made from fried rose buds. Fresh paczki are usually covered with powdered sugar, icing or bits of fried orange zest.

Many countries and cultures share this treat (it tastes like the usual doughnut to me). Polish Jews called them pontshkes (Yiddish: פּאָנטשקעס) and ate them at Hanukkah. They are now known by the Modern Hebrew name, סופגניות, sufganiyot (singular: סופגניה, sufganiyah). In St. Petersburg Russia they are called pyshki and ponchiki (пончики) in the rest of Russia. In Ukranian, they are called pampushky (пампушки) and in Lithuanian they are known as spurgos.

However you may celebrate this time of the year, I say:

Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler Yall!

Break out of your usual box and experience something new. Eat a PÄ…czki

But sometimes, especially when you have a new deep fryer that is so easy it could walk your dog and paint your nails for you, you get a wild hair to fry SOMETHING up.

I know, its not well what happened, but it did.

The third element that enabled me to do this deed was that I found some tempura batter mix at my favorite Japanese grocery store in Worcester. Now the game was on.

I have been harboring a secret desire to make tempura bacon and hot dogs so I finally did. You can see those images at the top and bottom of this post.

Let me assure you that if you do this right the bacon comes out quite edible and delicious in a seriously gluttonous way. The hot dog needs to be eaten as soon as it cools because it can get dried out. I am not a huge dog fan so maybe I am just picky about my dog-texture.

Be sure to use cold tempura batter. You see Iron Chef Morimoto putting icy water in his mix. I ran out of ice so I used reallly cold water, mixed it all up and then held it in the freezer for a bit to really cool off. The other thing I did was to dip the bacon (and later hot dogs and onions) in the wet tempura mix and then in panko bread crumbs and THEN carefully put it into the deep fryer basket (when it was in the oil so the bacon and dogs just float on the surface and dont stick to the basket).

There is really not much more to add to this. I am part scots so MAYBE thats my excuse? I am also part many other things so its possible that I am just wrong. Just pass me the napkins.

Colombian Bunuelos

Ingredients:

• 2 C white fresh farmers cheese, finely ground or crumbled with fork
• 2 C Colombian “Bunuelina” mix
• 2 eggs
• milk to moisten
• canola oil for deep frying

Directions:
Mix all ingredients (except oil) in a bowl.

Heat the oil to very warm (you can stick your finger in it but not very long). Gently drop the balls into the oil and then turn up the heat. The balls will linger at the bottom of the pot until the oil heats up. They will turn themselves as they come up “for air.” Fry until light brown. Remove to a drained surface to cool.

Related Posts:

• How-2 guide on how to make Platanos (fried plantains or tostones)
• Yucas Fritas (Fried Yucas or Cassava Root) Recipe and How 2 photos
• Empanadas – The Recipe
• Flash Flickr Movie of How to make Colombian Empanadas
• Chicharron – Deep fried pork belly – How To
• How to make Colombian Empanadas – directions
• Latest full recipe for Colombian Bunuelos (2006 post)
• Last year’s Christmas Bunuelo Decadence
• A Colombian breakfast How-2 guide
• Colombian Frescos
• Lechona preparation

Technorati taggage:
food, Colombia, Colombian, bunuelo, christmas, navidad, latin, latino, hispanic, dessert, sweet, sugar, cheese, fried.

A Colombian breakfast is not just one thing, sort of like you might think a proper English fry up would be. I think that a Colombian breakfast can actually have many different possibilities limited only by the appetite, types of leftovers, and guided by the region of Colombia you are in/from.

This post discusses a breakfast that includes changua, arepas, pan de bono, and patacones. (I will talk about how to make each of those items below.) What you dont see is what you might have to drink with this meal. That could include aqua de panela, strong Colombian coffee, or even steaming hot chocolate. It could easily have been beans, rice, chicharrones, and fried eggs with a side of hogao. This breakfast is an amalgam of breakfasts I had as a kid at home and while on vacation in Bogota, Colombia.

This set of food may LOOK simple but it can take a while and lots of energy.

I would suggest starting with the Pan De Bono and I will cover that first.

