Hojalda or hojaldre, it's a fried bread lovers' dream
Admit it. We all have a love affair with fried dough. Doughnuts, beignets, churros, funnel cakes, the little Chinese ones (I don’t know the name). I venture to say that every country likely has a version of this marvel. It makes sense, it is mmmm, good!
Here I share Panama’s version of this uber important discovery. Popularly known as hojaldres or hojaldas, you can’t have a decent breakfast without one. One thing I find interesting about them, is that everyone in my little country seems to have a slightly different recipe for it. Some people add eggs, other use oil, no sugar, it goes on. This is how I’ve made them for decades.
Ingredients
3 cps flour
2 tsp salt
4-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp butter, softened
1 1/3 cp water
Approximately 1 cp flour for kneading
Plenty of oil for deep frying
Mix the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar before incorporating the butter. You’ll want the flour mixture to look like wet sand. Gradually add water until you end up with very wet dough. I like making this by hand, it allows me to be aware of the texture and consistency of the dough; plus its like playing with your food. I’ve also used my mixer to do it and it worked just as well.
Begin to add the additional flour and knead it in. You want the dough to feel soft, but not sticky. Turn it out onto your counter-top and knead it for about 5 minutes.
Separate it into balls, whirl a bit of oil on the bottom of a mixing bowl before dumping the balls of dough in. Let it rest at room temperature for at least 30 minutes, the more they rest the more time it’ll have to bloom.
Frying the hojalda: you can roll them out with a rolling pin and stretch them out like pizza dough just before dropping them in preheated oil. They fry VERY quickly, about 2 minutes per side, so don’t wonder off too far.
They are perfect with anything you’d eat bread with. The hubby enjoyed sprinkling them with powdered sugar, I’m still recovering from this crime.
I’m not a huge pear fan. I’m not especially fond of poached things and I’m not addicted to chocolate. What I CAN tell you about this little dessert is that it makes me a believer in all of the above.
If you need a better reason: this helps keep the Surgeon General off your back. 1 fruit serving. Check. 1 Antioxidant serving. Check.
Poached Pear in Chocolate Sauce
This is a simple and delicious little treat I tried in Paris for the first time. It really would’ve have NEVER occurred to me to serve pears this way, but it works! The pictures you see are the trial run. I made them again for one of our ‘dinner parties’.
Poaching the pears:
4 Bosc or D’anjou pears
4 cps water
2 cps granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean, split
1 cinnamon stick
4 cloves, whole
Zest from half a lemon
You’ll want to use a medium-sized saucepan, add the water, stir in the sugar and put it over high heat. Split the vanilla bean in half and scrape out the seeds, add to the saucepan together with the cinnamon and cloves.
While you wait for this to come to a boil, peel the pears. You’ll want to trim the bottoms to make sure they stand on the plate. Add them to the poaching liquid once it begins to boil, reduce the heat to medium-low. At this point it should barely simmer, don’t allow it to boil. Simmer the pears for about 15 minutes; this will vary depending on the ripeness of the fruit. Pierce it with a knife—be gentle—to determine if they’re done. Allow them to cool in the liquid.
Chocolate Sauce
1½ cp heavy cream
½ cp granulated sugar
8 oz unsweetened chocolate chips
2 tsp bourbon (optional)
1 tsp vanilla
Combine ½ of the heavy and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat; you want to heat it up, but not boil. Add the chips, stir to melt. Put the vanilla and bourbon into your blender, add in the chocolate mixture and blitz. Heat up the rest of the cream and add it to the contents of the blender, in a slow steady stream. You’re looking for the consistency of condensed milk.
To serve, pour the sauce onto the bottom of a salad/dessert plate, swirl it around to cover. Take the pear out of the poaching liquid, let it stand on a clean towel to soak the excess liquid, and place atop the sauce. Voila!
PS: I’ve reserved the poaching liquid. Don’t know what I’ll use it for yet, but I’ll let you know when I do!
I do love me some George Michael! Are you ready for our first cooking adventure?
Hubby and I love Chinese food. We also love Japanese food, oh and Thai. Well, we have this thing for Asian food. A few months back a coworker of his invited him over for a home-cooked meal. Linz came back telling me all about the delicious lunch he’d had. About how his coworker’s wife had done her best to explain to him the different sauces and condiments she used. And so, we’ve tried our hand at making some stir fry, fried rice and other Asian inspired dishes.
This is my version of Shrimp and Pork in Pepper Sauce. Here I joined the concepts behind Pork and String Beans and served it with Bok Choy and Mushrooms.
Makes 4 small portions
For the Shrimp
Mix the next 4 ingredients and set aside
½ lb. large shrimp (about 8), halved
2 tsp. light soy sauce
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tbsp. sesame oil
In a small bowl mix the next 3 ingredients and set aside:
3 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. oyster sauce
Dash of fish sauce (optional)
For the pork and sauce
1-2 tbsp. sesame oil
½ lb ground pork
1 large yellow onion, sliced
4 green onions, chopped (separate tops from stems)
3 tbsp. cilantro stems, finely chopped
1 tsp. red chili flakes (optional)
¼ cup vermouth / broth OR water
3 pieces of rock sugar OR 2 tsp. granulated sugar
Heat up a wok or frying pan over high heat; add sesame oil and pork stirring until it browns. Make sure you break the pork into tiny crumbles, add yellow onions and cook until they begin to soften. Add garlic, cilantro, green onion stems and chili flakes. Cook until the onions are translucent.
