They say only death and taxes are certain, I think change is too. Change is inevitable, it is necessary and, usually, beneficial. Change is how we know we’re living and not just alive.
My day job deals with change and I can tell you that, more often than not, people are reluctant to it. I can understand their feelings. Change can be scary and challenging, but I think it is a good way to keep us thinking and moving, experimenting.
When The Hubbz and I were in Panama a few months ago, we ate lots and lots of really good food. One of our favorites was eating seafood in garlic sauce or al ajillo. You will usually see a white fish like corvina (similar to white sea bass) dressed with this kind of sauce. YUM! I’ve made my own al ajillo for years, but after our recent visit and dining fest, I’ve changed and tweaked the way I make it. Guess what? You get dibs too!
My New Al Ajillo (Garlic) Sauce
White onions, diced
Red bell pepper, diced
Garlic, crushed
Extra virgin olive oil
Sherry or white wine
Butter, cold
Italian parsley, finely chopped
Sea salt
White pepper
Fish fillets or shrimp
Salt & pepper the fish and set it aside. In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat, then add the onions and bell pepper.
Cook these until softened before adding the crushed garlic.
Add the sherry or wine and deglaze the pan (remove the bits that caramelized at the bottom). Cook for about 3 minutes to allow the alcohol to burn out.
Add a few squares of cold butter and melt it into the sauce. This will help it thicken. Check the seasoning and adjust the salt & pepper as necessary.
Add the fillets or shrimp, allowing them to brown on one side before flipping it over. Add half of the parsley before flipping the seafood and the rest once you’ve flipped them.
Cover the pan with a tight-fitting lid. Since I use an electric stove, I usually turn off the heat at this point and allow the fish to continue cooking in the steam caught inside the pan.
This is soooo good, I especially love it with white rice.
Cookingly yours,
Anamaris
PS: This sauce is awesome with chicken too!
I have to be honest. I don’t love salads. When it comes to eating them, I’m very persnickety. I’m not embarrassed to admit it, even though I should be. I guess. I have all sorts of rules and regulations when it comes to the green stuff. It has to be ice-cold. The lettuce can’t have any brown spots. Those tomatoes better be plump. It goes on and on.
Salads to me have always seemed like a chore. A chore only rewarded by your doctor, and who really wants to hang out with that guy? I know, I know. I have issues, but they’re fun in my head. Anyway. Rather than be completely irresponsible, I’ve opted to make salads a tad more appealing. Staying away from the traditional lettuce, tomato, cucumber and replacing those with veggies I like.
And so, here we are. A tomato, ASPARAGUS (cuz I love me some spears) and, yes, a bit of lettuce salad. The second most crucial bit on salads I like, is the dressing. Let’s face it, that ‘s the real reason I eat the darn things 
For this one, I got a bit inspired by some overly ripen tomatoes and used them as the base for the dressing. You know what? This salad was much yum! Yep. Uh huh. It was mighty good! Check, check it out.
Tomato & Asparagus Salad with Tomato Vinaigrette
For the vinaigrette:
Ripe tomatoes, seeded
Balsamic vinegar
Sugar
Salt & pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
Heat about 1 tbsp of olive oil in a small saucepan, add the tomatoes and cook for a couple of minutes until they begin to soften. Add 2 tsp of balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper, about 1 tsp of sugar and about 1/2 cp of water. Allow it to simmer until the tomatoes break down completely, about 10-15 minutes. Allow it to cool.
Place the tomato puree in the blender and puree. Add a bit more balsamic and about 1/4 cp of olive oil. Check the seasoning again and put in the fridge to cool.
For the salad:
Blanched asparagus*
Firm tomato, cubed
Lettuce
*To blanch the asparagus, trim the ends and cut the spears in half or thirds, depending on the size. Bring a pot of lightly salted water to a boil and dump the asparagus in for a couple of minutes. Just long enough for the green to become very vibrant. Remove the asparagus and dunk them in a bowl of ice water for a couple of minutes.
Drain the asparagus and pat dry them, placing them in a salad bowl. Add the tomatoes and lettuce. Drizzle the tomato dressing over the top.