Pan De Bono

Note: The translated ingredients and directions on the mix I show below are incorrect! I will give you the correct directions here in English.

Ingredients:

• 1 box of Pan De Bono mix
• 3 cups grated fresh queso blanco (farmer’s cheese – do not try to substitute this. Go to a latino market and get it fresh)
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 1 cup milk

Directions:

Grate the queso blanco with a fine grater. It is fragile and will crumble/grate easily. Do enough to equal 3 cups. Try to buy enough so that you can eat some slices of it later.

Pour the mix, grated cheese, milk, and butter and knead until it comes together into a smooth dough.

Pinch off small balls and then knead a bit more and then roll out into little snakes about 3.5 inches long and 1/2 inch thick. Gently pinch the snake into a little circle and bake at 450 F on parchment for about 15 minutes.

While baking these circles will puff up and then brown. Remove and cool. Enjoy!

Next you might want to fry up your patacones. I have covered that in a previous post called How-2 guide on how to make Platanos (fried plantains or tostones).

Next you might want to make you arepas.

Colombian Arepas

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Masa Harina (very finely ground corn meal. Do NOT use regular corn meal. I talk more about what to use below)
• 3 cups BOILING water (MUST be boiling)
• 2 teaspoons salt

Directions:

I suggest this brand of Masa Harina.

In a large bowl pour in 2 cups of harina, 2 teaspoons of salt and mix well. Add the 3 cups of boiling water and mix with a spoon. Before it cools much knead it with your hands. My grandmother starts kneading almost right away with her heat-tolerant asbestos hands! I cant do that so I let it cool a bit.Knead into a rubber not overly sticky ball. If its very sticky add more harina. I had to do that and feel that I need to work more on my technique!

Form the dough into little patties and then either grill or cook in a well seasoned cast iron pan. Its ok if the interior is a bit moist. These can burn easily and dry out easily. I like them toasty, adds nice flavor.

You can serve them with butter, slices of queso blanco, or even guava paste.

Here is a shot of a package of Guava Paste (super sweet).

Ok, now you have all the sides to the main part of the breakfast, Changua! This is a very rich concoction of milk and eggs that is quite filling and very welcome in the morning. My father ADORED changua and this dish reminds me so much of him that I actually feel sad when I think of it, make it, and eat it. I can still see him bending over a fresh bowl of changua, beaming with joy, inhaling the scent and blissing out on the flavor and the memories from Colombia. We lost my father in 1999 to brutal early onset Alzheimers Disease.

Colombian Changua

Ingredients:

• 4 cups milk
• 4 or 6 eggs
• 1/4 cup diced onions (I used vidalias)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• Dash of cominos
• diced green onions, to taste
• diced cilantro, to taste

Directions:

Melt butter in a large milk-boiling-friendly pot, add onions and cominos. Saute on low heat until golden brown.

Add 4 cups of milk and bring to a rolling simmer (do not boil so hard that it boils over, that only puts you in a bad mood).

Once up to the boiling simmer add eggs Allow to simmer for between 5 and 10 minutes (some people like the egg well cooked, others like it barely cooked at all).

Add diced green onions and cilantro to serving bowls and then ladle out servings that include eggs and plenty of broth.

Enjoy with all the sides you made all morning long and then collapse on the couch for a leisurely nap.

Related Posts:

• How-2 guide on how to make Platanos (fried plantains or tostones)
• Yucas Fritas (Fried Yucas or Cassava Root) Recipe and How 2 photos
• Empanadas – The Recipe
• Flash Flickr Movie of How to make Colombian Empanadas
• Chicharron – Deep fried pork belly – How To
• How to make Colombian Empanadas – directions
• Latest full recipe for Colombian Bunuelos (2006 post)
• Last year’s Christmas Bunuelo Decadence
• A Colombian breakfast How-2 guide
• Colombian Frescos
• Lechona preparation

People in countries outside of Colombia call them tostones and I am not sure what else! They are nothing like what you buy in bags at the store in the “Goya” section. Those hard plantain chips are scary, I almost broke a tooth on one!Real homemade platanos are a bit crispy on the outside and moist on the inside and should be eaten hot out of the oil, well salted. I suggest also poking a few holes with a fork and slathering it with butter (yum). Go to the bottom of this post to learn about a neat tool, the E-Z Peeler, that will make you a plantain-peeling pro.I am producing this series into a How-2 guide for purchase as well, stay tuned! (Update: Ok, its been a year or so since this post and I STILL have to get it together to make this publication. I will, I promise, am just in the process of obtaining the needed software, should be soon.)

