Latin Cuisine- Week 4

We were in South America again this week. I prepared the Tomato and Onion Salad and the Crepes. I absolutely adore crepes. I know I have posted about them in the past, but the South American version is slightly different. By this I mean, it is topped with chopped pistachios and a delightful dulche de leche (caramel) sauce. How much better can it get than crepes drizzled with caramel with a cup of coffee at 9AM? Not much, I would venture to say.

The crepes were easy peasy to make, although it seemed that every time Chef was standing near me, I couldn't flip them to save my life without them just folding in half. The trick really IS to fully commit to the flip and give it a confident flick of the wrist. A half hearted flick= failed flip.

The caramel sauce, however, was a little more of a challenge for everyone in the class. Most caramel recipes call for you to dump the sugar in the pot and then add the liquid, apply heat, and LEAVE IT ALONE until it develops the color you are looking for and THEN stirring it. This recipe had you combine everything and then just simmer it for an hour. It was supposed to thicken. It never did. I added more sugar hoping that would help. It helped a LITTLE, but not much. It was a very thin caramel sauce, but it still tasted delicious, and made a wonderful accompaniment to the texas style cinnamon french toast with sauteed cinnamon apples I made a couple days later. Nom nom nom!!!



The Tomato and Onion salad was pretty straightforward. Soak the onions, drain the onions, combine everything together, and plate. I joked, "Can I substitute basil for the cilantro and mozzarella for the onions?" Of course not. Then it would be Italian, not Latin...but I would have enjoyed it more.

This next week has a VERY short recipe list so I suppose we shall see what that means. We are making Tamales, though! I'm definitely looking forward to trying that. I've been curious ever since I saw them being prepared on Arthur- although those were Chinese Tamales.