I haven’t touched a palm tree in many years. For me, a palm tree is my centering thought, the one thing I visualize when I’m tense or stressed. It was the image I was going to use during labor, but now it’s one I use during everyday life. It had been too long since I felt the bark of the palm. And I don’t intend to let time slip away before I’m shaded by a palm tree again.








Hotel Riu, Mazatlán, Mexico

I have long been a fan of Huevos Rancheros, that popular Mexican dish consisting of eggs served with a fried corn tortilla and topped with a spicy chili or tomato sauce. But I had to go to Mazatlán, Mexico in person to experience “divorced eggs” known as Huevos Divorciados.

This dish, a spin-off of Huevos Rancheros, features two eggs situated on opposite sides of the plate, each egg preoccupied and bathed in a sauce of its own – usually one adorned with green chilies and tomatillos while the egg on the other side of the plate is dressed in a saucy red chili creation. The plate is further decorated with delicacies such as refried beans and rice, strong cheese, pinto beans, guacamole, or rings of onion. These accompaniments are often placed down the middle of the plate, further separating the two divorced eggs, which have so obviously gone their separate ways. Instead of two salsas, I used one salsa on one side and guacamole on the other.

And though I can’t bring the palms or the sand home, I can bring the food home to share.

Recipe for Huevos Divorciados

Serves 6

For the salsa:
3 medium tomatoes, quartered
½ onion
½ hot green chile or 1 teaspoon canned green chilies
3 sprigs cilantro leaves
½ red bell pepper
2 cloves garlic
1/8 teaspoon salt
½ lemon, squeezed

For the guacamole:
½ large ripe avocado
2 tablespoons green onion, minced
1 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
½ teaspoons Asian chile sauce
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
¼ teaspoon salt

For the tortillas:
6 tortillas, cut into rounds that will fit a muffin tin

For the poached eggs:
12 eggs, poached

Prepare the salsa:
Put all ingredients in a food processor and whiz until chunky. Drain.

Prepare the guacamole:
Put all ingredients in a food processor and whiz until smooth.

Prepare the tortillas:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Cut the tortillas into rounds that will fit a muffin tin. Carefully push a round into a muffin cup. Bake until golden, about 5 minutes.

Prepare the poached eggs:
Poach 12 eggs.

To assemble:
Put the poached egg into the baked tortilla cup. Top with salsa on half of the cups. Top with guacamole on the other half. Garnish each plate with refried beans and cilantro along with a tortilla cup of each type. Serve immediately.



Tips
If you don't feel like making this at home and if you happen to be in Ottawa, Canada, you should check out the Huevos Rancheros at Edgar. The best in the city.



And if you're in Mazatlán, Mexico, you can get this dish at several places. Here is the one I had at the Shrimp Bucket in Olas Altas.



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Disclosure: I would like to thank www.gomazatlan.com for inviting me to the 2011 Gran Fiesta Amigos. All stories, opinions and passion for all things Mexico shared on my blog are completely my own.

 
Horchata

I love food, and I love travel. Experiencing life in a different place, tasting new flavors, smelling salty or unfamiliar air and trying to capture it in my memory or through the lens of my camera resets my soul, makes me smile and reminds me of what life offers.


sunrise in  Mazatlán, Mexico

 
 sunset in Mazatlán, Mexico


One year ago, I was recovering from surgery to remove more thyroid cancer. A year later, I’m feeling the sand between my toes, listening to the waves crash on the beach, and enjoying a culinary tour of Mazatlán, Mexico.

One thing I love to bring home is a favorite taste to make in my own kitchen. Mazatlán is known as the Pearl of the Pacific. For me, the pearl-colored beverage, Horchata (or-CHA-tah), will always remind me of Mazatlán and Mexico. It was also one of the first things I looked up when I got home.

If you love rice pudding, then Horchata is rice pudding in liquid form: rice (along with nuts sometimes) and cinnamon are soaked in water (or milk) and then sweetened and flavored with vanilla and other spices and finally strained and poured over ice.

“In Spain horchata was made with with ground melon seeds but given the seeds were not available in the new world the Spaniards substituted the readily available squash seeds. Later almonds and rice were brought to the new world and incorporated into the drink as it is prepared today.”
(from link)

I tasted the best Horchata at a small village restaurant called El Mesón de los Laureanos in El Quelite just 45 minutes outside of Mazatlán. It wasn’t too sweet and quenched my thirst after a hot morning of sun and tequila tasting.



