Last week, I wrote about Laylita’s Baked Plaintain with Cheese recipe, which I served with Aji Criollo, an Ecuadorian hot sauce/salsa.  The hot sauce adds a bite to the dish served. 

For those of you who like their foods hot, this is a hot sauce for you. For those who don’t like or can’t eat spicy, just look at the photo.  It’s good and hot and not for the faint of heart, or should I say it’s not for the faint of tongue.   You use hot peppers like serranos, jalapenos or habaneros.  I chose serranos, which turned out perfect for me.  You can also make make the hot sauce a little milder by removing the membranes and the seeds.  Of course, I left them in.  Of course.

What I loved about this hot sauce is that I could taste the freshness of all the ingredients — the hot peppers, the cilantro (cilantro!), the garlic, lime and onions.  It certainly beat the store-bought, preservative-filled bottle of hot sauce any day.  I also loved that this hot sauce was easy to make.  I simply put the ingredients together in the blender and I was practically done.

According to Laylita, it’s better to finish the hot sauce the same day but it can last up to 3 days.  It lasted less than a day and a half in my house.  Everyone loved this hot sauce with the baked plantain and used it to eat with other foods the next day.  I won’t say who specifically because I do not want to get in trouble, but I spied someone lifting their plate and licking the remnants of the hot sauce clean from it.  LOL! 

Yeah, it was that good (and hot!).

Oh by the way, did you know that if you eat something that’s too hot for you, you’re not supposed to drink water.  That does nothing to lessen the burning of your tongue.  Instead, you’re supposed eat a piece of bread.  I’ve actually tried it before and found that it does indeed work.

Thanks for the recipe, Laylita!

Paz

Ed. Note:  In the post, I mentioned one way to cool down your mouth/tongue after eating something hot (eating a slice of bread).  In the comments section, Sra of When My Soup Came Alive added some suggestions — According to her aunt, milk is "supposed to help".  On the other hand, Sra has found that drinking hot water "helps" her.

Pia of Serendipity, Synchronicity and Saffron writes that a tomato slice "works wonders".

If you have any tips on how to lessen the heat of a spicy food after taking a bite, please share with us.

Aji Criollo (Ecuadorian Hot Sauce) served with Baked Plantain with Cheese

Aji Criollo (Ecuadorian Hot Sauce)

Laylita’s Recipes

Ingredients:

4 ajies or hot peppers (jalapenos, serranos and habaneros are good replacements)

1/2 bunch of cilantro (stems and leaves)

1/2 cup of water

3 garlic cloves

Juice from 1/2 lime or lemon

3 Tbs finely chopped white onion (scallions can also be used)

Salt

Preparation:

Combine the hot peppers, cilantro, water, garlic cloves and lime juice in the blender and blend well.

Add the chopped white onions and salt to taste.

Paz

2008 © Laylita’s Recipes – All Rights Reserved

 This is my first time as a guest blogger and I’m very happy that it is for Paz, who has been one of the warmest and friendliest people I’ve met since I started my food blog. I wanted to make something that I would make for her if I lived nearby and could bring it over to help her recover, too bad Seattle is kind of far away from NY, so I made a quinoa and cheese soup that is both tasty and healthy. Soup is the answer to all problems, at least that’s the way it seemed when I was growing up in Ecuador: you’re not feeling too well? Eat your soup. You want to get bigger, taller, skinnier, smarter, etc? Eat your soup. You want dessert? Eat your soup. You want to go outside and play? Eat your soup. You would think I would have ended up hating soups, but I actually really enjoy a good bowl of soup, it’s one of those things that I crave when I’m feeling sick and wish my mom lived next door –instead of 4,500 miles away –so that she could make me some homemade soup.

I love fish, especially salmon.  Funny thing:  I pronounce salmon, SAL-MON.  I notice Americans pronounce it SA-MON.   They leave the "L" out.  So, when I say SAL-MON, they look at me funny.  LOL!  I’m not sure where or how I learned to prounonce it that way but that’s the way I do.   Anyway, whichever way it’s pronounced, I love this fish and when I saw the recipe for Grilled Salmon with Avocado Salsa (and a photo of the meal — please, please check out Laylita’s enticing photo.), I couldn’t resist making it.  Actually, the Avocado Salsa is what got me.  I’d never before heard of anything like that to eat with salmon. 

The next day after work, I bought the ingredients and set out to prepare it for dinner.  Regular readers know by now that I love simple and easy-to-make meals.  This is definitely one.  Oh, and another enticing factor about this recipe is that it has cilantro.  Hello!?  Cilantro!  Again, regular readers know that cilantro is my all-time favorite fresh herb.  Yes! 

Laylita’s recipe calls for the cilantro to be finely chopped.  Umm…  I didn’t really do that and I clearly added more than the 2 Tbs of cilantro.  Next time, I’ll try to follow the recipe better. 

The salsa was very easy to put together.  No problem.

