El Chancho/The Pig Roast

My husband's Uncle Juan celebrated his 50th birthday over the weekend.  And for his birthday he decided he'd like to roast a pig, Cuban style.  I agreed to do on-site blog reporting of this event with more than a little trepidation.  Back in the U.S. I was a vegetarian for 14 years.  Now that I eat meat I feel like I understand exactly where it comes from.  I can eat fish with the eyes still in them.  I even ate some chickens I helped raise.  But a piglet on a spit? Piglets are very close to puppies in my mind.  And I draw the line at puppies.

We stopped by Juan's house in the morning to see how things were going.  The pig was already mounted on the metal device Juan had built just for her.  My initial reaction was dismay.  We took some pictures and went home to give piggy time to cook. 
We went back to Juan's house in the afternoon.  The pig was a darker color and juices were starting to drip out of its... holes. People mingled and talked, kids played, babies were admired.  It got later.  The pig was not yet cooked to perfection.  Then it started raining.  The family served all the other food, and the pig was carved up about an hour later.  I hate to admit it, but I couldn't do it.  However, I wasn't alone.  Someone asked Juan's wife how the pig turned out and she just shook her head.  "No,"she said, "I can't eat it. It's grossing me out."

Cuban Pig Roast

1 pig                                                                    water

salt                                                                       wood

** First you need to find a pig.  If it's alive, you'll need to kill it, take the innards out, and shave it.  I cannot believe I'm writing this.  If you're ordering your pig from a butcher you should ask him or her to make only small incisions when s/he takes out the organs.  You should calculate 1 lb. of pig per person.  Each person will not really eat a pound of pork, this factors in the weight of the bones and hooves.
** Burn firewood down to coals.  They should still be hot when you mount the pig over them but there should not be flames.  The coals should be assembled in 2 piles.  One should be under the pig's head and the other should be under his hind legs.

** Open the pig's mouth and drive a stake into his butt.  Push it through til it comes out his mouth.  I cannot believe I'm writing this.

** Cooking time is calculated by cooking 1 hour per every 10 lbs. of pig.  However, Juan's pig took longer than calculated.  This might have been because his coals weren't hot enough.

** Half an hour before the pig is finished spray it with a salt water mix.

     Food Haiku #1
        It's lunch time again!
  What's that cooking on the coals?
        Oh.  Pig on a stick.

Sopa de Tortilla

Rafa is breaking ground in several ways.  He's the first male to come over and cook and he's also the first to make something that is commonly eaten here in Honduras, sopa de tortilla.


We discussed ingredients over the phone and then I had to go to the store.  I would've tried to convince him to pick up the things I was missing, but he was at home with 2 kids, which trumped me and the baby (and gives him even more Modern Man points).  I sweet talked my grandmother-in-law into watching the baby in exchange for a loaf of bread and some milk.  Left the baby at her house, ran for the car, couldn't find my wallet, ran back to her house, found it in the diaper bag, ran back to the car, drove real fast to the store, piled everything into a cart, drove it home, unloaded, walked back to Nana's where she had Nico on the bed listening to Guantanamera, grabbed the baby, scurried back home, and started laying things out for the soup.

When Rafa and his wife came over we started chopping and boiling.  It was hot.  I mean really hot.  The soup took about an hour to make with 2 people working together.  This seems a little labor intensive to me, so I think when I make it myself I'll make a lot and freeze the broth.  Then when it's thawed I'll only have to prepare all the condiments. We ate soup, and then the baby went to bed and we drank wine and beer and watched the intros to old cartoons on YouTube.  We sang along to He-Man, ThunderCats, and Jem.  Sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish.  Then they showed me a bizzaro Heidi cartoon that was apparently quite popular in Honduras. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXW31ZyorVA  There's a yodelly intro song and Heidi's a suspiciously Japanese-looking brunette.  Trippy.

Sopa de Tortilla

1 onion                                                    12-15 tortillas, cut into strips

5 plum tomatoes (or a can)                       oil

3 green peppers                                       mantequilla (sour cream for USA)

2 celery stalks                                          queso seco (Monterey Jack for USA)

2 garlic cloves                                         3 avocados

2 boneless chicken breasts                      cilantro

5 stock cubes

1/2 sm. can of tomato paste

achiote (optional)

dried chiles pasillos

salt and pepper to taste

** Boil all the veggies with the chicken breasts in a stockpot until the chicken is cooked through.

** Take the chicken out and shred it.  Set aside.

** Seperate the veggies from the broth and liquify them with about 1 c. of broth.  Set aside the veggie puree.

fried tortilla strips

** Into the broth add the stock cubes, tomato paste, dried chile and spices.  Add in some of the veggie puree to thicken the soup.  Simmer 20 min.

