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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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Tofurky Kielbasa Sweet Bites

3 Dec

About 10 years ago I was out with a bunch of friends “parrandeando” – which in Puerto Rico is when you go from house to house in Christmas time singing “parrandas”, which is our very typical version of Xmas carols. 

The idea of “parrandas” is to create a group of friends who will surprise an unsuspecting friend while they’re sleeping and wake them up playing music outside…  the person who was woken up opens up their house to their surprise visitors and offers them things to eat and drink while the group continues to sing songs.  Afterwards, you take the friend you just woken up with the rest of group to wake up another friend… and so forth about 3-4 times in a night. 

I remember when I was little to go in “parrandas” with my parents, in a huge long line of cars that would visit people and play music all night long.  Now with neighborhoods having access controlled gates is not as easy to sneak up on someone and surprise them in the night, but we have our ways to get around that…

So, back to the recipe… the thing is that about 10 years ago in one of these parrandas we went to wake up a friend of my then-boyfriend.  His wife made these kielbasa pieces covered in strawberry preserves… they we’re heavenly!!!  They were sweet and spicy all at the same time.  They became a staple every time we had a get-together to watch a basketball game or a boxing match.

But since I became a vegetarian, I had not had these polish sausage wonders.  One of the last times I went to Whole Foods in Miami I saw these Tofurky Kielbasa sausages.   I had never seen them in PR, although I now know Freshmart has them.  When I saw them I wondered if they tasted just like I remembered, but the second thought was… I need to try if they’ll work to make the polish sausage sweet bites I remembered and loved…

 kielbasa-sweet-bites

TOFURKY KIELBASA SWEET BITES

2 Tofurky Kielbasa sausages, sliced on a bias
1/3 cup strawberry preserves
About 1 tbs canola oil

 

When I used to make this using the real sausage, the sausage rendered a lot of fat that later I had to drain… but because the Tofurky has almost no fat to it, we will sauté them in a bit of oil…

kielbasa-pieces

  1. In a large skillet, heat the canola oil over medium -high heat.  Once the oil comes to temperature, add the Tofurky kielbasa pieces and sauté them lightly until they reach a nice golden color.
  2. When they have all a nice golden color, turn off the heat of the stove and add the strawberry preserves.  It will heat up and soften with the residual heat of the skillet.  Toss the kielbasa pieces with the preserves until they’re all well coated.
  3. Transfer them to a dish and allow them a few minutes before eating them.  The preserves will be too hot if you attempt to eat it right off the skillet.

 

I also like to eat these Tofurky Kielbasa sausages with some ketchup and mustard, like a hotdog.  I usually slice them in half length-wise and grill them in my George Foreman grill…  nice!!!

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Tofu-chón

2 Dec

Here in Puerto Rico is very typical to celebrate Xmas with pork… or as we say in Spanish, Lechón.  People trying to be more health conscious have then tried to take the flavors used in making a lechón but with turkey, calling it Pavo-chón – pavo from the Spanish for turkey and chón… well, you get the drift.

But being vegetarian, I’ve lived without lechón or pavo for about 10 years of my life now.  But I have not been vegetarian all my life, so even though I do not miss eating the actual meat, I do still get allured by the smells of the seasonings and what I remember they taste like.  I am sure I am not the only one that feels that way… there’s no need to be ashamed of it.

So if people found a way to season turkey to make it taste like lechón, why can’t we do the same with TOFU??

   

I say what the heck!! Let’s give it a try… and the thing worked.  So now you can have your tastes of the past, but with a greater consciousness that you will not be damaging the lives of other living creatures in the process.  Isn’t that the true meaning of Christmas and the Holidays??

 

TOFU-CHÓN

1 block of extra-firm tofu, drained
About ¼ cup of adobo – or you can make your own blend, like I show you here
1 cup of Water or vegetable broth
The juice of 1 lemon
Canola oil Spray
 
