You would think the final days of April would bring mentions all over Mexico of the approaching Cinco de Mayo celebrations. And you would think wrong. For the most part, there aren’t many celebrations for the 5th of May. It isn’t a national holiday, and unless you’re in Puebla, is my not be mentioned as…
Tag: recipe
Rum Glazed Fried Plantain and Coconut Bread
If you haven’t heard, the Cavendish banana, that delicious yellow supermarket treat, is in danger of becoming extinct. With so much of the world’s banana cultivation focusing on one single subspecies, the world-wide spread of a banana killing fungus, Panama disease, is unfortunately inevitable. Does this mean no more bananas? No more banana bread? Not…
Coricos Sonorenses – Sonoran Corn Cookies
Mexican pastry recipes are typically written in comically large quantities. A kilo of flour for everything. Half a kilo of lard. 100 empanadas or 500 cookies later, you’re done. The size of these recipes speak volumes of the Mexican love for baked goods. Thankfully, through the magic of the metric system, these recipes are easy…
Sick Day Food: Atole de Pinole
Being at home sick means freedom from two things. The wearing of real clothes, and the chewing of food. I simply cannot chew food with a head full of sickness. So I turn to atole de pinole. Pinole consists of lightly toasted dry corn kernels, and ground to a fine powder. Most of the time, this…
Empanadas de Cerveza – Beer Dough Empanadas
Grabbing a round aluminum tray, a pair of tongs and carefully selecting from the sugar topped, soft and flaky pastries on display is one of the great joys of visiting a Mexican pastry shop. Picking an empanada, thinking it is filled with pineapple, only to later realize it is pumpkin or apple, is one of…
Mermelada de Piña – Pineapple Marmalade
Marmalade with a purpose, to fill empanadas. Mermelada de piña, pineapple marmalade.
The Year That Was
Before staring off a new year of posts, let’s take a look back at this year, a year of big moves, from Arizona to upstate New York, from Tumblr to WordPress. (Feel free to poke around the archives of this blog’s previous home.) Most popular posts from this year: The strawberry picking good time of…
Polvorones de Almendra – Spanish Almond Shortbread Cookies
Along with mantecados de limón, polvorones de almendra are one of the more popular cookies consumed in massive quantities during Christmas in Spain. These almond shortbread cookies are similar to a pecan sandie, though dryer and more crumbly in texture. Just as with the mantecados de limón, the flour for the polvorones is lightly toasted,…
How To: Stovetop Lard Popcorn
I’m not on the chef Sean Brock ‘Southern Food is my everything‘ bandwagon, but I do appreciate what the man has to say about lard on a recent episode of The Splendid Table. One thing that’s a lot of fun to do is to flavor that lard during that process with maybe some hard herbs…
Ate de Membrillo – Quince Marmalade
Quince may be the ugly duckling of tree fruit in the United States. Wait, no. That is too gentle. Quince is the freckled, red-headed step child of tree fruit in the United States. There’s nothing else you can call a fruit that receives a response of ‘what is that?’ when asking for it an orchard…
Atole de Moka – Mocha Corn Drink
Waking up with a cold nose makes me wish I had planned ahead in one of several ways. I could have closed the windows the night before. I could have made soup; there are few things better than soup for breakfast. I could have placed a glass of scotch on my bedside table for a…
Agua de Jamaica and Hibiscus Syrup
Hot hibiscus beverages are one of those things I can’t accept. Hibiscus has a sharp tart flavor which is wonderful cold, but warm, it feels like a molten acid wash exposing a fresh layer to my insides. I exaggerate, as usual, but this weightless flower contains a strong tart flavor. Only a small amount is needed to…