** Meanwhile, fry the tortilla strips in shallow oil.  Drain on paper towels.

** Chop the cilantro and avocado.  Grate the cheese.  Put each condiment into its own individual bowl so that each person can put their own toppings.



all the add-ins

  Kitchen Crusaders

If I were in a superhero crew

       We would be the Kitchen Crusaders     

We would chop and hack and slice and dice

and flatten our enemies like tortillas

And maybe I'd be Japanese

like Heidi

      



The Midences Make Crepes

Ludim did not make that cool alligator shirt.  But she bought
it from someone who made it and then she made two more herself.

Last week the lovely Ludim came over with her sister Yerchan for some late-night crepe making.  Ludim has lived in France, so this was the real deal.  We had to look up a base recipe on the internet because everything in my kitchen measured in cups and her recipe measured in grams (cuz it's French!).  However, once we had mixed up all the ingredients, Ludim started doing that thing that real cooks do.  She tasted the batter, declared it bland, and added more sugar (if you are state-side you might want to skip this what with the salmonella egg recalls).  She also let the batter drip off the spoon, decided it was too thick and threw in another egg, more milk, another Tbsp. of butter, and some water.  The recipe below is an approximation of what came out of all that. 

We made a lot of crepes.  And then we ate crepes with jelly, crepes with lime and  powdered sugar, crepes with ham and mozzarella cheese, and crepes with cajeta.  Except I ONLY ate crepes with cajeta.  Because cajeta is the nectar of the gods and you don't mess with that.

Crepes

2 c. flour                                                                    4 eggs

1/2 c. sugar                                                                1 1/2 c. milk

Add dry ingredients a little at a time,
like Team Midence.

1/4 tsp. salt                                                                8 Tbsp melted butter

** Mix dry ingredients together.

** Mix wet ingredients.

** Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ones, like this --->
** Grease a frying pan with butter.  Ladle out some batter and drop it into the pan.  Rotate the pan in the air so the batter thins out and covers all of the pan's surface.  If you are a kitchen genius or European, you might be able to flip the crepes in the air like Roman!


Roman can flip crepes, cuz he's
from the continent.  Gringos, don't
even try it!

 

Creperfection

You can eat crepes with sugar

and salty ones, too

you can eat crepes with jelly                                                  

or salami it's true

but the best kind of crepe

is the crepe with cajeta

it's delicious sweet goodness!

There's just nothing better.

Cajeta is made from the milk of a goat

and it leaves goat-milk richness

in my mouth and my throat. 

Cajeta is known as a Mexican treat.

Senoras milk goats

and turn that milk sweet.

The French can make crepes

and that really is good

but add in cajeta-

you've got fusion food

Crepes with cajeta, they might make you fat

but they also make you happy,

what's better than that?

Rossy and the Hotcake

This is Rossy.  She makes her own birthday cake every year and always matches her makeup and jewelry to the color of clothing she's wearing.  Yesterday Rossy sent me a text that said she could come over and make a cake, and that she would pick up some "special flour" for the "hotcake." I was confused.  Was Rossy making a cake or pancakes?
It turned out to be a little of both.  The cake was made with pancake mix and had a texture somewhere between angel food cake and pound cake.  It would make a great base for strawberry shortcake.  We couldn't decide whether to top it with raisins or coconut, so we did half and half.  The secret to hotcake seems to be to blend everything for a really, really, really long time.  That's how Rossy did it.

Hotcake

1 c. pancake mix                                                        1/2 c. milk

1 egg                                                                          1/2 c. oil

1/2 c. sugar                                                                raisins, coconut, or other topping of your choice

** Preheat oven to 375* F

** Using a blender, puree the crap out of the sugar and egg.  Add milk.  Blend again.  Add pancake mix.  Blend.  Add oil.  Blend.

** Grease a small pan (we used a 9x4 inch pyrex) and flour it with pancake mix.  Pour the batter in and top it with the raisins or coconut or whatever.

** Bake for 30 minutes. 

Hotcake with coffee hits the spot!

Rossy's Hotcake

The trick to Hotcake
is to blend
and blend and blend and blend and blend
until you think your life will end
and when that's finished you will bake
a cake? pancake? flapjack? hotcake?
Queque? panqueque? queque? panqueque?

HOTCAKE!

Lauren's Fritatta

Yesterday my friend Lauren called and said she was coming over to make fritatta.  My first thought was, "Yay! Someone's making me dinner!" My second thought was, "Damn, nothing rhymes with fritatta." Luckily for me, she showed up with shrimp cakes.  Lauren's a bit of an overachiever so not only did she bring over all her own ingredients, she also brought a bottle of wine, a cute Asian oilcloth bag, and already formed shrimp cakes, ready for frying. 