Horchata (from the Latin word hordeum, which means "barley" or Orxata in Catalan) was introduced to Spain by the Moors. The original Spanish version is made with ground tiger nuts (chufas) and is popular in Valencia (from link). Legend says that James I the Conqueror, King of Aragon, tasted the drink and exclaimed:

"Açò és or, xata!"
"That's gold, darling!"

Variations include almonds, lime zest, or even pecans and popcorn. Momofuku Milk Bar serves a Horchata Soft Serve Ice Cream with Cinnamon. And adding a dash of Tequila can improve its already soothing qualities. Salud!



Recipe for Horchata

For Horchata Base:
6 tablespoons long-grained rice
2 cinnamon sticks
2½ cups warm water

For sugar syrup:
½ cup sugar
1 cup water
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

To finish:
Milk, to taste
Ice
Ground cinnamon and nutmeg, for garnish

In a blender, blend the rice to break it up into small pieces. In a large bowl, blend the rice, cinnamon sticks and water. Cover and store in the refrigerator for 6 hours, or overnight.

To make the sugar syrup, melt sugar and water in a medium-heavy pot over medium-high heat until the sugar is melted. Add the vanilla. Let cool.

Remove the cinnamon sticks from the rice mixture. Strain the rice mixture through cheesecloth and squeeze out the rice to get the entire flavor out of the rice. Add the sugar syrup, to taste.

To finish, in a blender add 1 cup of the strained-rice/sugar-syrup mixture and ½ cup milk (or to taste). Blend until frothy. Pour into a glass and garnish with ground cinnamon and nutmeg.

For Horchata Coffee, prepare a double espresso. Froth ½ cup milk with ½ cup Horchata. Mix and garnish with ground cinnamon and nutmeg.

Bucket List
• Taste tiger nut Horchata in Valencia or Catalonia
• Taste Horchata Soft Serve Ice Cream with Cinnamon at Momofuku Milk Bar

Links
The Bojon Gourmet: Horchata Ice Cream
TastyType: Horchata Ice Cream 
Vampire Weekend – Horchata: “In December, drinking horchata | I'd look psychotic in a balaclava”

 

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Disclosure: I would like to thank www.gomazatlan.com for inviting me to the 2011 Gran Fiesta Amigos. All stories, opinions and passion for all things Mexico shared on my blog are completely my own.

Not all salads are easy. This one is. Just a simple vinaigrette with fresh ingredients. And if you love cilantro, you'll love this combination.

Cilantro is also known as Chinese Parsley and comes from the leaves of the coriander plant. I know there are people who find cilantro soapy tasting, and it does have a strong flavor, but let it grow on you and you may find that you crave it.


Recipe

Makes 6 servings

For the vinaigrette:
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper, to taste

For the salad:
4 cups butter lettuce, cleaned and torn into bite-sized pieces
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Whisk the ingredients for the vinaigrette. Mix the salad ingredients. Just before serving, mix the vinaigrette with the salad.

Wondering what to do with puff pastry? Make Caramel Apple Tarts.

At this time of year when the apples are falling off the tree, I crave caramel apples. At every fair, it's the one treat I look forward to. This is just caramel apples in a crust. Yum!

If you don't have puff pastry in your refrigerator, just use a regular pie crust. If you don't have that, just make caramel apples!

Recipe

Makes one pie or 12 individual tarts

1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup sweeted condensed milk (or 300-mL can)
2/3 cup golden corn syrup
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

6 apples, peeled and diced

Puff Pastry

In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stir all ingredients until a temperature probe reaches 236°F. Make sure you stir constantly and ensure the mixture doesn't stick to the bottom and start to burn. Let cool.

Meanwhile, peel and dice the apples. Stir the apples into the cooled caramel mixture.

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Roll out the puff pastry.

Fill the tart shell (or individual tart shells). Bake for 50-60 minutes (30-40 minutes for individual tart shells). Let cool. Serve with vanilla ice cream.


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Puff pastry is a magical dough that requires sweat and muscle. Through the layering (or laminating) of butter and dough, the butter gets trapped. When the dough is rolled out, shaped and put in the oven, the butter tries to escape by pushing apart the layers of dough.

