El Salvador: Pupusa

What the hell is a pupusa, anyway? And why bother?

That might as well be the title of this post, since that's exactly what I was thinking by the time I was done with the pupusa-making process.

I'll start by saying I've never been to El Salvador, or anywhere remotely close to it for that matter. The country has no sentimental value. I've never even thought much about it. Never seen a pupusa on a restaurant menu.

But at some point last Monday, my week was off to a rough start. I was totally unmotivated. Totally disinterested in most of the things I needed to get done at work. And it was cold and crappy out. Who even wants to get out of bed in that weather? I mean, come on. This is Florida! I'm here for a reason.

I dragged through the first few days of the week, starting to feel a little bummed. I wished I had some sort of distraction. Something to get me excited and pull me out of my funk.

Then I remembered the wine bag of fun. The occasional monotony of life was part of the reason I started this blog in the first place. Just something to spice things up when life needed just a bit of seasoning.

As cheesy as it sounds, it works. There's something kind of thrilling about spontaneously reaching into a bag, pulling out a country's name and vowing to pay it a little visit - at least in your kitchen. Maybe it's the surprise. You never know what you're going to get, and then before you know it your exploring the cuisine of El Salvador.

It seemed so exotic at first. So cool. So Latin.

That was before I started the pupusa making.

A pupusa is a traditional Salvadorian hot pocket of sorts, made with a dough of corn flour and stuffed with random things, like meat, beans or cheeses. I actually found an Emeril recipe that involved shredded pork and white cheese. He calls it Salvadorian Pulled Pork Pupusa with Pickled Cabbage. It's the only pupusa recipe on the Food Network web site. (I now think I know why.)

Thus began quite the process. The recipe required that the side dish alone sit for 24 hours before eating (I cheated and tasted it a good six hours in). In the interim, the pork cooks for a good four hours. And then there's this little situation with the corn pockets - making the dough, molding little balls, trying to flatten and stuff them with the pork mixture without breaking the dough, which is fairly delicate. In all, I probably spent about seven hours trying to accomplish all this (with down time in between to clean up the kitchen).

The end result was pretty good. I'd probably serve this at a party.

But seven hours? This might even surpass the moussaka in intensity. Or homemade pasta. And on this first go around, I was fairly tired by the time I even got to making my little dough balls. I fell like the pupusas were coming out kind of crappy.

At some point last week, I managed to convince one of my editors to take me to lunch. We decided on Vietnamese, and headed to Miss Saigon for some pho.

On the ride there, I started telling him about my own experience making pho (remember, the whole 10-plus hours making broth). He kind of laughed and said that's exactly why he doesn't make ethnic food.

"Someone else already knows how to make it so well," he said. "It's like sushi. It's an art. I could never make it as good."

His message: Why bother when you could drive around the corner for takeout in under an hour?

But even as I painstakingly rolled my little corn flour balls, trying to keep them from breaking as I stuffed them with pork and cheese, I could appreciate the effort. I could appreciate that someone, at some point in time took the time to come up with this cultural staple. I could appreciate it in a way I never would have had I never tried to make it myself.

It's a pain in the ass, rolling those little corn balls by hand and then frying them. Should I ever find myself in El Salvador enjoying one of these tasty treats - or any comparable restaurant - I'll be sure to thank the cook for his effort. And tomorrow, I'm kind of looking forward to getting back to what I perhaps do best, at least better than making pupusas. Working at a newspaper.

Opa! Greek Glendi style

The lure of a baklava sundae got stronger every day leading to the weekend.

I knew it was time for the Greek Glendi, the annual celebration of all things Greek at St. Barbara's in Sarasota. It's pretty clear when you go to this sort of thing that Greek people know how to eat, and party.

The Glendi was one of the first must go to events I learned about when I moved to Florida. The office I worked in was right up the street, and I think we went both Thursday and Friday for lunches of moussaka and baklava.

Since then, I've learned the Glendi is more fun as a weekend event. Especially with this year's discovery that you can buy a bottle of wine for $15 (two for $25, for the avid wine drinkers) and then spend an afternoon strolling through the little bazaar sipping some vino. Despite common thought to the contrary, Greece can actually put forth a few decent wines. Just stay away from the retsina.

For the most part, us outsiders stay on the periphery of the real fun, sitting in folding white chairs and letting members of the parish captivate us with their Greek dancing. We figured they had a hidden stash of ouzo they weren't serving to the company.

