Llapingachos and Pupusas: The Daring Cooks

Late again, that's me. The Daring Cooks' challenge this month was to make patties of some sort. I must admit, I wasn't too enthused at first, as challenges recently have been less than challenging. I kind of like looking for obscure ingredients and making time consuming dishes. Since that wasn't necessary, I challenged myself to make a dish I had enjoyed in Ecuador and another from El Salvador that I have loved for a long time but never eaten. And you know what? I loved the challenge. I would probably never have got to making either of these things without it. So thanks,  Lisa and Audax!

First up are the llapingachos. I had these as part of my first meal in Ecuador, in Quito and I also had them when I visited Cuenca. They were not common on the coast, but they really hit the spot on those chilly nights at high altitude. And they were fun to order too. Llapingachos are a kind of mashed potato cake, seasoned and coloured with achiote. Inside is melty cheese and they are topped with an interesting array of toppings. First was a warm peanut sauce with hard-boiled egg, pickled onions, tomato and salsa. You can also see the avocado behind, but it just wouldn't fit on top. Actually the llapingachos I had in Ecuador didn't have the peanut sauce but I quite liked the combination.

The melted cheese. Mmm.

Next up was pupusas, something I've been eating for years. Unfortunately they are hard to find here so I don't have them as often as I'd like. Now that I know how easy they are to make, I think they'll be making many more appearances on the table. Pupusas are masa cakes stuffed with any combination of cheese, beans or meat. The ones in the photo have leftover pulled pork in them, but my favourites were the cheese ones. 

The pupusas are topped with curtido, a slightly pickled coleslaw. I also like a bit of plain tomato sauce on mine, but I don't know if that's traditional. The ones in the photos are cracked because I refrigerated them overnight before cooking them, but it really should be done last minute. They only take a few minutes to form and 5 minutes a side to cook.

There's melty cheese in here too. Can you find it?

Thanks to Lisa and Audax for a great challenge. Here is the original challenge pdf, though I didn't use any of the recipes. Click on the names for recipes for llapingachos, peanut sauce, pupusas and curtido.

Blog-checking lines: The Daring Cooks’ February 2012 challenge was hosted by Audax & Lis and they chose to present Patties for their ease of construction, ingredients and deliciousness! We were given several recipes, and learned the different types of binders and cooking methods to produce our own tasty patties!

Chocolate Chestnut Cupcakes

Yup, more chestnuts, and more chocolate too. I think they are a nice pair, much better than chocolate and orange. In previous posts, I seem to have implied that I hate chocolate, but that's not the case. I just don't find it very appealing in bar form. But a cake? Mmm. Oh yes,  and I love labour-intensive chestnuts. I am still working on using up the jars of jam and the candied chestnuts. I made these cupcakes one night when some friends came over for dinner. I had planned to make a layer cake filled with the mousse but ran out of time. In fact the cupcakes my guests got didn't look at all like the above. They got the tin of cupcakes, the mixing bowl of mousse and the jar of candied chestnuts in syrup. It was an assemble-your-own kind of evening. I saved this one for the next morning. A single photograph and it became breakfast. Magic.

Chestnut Mousse

Source: The Cake Bible

2 cups whipping cream, chilled

1 cup sweetened chestnut puree with vanilla

rum to taste, optional

1. Whip cream until soft peaks form, then fold in chestnut puree and rum. Combine well. Whip a bit more if you want stiffer peaks. Keeps chilled for a day or two.

For the cupcakes, I used half the recipe for the German Chocolate Cake, baked for 15-20 minutes at 350.  

To serve, top the cupcakes with the mousse and candied chestnuts, if desired. Makes 12, with a very generous amount of mousse.

Spice School: A Course in Masala Mischief!

Because I need more school in my life I joined Mr P of Delicious Delicious Delicious and Sanjana of Ko Rasoi in this exploration of spices and Indian vegetarian cooking. We will post on the last day of the month and if you'd like to join you can find a clear explanation here and a list of the first 4 dishes in the 'curryculum'. I love Indian food, as I may have mentioned here and went on a bit about in my appam challenge. I love both sweet and savoury spices and one of my favourites is mustard seed. That was the focus this month and I was in as soon as I saw that. Now, some of you may remember that I am not a big fan of potatoes. In fact, they were the only ingredient I had to go out and buy in order to make this dish. I only bought half the specified weight, which was too bad, as this was delicious. I make an exception for curried potatoes. We ate it on rice for some winterlicious carb on carb action. 