I got out my grill pan and prepared the salmon.  My dogs LOVE fish and started getting excited about the aroma wafting from the kitchen. 

Layla suggests the side dish of Ecuadorian rice and or Patacones (thick fried green plantains) to go with the Grilled Salmon with Avocado Salsa.  A third thing regular readers know about me, by now, is that I HEART plantain.   I didn’t have any plantain at home, so I ate my salmon and avocado salsa with rice.  That was good enough.  It was mouthwatering delicious.  I loved my meal.  I loved the Avocado salsa, which was new and different to me.  It sort of had a tangy taste, which enhanced the grilled salmon that had been marinated in salt, coriander, cumin, paprika, onions and black pepper.  Let me tell you, it tasted so good.  I normally only use salt and black pepper when preparing my salmon, so these spices were an added treat to use on the salmon.

The next day, I had some leftover salmon and salsa, so I had it again for dinner.  This time I’d bought some yellow (ripe) plantain (kelewele — see photo here), which I fried and ate with the fish.  Oh, how I enjoyed my dinner even more.  I can’t wait to make this dish again.  Thank you, Laylita!

In the meantime, I’m scheduled to have surgery this week –Tuesday.  The recovery time is a bit long, so I won’t be able to post any food posts for a while.  Some awesome food bloggers have agreed to guest blog for me while I’m recuperating.  I’m really excited to see what they have planned for us.  I thank my guest bloggers in advance for their kindness.  You won’t see me on your blogs for a while but I plan on stopping by as soon as I can.

So see you soon on the blogs and don’t forget to come back here next Tuesday to find out about our first guest blogger.

Best,

Paz

GRILLED SALMON WITH AVOCADO SALSA

Laylita’s Recipes

Ingredients (for 4 people):

2lbs salmon, cut into 4 pieces

1 tbs olive oil

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp paprika powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp black pepper

Avocado Salsa

1 avocado, peeled, seeded and sliced

1 small red onion, sliced

3 mild hot peppers, seeded and deveined, diced or sliced

Juice from 2 limes

3 tbs olive oil

2 tbs finely chopped cilantro

Salt to taste

Suggested sides — Rice (rice Ecuadorian style)and patacones (thick fried green plantains)

Preparation:

1.  Mix the salt, coriander, cumin, paprika, onion and black pepper together, rub the salmon fillets with olive oil and this seasoning mix, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

2.  Pre-heat the grill.

3.  Combine the avocado, onion, hot peppers, cilantro, lime juice, olive oil and salt in a bowl and mix well, chill until ready to use.

4.  Grill the salmon to desired donesness.

5.  Serve the salmon topped with the avocado salsa, and with rice and patacones or thick green plantain chips on the side.

I’ve written about how  Christine’s Sunday Night Whole Roasted Chicken tastes so good that I’m unable to spare a few minutes to take a photo for the blog.  I’ve made the roasted chicken several times since writing about it on the blog, and each time, I want to eat it immediately!  No time to stop and take photos.  Forget that.

Well, I’ve found another winning roasted chicken recipe that Rebecca of From Argentina with Love shares with her readers — Chicken and Potatoes.  When I finished making the Chicken and Potatoes, I mustered all my human strength not to eat the chicken immediately.  This time I was able to spare a few seconds to photograph the Chicken and Potatoes.  Just barely.  This simple Roasted Chicken dish was soooo tasty.  As Rebecca described, the potatoes did have an extra tang, which made it extra special.  She shares the secret to the delicious potatoes in the recipe below. 

So… Now, I have two AWESOME roasted chicken recipes.  Yay for me!

Paz  *excited*

Pollo con Papas a la Florencia/Florencia’s Chicken and Potatoes

From Argentina with Love

Rebecca’s note:

Florencia made this for me as one of my first meals the first time I met her, and I had never tasted anything like it!  Since then, it’s one she knows will be a hit, and she makes it anytime we visit.  It’s one of the most satisfying meals I can think of–and the simplest to prepare!  The secret is the white wine–it gives the potatoes an extra tang.

one whole chicken, cleaned

coarse salt

pepper

one lemon

olive oil

1 cup dry white wine

5 cloves garlic, peeled but still whole

5 russet potatoes, peeled and sliced into ‘fries’

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Rinse the chicken and remove the packet inside.  Put the chicken in a baking pan, and drizzle olive oil over the chicken, rubbing it into the skin.  Squeeze the juice of  the lemon over the chicken, and stuff the lemon halves into the cavity.  Salt and pepper the chicken to taste. 

Meanwhile, put the cut potatoes in a bowl and drizzle in olive oil, using your hands to mix them around so that they are lightly coated in oil.  Salt liberally.

Put the potatoes around the chicken in the casserole dish.  Place the garlic cloves around in the potatoes.  Bake for about 40 minutes.  After this time, pull the chicken out, and pour the wine over the potatoes.  Increase the oven temperature to 450 degrees.  Return the chicken to the oven, rotating the pan, for about 30 minutes more, testing for doneness using a meat thermometer, 170 degrees.

