By nando, on September 6th, 2011%
There is a special place in my heart (and stomach!) for Rosa Mexicano. As I’ve written in previous posts, my first date with my wife was at Rosa Mexicano, and we try to go on our anniversary whenever possible. I even have the Rosa Mexicano cookbook, an anniversary gift from my wife a few years ago. I was looking for some inspiration because I haven’t been cooking as much as I used to, so I turned to this cookbook and found this great recipe. I did change a few things, but the spirit of the recipe is mostly intact. The changes: I used shallots instead of red onion, added roasted corn, and used only one jalapeño pepper, instead of the two that the recipe called for (thought it would be too spicy for my wife but it ended up being too mild).
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Notes: I served this dish with white rice and refried beans, but I didn’t take pictures of the sides.
Ingredients:
1.5 pounds peeled/de-vained shrimp (I used large, 21-25 shrimp)
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup corn (about one large ear)
1 large shallot, sliced thin
2 jalapeño peppers, seeded and minced
2 cloves . . . → Read More: Shrimp in Cilantro Cream Sauce
By nando, on June 13th, 2011%
Homemade mayonnaise is so simple, I can’t imagine ever buying another jar of mayo. It’s superior to store-bought in every way I can think of, and cheaper to boot! Even if you’re a person who doesn’t like mayo, I suggest you give this recipe a try and then decide. Just think of it as a hollandaise sauce, except you use oil instead of butter. You can also personalize the recipe and make your mayo unique by adding lavender, garlic, rosemary, thyme, dill, and even horseradish! All you have to do is make a flavored-oil (heat the oil with the product you want to flavor it with, let it cool to room temp, and strain it) and then use it in your mayonnaise recipe.
I use my immersion (or stick) blender whenever I make mayonnaise. I’ve written about immersion blenders before, and I highly recommend you go out and purchase one (you can get one for around $25). I would imagine that it’s possible to use a food processor or a blender, but I would drizzle the oil in slowly instead of adding it all at once.
Check out the video at the end of the post and see . . . → Read More: Homemade Mayonnaise
By nando, on December 6th, 2010%
Pasta is a comfort food in my house. It’s a quick way to make a satisfying meal that my wife and I can enjoy while not making much of a mess. I prefer to use fresh pasta (the kind you find in your grocer’s refrigerated section) since it cooks quicker and has a more appetizing texture than dry pasta. It’s a bit more expensive but well worth it.
I normally just settle on a quick red sauce, usually out of a jar, but sometimes I like to make something a bit more labor intensive. In this case, I took my marinara sauce and added vodka and cream to create a wonderfully delicious and comforting sauce. The marinara recipe I just linked to is enough for one pound of pasta but if you don’t want to make it, you can purchase a pre-made marinara from your grocery store and just add the vodka and cream.
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 4-5 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Notes: You are going to want to have the sauce prepared before you drop the pasta in the water. If you’re using dry pasta, cook it for 7-9 minutes and then add it to the vodka . . . → Read More: Pasta alla Vodka
By nando, on December 3rd, 2010%
While it’s true that you can purchase a jar of marinara sauce just about anywhere, you will be hard pressed to find one that tastes as good or better than a home-made version. A classic marinara sauce only needs five ingredients (not counting salt and pepper): tomatoes, onions, garlic, olive oil, and herbs (typically basil and/or oregano). I, however, cannot just make a plain-Jane version so I add quite a bit of ingredients.
I’ve had a problem in the past with my sauces turning out more orange than red and I think I’ve figured out why: air. I use diced tomatoes and cook them with the vegetables and then puree it all together right before it’s done. It’s the air incorporated in the mixture while I puree/blend it that makes it turn from red to orange. If you want to avoid this, and keep a deep red color, try starting with crushed/pureed tomatoes instead of whole/diced and allow the sauce to simmer long enough to melt or disintegrate the vegetables into the sauce (typically 2-2.5 hours of simmering). Alternatively, you can puree the vegetables and then use a potato masher on the tomatoes. I don’t . . . → Read More: Marinara Sauce
By nando, on September 7th, 2010%
When I think of fish tacos, I think of Fred’s Mexican Cafe. We discovered this restaurant after diving in Maui on our honeymoon. I asked our dive instructor where we could go to get good, inexpensive food with big portions (we were starving after two 60-minute dives) and he recommended Fred’s. While it is a chain restaurant, we found their food to be very good and very reasonably priced. We ended up eating there twice on our 8-day trip because it was that good (Fred’s was one of the two restaurants that we ate at more than once); we even visited the restaurant when we went to San Diego, CA (where they are based) a year later.
I wanted to make a quick, delicious dinner for us and these seemed like the right choice. We had all of the ingredients already, so it was just a matter of putting it all together. I did cheat on the fish, though, as I used a pre-breaded fillet that we found at Sam’s Club (wild-caught Flounder filets) that only needed to be crisped in the oven (400 degrees for 20 minutes). Feel free to use fresh fish and batter/fry it at home or just sauté it in . . . → Read More: Crunchy Fish Taco with Chipotle Crema
By nando, on August 20th, 2010%
I’ve seen my share of tuna burgers on restaurant menus for years now. I’ve never ordered one because I’m not a huge fan of seared tuna steaks and I was afraid that the non-steak burgers were made from canned tuna (which I don’t really care for, either). I’ve also seen cooking shows where they use either tuna steaks or canned tuna to make burgers but I usually change the channel as it’s something I never thought I’d be interested in. However, I was inspired to do something different after watching an old episode of Iron Chef America where Morimoto took a large piece of tuna and chopped it up with two knives into very small pieces and than created a beautiful tuna tartar out of it. My thought process was as follows: “Why can’t I take small pieces of tuna and mix them as I would a crab cake, then make a burger/slider out if it?”
