LATIN CUISINE - WEEK 5

Latin Cuisine week 5

This week was really exciting for me in Latin Cuisine as we were going to be making tamales, which I really like. I have made tamales many times in Las Cruces. Homemade tamales are a special treat and a "labor of love" as they are not an easy task. It is common for families to get together to make tamales in order to get everyone working and make the whole process simpler. 

I enjoyed class this week but just as in World Cuisine it seemed a little unfocused. I think the reason for that in Latin is the lack of understanding working with dough. It is a bit mysterious to me. I am hoping after taking baking and pastry I will have a better understanding of how dough works and ways to work with it. 

Anyhow, here's the menu

Ceviche de Pescado:

This is the classic ceviche that comes to mind when someone talks about ceviche. It is raw fish that is cold "cooked" by acids from lemon or limes. The flavors of the lemon and lime mixed with cilantro is good and a classic combination in Latin food. However, I found the texture to be not so desirable. The texture was raw and almost slimy. I have heard that the longer the fish marinates the tougher it can get and am wondering if perhaps our ceviche would have been better if left to marinate longer. I somehow neglected to get a photo of this dish.

Plantano Frito:

These are fried plantains. Plantains have an interesting flavor, I am not sure how to describe them. The texture is similar to bananas as they are very closely related to bananas. These are simply fried and retain the flavor of the plantain pretty well. I think they would be excellent with some sort of creamy sauce that has either sweet-ness or a bite to it. I think of something like a pineapple cream salsa. Maybe something to try next time.

Tamales:

The recipe we had for class called for spinach and cheese filling, but we also had some pork leftover from the previous class. One group made spinach and cheese tamales and our group made red chile pork tamales. We made them in the traditional sense as they were rolled and steamed with the husk. I have seen tamales that have been sort of folded up like a little package and while they look fancy, I'd have to side with the traditional presentation. These tamales we made tasted great, I was worried about the masa as it can be difficult to work with and we had a hard time putting it on the corn husks correctly. 

Pabellon Criollo: Caraotas Negras, Carne Mechada y Arroz:

This is an interesting dish. It has black pot beans, shredded beef and rice. The presentation is supposed to be a representation of the Venezuelan flag. which is blue yellow and red. I am not sure how that is supposed to work, but I am betting the Venezuelans know. Anyhow the black beans and rice are simple and have been made many times. The beef was a flank steak that was shredded and then sauteed briefly with tomatoes and other things and it turned out very tender. We served some of the red chile puree on the plate for those like me who love red chile. 

Orange Flan:

We made this in week 1 or #, I can't remember. Either way it is still excellent. We did not have a dessert in this weeks menu so we chose to make this dish again. It was just as before, very good.

This is a fried pig's ear. We had the ear cooking with the beans for flavor and decided to try it fried. It was pretty awful and more of a joke than anything. It is pictured here with a parsley garnish just for fun. Bon Appetit!.....um, no thanks

WORLD CUISINE - WEEK 5

World Cuisine Week 5

The Cuisine of Greece. This is a welcome departure from the cuisines of the middle east, although it is similar. Again, I think these are good bases for the American chef to start from to create a truly good and unique dish. On to the menu.

Aginares Me Avgolemongo:

These are artichokes with an egg and lemon sauce. Honestly, the artichokes we had at school we pretty sub-par. they were small, not very meaty, and not very fresh. However, we were able to learn the process of artichokes. The sauce here is similar to a hollandaise sauce with more lemon. I did not think it went very well with the artichokes. Cooking and prepping artichokes is quite a bit of work.

Garithes Saganaki:

Baked Shrimp: This is a good dish, but it can be difficult to cook the shrimp correctly. Oven baking shrimp is a good way to over cook them. The flavors are excellent and served with fresh warm pita makes a great combination. I really like the cheese, normally I would not choose shrimp and cheese to go together, but they did quite well here. 