Enjoy!
Cookingly yours,
Anamaris
The perfectly roasted chicken is like a mystical unicorn or an urban legend. It always seems to happen to a friend of a friend of your second cousin. A nicely roast chicken should be flavorful, juicy and should have a beautiful golden and crisp skin. Often times you manage the beautiful skin, but the meat is bland and dry. Today I’m going to share my secret for always perfect roasted chicken.
The beauty of it is that you can use any herb you like, or what’s available. The other wonderful thing about this chicken, is that… it is SUPER easy to make and requires no fussing about. I promise. Really. You can take my word for it or my name isn’t Anamaris! And it is.
The other cool thing with roast chicken… leftovers! At the Price household, we’re not breast lovers, but the breast makes the most delicious chicken salad ever! I do have to admit that even I enjoy just eating the breast meat, and that’s saying something. Ok, I’ll stop gushing. On to the chicken business.
When it comes to roasting the bird, the first thing is to start on its tan early on. So you would roast it at a high temperature (450°) for about 15 minutes before reducing the temp to 325° for the long haul. On average, it takes about 20 minutes per pound to roast the chicken perfectly. If you have a meat thermometer, you’ll want to insert it into the thick part of the thigh–avoiding the bone, and it should read at least 165° C.
Perfect Roast Chicken
1 4-6lb whole chicken
3-4 tbsp butter, soften
Chopped herbs–I used rosemary, Italian parsley, garlic
Sea salt
Fresh black pepper, ground
Smoked paprika
1 lemon, quartered
Rosemary stems
10-12 garlic cloves, whole & unpeeled
2 carrots, quartered
1 large onion, quartered
Preheat oven to 450°. First, remove all the innards from the chicken. Usually, they tuck the neck and giblets inside the bird; you don’t want to roast it with those in there. You can save them to make the gravy or to make broth later. Rinse the chicken inside and out. Pat dry with a paper towel.
Combine the chopped herbs, about 1/2 cp all together, with the softened butter and season with a bit of salt & pepper.
Pull away on the chicken skin and insert bits of the herb butter between the skin and meat. Rub the skin with a bit of olive oil or leftover herb butter. Combine the salt, pepper and paprika, use it to season the cavity and the skin of the chicken. Fill the cavity with the lemon, some carrots, rosemary stem and whole garlic cloves.
Prepare the roast pan. Place the rest of the carrots, garlic cloves, onion, rosemary around the bottom of the roasting pan and rack. Place the chicken on the rack. I like to roast with the breast down, this way it benefits from the drippings from the skin and dark meat. Again, we are not breast lovers, so we choose to roast the breast at the bottom to keep it nice and moist, if you love breast and want the crisp skin on it, then roast it on top.
Pop it in the oven at 450° and cook it for 15 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 325° and cook for just under 2 hours (for a 5-pounder). Once done, remove the chicken from the oven and allow it rest for at least 15 minutes before carving.
You can use the drippings to make a gravy.
Cookingly yours,
Anamaris
Disclaimer: These aren’t pretty pictures. Sorry. Did I mention we eat every dish you see on this blog? Well, we do, and these babies weren’t waiting for a photo shoot. Allz I can say is, these are incredibly delicious and messy, the way a good burger should be. Better pictures another day. Maybe.
The first time I had these burgers was on my first visit to San Antonio, TX. This was eons ago, close to 15 years or so. Friends took us to this little hole in the wall grill promising the best burgers we’d ever had. They were right and continue to be. Chris Madrid has been around and expanded since then. This burger, and I have to say ‘this burger’ because I don’t think I’ve ever ordered anything else; this burger has remained the same. Consistently. Deliciously. Wackily good.
These burgers are so good and coveted by my friend Dodo and I, that we have made the 3-ish hour drive, had our burgers and turned around heading back to Houston. Yep. We have driven 6 hours for this burger. What? Like you wouldn’t?
