I still can't believe I've only just recently discovered arepas. I live in San Francisco, blocks away from one of the largest Latin-American neighborhoods in the country, yet somehow I'd never tasted an arepa?
All those wasted years I could have been eating this amazingly simple, yet brilliant concoction. Thank goodness one of the stops on a recent field trip to NYC was a hole-in-the-wall called Caracas Arepas Bar. It was at this east village eatery where I fell in love with a stuffed white corn cake.
Halfway through my first arepa, one stuffed with black beans, beef, plantains and salty cheese, I vowed to learn how to make these at home. Upon my return to San Francisco, I headed straight to the Mission, where the first Latin grocery store I checked had what I needed, harina P.A.N., a kind of boiled white corn meal vital to this recipe.
As you'll see in the video, if you can find this product, the rest is extremely simple. You make a dough with some salt and warm water, and then you fry patties until golden brown. The resulting corn cake, once split open and stuffed, is a tour de force of textual pleasure.
Sure the ingredients in a BLT all taste great, but it’s the perfect blend of textures that makes it a charter member of the sandwich hall of fame. Same goes for arepas. The golden brown outside gets crispy and crunchy, yet the inside stays soft, moist, and somewhat chewy.
It's a truly magnificent delivery system for any number of your favorite fillings. I went with some spicy pork and avocado, but you can also see a version I made a few days later, stuffed with caramelized plantains and salty goat feta. To die for.
Anyway, I hope you watch the video and decide that arepas need to be part of your life also. Here are some links to help you with what I promise will be a delicious journey. I hear you can get the P.A.N. corn meal at any Latin-American foods market, but it's also easy to find and order online. Here is an Ebay page with all sorts of options.
For ideas on what to stuff into these beauties, here's a link to the official Caracas Arepas Bar website. If you check out their downloadable menu, you can see what they use in theirs and go from there. I really hope you give these a try. Enjoy!
Note: at the time of this posting, I still hadn’t learned what P.A.N. stands for. If you know, please share. Thanks! Update: P.A.N. stands for National Alimentary Product.
Ingredients: (Note: I only made half a batch. These ingredients are for a full batch, which will give you about 8 arepas.)
2 1/2 cups tepid water 1 teaspoon salt about 2 cups of P.A.N. white corn meal (By the way, don't ask me if you can use other corn meals or flours, because I don't know!)
For even more information on making arepas, check out this great post from my friend Shauna's blog,Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef.
Of course they're not called game hens because they're so great for pre-game tailgate cookouts, but they could be. I'm not exactly sure when it will happen, but sometime this summer you will reach your grilled chicken limit, and when you do, this simple marinated game hen recipe will be there for you.
The idea here is borrowed from the highly successful Cornell chicken experiments, and uses a similar acid/salt/oil/egg concoction, only this time the part of egg is played by mayo. Needless to say you can season this a million ways, and use any combination of hot chilies, but the little kick the habanero adds is really nice.
You can, and so many of you probably will, use regular old chicken halves for this recipe, but the smaller, sweeter hens are a nice change of pace, and a half of one makes for a perfect picnic-sized portion per person. I hope you give it a try. Enjoy!
This video is the leading vote-getter in our Summer of You contest on YouTube (click here for background info). I have to say, I love the creativity, and totally forgot I'd actually danced on camera. What was I thinking! Anyway, enjoy the video!
If the thought of making a flavored butter with flowers from the backyard sounds kind of crazy, think again. Nasturtium petals have an interesting, but very subtle radish flavor that works perfectly in this colorful compound butter.
The predatory Nasturtium is considered a pest by many gardeners, so not only will you be creating a colorful and unique sauce, you'll be helping out a neighbor by taking some of these vibrantly colored villains off their hands.
Nasturtium butter sure looks sexy, slowly melting over grilled fish, chicken, or vegetables. By the way, some of you fellas may want to take note; anecdotal evidence shows this to be a great idea the next time you're cooking for date night. Enjoy!
Ingredients: 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature 1/2 cup nasturtium flower petals, washed and patted dry pinch of salt
I never make cold broccoli salad, so when I decided to film a recipe for one, I didn't have a ton of previous experience to draw from.
I remember having a great one next to a piece of grilled salmon in Monterey years ago, but all I remembered was it was very cold, very lemony, and kind of spicy.
The only other cold broccoli salad taste memory I have is from the annual post-Passport, Sunday night dinner that Bill Frick hosts for the family after the event. Bill makes a super simple, but perfectly delicious version that really shines next to a platter of grilled chicken.
Using both these salads as inspiration, I proceeded with the blanching and the whisking, and what was produced far exceeded my expectations. This is a great tasting, very refreshing, and believe it or not, interesting salad.
Will this become your favorite summer side dish? I doubt it. It's really very good, but how can you complete with such iconic picnic table fixtures as potato and macaroni salad? Let's face it, it's still broccoli after all.
Nevertheless, you can never have enough vegetable side dish recipe ideas, so I hope you give this tasty, easy-to-make salad a try. Enjoy!
Ingredients: 1 1/2 pounds broccoli 3 cloves garlic, mashed 2 tbsp lemon juice 2 tbsp rice vinegar 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard 1/3 cup olive oil red pepper flakes to taste salt and pepper to taste
I always feel a little guilty grilling on Memorial Day. Being surrounded by all kinds of luscious food and ice-cold beer seems to be almost mocking the holiday's solemn meaning. Maybe we should really honor our vets by eating what they had to survive on while defending our country.
What if instead of lounging with a stack of slick, sticky barbecue pork ribs and potato salad, we dug a hole in the ground from which to enjoy something squeezed out of a pouch? Pop-Tarts notwithstanding, there are very few delicious things that come in pouches.
No one is less qualified to speak for veterans than me, but I don't think they would want us to go that far. I mean, what better example of what these brave men and women fought for, than backyards full of smoking grills and smiling faces?
So, if Uncle Jerry cooks the chicken breasts ten minutes past dry, and whoever made the beans was clearly just going through the motions, don't think of it as a poor meal, think of it as a meditation on what these heroes' sacrifices have made possible.
I still can't believe I've only just recently discovered arepas. I live in San Francisco, blocks away from one of the largest Latin-American neighborhoods in the country, yet somehow I'd never tasted an arepa?
As you'll see in the video, if you can find this product, the rest is extremely simple. You make a dough with some salt and warm water, and then you fry patties until golden brown. The resulting corn cake, once split open and stuffed, is a tour de force of textual pleasure.
Anyway, I hope you watch the video and decide that arepas need to be part of your life also. Here are some links to help you with what I promise will be a delicious journey. I hear you can get the P.A.N. corn meal at any Latin-American foods market, but it's also easy to find and order online. Here is an Ebay page with all sorts of options.