I’ve always had a challenging time making empanadas.  So far, I’ve made them a total of three times.  The dough I make from scratch is always thick because I have a problem rolling it out properly.  One time, I tried to make a dessert empanada.  I had a different kind of problem with the dough.  Instead of too thick, it was too sticky.  Ugh!  My empanadas tasted good but not very good-looking.  Since I always seemed to have a challenging time making the empanada shell, I stopped making them, even though I love to eat them. 

When Rebecca of From Argentina with Love announced a food  blogging event called Empanadas of the Month, which she was hosting, I decided to rise to the challenge again.   In this monthly event, Rebecca provides a new empanada recipe for us to make.  The first recipe is for a classic Mendoza-style empanada.  Rebecca’s husband and friend, Carina, are from Mendoza, Argentina.

According to Rebecca, Mendoza-style empanadas are baked, instead of fried.  They are filled with seasoned ground beef, green olives and a slice of egg.  Then the empanada is sealed with a special technique called ‘repulgue’, where the edges of the empanada are folded and pressed repeatedly until they create a decorative pattern. 

Rebecca provided a video with her friend Carina narrating, in Spanish, how to seal the empanadas using the repulgue technique. 

"¡Perfecto!"  (Perfect!),  "¡Muy bien!"  (Very good!),  "¡Eso!" (That’s it!), Carina would encourage as Rebecca performed a perfect repulgue style technique on the empanadas.  At the end, Carina and the video guy applauded Rebecca for her excellent work. 

I would have loved my own cheering empanado-making team with me.  With that in mind, I tried to recreate what I saw on the video.  I even imagined that Carina encouraged me. "Perfecto, Paz!"  "¡Muy bien, Paz!"  "¡Eso, Paz!"  "Applause!"

*sigh*  It didn’t quite work out well.   You should have seen me trying to do the repulgue technique.  It was quite hilarious, actually.   I think the technique I performed was something that could only be called the ‘Paz Pathetic’ technique.   I think I’ll have to go to Carina’s kitchen for a personal lesson.  In the meantime, I did the best I could.

So, here are my humble empanadas Mendocinas.  They didn’t turn out bad at all. 

Oh!  By the way, I used the ready made, store-bought dough for the empanadas.  Interesting note:  Rebecca calls them ‘tapas’ but when I went to the store asking for ‘tapas’, everyone gave me a strange look and one store employee flat out told me he didn’t know what I was talking about before turning his back on me.  After searching on my own, I found the dough, which was called ‘discos’ (para empanadas)/disks (for empanadas).  Ahhh!  Interesting!  I suppose they have different names for the dough in different places.

The dough tasted fine but I like the idea of making my own, which I think would tasted much better.  So, I’ll start practicing how to make it again, one of these days. 

All in all, I’m happy about my Mendoza-style empanadas.  I’m ready for my applause.

Thanks Rebecca.  This was fun. 

Paz

Ed. Note:  Rebecca has posted a roundup of the works of those who participated.  You can find delicious-looking empanadas here.

Receta por Empanadas Medocinas de la familia Oliva-Quiroz

Mendocino Empanadas from the Oliva-Quiroz family

From Argentina with Love

For the filling:

2 lbs. ground beef

1 cup shortening or lard (you can add less or omit this if necessary)

2 lbs. onion

3 Tablespoons smoked paprika

4 teaspoons cumin

green olives, pitted and cut into slices, as many as is necessary

3 hard-boiled eggs, cut into rounds

salt and pepper to taste

crushed red pepper, to taste

For the construction: A glass of water 1 egg, beaten flour for the pan The meat can be made a day in advance. Put the onions, sliced finely in rounds, in a frying pan and salt them. Add the ground beef and cook, then add salt and pepper to taste. Next add the lard and mix well, so that it’s incorporated-the lard, the meat and the onion together. when it’s all cooked, add the crushed red pepper (to taste) and the cumin and mix well. When the mix is ready, let cook and add the paprika and stir well.

The assembly: Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the tapas on a flat surface, lightly floured. With a tablespoon, put a little of the meat filling in the center of the dough round. Add a slice of the olive and a piece of the hard boiled egg.

Then moisten the edge on the top half of the round with a little water on your finger. Fold the bottom half of the dough up until the edges meet and seal with your fingers by pressing down. The empanada should have a half-moon shape.

Use the palms of the hands to pack the filling firmly in the center. Next, fold the edges with the Repulgue: using your fingertip, fold one corner of the empanada over, pressing down firmly. Go to the edge again and repeat, pressing firmly each time. Go around the edge of the empanada and you’ll get a spiral pattern.

Beat an egg in a shallow dish and paint the top of each sealed empanada so that when they bake, they have a shiny, golden shell. Spread flour lightly over several cookie sheets, and place the finished empanadas on top. Put the empanadas in to bake for 12 to 15 minutes-they should be sizzling and very golden brown on top. Take out and eat very carefully while hot!