PATACONES

Ingredients:

• Platanos
• Cooking Oil
• Heavy pot, for frying.
• Heavy pan or board covered with foil or plastic and well-oiled.

Directions:

As many large platanos as you desire (these are green plantains that are starting to show a faint yellowing, but not much, along the ridges). If in doubt, use large all-green platanos.

Heat oil in the heavy pan.

With a sharp knife, cut off the two ends of the platano. Then score down vertically along one of the ridges, start peeling aside by flicking the knife edge under the peel along the cut edge.

Note: This works really well if the platano has NOT been refrigerated.

After you have peeled the platano, cut it into 2 inch pieces.

Place the pieces in the medium/hot oil and continuously turn until they have turned a golden color.

Remove the pieces from the oil to drain on a paper towel. Let these pieces “rest” for at least 15 minutes.

Using a sturdy well oiled plate, smash the pieces flat.

Return the flattened patacones to the hot oil for another 5 minutes until lightly browned, then remove to a paper towel.

Salt to taste.

Serve immediately, or they will get tough.

How-2 Photographs:

Related Posts:

• How-2 guide on how to make Platanos (fried plantains or tostones)
• Yucas Fritas (Fried Yucas or Cassava Root) Recipe and How 2 photos
• Empanadas – The Recipe
• Flash Flickr Movie of How to make Colombian Empanadas
• Chicharron – Deep fried pork belly – How To
• How to make Colombian Empanadas – directions
• Latest full recipe for Colombian Bunuelos (2006 post)
• Last year’s Christmas Bunuelo Decadence
• A Colombian breakfast How-2 guide
• Colombian Frescos
• Lechona preparation

Technorati Tags:
Colombia, Fritanga, fried, recipe, receta, photograph, photography, Colombian, plantain, platano

Ingredients:

• 2 packages of frozen yuca from the latino food store
• Pinch of ground annatto seeds
• 2 chopped garlic cloves
• 2 green onions coarsely chopped
• 1 cube of chicken bullion
• 1 tsp cominos
• salt to taste
• 1 quarts of water

Place the yucas, all other ingredients and water in a stew pot. Make sure that the water covers the yucas. Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer and cook until the yucas are tender, about 45 minutes. Drain yucas in a colander. Let cool. Remove the center woody stems in the center of the yucas. Split the yucas lengthwise and then in half. You should have little finger sized pieces of yuca, so you may have to do some more splitting on the bigger pieces. Fry them in hot oil until crisp and drain on a paper towel. Serve immediately. These fried yucas will stay crispy for about an hour or so.

How-2 pics

• How-2 guide on how to make Platanos (fried plantains or tostones)
• Yucas Fritas (Fried Yucas or Cassava Root) Recipe and How 2 photos
• Empanadas – The Recipe
• Flash Flickr Movie of How to make Colombian Empanadas
• Chicharron – Deep fried pork belly – How To
• How to make Colombian Empanadas – directions
• Latest full recipe for Colombian Bunuelos (2006 post)
• Last year’s Christmas Bunuelo Decadence
• A Colombian breakfast How-2 guide
• Colombian Frescos
• Lechona preparation

Technorati Tags:
Colombia, Yucas, Fritas, Fritanga, fried, recipe, receta, photograph, photography, Colombian, cassava, root

