Sultanas, coconut cakes

Last week I made these coconut cupcakes, known in Southern Spain as sultanas. I got the recipe from this website:
http://www.cosasdecome.es/recetas/sultanas-de-coco-al-estilo-de-antonia-butron/
It was a sweet flashback from my childhood, since it was one of my favorite pastries then.

Ingredients:

- 4 egg whites
- 2 egg yolkes
- 250 grams of sugar
- 250 grams shredded coconut
- 1/2 spoon of yeast

Step 1:  Crack 4 eggs and keep 2 yolks in a tupperware for another recipe, and put the 4 egg whites in a large bowl and 2 yolks in another bowl. In the large bowl beat the 4 egg whites to form peaks until it gets very frothy and white as snow. Then add little by little the 2 yolks previously beaten. Keep beating with a fork and add a little more than a cup of sugar little by little. Then add little by little 2.75 cups of shredded coconut, the star ingredient, and a little package of yeast. Keep beating and then knead it trying to keep it a little solid. Step 2: In a pizza tray set wax baking paper and on it put little meatballs of the mixture, made with your hands moist from tap water. The oven should be previously programmed to baking at 410 degrees Farenheit. After 10 minutes inside take it out seeing that they were golden. It´s very delicious and even more so the next two days when the flavors come together. It is recommended that you eat them quickly, I mean in the following 2 or 3 days, which is not really that much of a sacrifice ;), so that they don´t get hard and you enjoy the juicy core.

Wrinkled potatoes in spicy Canary sauce

This is my version of a very simple dish from the wonderful Canary Islands of Spain.
In a pot I boiled in sea salt  and water 6 unpeeled small red potatoes from Texas after having washed them very well in the sink. Poking with a knive I tested that they were thouroughly boiled after about 20 minutes. Then I emptied the pot of water and I left the potatoes on low fire from 5-10 minutes covering the pot with a tin lid so the potatoes got the characteristic wrinkle (very slight). For the sauce that I put on top of the potatoes, the famous mojo picón I did my own version. In a blender I put a little piece of tomato, a spoon of piquillo peppers, 5 peeled cloves of garlic, a pinch of salt, cilantro leaves, a spoon of cumin, a spoon of paprika, breadcrumbs, chilly peppers, a little bit of vinegar and Spanish extra virgin olive oil to cover it all. I blended it all very well and sprinkled the wrinkled potatoes for a typical flavor of Spain to enjoy. ¡Que aproveche!

Lentils with zucchini fritters

http://www.hogarutil.com/cocina/recetas/legumbres/201301/lentejas-fritos-calabacin-18249.HTML

Yesterday evening for dinner I made this magnificent lentil soup dish with zucchino fritter.

Ingredients

- Spanish extra virgin olive oil

- 1 white onion

- 1 spoon of paprika

- salt

- 300 grams of lentils

- Water

- 1 zucchini

' 2 eggs

- 2 garlic cloves

- breadcrumbs

- parsley






Preparation

I fried in olive oil a chopped white onion in a big pressure cooker pot. When they got browning I added a big spoon of paprika and salt, then 2er chunks of beef jerky for flavor, and kept frying for a minute and added 300 grams of lentils frying for another minute. Then I added three parts of wáter for the lentils and boiled with the pressure cooker closed for about 20-25 minutes (in a brand new pressure cooker it would only take 12 minutes froim the first smoke of boiling). I chopped in very small pieces a médium size zucchini, added 2 eggs, salt, a chopped garlic, breadcrumbs and mixed it very well for 5 minutes. Then in a separate pan I fried small dumplings of the mix at high temperatura olive oil. Dried the oil of the fried finished dumplings and put them on top of the finished lentils, serving threm on plates adorned with parsley.

Scrumptious!

Tabarnak (fille the putine) fries

Sweet potato fries fried in olive oil at low temperature, then sprinkled with an onion and garlic sauce, a leftover from the mushrooms in white wine sauce dish. Voila, bon appetit!

Spaghetti Aglio e Olio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI_7AcL4NMY

Gomes de Sá Style Cod

The Portuguese have hundreds of ways of preparing the cod, and it´s certainly a very generous fish when combined with different ingredients.

 

http://www.saborintenso.com/f17/bacalhau-gomes-sa-280/

 

 

In a large pan with water I boiled 3 cod filets for 10 minutes. I set the cod on a plate.

To the boiling water I added some salt and a big potato and boiled it for 30 minutes. I roughly shredded the cod. I let the potatoes cool down, peeled them and cut them in thick slices. In a big pan I fried  in olive oil a big white onion and 2 cloves of garlic all chopped, with 3 bay leaves. I added the shredded cod and the potato slices and kept lightly frying for a little bit and added some salt and parsley. I served it on a platter adorned with 3 sliced boiled eggs, more parsley flakes and black olives, which gave the dish a more intense flavor.

 

Bom apetite!

Philadelphia cheese ice cream

 

This is my own recipe and it was a total success at my birthday party.

 

Ingredients:

• - 1 cup whole milk
• - 2 cups whipping cream
• - 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• - a pinch of salt
• - 1/5 package Philadelphia cheese (about 113 grams, the whole package is 226 grams)

In a large bowl, mix the milk, the sugar and the pinch of salt with a hand mixer. Then whip in the half package of Philadelphia cheese for 15 to 20 minutes until it is almost totally diluted. Some lumps are OK since they work like the nuts in a flavored ice cream. Then add the whipping cream and mix for another 5 minutes. Cover the bowl and set in the refrigerator for 2 hours. Take it out and pour the mix in the ice cream maker letting it roll for 20 to 25 minutes. Serve straight or with walnuts or strawberry, like in the picture. Delish!

 

Hazelnut ice cream

The pursuit of yummy food is back!
Finally I´ve made up my mind to take up again my cooking blog and here we are again cooking a recipe by Emeril Lagasse: hazelnut ice cream.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/hazelnut-ice-cream-recipe/index.html
I got 1 and a half cup of raw hazelnut and baked them in the oven for 8 minutes at 400 degrees Farenheit, double the time he advised because of the peculiarities of my oven that sometimes requires more heating time. When they cooled off I peeled them as best as I could and roughly chopped them. In a large pan I boiled about a liter of half and half with 1 cup of granulated sugar until it started simmering. In a small bowl I whisked 6 egg yolks and then added to the large pan. I simmered it all again until it got thick and put the whole concoction in the refrigerator overnight, although a couple of hours ussually suffices. The next day I put the mixture rolling for 15 minutes in the ice cream maker and then for 5 minutes I added little by little the chopped hazelnuts. I froze the final mixture in the freezer at last inside a tupperware. The funny thing is that 2 days later it tasted really much better because the flavours mixed inside the plastic container, which I would never have suspected because of the highly cold temperature inside. So the hazelnutty flavour expanded to the yolky half and half sugary mix, making it a delicious choice for late Spring-early Summer ice cream with the woody and sober sweetness of the noble hazelnut. Delicious!