Link Exchange Page

Posted 13 August, 2007 at 10:50pm by Michael Chu

(Filed under: Uncategorized)

6 comments to Link Exchange Page

Teresita Bella, December 23rd, 2007 at 6:27 am:

• Hello from Buenos Aires, Argentina!
  My name is Teresita and I read your blog periodically. The reason I am writing to you is because I wanted to ask you if you would like to narrate in your blog about latin American foods and in particular a typical dish from Argentina called Empanadas. I have opened my kitchen in Buenos Aires (capital of Argentina) to teach those who love to cook to learn how to prepare typical dishes from six south American countries. As I have many years traveled to remote indigenous villages in the north of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Paraguay, when I teach my classes, I tell people why Latin food has a great influence of native indigenous people in our contemporary cuisine.

  Below, please find an overview of what empanadas are, also an example of the influence of indigenous food preparation in contemporary Argentine cuisine and the secret recipe I teach in my classes of empanadas. You are welcome to use it, and of course that if you would like to place my website of the cooking classes I give in Buenos Aires, I will thank you as people who read your blog might find interesting to learn about our foods as articles I post articles explaining the many different dishes that are typical from south America.

  Even if your readers will not visit Argentina, they could learn and tell other people about the dishes we prepare in south America.

  My website is http://www.try2cook.com and here you can meet me: http://try2cook.com/video-of-cooking-classes.html

  Also, please feel free to get any pictures of our website to post on your blog if you like or per your request, I will be happy to send you them.

  If you ever get to come down to Buenos Aires in Argentina, I will be honored to have you attend one of my classes. It is my invitation and I promise you will enjoy as you are a person who share the passion of food.

  Here below is for you to understand one very popular and traditional food from the people of south America.
  An overview of Latin empanadas

  The term empanada simply means breaded-as in breaded chicken or vegetables. However, in South America, the word has grown to refer to a stuffed, semi-circular pastry. Although the empanada has different incarnations in various countries, it always consists of a stuffing-be it a cheese, vegetable or meat-wrapped in dough, and then baked or fried. Fruit filling can be used to create dessert empanadas.

  In Argentina, the country that is perhaps most associated with the empanada, empanadas are served frequently as appetizers, and consist primarily of ground beef, sometimes spiced with cumin.

  In Bolivia, in addition to beef or chicken, empanadas often contain potatoes, peas, carrots, and either a quail’s egg, olive or raisins. Bolivians also eat fried cheese empanadas, which are brushed with sugar icing.

  In Chile, because beef is more expensive, some of the beef filling is replaced with minced onion. Chileans eat empanadas particularly on September 18, during their national celebration.

  Ecuadorian and Colombian empanadas are frequently made with corn-seasoning or flour. In both countries, empanadas are often paired with an Aji sauce, which is made of cilantro, scallions, vinegar, salt and lemon juice. In Ecuador, red peppers and sometimes chopped tomato are integrated into the Aji sauce.

  A variety of Colombian empanadas is the stuffed potato, which, as the name explains, is made my stuffing a potato (and then breading it), rather than wrapping the stuffing in dough. Stuffed potato empanadas are circular rather than semi-circular.

  In Ecuador, some people make empanadas de arroz, rice empanadas, which are deep fried. In Panama and Peru, empanadas are smaller than in other Latin American countries, and in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico, sweet fillings are more common, so that empanadas are as much as breakfast and dessert item as an appetizer.

  Uruguayan empanadas are similar to the Argentine varieties, but Uruguay is also known for their particularly tasty sweet empanadas, which combine dulce de leche and chocolate, and are covered with sugar or apple jam.
  An example on the influences of indigenous South American cuisine in Argentinean’s today food trends:

  Welcome to the two different worlds of cuisine in Argentina. On one hand, there is the urban cuisine, highly influenced by international recipes and cooking trends, reflecting Argentina’s importance in global society. Second, there is the rural cuisine that draws inspiration from the indigenous cultures in the north of Argentina. In the last case, an interesting social phenomena is happening as we speak.

  Portenos, people from the city of Buenos Aires, had adopted only in recent years some indigenous techniques into the new world of Argentine cuisine. Today, we can observe the typical Argentine empanadas being sprinkle with sugar which is a special costume used in Tucuman, a province in the north of Argentina. Frying empanadas with lard has also been adopted by some of the well-known chefs in Buenos Aires. Lard has been a tradition in empanadas making techniques in Misiones, another province in the north bordering with Paraguay and Brazil. While there are many other indigenous food preparation of Argentine traditional foods, it seems that young Argentineans chefs are adopting them slowly making sure that is a reflection of recycling innovation and not lack of contemporary cuisine knowledge.