Next month: Exploring Carom Seeds with Crispy Potato Bhajia. 

Hmm, more potatoes. I will grow to love them. It's in my genes, somewhere.

You can find the recipe on KO Rasoi.

Chestnut Lamingtons

Happy Australia Day! I can't believe I missed it even though we are 16 hours behind. I guess I was too busy watching tennis. Rafa! Mr P over at Delicious Delicious Delicious is hosting Reinvent the Lamington again this year. Well, it's his invention, so I'm not sure who else would host it. Anyway, I look at the amazing creations every year and I come up with lots of ideas, but I've never actually participated before. After leaving a comment over at DDD, I got a reply strongly urging me to get some lamingtons made. And so I did. Nothing earth-shattering over here, but at least I found a good use for my homemade candied chestnuts and chestnut jam.

Yes, I made my own candied chestnuts and chestnut jam last fall. It was a dangerous combination of gorgeous autumn produce, sporadic employment and temporary insanity after returning from Ecuador. It was a good thing I wasn't working, as the chestnut jam took all day to make and the candied chestnuts took about 4 days. By that time I couldn't be arsed to blog about them or even take photos. In fact, I couldn't even eat the stuff as it just tasted like too much effort for 5 small jars. The candied chestnuts, which never softened enough, have been taking up valuable real estate in the fridge and the jam has been languishing on the counter. I gave 2 jars away at Christmas and nobody knows what to do with it. So, I made some chocolate and chestnut mousse cupcakes last week and now lamingtons. If you have any other ideas, please let me know. I have 2 jars left. And no, I'm not sending it to you unless you pay the postage. Sporadically employed, remember?

I made ⁴/₇ of this recipe for the cake and ½ the glaze recipe for 9 lamingtons. Instead of chestnut, you can leave them unfilled or use another jam. Roll them in the traditional coconut or nuts instead of chestnuts. I also made some with coconut and a lovely raspberry cassis jam that a friend made. Too bad I ate them/gave them away before getting photos--they were the prettier of the lams.

Mexican Chocolate Streusel Cake

After making the atole in the previous post, I was left with almost a whole package of Ibarra chocolate. I looked in my Mexican cookbooks for ideas and found this cake. I think Rick Bayless makes amazing Mexican food, but I don't think he's much of a baker. This cake was good hot out of the oven (you can see above that I helped myself to the middle piece), but I found it very firm when it was cool. It reminded me of those snack cake mixes I used to beg my mother to buy as a child and then never ate once they had cooled off. Why a boxed mix? I thought I was deprived with all the homemade food we had. Silly me. 

Anyway, if you have nostalgia for the snack cakes of yore, this is for you. It's not extremely chocolaty and the streusel is not too streusely. Hmm, I'm not a big fan of either chocolate or streusel. This poor cake never stood a chance. 

Mexican Chocolate Streusel Cake
Adapted from Mexico One Plate at a Time, Rick Bayless et al
Makes one 9"x13" cake (I made a half recipe in an 8" pan)

One 18-19 ounce (510-540 gram) package Mexican chocolate, such as Abuelita or Ibarra, coarsely chopped
For the streusel topping:
1 large egg yolk
½ teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons (3½ oz/100g) unsalted butter, softened
⅔ cup (3 oz/85 g) all-purpose flour
⅔ cup sliced almonds
For the cake:
1¾ cups (8 oz/227 g) all-purpose flour
1¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
8 oz/227 g cream cheese, at room temperature
8 oz/227 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon almond extract

1. In a food processor, pulse half the chocolate until it is like breadcrumbs. Set aside in a bowl. Add the remainder of the chocolate and process it to breadcrumb consistency. Add salt, butter and flour and pulse until just combined. It should be crumbly, not a paste. Add almonds and pulse just to mix in.
2. Preheat oven to 350℉/175℃. Grease baking pan. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder.
3. Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until well blended after each one. Scrape bowl and beat in almond extract.
4. Add flour mixture and mix in on low speed until almost thoroughly combined. Add remaining chocolate and mix gently.
5. Scrape batter into prepared pan and level it. Sprinkle streusel on top, breaking it up as you do so.
6. Bake 35-40 minutes, until springy, the edges have just begun to pull away from the edges of the pan and a tester comes out clean. Cool slightly on a wire rack and serve warm. Apparently it keeps, well-wrapped for a few days, but I found it very firm the next day. Eat this right out of the oven!