We did become fully involved in the festivities when it came to the eating. I spent much of the week contemplating the menu and decided this would be the year to try the lamb shank, what turned out to be a hearty and warm choice for a pretty frigid evening.

And despite the fact the temperature dropped to about 50 degrees (that's pretty cold for us Floridians) I couldn't leave without my baklava sundae. I wandered over to the lonely looking lady charged with manning the ice cream table on this chilly night.

Whoever came up with this concept was brilliant. They pour the honey and nut mixture - the baklava filling - over ice cream and top with a cherry. I find the cream kind of cuts the sweetness of the honey mix, and lets you enjoy the best part of the baklava without all of the flaky phyllo. All it needed was a good dollop of whipped cream.

I even let the little old Greek woman sucker me into buying the church cookbook. I thought it was the most appropriate memento from the celebration.

Of course that leaves the obvious question: What the heck is a glendi? The answer is actually pretty obvious. Glendi is the Greek work for party.

Opa!

Happiness is ...

... good friends, the beach, a mommy apron, some paella and plenty of vino. Blissful!

France: Simple Cassoulet

So I'll admit, this whole random selection thing isn't working out quite like I planned. But that's OK. I'd rather cheat than let ingredients go to waste or bust my budget.

I was also thinking I'd save a cool country like France for something big. But I had lots of onions, carrots and celery in the fridge that I needed to get rid of. And it's been kind of chilly here, so I wanted to make a warming, quick, one pot dish that I could feed off of for awhile.

I decided to go ahead with a simple version of the French cassoulet, a meat and bean stew that is named for the cassoul pot it is traditionally cooked in (remember this bit of trivia if you ever play Foodie Fight). I don't have a cassoul pan, so I just do it in a regular pot. Some versions are loaded with all sorts of meat, like duck and bacon, but this one keeps it pretty straight forward. And I'm having a lazy weekend.

Of all places, I first learned of this dish on last year's Next Food Network Star. One of the contestants whipped it up as her signature dish. I thought it looked great, so I tried it. This time around I made some changes, using dried instead of fresh herbs (because I had them in my cabinet and didn't have to buy them) and regular pork sausage instead of chicken (because I like it). I also mixed up the technique a bit, letting the veggies cook in the oil from the sausage for added flavor. It came out pretty salty, so on a next go around I'll probably try to make some substitutions to scale back that flavor. I may have also screwed up the ratios substituting dried for fresh herbs. I like to eat it with some crusty bread and sprinkle some parmesean cheese on top.

What you need:

3 tbsps. olive oil

5 links of hot Italian sausage

3 yellow onions, chopped

5 carrots, chopped

5 celery stalks, chopped

10 garlic cloves, chopped

2 tbsps. dried thyme

2 tbsps. dried oregano

1 tbsp. dried rosemary

2 bay leaves

fresh ground pepper

2 cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

6 cups chicken stock

What to do:

Heat the olive oil in pan. Remove casings from Italian sausage, add to pot and cook until done. Remove with slotted spoon and place on a paper towel-lined plate.

Add the chopped veggies (including garlic) to the pot with the oil from the sausage. Cook until soft. Add spices and season with pepper. Let cook for about 10 minutes. Then add the beans, chicken stock and Italian sausage back to the pot. Bring to a boil. Let simmer for at least an hour, until the stew becomes thick.

One last thing ... a souvenir, if you will

OK. One last thing about Spain. But this one has been in the cue since my mimosa breakfast.

Two of my favorite things about Spain were the gorgeous, colorful tiles everywhere and the orange blossoms. I remember standing and looking over valleys and gardens and seeing the rows of orange trees that seemed to go on for miles. They smelled incredible.

As far as the tiles go, I managed to score a lot of cheap pottery with designs reminiscent of the traditional tiles. My favorite piece was this teal and white bowl with little pink and yellow accents.

Well I've broken it twice, both times because I was being an idiot. I managed to get it home from Spain in one piece, but did not pack it securely when I moved to Florida. It shattered, but I could not stand to get rid of it. So my dad fixed it. It then seemed like a good idea to display it on a shelf below a heavy drawer of a bookcase I put together myself. Yeah you can guess what happened. Drawer fell. Bowl shattered. Dad fixed it, which really speaks volumes about his craftsmanship. Now, I think the cracks give it character, just like the old tiles.