Now add the soy and oyster sauce mixture, sugar and stir. If you used rock sugar, make sure it has dissolved before adding the vermouth or broth. After adding the liquid , cover and reduce the heat to medium low for another 4-5 minutes. At this point the pork will be completely cooked and tender—be sure to check it; if it’s undercooked it can take on the consistency of day old taco meat.
Add the shrimp halves, stir and cook shrimp until it just loses its translucency, about 3-4 minutes. Cover and turn off the heat. This should be the last thing you do before serving. This would be wonderful over white rice, we served it with bok choy, see that recipe below. Enjoy!
For the side dish…
Bok Choy with Mushrooms
Originally I planned on giving the bok choy a typical Asian flavor, but the mushrooms I had were not what I think of when cooking that type of cuisine so I made a last-minute change. I ended up with a simple and subtle side dish.
3 1”-pieces of ginger, peeled
A few cilantro strands
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 bok choy heads(?), washed
1 portabella mushroom, sliced
5-8 crimini mushrooms, sliced
Salt and pepper to taste
Put the oil in a pan over medium-low heat, add the ginger and cilantro, and allow it to infuse the oil for a few minutes. You won’t need to do much to this, just make sure the heat is low enough to avoid scorching it. In the meantime, prep the veggies.
Make sure you wash the bok choy, separate the stalks and rinse under running water. Chop them into pieces about 2”-long, slice the mushrooms.
Remove the ginger and cilantro from the oil, raise the temperature to medium-high. Once hot, add the mushrooms stirring constantly. Season with salt and pepper. Add the bok choy and toss to incorporate the mushrooms. Cover and reduce heat to medium low. I like my veggies with a bite, so I cooked the bok choy for 5 minutes.
I hope you like it as much as my husband did!
I admit it. It was Sunday, I couldn’t decide on dinner and I was slightly bored. My dear friendster Cindy had given us a gift card to Whole Foods when we got married (we’re still newlyweds!) and so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to make use of those plastic dollars.
I cozied up to hubby, batted my eyelashes and said, in my most sultry voice: ‘Let’s play a game. You go to the store with this money and buy anything you want and I’ll cook it. I get no input. I’ll cook whatever you bring, even if I’ve never tried it before’.
Yes, I was feeling brave and daring. I imagined myself a contestant in my show: a cross between the Next Food Network Star, Chopped and Top Chef. When he wasn’t back almost an hour later, I began to worry. Then he showed up with 2 HUGE bags from WF…! yeah, it was time to panic.
He produced lamb chops (virgin territory), pears, long-stemmed artichokes (never seen those before), potatoes, NY strips, ciabatta bread YUM! bok choy, pasta, and some other goodies. Definitely more than one meal. I paced, drank wine, paced some more and finally came up with a menu!
I would try my hand at the lamb chops and I would serve them over pasta with a Putanesca-ish sauce. I would also try making a pear tart. The deal was I had to do as much as possible without looking for recipes. I was able to do so except for the tart; baking is, after all, science. Here’s how the chops went down.
Aren't they beautiful?
Grilled Lamb Chops
1 lb of lamb chops (whole)
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp pepper
2 garlic cloves, crushed
First we scored the fatty side of the rack, then we marinated it.
Marinate: Then I threw the rest of the ingredients into a Ziploc bag, got the salt incorporated and added the chops. I let them hang out there for about 2 hours, turning them every so often.
Preheat oven to 375
Cook: In a very hot oven proof skillet, heat up some olive oil and place the rack fatty side down. You want to sear it about 3 minutes on each side (be sure not to burn it). Keep turning until you get all sides browned, then turn it so the fatty side is on top, and put it in the preheated oven for another 15-20 minutes depending on how you prefer to cook it.
After searing before hitting the oven
Salsa Putanesca-ish
3 slices of bacon, cubed
1 white onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
8 crimini mushrooms, diced
1/4 cp Italian parsley, chopped
3 Roma tomatoes, diced
1 can roasted tomatoes
1/2 cp assorted olives, chopped
2 tsp anchovy paste
2 cp good beer
salt & pepper to taste
Saute the bacon to render some of the fat, but keep it soft. Add onions and cook until translucent; then add garlic and mushrooms. Once the mushrooms begin to soften, add the tomatoes, parsley and olives, stir in. Then add the anchovy paste and beer, bring it to a boil then reduce the heat to a simmer. Allow the flavors to cook in for about 30-45 minutes, stirring constantly. You may not need to add salt, but check at the end of the cooking time and adjust seasoning.
Serve: Remove chops from oven and allow to rest for about 10 minutes before slicing. In the meantime, cook, drain and serve your pasta onto a plate. Top with sauce and place a few chops over that, sprinkle with fresh parsley if desired.
