Sopaipillas from Potosí (Bolivia)

                                                                               Receta en Español

Sopaipillas are a typical treat from Potosí, a Bolivian city.

In all festivals and fairs of this city you can see street stalls selling this sweets, together with chambergos and tawa-tawas, all of them made of flour and sweetend with honey or syrup. 
Today I present the recipe of Sopaipillas, not only typical in Bolivia, but also in Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, U.S.A and Spain where they are called Sopaipas.

The origin of this treat is Spain, it was taken to America by the spanish settlers. The repice has changed a Little. This way, every place has its own recipe of Sopaipillas. 

Here you have the way they make them in Potosí, Bolivia:


Ingredients (70 simple sopaipilla):

-  200 grams margarine or butter.
-  230 grams ground panela (or Brown sugar).
-  4 eggs.
-  800 grams flour.
-  1 sachet yeast.
-  1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla powder.
-  Cane syrup.
-  Powdered sugar or grated coconut to sprinkle over the sopaipillas.

Method:

1- Put in a bowl butter at room temperatura together with Brown sugar or panela, use a mixer to mix well. If you use ground panela the mixer will be good to grind it thinner.

2- Add eggs, mix well:

3- Add vanilla and flour, mix all the ingredients with encircling movements with the help of a spatula:

4- Add yeast and keep on mixing. Kneat the dough until you get an homogeneous mixture. Let stand for half an hour.

5- Sprinkle some flour over a Surface, spread dough with the help of a rolling pin, dough must be 1 cm thick.

6- Take a round mold ,about 6 cm of diameter and cut the dough.

7- Put baking paper over a baking tray and place the cut dough on it.
Preheat oven at 170ºC, then cook sopaipillas for 10 minutes at the same temperature, heat up and down.

8- Once sopaipillas are cooled , it is time to bath them in Cane syrup. Take a brush and paint with the syrup just one face of the half of the 'cookie', to form sopaipilla join two 'cookies' placing the cane syrup in the middle.

9- Then paint the top surface and borders. Sopaipilla can be formed by two 'cookies' or just one, always leaving the lower part without cane syrup. 

10- Sprinkle powdered sugar or grated coconut over the sopaipilla. And that is!.

My comments to the Recipe

It has a natural and wonderful taste , grated cocunut goes very well with panela and cane syrup, it is soft an delicate.
I made the recipe with margarine , I suppose with butter it is even tastier ,but it could be heavier.

Where to by the ingredients

Panela and cane syrup can be bought at latin food stores. I bought it at  Hermanos Machado 24 , Calle Collados. Metro quintana.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

                                                                  By Caleb Moore (xrmap flag collection) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Álava

These are the recipes that I cooked from Álava

  Broad Beans,Vitorian style

  Goxua

Spain

See different recipes from the next Departments of Spain:

Andalucía
Cádiz

Castilla la Mancha
Albacete

Castilla León
Ávila

Burgos

Extremadura

Cáceres

País Vasco
Álava

Principado de Asturias

Asturias

Chicken Chancao

                                                                               Receta en Español

Chicken chancao is a typical dish from Tarija, a region at the south of Bolivia, limiting south with Argentina and Paraguay.

Ingredients (2 people):

-  1 piece of chicken per person.
-  2 medium onions.
-  2 carrots cut into strips.
-  3 sprigs of parseley.
-  2 whole gloves of garlic.
-  Salt.
-  65 grams of Green peas.
-  1 potato per person.
-  ají paste to taste.
-  4 tomatos finely chopped.
-  1 lettuce leaf per person.
-  1 boiled egg per person.
-  Water.

Method:

1- Put in a big saucepan meat, onion cut in pieces, carrot cut in stripes, parsley, garlic and salt. Add water until meat is completly covered. Cook for 40 minutes or until meat is done.

2- Take a smaller saucepan, pour some spoonful of the chicken broth and add Green peas, cook for 10 or 15 minutes.

3- Put aside the Green peas and use the same saucepan to cook potatos and eggs. Cook them until potatos are soft.

4- Peel tomatos; the easiest way to do it is drawing a circumference on the surface of the tomato with the help of a knife. Boil water in a saucepan, once reached boiling point, bath tomatos in the boiling water during 20 seconds, use a skimmer to take them out of the water. Let tomatos get cold and you will see how easy they can be peeled!.

5- Cut the remaining onion in little pieces and saute it in a saucepan, until it gets brown.

6- Cut tomato into little pieces, add it to the onion, add salt.
Let it cook for half an hour at medium heat. It is not a tomato sauce, just the pieces of tomato well done will be the side dish.

7- Serve this putting in every dish the following: 1 lettuce leaf, 1 boiled egg cut into slices, 1 peeled whole potato, 1 piece of chicken. Pour a spoonfull of Green peas over the chicken, and he 'sauce' of tomato and onion. Add some aji paste to the chicken.

It will be spicy so be carefull!.

You can do this récipe with the remaining chicken broth: Con el caldo del pollo que te ha sobrado puedes hacer esta receta: Quinoa soup.

My comments to the Recipe

Tomato and aji paste are a good accompaniment to the chicken.
This is a healthy dish, you should be carefull with aji!!.