Spankopita and Fasoulatha

This is a spankopita filled with spinach and bean soup. These are not served together, just photographed together. The spankopita uses a phyllo dough that is very good. It is hard to work with because it is paper thin, maybe thinner and quite flaky. What we did was to spread butter on each sheet of dough and then stack them to form one larger piece. Once it is baked, it becomes flaky, buttery, and full of good lovin. Apparently many American chefs are not very good with phyllo, but I think it can be learned with experience. It is well worth the trouble.

I like bean soup so as with most bean soups, I am satisfied. This one was no different, but there isn't much to say.

Fresh Fruit

In Greece trays of fresh fruit are very common, so here we have a tray consisting of pineapples, oranges, mangoes and apples. all very good on their own.

Greek Salad:

Surprisingly this recipe did not call for feta cheese. I think the salad was crying because of it. However, greek salads are excellent and this one was the same the fresh cucumber and kalamata olives were great.

Another photo of the spankopita

LATIN CUISINE - WEEK 4

This week in Latin Cuisine we moved from the cuisines of Mexico to the cuisines of South America. There are many similarities and many of the styles have moved around from South America to Mexico, so some of the menu may seem more Mexican than South American.

This class is quickly becoming the highlight of my culinary week. The food just keep getting better and I find myself excited to prepare the recipes. I would encourage anyone interested in Mexican food to delve in a little further and try to experience food from all over Mexico and South America. 

On to the menu-

Vatapa de Galinha with Ensalada de Tomate y Cebolla:

This is Chicken in Nut and Shrimp Sauce served with a Tomato and Onion Salad. The salad seems very boring but it was pretty good. We would probably want to add a few other things to make it a little more exciting, and the tomatoes in february are just plain awful. The chicken was excellent, this dish has some interesting flavors as the sauce really has a nice nutty and earthy taste to it. I would love to see this sauce served over grilled chicken and topped with a skewer of grilled shrimp on a bed of a rice pilaf. 

Churros:

No these are not the churros you see served at the mall food court or some amusement park. These are hand rolled directly into the fryer and dusted with powdered sugar. There were good because Preston made them and every desert Preston makes is good. However, I would prefer to change the recipe to make a slightly easier dough to work with that could be piped out to create a nice thin uniformity that would leave the a nice crispy outside while retaining the warm, soft center we all love.

Crepas con Salsa de Dulce de Leche:

This is exactly what it says, crepes with dulce de leche sauce. WOW! This was by far the best dessert I've had since starting culinary school. I could not stop eating these. Anyhow, they could easily be served as a dessert or a breakfast item. Pistachio is what you see as a garnish. Dulce de leche is a sweet milk sauce that can be so good you would want to eat it with a spoon. Way to go Preston.

Ceviche de Champinones and Sopa de Palmito:

This is a mushroom ceviche. Normally ceviche is thought of as a raw fish dish, but there are many different variations on the ceviche. I do not like the traditional ceviche, but this one was pretty good. It has the tanginess and the sweetness from the peppers. Also pictured is the Sopa, or Hearts of Palm soup. It is a pureed soup that is made from the expensive and tender heart of palm. This recipe is for a basic one but it could be really good with some variations to add some complexity to the flavor. I found this recipe to be kind of one-dimensional.

Couve a Mineira:

This is a dish of shredded kale in a garlic paste. Kale sounds pretty bad and it is a tougher leafy green, so one would expect this to be tough and not very flavorful. He would be wrong, this is surprisingly good. I will be looking for good kale once in awhile just for this.

WORLD CUISINE - WEEK 4

World Cuisine Week - 4 

We are still in the cuisines of the middle east. These are a few interesting dishes from this weeks class.

Tapauch Ets Im Mits Tapuzim:

Um...yeah. That basically means apples in orange juice. This is a sweet desert dish that is basically apples simmered in orange juice until tender. There are also raisins included as you can see, and it was garnished with mint. This actually tastes much better than to be expected. It is quite good and very easy to make.

Samke Harrah Al-Sahara:

This is a dish of baked fish with a hot chili sauce. The sauce wasn't really that hot, but it was pretty good. It had some interesting flavors to it that we in the U.S. are not used to eating. The sauce is made with tahini and the flavors made by tahini, lemon juice, and peppers is a bit different. It is served with rice and some bread as seen in the photo. The bread has some lima bean puree on it that was absolutely delicious.