At some point I put some fake white flowers in it and it became the centerpiece on my kitchen table.

But then when I had the mimosa brunch, I bought one of those crates full of clementines and was trying to figure out what to serve them in. It was perfect!

It looked so nice one of my friends later told me she thought it was just for decoration.

A final thought on Spain ... for now

Well I'm going to leave Spain alone for a little while, but I'm sure will be back with more stories and cooking. My lil bro is a big Spain fan himself, so I'm sure he'll be making an appearance and cooking up some paella and tapas with me, figgy style.

But I feel that it's prudent to have a little discussion about the paella pan. I mean, why would anyone invest in a piece of kitchen equipment that's pretty much good for one recipe?

Basically because the pan is shallow and wide and comes in all different sizes. The sides are sloped and the bottom is dimpled, which helps the rice cook more evenly than a frying pan.

I keep wowing my friends with stories of ones I saw in Spain that were three feet across that chefs used to make the paella over an open fire. Traditionally they make the fire with orange and pine branches, and the smoke infuses flavor into the paella. The flames also help create a nice crust around the edges.

For lack of an open fire, we of course cooked our paella on a charcoal grill. I've also done it on the stove top and it works fine. Mine of course is probably a measly 18 inches. But just big enough for a decent size paella party : )

Spain, El Primer Viaje: Tortilla

Well I know my love of wine started in Spain. Perhaps so did my love of communal dining.

Sushi. Fondue. You name it. There's something about sharing food with the people you love that I find so comforting.

Of course one of my favorites is the traditional Spanish tapas.

Tapas would be the fourth (and sometimes second) of the typical five meals Spanish people eat in their day. For them, this pace isn't about weight loss or keeping their metabolisms going. It's more or less a good excuse to take breaks from work and hang out with friends.

A quick debriefing on the Spanish feeding schedule: Meal one is typically a light breakfast of coffee, light cookies and fruit generally consumed at the ungodly hour that Spaniards wake up. A few hours later, they're in the cafe for drinks and some light tapas (This usually coincided with my morning coffee... I could never get into this early business). Third meal is the big meal during siesta. Anything's fair game. Fourth is the traditional post-work drinking and tapas, followed by dinner in the late evening.

I didn't know much about Spanish cuisine when I went there, but very quickly realized I loved it. Simple things like olives, serrano ham and manchego cheese drizzled with olive oil and all packed with amazing flavor.

And then of course there is the tortilla, a delicious egg and potato omelet that you can mix up with various other add ins.

I've made the tortilla several times before, including a few times with a recipe my brother scored from his host mother when he studied in Spain. For the paella party I made one from the Williams Sonoma Savoring Spain and Portugal cookbook.

A note on the tortilla: The potato-egg ratio is extremely important so the tortilla holds together. I allowed a renegade potato to find it's way into my mix this time around, so it didn't hold as firm as I would have liked it.

What you need:

1/2 cup plus 3 tbsps. olive oil (Live large and get the real Spanish kind. You'll notice a difference in the flavor. They sell it at Publix, and I'm guessing most other decent supermarkets.)

2 lb. baking potatos peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick

salt and fresh ground pepper

1 yellow onions, thinly sliced

6 eggs, lightly beaten

4 oz. serrano ham

1 large red bell pepper

chopped flat leaf parsley

What to do:

Roast the red pepper. You can do this by heating the oven to about 375. Coat the red pepper in olive oil, salt and pepper and roast for about 20 minutes. Occasionally turn the pepper so all sides get equal attention. After the 20 minutes, put the pepper in a bowel and cover with plastic wrap so the skin gets loose. Let it sit for about 15 minutes. When it is cool enough to handle, remove skin, stem and seeds from inside. Chop and set aside.

Heat the 1/2 cup of olive oil in a frying pan and lightly fry the potatoes until tender, but not browned. You may have to do it in two patches (probably will). When done, transfer to plate and season with salt and fresh ground pepper.

Once you've removed the potatoes, add the onions to the frying pan and cook until golden. Remove and let sit for about 15 minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until blended. Add the onions, ham and roasted pepper and combine. Fold in the cooked potatoes.

Heat the remaining oil in the frying pan and pour in the mixture. Cook over low heat for about 10 minutes. Then you'll need to flip the tortilla. You can do this by placing a plate on the top, flipping it over and then sliding it back into the pan. Cook another five minutes or so until the second side has set.

Serve with parsley as garnish.