Let me tell you about this little jewel. The Tostada Burger is dressed with mayo, refried pinto beans, tortilla chips, sweet onions, and an obscene sea of melted cheddar. Real cheddar. Melted. Real melted cheddar, I still don’t know how they achieve that feat. When they throw that burger at you, you can’t see the bun or the patty because they’re both covered by cheddar. OH. MY. GAWD. !!!.
Here’s my attempt at a Chris Madrid Tostada Burger.
2 cps pinto beans, cooked
5 bacon strips, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 medium sweet onion, coarsely chopped
8 slices sharp cheddar cheese
1-1/2 lb ground chuck
Fajita seasoning
Tortilla chips, coarsely broken
4 hamburger buns
For the Onions: This is a step you can skip if you don’t mind raw onions, but I do, so I cook’em in bacon fat. Cuz bacon…, you know, makes everything bettah! Render the fat from the bacon and cook until it is lightly browned. Remove the bacon from the fat and add the chopped onions. Cook the onions until slightly softened. Once the onions have softened, remove them from the fat and set aside to drain.
For the Refried Beans: I started off with dry beans, but I have made this with whole canned beans. Do make sure you drain and rinse the canned beans before using them.
In the remaining bacon fat, add the beans, garlic and bacon together with about 1 cp of the bean cooking liquid, (if using canned beans add water or broth). Smash the beans into a chunky paste, it’s ok if you have beans that are just slightly mashed. Check the seasoning, adjusting the salt and pepper.
The beans should be loose, you don’t want them to be too thick. They will thicken as they sit around. Keep warm.
For the burger: Season the ground chuck liberally with fajita seasoning, try not to handle the beef too much. Once you have integrated the seasoning, divide it into 4 balls. Once divided, flatten into patties.
To cook, heat a flat skillet, preferably cast iron, over high heat and place the patties on the very hot pan. Cook to your preferred doneness, flipping them after a few minutes. In the meantime, preheat the broiler.
Once the burgers are done, top each with a couple of slices of cheddar and pop it under the broiler. Watch them through the little window, just wait until the cheese melts and is bubbly and beginning to brown.
To assemble: I toasted the buns in a bit of butter, your choice to do so or not. Spread some mayo on the buns, don’t be shy. Set the cheesy patty on the bottom half, top with a couple tablespoons of refried beans. Top the beans with the crushed tortilla chips and finally, the onions. Put the other half of the bun on top and go at it. You. Will. Lose. Your. Mind. I guarantee it!
Cookingly yours,
Anamaris
PS: Make sure you have plenty of napkins.
I love tamarind. In Panama we make a drink with it, this isn’t exclusive to my little country, of course. We also process the pulp, mix it with brown sugar and make it into balls that are then dipped in sugar and sold. It is an incredibly good snack, just thinking about it is making my mouth water.
Speaking of tamarind balls…, when I had just moved to Houston, I had probably been there for a little over a year, I was yearning for Panamanian treats. I used to go to a little store called La Michoacana, it was (is) a primarily Mexican store, but it was the only place I could find ‘some’ of the products and produce I needed for home-cooking.
On one of my visits to the store, I noticed they were selling tamarind balls. Oh Joy!!! I was so excited. A little piece of home…, or so I thought. I got back in my car, heading home after picking up all the essentials, unwrapped the little ball and took a nice, healthy bite of it. . . I almost threw up! They like the tamarind balls in Mexico too, but like many of their treats, they add chili peppers to it. Totally ruining that fix for me, just be happy you weren’t in the car with me that day. I sounded like a sailor.
In any case, I’ve had some tamarind pulp sitting in the pantry for a few weeks now, planning to get to it. The wait is over. I decided to cook with it, instead of limiting it to sweeter applications. These pork spareribs turned out finger-licking OHMYGAWD good! I recommend you plan ahead for these so you can marinate the ribs as I did.
Day Before Prep:
Dilute the tamarind paste in water. I used about 1/2 cp of the pulp and diluted it in about 3 cps of hot water. Let it sit there for a bit to help the pulp separate from the seeds. Once the water has cooled, strain it and use a spoon to help remove more of the pulp from the seeds. Discard the seeds and reserve the concentrated juice.