It’s been a few weeks since I saw that episode and had almost forgot about it until I was looking through the sale items in my local Harris Teeter and saw that sashimi-grade Tuna was on sale for $7 a pound. I usually try to stick . . . → Read More: Ahi Tuna Sliders
By nando, on August 6th, 2010%
Inspired by the Man vs. Food episode that aired last week, where Adam traveled to Puerto Rico, I set my sights on creating a homemade Sandwich de Churrasco (skirt steak sandwich) that would rival any I had growing up.
When I was growing up in Puerto Rico, food trucks were as much a part of our culture as hot dog carts are to New Yorkers today. There aren’t as many as there were 20 years ago, when you would find trucks selling everything from guarapo (sugar cane juice) to roasted pig on a spit to pinchos (chicken or beef kabobs), but there are still some good ones to be found. Most of these food trucks are open late as it’s a tradition to drive to a sandwich truck at 3-5am, after leaving the bar, club, or pub, and chow down on a big sandwich to try and avoid a hangover the next day.
If you’ve ever been to Puerto Rico, then you’ll no doubt know that one of the most popular dressings on the island is mayoketchup – a mixture of mayonnaise, ketchup, lime juice, and sometimes garlic. It’s a common condiment used to top everything from sandwiches to fried finger foods; sometimes, . . . → Read More: Skirt Steak Sandwich (Sandwich de Churrasco)
By nando, on August 2nd, 2010%
I was searching for a hearty, comforting recipe to make on a lazy Sunday evening and decided to make an all-day tomato sauce without having to simmer it all day (or fussing over the stove). I chose to use the crock pot because it maintains a constant heat and doesn’t have to be fussed over (like the infomercial says, you can set it and forget it). It was a bit involved in a few steps, namely the caramelization of the onions, but it was more than worth it in the end. The best part was the leftovers, which tasted better on the second day than they did on Sunday (most long-cooked foods, such as pot roasts, tend to taste better the second day).
This recipe is a fancied-up version of a typical American comfort food. I chose to use caramelized onions and roasted tomatoes but you can skip those two and just use freshly crushed tomatoes if you don’t have an hour to spend before placing the ingredients in the crock pot. Just remember to seed and peel them, or feel free to used your favorite canned tomatoes.
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 5 hours
Actual Time Spent Cooking: 1.5 hours
Difficulty: Easy
Notes: Most of . . . → Read More: Rigatoni with Crock Pot Tomato Sauce and Meatballs
By nando, on July 19th, 2010%
I love Cuban sandwiches. I grew up in Puerto Rico and went to school right down the street from a Spanish pastry and sandwich shop called Panadería y Repostería España, where I would stop by for a sandwich at least once a week. A good Cuban sandwich is hard to find but, when I find one, it makes me feel warm and cozy all over (and it’s not because of the beer I’ll drink with it).
The hardest part about making a good Cuban sandwich is getting the right bread. So many people pick the wrong type of bread and it just doesn’t taste right. My inspiration for this dish was a combination of two main factors: I wanted to eliminate the biggest flaw in most Cuban sandwiches (not having the correct type of bread) and the fact that Mrs. Belly Full doesn’t much care for sandwiches at dinner time. I’ve had a craving for some good Cuban food lately and have been wanting to try a pork roulade for some time, so I decided to combine the famous Chicken Cordon Bleu with a Cuban sandwich.
I’ve made roulades with lamb, chicken, and beef before, but never with pork. The main reason why I never tried . . . → Read More: Recipe: Cuban Cordon Bleu
By nando, on July 12th, 2010%
So, I thought I’d show off my immersion blender with whisk attachment for today’s post. It makes my life in the kitchen so much easier that it deserves a mention here as an indispensable kitchen tool.
This post is for those of you out there who haven’t enjoyed home-made eggs Benedict in a while because you think Hollandaise is too hard to make. Sure, there are packets out there that you whisk together with milk to form the sauce, but they’re flat-out disgusting compared to the real thing.
Interesting facts about Hollandaise:
Hollandaise sauce is nothing more than an emulsion (just like Mayonnaise), and is one of the French Mother Sauces. They are called Mother Sauces because they can be used as a base for other sauces, such as a Bearnaise sauce is a variant of our beloved Hollandaise. The two most important things to remember when creating an emulsion are that you need constant agitation (mostly via whisk) and you need to add the fat (in our case, the butter) into the mixture very slowly.
Ingredients:
Hollandaise sauce uses very simple ingredients that most people will have in their homes at any given time.
These are:
1 egg yolk
1/2 stick of butter (4 Tbsp), melted (I place it in . . . → Read More: Easy Hollandaise Sauce
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