Deep-fry:
A
tostone’s
best friend. Deep-frying involves a lot more oil than any other form of cooking, at least 2½ inches deep in a thick, heavy pot heated until very hot (around 350°F) but not smoking. Deep-fried foods should be able to float freely in the oil to achieve the proper texture and cooking. I use inexpensive vegetable oil blends, or oils specially designed for high heat, such as high-heat canola or peanut oil. I also like to keep a supply of brown paper bags to use for draining fried stuff; I tear them into single sheets, crumple them up so that they have nooks and crannies to facilitate the oils’ draining down, and layer them two or three sheets thick, next to the pot. A long-handled wire mesh skimmer is perfect for retrieving fried items; a pair of long-handled tongs is the next best thing.
Dice, large, small, and in between:
Dicing is just a slightly more strategic form of chopping: here, you’re chopping foods into square shapes. When I refer to just “dice,” I intend for the food to be chopped into squares roughly ½ inch in diameter. Large dice is about 1 inch, and small dice is about ⅜ inch or smaller. Don’t feel that you need to break out the ruler (or a sweat!). You can follow the size of your own fingers if you’d prefer: about the size of your thumb knuckle for large dice, a little smaller than your thumb fingernail for regular (just “dice”) dice, and your pinkie nail (or smaller) for small dice.
Fold:
A purposeful way of mixing together ingredients. Rather than mixing around and around, move your spoon or spatula from underneath, scooping forward and eventually moving to the top. Do it a few times and you’ll see it really is a little like folding stuff together. This method is effective when you want to make sure small ingredients are incorporated evenly and quickly into a thicker mixture, such as raisins into a cake batter.
Knead:
A method of folding and flipping any dough onto a work surface to help develop and enhance its texture. The simplest way is to lift one end of the dough, fold it on top of the other end, and press down and out firmly with the heel of your palm. Smoosh the dough outward as far as you like, flip it over if it sounds like fun, repeat, and there you have it, you’re kneading.
Mince:
A slightly more fussy form of dicing that takes a little practice to get the hang of, but is well worth it for pretty sprinkles of cilantro or the even distribution of garlic or other good things into food. With a sharp chef’s knife dice your item as small as you can, scrape all the bits toward you into a pile, and quickly chop finely again. It’s best to use a chef’s knife to achieve the proper rocking motion with a curved blade that makes mincing fly by. When in doubt watch any chefy kind of television show (there’s a zillion out there) and at some point someone will do some mincing.
Pan-fry:
Frying in a skillet with just enough oil to coat the entire bottom of the pan with about ¼ to ⅛ inch oil, or even a little less. This enables the fried items to get a crisp exterior without floating in oil. Essential for perfectly caramelized sweet plantains or “cheating” at deep-frying such items as
taquitos
(page 168).
Puree:
Use a food processor, blender, or immersion blender to chop food until it becomes a thick, smooth mixture. Transforms tofu from a wiggly white block to a miracle ingredient and ordinary vegetable soup into a silky-smooth wonder. Be sure to invest in a decent food processor or immersion blender (page 25).
Sauté:
A classy word for frying in a skillet, sautéing involves also occasionally stirring, flipping, and moving things around in the hot pan so that they are evenly heated and cooked.
Simmer:
A gentle, slow boil with very little bubbling (and therefore small bubbles). Typically involves lowering the heat on the stovetop burner to the lowest setting possible so that
something
is still happening, only in the slowest possible way. Good for reducing sauces or cooking delicate items a low temperature to prevent over cooking.
Reduce:
Another five-dollar chef word,
reduce
involves simmering a volume of liquid so that it, well, reduces in volume over a period of time via evaporation. This helps concentrate the flavors and possibly thicken the texture of your liquid. Consult the recipe regarding how much you should reduce something to, but typically this is about one-third of half of the original whatever-you’re-making.