For the marinade:
In a bowl or large ziploc bag combine
1 cp tamarind concentrate
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp habanero paste (or habanero hot sauce)
2 tsp curry powder
1 tbsp honey
3 tbsp fresh ginger, slivered
2 tsp garlic paste (crushed garlic)
Mix all these ingredients well, then add the pork spareribs. For the recipe I used about 3 lbs. of bone-in pork spareribs. Make sure all the ribs are coated and refrigerate at least 12 hours, preferably overnight. Turn the ribs a couple of times to make sure they all soak up the marinade.
Day of – Cooking:
Preheat oven to 325°. Line a baking sheet with foil paper and lay out the ribs in a single layer. Make sure to remove any chunks of ginger you see. Cover with foil and bake the ribs for 1-1/2 hours.
In the meantime, prepare the glaze. Once the ribs have cooked for the first 90 minutes, remove from the oven and drain and reserve the liquid. Return them to the oven uncovered.
Tamarind Glaze
2 cps tamarind concentrate (whatever is left, plus some water)
1 tbsp fresh ginger, crushed
1/3 cp brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, crushed (garlic paste)
1 tsp curry powder
1/4 cp green onions, diced (greens & whites)
1-1/2 tsp habanero paste or hot sauce
Cooking juices from the ribs
Sea salt & black pepper, to taste
Heat a medium saucepan, add a bit of oil to coat the bottom, then add all the white pieces of the green onions and half of the greens. Allow to cook for 1 or 2 minutes, just long enough to soften, then add the rest of the ingredients, except for the salt.
Stir well and adjust the seasoning with salt, if necessary. Allow it to simmer over medium low heat, stirring every so often until it begins to thicken. Once the glaze thickens to the consistency of heavy cream, add the rest of the green onions and remove it from the heat. Set aside.
After the ribs have cooked through and begin to get tender (about 90 minutes), raise the oven’s temperature to 450° and generously brush the ribs with the glaze on one side. Return them to the oven and continue to cook for about 20 minutes. Flip the ribs, glaze the other side and return to the oven for another 20 minutes. Finally remove them from the oven, flip and glaze them once more, but just let them sit for 10-15 minutes before serving.
I sprinkled a bit more of finely chopped green onions just before serving and accompanied them with some Bacon Potatoes. They were tangy, sweet and sticky good!
Cookingly yours,
Anamaris
I can’t stop thinking about mangoes. I always crave them, lust after them, so when they’re plentiful at the market, I go bananas! (and that’s saying something seeing as how I dislike bananas). I’ve cooked with mango. I’ve moussed it, but I still want more mango ways. I started thinking about a pie, wondering how it would turn out. So I went for it. Secure in the fact that The Hubbz and B-Boy would dispose of it had it not met my high mango criteria.
As luck would have it, they did eat it up. I only had a small morsel of it because I ended up with one of those tummy bugs. By the time I was better, the pie had moved on to a better life. Boys will be boys. But the piece I had was to die for.
Originally I thought about serving it with vanilla ice cream, but The Hubbz, being addicted to whipped cream, insisted on that alternative. The results were perfect. The pie is a bit robust, so the lightness of the cream made for the best combo ever.
Let’s talk crusts. Do you have a favorite, no fail recipe (easy)? I’ve tried the one by Melissa d’Arabian from Food Network and I find it to be delicious and super easy, but please share yours. I’m always looking for a better crust. And now, without further ado, I bring you some Mango Tango Pie!
Melissa d’Arabian Pie Crust
Yield: 2 (9-inch) pie crusts
1 cup butter (2 sticks), cubed and chilled
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
8 to 10 tablespoons ice water
Put the butter, flour, and salt in the food processor, and pulse lightly just until the mixture resembles wet sand. Add the water, 1 tablespoon at a time, pulsing briefly after each spoonful of water. Keep adding water until the dough just begins to gather into larger clumps.
