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Annatto Oil (Achiote)

22 Dec

 I do not use this in my regular cooking, but cooking with Annatto Oil is extremely popular to make very traditional Puerto Rican dishes like Arroz con Gandules and Pasteles.  It’s easy to make and keeps well…

 

ANNATTO OIL (ACHIOTE)

1 Cup Vegetable Cooking Oil
½ Cup of Achiote (annatto) Seeds

  1. Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat, and when it gets hot, turn down the heat to low, and add the annatto seeds.
  2. Stir every now and then, for about 5 minutes, or until the oil turns a bright orange.
  3. Cool the annatto oil completely and strain through a paper lined sieve, into a glass container.  At the yoga center, they have a sieve specially for the achiote oil.
  4. Store covered in a cool dry place.

Be careful when cooking with it because the oil stains like crazy…

 

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Green Banana Escabeche

21 Dec

When I was growing up, I loved to eat these “guineítos” at my mom’s office parties.  I loved the tanginess of the vinegar…  You can eat these with toothpicks as an appetizer or as a side dish with your Arroz con Gandules and Pasteles.

 

GREEN BANANA ESCABECHE

24 green bananas, boiled and cut into slices
½ cup of green bell pepper, chopped
Salt to taste
Drizzle of vegetable or canola oil
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2 cups of extra virgin olive oil
½ cup vinegar
About 12 black peppercorns
4 bay leaves
3 cups of yellow onions, sliced thin
12 cloves of garlic, sliced
The juice of 1 criollo lemon or lime
Salt to taste

 

  1. In a large pot filled with salted water and a drizzle of vegetable oil, place green bananas to boil.  They’ll be ready in about 20 minutes.  I show you here a step-by step process to boil the green bananas.
  2. When they’re boiled, peel off the banana skin, allow them to cool off and slice them into 1/2” rounds slices.  Set them aside.
  3. In a medium saucepan, add the olive oil, vinegar, onions, peppercorns, bay leaves and garlic.  Cook over medium heat for about 10-15 minutes, until the onions have softened, but not browned.  The onions should remain as white as possible.  Let the mixture cool a bit.
  4. In a glass pyrex dish, while the banana slices are still somewhat warm, mix together the green banana slices and the olive oil/onion mixture and green peppers.  Season with salt as needed.  Let the green bananas marinate in the escabeche mixture for at least 2-3 hours.  After the banana pieces have cooled off (at about the 1 hours mark), you can continue the marinating process in the refrigerator.

Serve directly from the fridge or at room temperature.  You can drizzle the juice of one criollo lemon or lime before serving for added zip.

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Puerto Rican Typical Xmas Menu

20 Dec

Xmas season in Puerto Rico is very special… I do enjoy the snow and the caroling as I have spent several Xmases in either NYC or Miami, but Xmas season is different here.  This is what’s normal and typical for me:  Sunny days to enjoy it at the beach with some cooler breezes, houses decorated with multi-colored Xmas lights, a festive ambiance all over, typical  “parranda” music, parties of all sorts to celebrate the season and to welcome the new year approaching.  The cold weather is only felt when you go to the mountains in the center of the Island…

    

Logo of ‘Parranda’ app for iPhone and iPod touch. Learn how to turn any party into a Puerto Rican parranda from your phone by visiting www.parrandapr.com.

 And a great part of what makes a Puerto Rican Xmas special is the typical menu.   The Puerto Rican typical menu is not fully vegetarian… but if we just omit certain ingredients that are not essential in the basic traditional recipes, they can certainly be enjoyed by everyone.  The essence of the Puerto Rican menu is certainly present in this spread here:

Arroz con Gandules – Rice with Pigeon Peas

 

Pasteles en Hoja – Pasteles in Banana Leaves

 

Potato Salad

I know this may sound out of season…  my former college roomate told me potato salads are a summer salad, not for the holidays, but here in Puerto Rico, arroz con gandules and potato salad are a key part of the holidays.  Even if someone serves the combination at some point in the year, the comment is that you’re eating holiday food.