Whisk:
What cookbook would be without the mention of whisking? Sometimes done with an actual whisk, this is just a rapid form of mixing involving short, circular strokes with the intention of getting everything in a liquid to mix evenly and quickly. A fork makes an excellent stand-in for a whisk and is just the right size for mixing up a little cup of dressing.
A few cooking techniques and methods are used extensively in Latin cooking:
Long sauté of onions, garlic, peppers, and other aromatic veggies:
At its most basic, this creates a hearty foundation of flavor for the rest of the elements of the dish to build upon. In its most refined form, it’s
adobo
or
sofrito
, a thick concoction of slowly fried onion, peppers, herbs, spices, and other veggies with a generous helping of oil. Either way, this long, gentle sauté enables the sugars in the vegetables to caramelize and transform raw ingredients into a concoction that’s rich in savory umami (the recently discovered “other” taste, perhaps best described as “savory,” in addition to salty, sweet, bitter, and sour) flavors that provide depth and character to Latin cuisine.
Steaming, in particular rice and corn masa products:
Steaming is an ancient method of cooking tamales and produces the moist and tender texture that makes them so desirable. Tamale steaming differs from run-of-the-mill vegetable steaming mainly in that it (1) requires a much larger pot than you typically would steam a head of broccoli or a portion of carrots in, and (2) goes on for much longer, usually for an hour or slightly more. The most important part about steaming tamales is that you make sure there is always water in the bottom level of the pot so that it never dries out—no water in the pot can result in burning or scorching all of your hard work.
Just make sure to occasionally check the water level of anything that requires steaming for longer than 25 minutes and replenish with more warm water. A good way to keep an eye on whether there’s enough water is to check and see if the pot steams if the lid is lifted, or if you can hear the water boiling and hissing in the pot. Or just use your nose . . . if you smell something burning remove the pot immediately from the burner or you may already have singed tamales!
Steaming rice on the stovetop is the most basic way to make Latin rice, though I do prefer to bake rice when cooking a big portion (2 or more cups of raw rice) or if it includes lots of ingredients such as beans or pumpkin, as those will increase the cooking time and possibly not cook thoroughly on a stovetop. Latin-style rice should be firm but never crunchy, fluffy and moist but never sticky. I find that some rice cookers tend to produce rice that’s on the sticky side (and rice cookers in general require a little bit of voodoo and good luck to get it right sometimes) but if you’re a rice-cooker champion, then go right ahead.
Deep-frying:
This is a cooking method thoroughly embraced by many Latin cultures. The occasional treat of crispy fried yuca, tender crisp empanadas, and of course crunchy
tostones
make all that oil and a mess of paper towels worth it. To ensure that less oil is absorbed by your deep fried treats, always preheat the oil over medium-high heat for at least 6 minutes. When a tiny piece of dough/ boiled yuca/plantain rapidly sizzles on contact with the oil, the oil is ready. Some cooks insist on using a deep-fry thermometer to confirm a fry-ready ideal temperature of 350°F, but I find the dough test to be just as valid. And of course, never drop water into hot oil, as it will splatter in a scary way . . . so no drinking and frying! If you do a lot of frying, you may want to invest in a frying screen that can be placed over the pan to catch any rebellious flying drops of hot oil.
Boiling:
Everybody boils food, and Latin cuisine is no exception. Boiling is usually the first stage in preparing starchy root vegetables for consumption or for lightly blanching vegetables such as chayote. Use a large pot with a tight-fitting lid, fill the pot halfway or a little more, and heat over high heat. Cover the pot to hasten the boiling and remove the cover once the water is rolling.
Grilling:
Either on a proper grill or on the heated dry surface of a pan, grilling is not just for protein foods but also for starchy items such as tortillas and
arepas
. In their respective countries, a
comal
or a
budare
(page 27), a griddlelike item, is used for cooking, but a well-seasoned cast-iron griddle or skillet does exactly the same job. I prefer cast iron for these foods as it readily accepts high heat and distributes it perfectly, not to mention a well-seasoned cast-iron surface is naturally nonstick. Your
comal
,
budare
, or cast-iron skillet should be preheated for at least 5 minutes or more, and is ready to use when a drop of water flicked onto its surface sizzles and pops immediately.