Transfer equal amounts of the dough into 2 resealable plastic bags and pat each into a disk. Let rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
For the filling:
4 cps of ripe mango, sliced against the grain
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp flour
Pinch of salt
Juice of 1/2 lime (or lemon)
2 tbsp chilled butter, cubed
1 egg, beaten
Prepare the mango: peel and slice. Because mango is a very fibrous fruit, make sure to slice it against its natural grain, this way you’ll avoid having a stringy filling.
When the mango is ripe, it will be juicier. Once you have removed most of the meat, squeeze what’s left on the pit to extract some of the juice. Place the meat and juice in a medium-sized bowl and add the sugar, flour, lime, salt stirring it well, but with care.
Preheat oven to 325°. Remove 1 of the dough disks from the bag to a lightly floured surface. Using a rolling-pin, roll the dough out to a 10-inch round. Gently fit the rolled dough into a 9-inch pie pan and add the filling. It is best if it seems like you have too much filling. Dot it with the cubes of butter, before rolling out the 2nd disk of dough.
Brush the edges with the egg before placing the second crust over the top, then trim any excess dough and crimp the edges together. Lightly brush with the egg. Cut a few holes on the top, this will allow the steam to vent without any oozing filling along the sides.
Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, checking it after 30 minutes or so. I like to cover the edges with foil paper after a while to keep them from browning too much.
Once golden brown, allow it to cool before serving.
Cookingly yours,
Anamaris
And my heart is still in Panama, will probably always be. My love is in Houston and that is where I live. But, currently I’m still in Panama caring for my mom.
Time is limited right now, and rather than fail my promise to you, I decided to dig through my archives and bring attention to a few posts from the beginning days of this blog. These speak specifically to my cooking identity. If you’ve just found me, there’s a very good chance you’ve missed them. So here goes nothing.
This first one speaks to my cooking habits, those things I do as second nature as prepare a dish. Cooking Un-science.
The next one takes a look at my spice cabinet. I promise you it is much more exciting than my underwear drawer :). Spice Me Up, Scotty.
Finally, shortcuts. If you spend a good amount of time doing a task, you always develop shortcuts. Tricks of the trade. A way to minimize or expedite steps. Here are my Shortcuts.
That’s it. A little blast from the past.
Cookingly yours,
Anamaris
Well my friends, you know what they say about making plans, right? We make’em and somebody else laughs or something like that. I’m home again; For the good news, I’m happy to report that Panama is actually cooler than Houston is currently. Imagine that. But, the bad news are that my mami’s health continues to deteriorate and so I’ve come to check on her, spend some time with her, ‘boss her around’ as she has told my siblings and I. She also asked me to cook for her as she isn’t a fan of hospital food, and so I have been for the past 3 days.
I will continue to attempt updating posts on the schedule I had committed to, but I am asking for your patience. I’m having to manage preparing foods, spending most of the day with Mami at the hospital, sometimes nights too, such as last night. I will also attempt to incorporate some work in, blogging will have to be squeezed into a nook or cranny some days. On the other hand, being in Panama, I’ll have an excellent repertoire of Latin dishes! YAY!
Today I will share with you a soup Mami made for us growing up, it was her sneaky way of getting us to eat our vegetables. It is a chicken soup base she would cram full of any and all vegetables seasonally available. There was a wide range of goodies: carrots, chayote and acorn squash, potatoes, spinach—you get the picture. This is an easy and quick soup to make, cooking time is very low and the final rewards are wonderful.
Mami’s Chicken & Veggie Soup (Cream)
Chicken pieces, with bone preferably
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Culantro or cilantro leaves
Chicken bouillon
Vegetables of choice
Sea salt & ground black pepper
Season the chicken pieces with salt & pepper and chop all the vegetables into chunks. Heat a pot over high heat and add the oil. Brown the chicken in batches as necessary. Once all the chicken has been browned, remove the excess fat and add about ½ cp of water to help scrape the drippings off the bottom. Add the cilantro leaf and veggies, then add water to cover.