Where you can buy the ingredients

Aji can be bought at latin products stores.

I bought it in Madrid at Quintana underground: Hermanos Machado 24 , at the corner with Calle Collados.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

                                                                  By Caleb Moore (xrmap flag collection) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Quinoa soup

                                                                               Receta en Español

Quinoa is a seed from a weed native to the Andes Mountains of Bolivia, Chile and Peru.
It is a highly nutritious food , it has been eaten for 5000 years by people living in that area.
Incas named this seed 'God's food', it provides more minerals, and vitamins that any other cereal.
This seed is used as an important ingredient in many soups.

The recipe I present today is from 'La Paz' , Bolivia.

Ingredients:

-  1/2 Kg chicken or  beef.
-  100 grams Quinoa.
-  40 grams Green peas.
-  40 grams broad beans.
-  2 carrots.
-  1 potato.
-  Salt and grinded cumin to taste.
-  1 onion.
-  2 cloves of garlic.
-  2 spoons of chooped parsley.

Method:

1- First of all quinoa should be cleaned. Spread it on a dish and remove all the little stones, you can see in the picture what this stones look like (they are grey or black).

The coating of the seed conteins saponins, which are toxic and provide a bitter taste to the quinoa. So that quinoa should be well rinsed before being cooked.
Put quinoa in a strainer and pour wáter over it until you see water is clear, stir it from time to time to help the coating of the seeds go away.

2- Put in a saucepan meat, chopped onion, carrots cut in strips, garlic and salt.
Add water and boil for 40 minutes or until meat is cooked.
I cooked 1 Kg chicken because I used it later for another recipe.

3- Once meat is cooked, add broad beans, green peas and cumin.

Take out the meat and reserve what we are not using for this recipe, cut the rest of the meat into little pieces and add it again to the saucepan.

Now is time to add quinoa to the saucepan.

4- Wash potato , put it in another saucepan with water and salt, boil it until potato is soft when you prick it.

5- Once quinoa is open, add to the saucepan the cooked, peeled and cut in pieces potato .

6- Cook for a few minutes and it is ready!

Sprinkle parsley and serve!.

Comments to the Recipe

Quinoa has a good taste, this makes this a delicious soup, besides it provides a lot of minerals, and vitamins given by the quinoa.

Where you can buy quinoa

Quinoa is easy to find at latin products stores or  at biostores.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

                                                                  By Caleb Moore (xrmap flag collection) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Muamba de Galinha (Angola)

                                                                                                                    Receta en Español
                                                                             Recette en Français



Muamba de Galinha

Muamba de Galinha is a traditional dish in Angola, it is related to the Poulet moambe the Congo River region.

Muamba de Galinha is made with chicken, onion, palm oil or muamba of dendem, garlic, okra and a type of Angolan chilli called gindungo. (I Will substitute it for chilli peppers).

Ingredients:

• A chicken, cut into serving pieces.
• Juice of one lemon (optional).
• One cup (100 ml) of red palm oil (or a mixture of palm oil and other cooking oil).
• 2 or 3 chopped onions.
• Two cloves of garlic chopped.
• A chilli pepper (or guindungo) removed entirely after cooking for a slightly spicy dish, or cut without the seeds for a spicy dish.
• 3 tomatoes (peeled if desired) cut into quarters.
• 300 g of chopped pumpkin.
• One or two dozen Okra , washed and with the ends cut. We can use them whole, cut lengthwise in half or into pieces depending on the effect we want to give to the dish. Okra makes a gelatinous dish,the more cut into pieces the greater is the gelatinous effect.I decided to cut  them lengthwise in half (see picture below).
•  Salt to taste.

Where to buy the ingredients:

The hardest to find are the okra and palm oil.I bought both in Lavapies, near the metro in Miguel Servet  Street where you can find multicultural food stores.

Here you have one link to buy on the internet:

Method:

1. If you want ,you can marinate the chicken, you should rub the chicken with a mixture of lemon juice, garlic, chillies and salt. We leave it like that for one hour (we can leave for 15 minutes to one hour, as we prefer).

 

2.   We put the palm oil in a large pot and place it over medium heat, then we add the chicken and cook it just a little without allowing it to be done.

3.  Next add the onion, garlic, chilli, tomato and salt. After five minutes pour water to cover the chicken.

4.  Stir occasionally and cook over medium heat for one hour, until chicken is almost done.

5. Add the pumpkin and a little water if you see that there is little into the pot, cook until chicken is completely done.

6. Now is time to add the okra, stir, and cook for another 10 or 15 minutes until the okra is tender.

The most traditional accompaniment to Muamba de Galinha is Funge that can be made ​​with corn or cassava flour.



You can also serve it with rice instead of Funge.

My comments to the recipe:

I must confess that I was afraid for the outcome of the recipe, I had not tried palm oil until now. Palm oil has a strong test to which we are not use in Europe, but I must say that mixed with pumpkin and okra is quite enjoyable to eat.

I can say that I enjoyed trying this dish which allowed me to experiment  a new taste from the point of wiew of a European palate.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

Angola