Removing corn from the cob:
In many parts of South America, corn kernels are not so much cut off of the cob as they are grated off; a regular box grater works just fine for this. Just firmly grab one side of a corn cob and grate on a large-hole grater side, taking care not to grate off any of the hard cob (or your knuckles), and turn the cob to a new side when you’ve grated everything there is.
If you need whole intact kernels, I highly recommend getting a corn zipper (page 26), which is a nifty little tool that quickly removes one row of corn kernels at a time. I know that doesn’t sound fast, but once you get the hang of it, it really is fast, plus it’s fun to say you’re unzipping corn. Life without a corn zipper is possible if you possess a very sharp paring or chef’s knife and a large, wide bowl. Firmly grasp the narrow end of the ear of corn, balance the other end on the bottom of the bowl, and carefully and gently run your knife down the ear, again making sure to cut exactly where the kernel joins the cob and no lower, or you’ll end up with tough undesirable bits of cob in your corn.
Roasting bell and chile peppers:
Roasting transforms mild-mannered peppers into juicy, succulent dainties with alluring smoky flavor and sweetness, and concentrates all the deep flavors of these fruits.
The best way to roast just one or two peppers is directly on a gas stovetop. Place a whole, uncut pepper directly on top of a burner turned to a high flame. Roast until the skin starts to blacken, pop, and sizzle. Use metal tongs to rotate the pepper frequently so that all of the sides just a chance to sear. Quickly place the pepper in a sturdy container (I use a heavy pot or tortilla warmer) and cover tightly (or place into paper bag and tightly roll the top shut) and let cool for 10 minutes. This cooling also allows the steam to work its way out of the pepper and help loosen the skin from the pepper’s surface.
When the pepper is cool enough to touch, gently peel off as much of the outside, flaking skin as possible and discard. Slice, remove the core of large peppers (not necessary for small, thin chiles such as serranos), and scrape off the seeds, if desired (retaining the seeds will make the dish hotter). If possible, try to catch any of the roasted pepper juices to use in the food, as it’s loaded with flavor. Don’t wash the charred skin; you’ll be also washing away a lot of the flavorful juices you worked so hard to cook.
If you’re roasting small chiles (such as jalapeños or serranos) that might slip through the burner grills, place a metal heat diffuser (see page 26) on top of the burner, heat over high heat for a few minutes, and place the chiles on the diffuser to roast. Turn with tongs to blister all sides of the chiles.
Roasting a bunch of peppers? Preheat the oven to 400°F and place the whole, unsliced chiles on a large, rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Roast for 15 to 25 minutes, or until the chiles are blackened and collapsed. Let cool, and peel and seed as directed above.
APPENDIX D
METRIC CONVERSION CHART
• The recipes in this book have not been tested with metric measurements, so some variations might occur.
• Remember that the weight of dry ingredients varies according to the volume or density factor: 1 cup of flour weighs far less than 1 cup of sugar, and 1 tablespoon doesn’t necessarily hold 3 teaspoons.
General Formulas for Metric Conversion
| Linear Measurements
|
|---|
Ounces to grams
| →
| ounces × 28.35 = grams
| ½ inch = 1½ cm
|
Grams to ounces
| →
| grams × 0.035 = ounces
| 1 inch = 2½ cm
|
Pounds to grams
| →
| pounds × 453.5 = grams
| 6 inches = 15 cm
|
Pounds to kilograms
| →
| pounds × 0.45 = kilograms
| 8 inches = 20 cm
|
Cups to liters
| →
| cups × 0.24 = liters
| 10 inches = 25 cm
|
Fahrenheit to Celsius
| →
| (°F - 32) × 5 ÷ 9 = °C
| 12 inches = 30 cm
|
Celsius to Fahrenheit
| →
| (°C × 9) ÷ 5 + 32 = °F
| 20 inches = 50 cm
|