Once it comes to a boil, lower the temperature and allow it to simmer until everything is tender. To ensure we ate all the vegetables, my mami used to puree it all. Remove the chicken meat from the bone, then place the stock, chicken and veggies in the blender or food processor. The beauty of this extra step is that you end up with a thick, flavorful chicken cream without the added calories of heavy cream. My dad, however, doesn’t care for the cream style soups, so he got it straight out of the pot. Serve with white rice.
Cookingly yours,
Anamaris
I do love tomatoes. In Panama, my sister and I used to eat them like fruit. I remember how flavorful they are when picked just right. Slightly tart and sweet, always juicy. YUM! I love the different varieties: cherry, grape, here recently I’ve been introduced to raisin tomatoes. Tiny little things, filled with flavor. I haven’t tried the infamous heirloom tomatoes yet, what can you tell me about them?
Moving on. My previous post was for a tart I saw Chuck Hughes prepare, today I’m bringing you a variation on that tart. As much as I liked the original, I kept thinking of other ways to enjoy it. I happened to have some avocados ready to go, and they were the primary source of inspiration. This time the flavors come a bit further South of the border. I also switched to puff pastry instead of phyllo sheets.
Tomato & Avocado Tart
1 puff pastry sheet, thawed
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/2 cp queso fresco, shredded
3/4 cp queso Oaxaca or Monterrey Jack, shredded
1 avocado, peeled & thinly sliced
4-5 Roma tomatoes (or whatever you have around)
Cilantro leaves, torn
Sea salt & black pepper
Preheat oven to 400°. Use a rolling pin to stretch out the pastry, just enough to make sure it covers the bottom of the pan you will bake it in. I used a tart pan, but a baking sheet would also work. Place the pastry sheet on the bottom of the pan, pulling some of the dough up the sides to create an edge.
Brush on the mustard, then top evenly with the cheese, make sure you cover th entire surface. Next lay the avocado slices across the bottom.
Slice the tomatoes to about 1/4-inch thick and top the avocado with the tomato slices. You can overlap them, if you’d like. Tear a few cilantro leaves and spread them around. Season with coarse salt and freshly ground pepper.
Bake for 20-30 minutes until the puff pastry is nicely golden brown. Allow it to cool for just a few minutes before serving.
Oh yeah, baby.
Cookingly yours,
Anamaris
I do. I really, really do. It’s like meeting new friends and catching up with old ones. I know it is still part of the Food Network, but I like the variety of chefs on the lineup. I hope you’re watching it too, there’s some really good stuff there.
I already shared a post based on a dish from French Food at Home. This post follows a dish from another of my new favorite chefs, Chuck Hughes. His show is called Chuck’s Day Off and the camera follows him around his restaurant kitchen as he dishes out some simply delicious food for friends and family on his day off.
One of the recent episodes showed him cooking for his family, he recreated the dishes his mom & aunts cooked as he was growing up. This tart caught my eye and heart immediately. It was pretty. It looked fancy. AND it was a breeze to make. And let me tell you, it tasted fantabulous!
Chuck’s Tomato & Cheese Tart
from Chuck’s Day Off
7 phyllo sheets, thawed
1/4 cp melted butter
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1-1/4 cps grated cheese (he recommends Emmenthal)
3 large ripe tomatoes, sliced 1/4-inch thick
Coarse salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
12 fresh basil leaves, for garnish
Preheat oven to 400°. Phyllo dough is paper thin and will dry and crack quickly. Once you have removed it from the packaging, place the sheets you will use between lightly damp towels.
On a tart pan or baking sheet, place 1 sheet phyllo and brush with melted butter, repeat, stacking them on top of each other as you build your pie crust. You may want to stagger the sheets a little bit to ensure that the baking sheet is well covered allowing extra pastry to create an edge.
On the top layer, brush on the mustard. Sprinkle the cheese evenly over the pastry to ensure even coverage. Lay the tomato slices generously, all over, overlapping, as needed. Season with coarse salt and ground black pepper. Sprinkle the thyme leaves on top.
Bake in the oven until the pastry is crisped and browned at the edges, about 25 minutes.
Add another sprinkling of coarse salt and garnish with fresh basil leaves. You can serve it hot, warm, or at room temperature.
Cookingly yours,
Anamaris