Natural oh so healthy milk chocolate malt balls

Kicking myself for buying these the other night...

7:47:20 PM      trackback [] 

Empanadas y sol

Today Maddy and I and our amigas Argentinas skipped the usual Monday morning with mate in favor of making empanadas. Here is a recipe that looks pretty close to what we made except we didn’t use raisins and I don’t think Sandra used paprika. In place of regular puff pastry, we used some genuine imported Argentine hojaldradas para horno that Adriana had picked up over the weekend in Queens. I think they also buy them at a local mercado hispánico in Waltham. Adriana has tried making them herself here in the US but doesn’t like the masa or something here and has given up in favor of buying them pre-made at the Hispanic market.

It was a beautiful day – sunny, 70s and dry – so we spent much of the time sitting out on the deck tomando el sol while the filling simmered in the kitchen. I was having one of those days when it was hard enough for me to think clearly in English, so I struggled with speaking Spanish. I also couldn’t come near to the beautiful job Adriana did in adding the final twists around the edges of the empanadas – hers were just perfectly rolled while my empanadas kinda looked like mini dinosaurs with ridges sticking up along the spine. At any rate, they all tasted delicioso!

I also learned that salpicar means to splash (Sandra was splashing water to cool us off on the deck), which explains the name of the dish salpicon that I've seen on tapas bar menus. Salpicon is kind of a tossed (or splashed or sprinkled I suppose) beef salad (or usually beef anyway). Here's one version, though there are countless others.

4:54:21 PM      trackback []