Fattoush:

A toasted bread salad. Here I added some dried fruit and a mango vinagrette to "americanize" this dish. It is very good and very simple. The freshness goes well with the flatbread. I also made some of this at home last week just because I liked it so much.

Shurabat Al Kibbeh:

This is a soup made with lamb meatballs. It was very good. It had great depth of flavor to it and a very pleasing aroma. The meatballs are nice as they give some real texture to the soup. 

Besara:

Lima bean puree dip that sounds awful but is surprisingly wonderful. I took home this side dish and wound up eating all of it in one sitting. My chef used it for his superbowl party. With garlic and spices there is an almost rustic flavor to it but at the same time it taste fresh as can be, it is very hard to describe.

Muhammara:

I should have rotated this photo, but I'm way too lazy a this point to do so. Anyhow, This is a red pepper and walnut dip processed into a flavorful puree. It was good, but next to the lima bean puree it didn't get eaten. Here it is served with flatbread.

Tan:

Tan is a yogurt drink that is basically yogurt and water mixed together to be a liquid consistency that is drinkable. It is really, really bad. I tried to make mine taste better by adding sugar, honey, and cinnamon. It did not work. It may have been a little better than plain tan, but if i never had it again that would be too soon. It is pictured here served with a cinnamon stick and mint for garnish.

The flavors of the middle east are quite different than anything we are used to, but many of them are very good. With a little creativity they present the foundation for something new and exciting to the american chef. 

LATIN CUISINE WEEK 3

Here we go with week 3 of Latin Cuisine. This is the third week of cuisines of Mexico. So far I've been pretty happy with this class. 

On the Menu we have -

Frijoles di Olla: "pot" beans

These are really just beans cooked in a pot with some sort of pork part (bones, feet, ears) to give flavor. These are topped with a little tomato and cilantro. They make an excellent side for many dishes in mexican cuisine.

Chiles en Nogada :

Basically a chile relleno with a walnut sauce. The relleno was a poblano pepper stuffed with all sorts of goodness other than the typical cheese that we are used to in the U.S. It was a little different to me, but i did like it. The sauce on the other hand did no justice to the almighty dish that is a chile relleno. It was too creamy and really didn't add anything to the relleno, instead it added a distinct flavor that actually confused my palette as to what I was supposed to be eating. 

Guacamole:

Everyone has had guacamole, some good, some bad. I've seen recipes for guacamole that call for more mayonnaise than avocado. This recipe is quite good. The limes we used were stronger than anticipated but the overall flavors were both good and correct. We added some roasted garlic to this recipe.

Mole:

MOLE! This mole was great. It was by far my favorite thing we made this week. It was an add-on recipe that I did not know was coming but was glad once I tasted it. The thing about mole is that each area in Mexico has ways of doing mole, so it can vary greatly. Refer to Latin Cuisine - Week 1 to see the green mole we made. Another thing about mole is that there are many ingredients that create the complex flavor profile. I think this recipe had about 25 ingredients. Mole is like fresh homemade tortillas in that it is a labor of love. Sure you can buy tortillas at the grocery store, but the homemade, semi-round tortillas will always taste better. Mole is a ton of work, but it sure is good.

Sopa de Fideos Aguada:

This is a dish of sauteed pasta with tomato sauce added. We used an italian grade pasta because it has a much higher quality than the traditional mexican fideos. There's not a lot to say about this dish, everyone has had pasta and tomato sauce, this is just a different variation on a classic.

Chips and Salsa:

We made chips from corn tortillas and made a quick salsa to go with it. These are the same chips that were served with the guacamole. 

This was a great week in Latin Cuisine and this class is quickly becoming my favorite. I enjoy all the flavors and combinations. Latin cuisine can be quite complex in dishes like Mole, but it can also be simple and fresh. I like both equally. Coming from New Mexico, I already have a strong preference to mexican cuisine and latin explores this further and bring new flavor profiles to the light. I could see myself really diving into Latin Cuisine as specialty.