  Recipe covered at my cooking class
  Crust for baked Empanadas Argentinas

  Ingredients
  1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
  1 cup of Salmuera (brine). Prepare a concoction with dissolved salt in hot water and left aside until cold.
  4 ounces of butter or margarine
  Crust for fried Empanadas Argentinas

  Ingredients
  1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
  6 teaspoon of corn oil
  1 egg
  1 cup of boiling water

  Preparation
  To make the crust, place the flour into a bowl and mix the margarine or butter into the flour using your fingers. Pour the Salmuera slowly into the mix and mix it with your fingers just until the dough comes together and can be formed easily into a ball. Let the dough rest (outside the fridge) for about half an hour. Divide the dough in small balls the size of half an egg. Then roll with a roller pin out to a thickness of 1/8-inch making a rounded shape.
  Filling

  1 pound ground beef
  2 tablespoons Corm oil
  1 tablespoons of butter
  1 large yellow onion chopped in small squares
  2 hard boiled eggs, finely chopped
  1/2 cup green olives, finely chopped
  2 tablespoons raisins
  ¼ cup chopped spring green onion (only the green part)
  1 tablespoon ground hot and sweet paprika
  1 tablespoon ground red dry spicy peppers
  1 tablespoon cumin
  Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  Glaze is optional

  1 egg, beaten
  1 tablespoon milk

  Preparation

  In a large saucepan, melt the butter with corn oil together, and place the onions and stir them until transparent. Add the ground beef, next add the raisin, spices, salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste and stir with a fork to keep the meat broken-up. Pour over the about a half cup of water and let it cook for about about 10 minutes or until meat is completely cooked. Once cooked, place in a bowl, cover it and put in the refrigerator (for better taste) over night, otherwise if time does not permit, leave the filling for about an hour in the refrigerator. Once you have the mix cold then is when you add the hard boiled eggs, green olives and spring green onions.

  Filling the empanadas

  Take the dough you let to rest and divide the dough in small balls the size of half an egg. Then roll with a roller pin out to a thickness of 1/8-inch making a rounded shape from each ball. Spoon the filling onto one half of each leaving room to fold in the other half and seal. Tab some warm water with your fingers, place in half of the ends so the dough will stick better, press the edges with the tip of a fork or you can do what we call in Argentina “repulgue” which instead of using the fork to seal you flip it upwards and press with your fingers. Place on a non-stick baking pan or add a thin layer of butter to the pan. Combine the ingredients for the glaze and brush each empanada at the top. Put oven heat to 350 and bake until the crust turns light brown.

  Tip for the Fried Empanadas
  Use sunflower oil. When frying the empanadas do it only in batches no more than three at a time. Then place in basket or tray and sprinkle with sugar.

  Thank you, and I would very much be happy to hear back from you.
  Sincerely,
  Teresita

Teresita Bella, December 23rd, 2007 at 6:28 am:

• Please add my recipe to your wonderful blog!

William, January 21st, 2008 at 10:18 pm:

• Sub : Link Exchange Partner

  Dear Sir or Madam,

  We would like to exchange links with your site. If you’d like to reciprocate
  links with us, please post our link with the following information.

  Link title : corporate gift baskets
  URL: http://www.bluechopsticks.com/gift_baskets.asp
  Description: Bluechopsticks carries thousands of gifts for many popular occasions.

  Kindly send details of the link page and your site link information.

  Thank you.

  Sincerely,

  William
  bluechopsticks.com Links Admin
  linkss@bluechopsticks.com

Alan, February 18th, 2008 at 7:54 am:

• Hi,

  I would like to inform you about my website: http://www.tobook.com.
  It offers online hotel reservations worldwide. I would like to ask you to visit the Buenos Aires section. We just started with Buenos Aires couple of months ago.

  Buenos Aires Hotels
  http://www.tobook.com/Argentina/Buenos-Aires

  If you are interested I also would like to give a link back.

  Regards,
  Alan
  tobook.com

Jeffrey, May 28th, 2008 at 2:02 am:

• I’m a, “make it myself” kind of guy too. Kudos!

Aidan, August 10th, 2008 at 1:44 pm:

• A website for English learners developed with Free and Open Source software, verbbusters offers the opportunity to practice the irregular verbs free online as well as providing extensive reference material. All wellcome.

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