 

Guineítos en Escabeche – Green Bananas Escabeche

Tembleque

tembleque-mami

Arroz con Dulce – Sweet Rice

Coquito

p1020013.jpg

OK… I’ll come clean here.  Some of the recipes I have already shared with you, but I’ll share with you other new recipes I have made before at some point but, they’re not mine.  Hey, I may not even master them fully.  But I feel confident you’ll be able to follow them and execute them successfully.  Here’s the thing…  I am too young still to be THE ONE making the bulk of the Xmas cooking.  These dishes are always made for family gatherings or activities at the yoga center by the “grown-ups”.  I have just helped make them many, many times, but I have never done these recipes all by myself.  So please accept my apologetic disclaimer…. And enjoy a Puerto Rican vegetarian Xmas…

¡Feliz Navidad!

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Turrón Tembleque

9 Dec

Puerto Rican culture is a mixture of 3 different cultures from about 500 years ago – Taino Indians, African and Spaniard.  So over time, many of our typical customs actually come from one of these 3 original root cultures.

Turrón or Nougat candy is very typical Spanish candy and we typically eat it during Xmastime.  It’s an almond-based candy that’s super sweet and delicious.  You can’t find them in the stores any other time of the year.  You know it’s Xmas when the supermarkets play typical Puerto Rican “parranda” music and you see the stacks of turrón, panetone and nuts in every end of aisle.

I’ve stopped eating turrón for quite a few years because the recipes of the main brands include eggs or eggs whites as one of the ingredients.  I used to love the Alicante (the hard kind) or the Jijona (soft ground almonds) types eaten with pieces of edam cheese.  There are a bunch of other varieties, even chocolate turrón my dad loves, but most of them have eggs.

But this year, my friend Daniel gave me this recipe… and he mentioned he found a turrón without eggs.  WHAT!!!!! Turrón without eggs… I need to look into this definitely.  This is the power of the internet and collaboration, KarmaFree readers submitting ME recipes.  Awesome, no?

I found the mysterious turrón at a local supermarket… and truth be told, Nata Nueces is awesome without any eggs in the ingredients list.  It’s an almond paste, similar to marzipan, with walnut pieces all throughout.  It tastes really good by itself, but Daniel included it in my mom’s Tembleque recipe.

     

This was Daniel’s creation, but I think you will like it too…  GRACIAS DANIEL!!!

 

TURRÓN TEMBLEQUE

1 can cream of coconut – Coco Lopez or any other brand, this is what you use to make Piña Coladas
1 can coconut milk
Water
2 cinnamon sticks
A pinch of salt
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 package of Turrón – Nata de Nuec es is good and does not includes eggs
Ground Cinnamon to taste
 
  1. Take the 2 cans of cream of coconut and coconut milk and add enough water to make 5 cups of liquid all together.  Reserve 1 cup of liquid and pour the rest in a large pot to cook over medium-high heat.  Add the salt and cinnamon sticks to the pot.
  2. Cut the turrón bar into small pieces and smash it a bit between your fingers before adding it to the saucepan with the hot coconut milks.  Mix it well – it will melt into the liquid mixture.
  3. Mix the cornstarch to the liquid you  just before serving.

My friend Ana and I loved this recipe… the consistency of the tembleque is changed by adding the turrón, but the coconut flavors go very well with the walnuts and almonds in the turrón.  And as time passes in your fridge, the walnuts get a kind of licquor flavors… so it tastes very festive.

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Be wary of pretty Passion Fruits…

5 Dec

When you go to the market, you usually seek out the prettiest produce you can find… however that principle does not apply to passion fruits.

The thing is that when a passion fruit’s outside skin is pretty and smooth – the passion fruit is still unripe.  But when the fruit gets all wrinkled and “old-looking” that’s when it is on point.  Something very similar also happens with sweet ripe plantains.

Photo by omheart on Flickr

The passion fruits we have here in Puerto Rico are yellow, quite different from the ones I usually see in the media or internet.  Just like any fruit, they’re usually sweet but they have a tart undertone.  But if you get a tarty one, you can sweeten it very quickly adding some brown sugar or honey.  The pulp inside is laced with lots of small black seeds that you can eat together with the pulp.  No need to strain them at all…

Just take your crinkly and ugly-looking passion fruit, cut it in half and scoop out the pulp.  You can eat the pulp right from the shell, or use the pulp alone in juices and desserts.  I personally like a lot to make my own Passion fruit Yogurt.

 

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