Deep-fried meat pastries. These are served as appetizers because they will not keep their crispness for more than 1/2 hour. In other words, as you fry them, have someone serve them to your guests. As the guests bite into them, they may squirt lime juice into them from cut-up limes, or they may spoon “pique” (recipe follows) sauce into the bitten-off empanada. You may not want to “fill-up” the guests on these if you are planning on more food. Otherwise, if it is just an Empanada Party, make lots of them along with fried yuca and patacones, serve up with lots of cold beer, coke or margaritas!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of lean pork meat (1 lb of dark turkey thigh meat, or a turkey roast that has mostly dark meat in it) two large red potatoes
• two eggs
• small onion
• 2 cloves cut up garlic
• Pinch of ground annatto seeds
• bay leaf
• 1 tsp ground comino
• salt

Directions:

Place meat , potatoes and eggs in enough water to cover them. Add the small cut up onion, garlic, a pinch of ground annatto seeds, bay leaf, cominos and salt. Bring to boil, then lower to simmer. In about 1/2 hour when the potatoes are tender and the eggs are hard boiled, remove them. Simmer the meat for at least another hour.

Remove meat and cool completely.

Preparation of the meat filling:

Grind the cooked meat in a food grinder, or in a food processor. Chop the potatoes and the eggs finely. Add the eggs and potatoes to the ground meat. Now you must prepare a spicy “hogao” sauce to add to the meat mixture.

Hogao

Ingredients:

• 2 large tomatoes, finely chopped
• 4 green onions, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tblsp of cilantro, minced
• 1/2 tsp. ground comino
• Pinch of ground annatto seeds
• salt to taste
• 3 tblsp of olive oil

Directions:

Heat oil in a saucepan and add all of the ingredients. Cook over medium heat until everything is mushy. Add this “hogao” sauce to the meat mixture. You will need to add some broth left over from cooking the meat, in order to get the meat filling moist. You don’t want the filling to be dry.

Preparation of the corn dough:

2 cups of yellow “masa-harina” La Venezolana or ArepaHarina Colombiana corn meal (Latino Food Store) This is NOT the same masa-harina “Quaker” Mexican style! Salt to taste 3 cups of boiling water, plus a tablespoon of brown sugar. (broth is better but if you have run out, make a broth with chicken bullion cubes) Pour the boiling hot broth in a heat proof container, stirring constantly, slowly pour in the 2 cups of “ArepaHarina”, this will get pretty thick and hard to stir towards the end. Try to knead it as much as you can with the spoon, but eventually, as the dough cools, you can knead it with your hands. When the dough looks pretty smooth, about 5 minutes of kneading, cover it with a plastic or moist towel to keep it from drying out.

In a heavy deep frying pan, pour about 3 inches of oil. (If you were going to do this in Colombia, it would be LARD! ) Start heating the oil over medium/high heat.

Shape dough into the size of small golf balls. You can do this golf ball shaping ahead of time as long as you keep them covered.

How to make Empanadas:

See pictures.

Flatten a ball with a flat object such a a plate sprayed with Pam, also spray the surface underneath. Place a heaping tablespoon of meat filling on one hemisphere of the flattened dough. Fold the other half over and pinch together so that there is NO opening showing any filling. The trick here is to get as much meat mixture inside of minimum dough. This will take practice. Otherwise, your empanadas might have more dough to them than meat! Place carefully in the hot oil and fry until golden brown. Drain on papers towels and serve immediately with lime quarters or “pique” sauce.

PIQUE SAUCE

This sauce/relish is similar to “pico de gallo” except it does not include the minced jalapeno. If you want to use jalapeno, you can, but it’s not legitimate Colombian. As I said before, this relish is spooned into a bitten-off empanada. Yummmm!

Ingredients:

• 6 cleaned green onions
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup of minced cilantro
• 1 tsp of ground comino
• 1/8 cup of sugar
• 1/2 cup of white vinegar
• salt to taste

Directions:

Finely mince the green onions and the garlic. Add the other ingredients and let marinate for at least 2 hours. There should be enough liquid to almost reach the top of the relish. You may have to adjust by adding a little more vinegar.

These preparations are “labor intensive”, so you must prepare some of them at least two days or more in advance of your party or freeze them. If you freeze the empanadas, keep them separate while freezing but let them thaw out 1/2 an hour before frying them.

Copyright 2005

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