We commenced the frying and sauce making, threw some edamame in a pot to boil, and cut up some insipid napa that had been in my vegetable drawer for awhile.  Then we served some hungry menfolk that were over at my house working on a solar heating project.  The boys all commented on the deliciousness of the shrimp cakes.  Foodies they are not so we heard comments such as, ""Mmmm, they taste like hamburgers."  My husband got a Beavis and Butthead style snicker out of the word panko.  It sounds a lot like the Spanish word "penco"which translates loosely into "crude boorish person." Our friend Pingo was still hungry after our meal, so he reheated some pizza and put the sauce on that and was greatly admired by the other boys at the table for his culinary creativity. 

It was a good night.  The menfolk did the dishes and then went up to the roof with some rum and coke.  Instead of getting right to work on the solar project, they used the parts to make Lauren's fiance look like a Tranformer. 

Shrimp Cakes with Chili Cream Sauce

Shrimp cakes:

16 raw peeled shrimp                                              1 large egg

1 sliced green onion                                                 2 Tbsp lemon juice

1 Tbsp Dijon mustard                                               1 Tbsp cilantro

1/2 tsp hot sauce                                                      1/2 tsp salt

2 c. panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)                      pepper to taste

Sauce:

1/4 c. white wine

1/4 c. lime juice

1 Tbsp minced ginger

1 Tbsp minced onion

1/3 c. heavy whipping cream

2 Tbsp chile-garlic sauce

6 Tbsp butter

**Coarsley chop the shrimp.  Using a blender stick thingy or a regular blender pulse shrimp with egg, green onion, lemon, mustard, cilantro, hot sauce, salt and pepper.  Add 1 c. panko and pulse some more.  Form mixture into 6 cakes.  Roll them in the remaining panko.  Refridgerate until ready to fry.

**Put first 4 sauce ingredients in a pot and boil til reduced by half.  Add cream and reduce by half again.  Whisk in chile sauce and butter.

**Heat 2 Tbsp. oil.  Fry cakes in bathes until golden brown on both sides.  Add oil as needed.

** Top with sauce and serve.

It’s Panko, Penco!

So here’s a question:

Can anyone guess

The Japanese breadcrumb

That chefs like best?

It’s panko, penco

You crude silly fool,

Did you not read the title

Are you a complete tool?

Who you calling penco?

Me? Who me?

I may rock the panko,

But I’m not penca, you see

I can cook some tempura

I can rhyme adeptly

But a penca I’m not.

I speak politely.

Me and curry

I'm kicking this whole thing off by cooking my best dish- curry.  Since no one's coming to dinner and my husband prefers hot dogs, I'll be cooking for myself tonight.  I cook a mean curry.  The secret to curry is lots of spices, enough salt, and maybe a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook.  This recipe for Spicy Chickpeas originally came from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian cookbook.  It is an old favorite.  I am also posting a poem that's an old favorite.  It's been on asininepoetry.com for years, which is an excellent site for wasting time when you have better things to do.

Spicy Chickpeas

5 Tbsp oil                                                                 2 tsp. cumin

2 minced onions                                                     1 Tbsp amchoor

8 cloves of minced garlic                                       2 tsp. paprika

1 Tbsp coriander                                                    1 tsp garam masala

2 tsp. cumin                                                             1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp. cayenne                                                      1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp. turmeric                                                          1 minced chile

6 Tbsp diced tomato                                               2 tsp. grated ginger

2 20 oz. cans of chickpeas

 

** Heat oil.  Fry onions and garlic until brown.  Add the first set of spices.  Stir and add tomatoes.  Cook until tomatoes brown lightly.

** Add chickpeas and 1 c. of water.  Add 2nd set of spices and lemon juice.  Cover, turn down heat, and simmer 10 minutes.

** Add ginger and chile and cook 30 seconds longer.

The spices.

Curry tastes best in front of a hippie Indian tapestry.  If you've been to college you probably have one.

My little garbanzitos, stewing away.

Ode to Curry

At the Indian buffet

I can eat til I vomit,

choke down platefuls of rice

with everything on it —

dum aloo, aloo gobi,

raita and lassi

biryani and koftas,

with sweet mango chutney.

Oh matar paneer

you soft, curried mess

atop onion naan

is how you're served best.

And mulligatawny

let me not forget you!

You're runner up to my favorite:

curried goat stew.

I embellish with relish,

the chaat and parathas.

And oh gee, the ghee!

I could devour for hours

the chapatis, the tamarind,

and the galub jamun.

The sour lime pickles

send me to the moon!

At the cheapie buffet

I will while away hours

amidst hindi music

and cheap plastic flowers.

India, my India

your food makes me drool,

and sends me to paradise.
You totally rule!

Getting Started

Welcome to The Iambic Kitchen! I am in my last month of maternity leave, and desperately need a social life.  So I'm inviting just about everyone I know to come over and cook me dinner.  Stay tuned for recipes and poetic inspiration.