  1. After draining the tofu block, cut it into ½” thick slices.  Place them on top of a sheet pan with about 3-4 layers of paper towels.  Cover the tofu slices with 3-4 additional layers of paper towels and place another sheet pan on top.  Weigh the tofu slices down with a few heavy books for about 1 hour.
  2. After the hour has elapsed, I usually take the top layer of paper towel and squeeze out as much liquid as possible from it.  Take the sheet pan that used to be on top and now make this your bottom sheet pan, place the squeezed paper towel your bottom layer of paper towel, transfer the tofu slices into this new bottom, squeeze as much water as possible from the former bottom layer of paper towels, place now on top of the tofu, place the former bottom sheet pan on top of the paper towels and weigh again with heavy books for about an extra 30 minutes or so.  I like to really press the tofu dry…
  4. In a medium skillet sprayed with canola oil spray over medium heat, we’ll bring some color to the tofu slices. We do not want to sear them fully, but doing this will help the marinating liquid penetrate even more…    
  6. While we’re heating the tofu slices, we prepare the marinade… mix together in a bowl you can cover well the water, the juice of the lemon and the adobo mixture.   Place the tofu slices that have been heated a bit and gotten some color on the skillet in de bowl with the marinade.  Cover the bowl and let the tofu marinate for about 4-6 hours.  Do not do this overnight because they might get too salty… 
  8. After the marinating time has elapsed, take the skillet again, spray again with canola oil and place over medium high heat.  Pat dry the tofu slices and place on skillet.  Sear until you get a nice brown color on the tofu.

 

You can serve this over rice… a nice rice with corn (arroz con maiz) or even a rice with pigeon peas (arroz con gandules) would be good local typical combinations.  This time around, I actually had it with a goat cheese couscous with walnuts, which is certainly not the traditional accompaniment.  I also used these inside a Tortilla Casserole I will be sharing with you soon enough…

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Cranberry Trifles

27 Nov

It’s been a few years now that I gift Cranberry Preserves as a Xmas gift.  People love it…

Cranberry juice is popular here in Puerto Rico, but eating fresh cranberries is not.  I usually get asked by EVERY cashier at the supermarket every time I buy the Ocean Spray bags of fresh cranberries what do I make with them.  It’s super weird…   I usually explain to them that I make a jelly with them… but now I can also mention that I make these trifles too… which will bring us to a different dilemma with them – explaining what’s a trifle?

I like this recipe because it makes use of any leftover cranberry preserves you might have from Thanksgiving and looks super pretty too.  We made them last in wine glasses, but you can certainly make them in a large trifle dish too.  I got the inspiration for this dish from the Everyday Food December 2008 issue.   I like it because you can prepare some parts ahead, buy some others and just assemble… and if you purchase the pound cakes, no baking necessary.

 

CRANBERRY TRIFLES

2 cups of cranberry preserves – recipe here
1 loaf of pound cake – or make this recipe for egg-less yellow cake here… – cut up into 1” cubes
1 tub of whipped topping
½ cup passion fruit juice
  1. In your preferred presentation dish assemble first a layer of the cranberry preserves at the bottom.
  2. Then place a layer of cake cubes.  Dampen them with a little passion fruit juice using a pastry brush.                                                
  3. Place a layer of cranberry preserves on top of the layer of cake.
  4. Place a layer of whipped topping on top of cranberries.
  5. Continue layering this same way until you reach the top of the dish you’re serving it in… finishing with the whipped topping.

Place in the refrigerator for about an hour before serving.  This will allow the flavors to mix in together.

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Mami’s Tembleque

6 Feb

My mom is not one of those moms that slaved over the stove when we were growing up.  That was my grandma… my grandma would offer you food from the moment you stepped into her house, until the moment you left.  My mom would take home bowls of food my grandma had made and served it to us after we had returned from ballet classes and done our homework.

She taught us how to cook a few survival dishes so we would not “starve to death” when we went to live by ourselves when we left for school.  She did many dips and salads for parties… hey, she even once made a Friendship Cake where she had to macerate fruit for almost a month.  But in general, desserts were not her thing.  That’s why it surprised me when for Three Kings Day (Día de Reyes) she made Tembleque.

I asked my aunt to come to my grandma’s house to have lunch for Día de Reyes… I wanted to eat her Arroz con Maíz and Ensalada de Papas.  But my mom surprised me the most when she said she had made a tembleque from scratch and even more so that my dad had found her the recipe in the Internet!!!  My dad – the least online-friendly person I know!!!  This will be a 2009 full of surprises if this is the way the year is starting…

Like me, my mom almost follows recipes… so even though she got a recipe off the Internet , that was not what she did…

 tembleque-mami

 

 

MAMI’S 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
½ cup + 1/3 cup cornstarch
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. Mix the cornstarch to the liquid you reserved.  Mix well and add to the pot when the mixture starts to simmer.  The coconut mixture will start to thicken a bit as it simmers/boils.
  3. Take it off the heat and pour into the container you want to serve it in.  You can do it in a square pyrex dish or even individual demit asses or ramekins.  Place it in the refrigerator to set.  It will set just like gelatin does.
  4. Sprinkle the top with ground cinnamon just before serving.

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