The tricky part when making the dough is keeping the butter between the layers of dough. It tends to want to squish out as you're rolling, which is where patience and the refrigerator help. Though the method says to roll and fold twice, I'm happy if I get one roll and fold in and then put it in the refrigerator before the butter has a temper tantrum and starts smearing my rolling pin.

Now that I have a block of puff pastry, what should I make with it?

Recipe


1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 to 3/4 cup water
2 tablespoons unsalted, butter, melted
14 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 egg, lightly beaten, for glazing

[You can find the recipe for Puff Pastry in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home or here.]

In a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the flours and salt. Pour in the water and melted butter. The dough will be shaggy. Bring it together into a ball and score an "x" in the top. Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

While the dough is chilling, place the butter between plastic wrap and form it into a square that's 3/4 inch thick.

To roll the dough, make arms or flaps to form a plus sign. The middle should be mounded slightly. The arms must be long and square enough to cover the middle. (See this post.)

Place the formed butter in the middle and fold the arms over the butter, stretching the dough if needed. Seal in the butter. Using a rolling pin, press on the dough to seal the edges and flatten the square.

Roll the dough about 7 inches wide and 21 inches long. Fold the top down and the bottom up to make an envelope. Turn a quarter turn. Roll again to 7 inches wide and 21 inches long. Fold again. Mark the dough with two fingerprints and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

Repeat the rolling/folding/turning and then chill. Repeat once more. Now the dough has been turned six times and is ready to be formed into pie crust, cheese sticks, turnovers, napoleons or whatever you fancy. (The dough keeps well in the freezer, too.)

Next Time
Danoises (Danish) in Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cook Home Collection page 485

Links
White on Rice: Strawberry Danish Recipe
Not without Salt: Quick Puff Pastry
Dorie Greenspan: Puff Pastry Pinwheels

::Whisk::
I'm baking my way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, I try to find a suitable substitution.

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If you're patient, in a few hours you can make brioche. You just need a teaspoon of yeast, a half dozen eggs and almost half a pound of butter along with the usual breadlike suspects.

Brioche is classified as a viennoiserie (Viennese Specialties), which are baked goods made from a yeast-leavened dough that are enriched with milk, sugar, eggs or butter. In this case, lots of eggs and butter. Brioche isn't a low-fat treat but an indulgence.

The trickiest part of this recipe is the dough's stickiness. But leave the pasty dough to the hook, forget the traditional, hand-kneading method and go check your email. Then, while it's rising, do some gardening. And after you've formed the rolls, go downtown to buy an iPad. Then eat some cake.

Original: "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche."- Marie Antoinette
Translation: "Let them eat rich, expensive, funny-shaped, yellow, eggy buns."
-Urban Legends

Recipe for Brioche

Makes 16 individual rolls


3 tablespoons milk, warmed
1/4 oz package dried yeast
3 cups bread or all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
6 eggs, lightly beaten

3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 egg beaten and mixed with 2 tablespoons of water, for glaze

[You can find the recipe for Brioche in the book Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cook Home Collection.]

In a small bowl, proof the yeast in some warm milk. In a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, whisk all the ingredients. Add the yeast mixture. Knead until the dough forms a smooth ball. In an oiled bowl, place the dough and cover. Let rise at room temperature for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, or until doubled in size.

Punch down. In a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, add the room temperature butter to the dough and knead until the dough is smooth again. Cover and let rest for about 5 minutes.

Form into rolls. Let rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Preheat oven to 400°F. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool.

Here's a video showing how to make it by hand.


Tasting Notes
The crust on my brioche was nice and crunchy, but I should have pulled mine out of the oven sooner than I did. Overall, they have a nice texture and warmed in the microwave for about 10 seconds makes them even tastier.

Next Time
Puff Pastry in Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cook Home Collection page 542

Links
La Tartine Gourmande - Simplest Brioche
Julia Child's Brioche Dough (video)
Dorie Greenspan's Brioche

::Whisk::
I'm baking my way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, I try to find a suitable substitution.

If you like this post, share it!


If you like this blog, you can subscribe and get updates automatically.

Click here to learn about subscribing.

Click here to subscribe.

To see an index of recipes, click here.
To see a visual index of recipes, click here.
To see an index of Julia Child-inspired recipes, click here.