Panamanian Bunuelos de Yucca

On page 61 of the Boquete Gourmet Community Cookbook, Chef Juan Linares shared his favorite recipe for Panamanian Bunuelos, made from yucca.  My first question was “What is yucca?” Then, “What is a bunuelo?”

Wikipedia gives the distribution range of Yucca, over 49 species, as covering vast areas of Central America, and it’s very plentiful in Panama.  Just from my experience in Boquete, the growing conditions are perfect here for yucca, subtropical, woodland, and mountainous.  Almost every market carries yucca and it only 29 cents per pound.

This vegetable isn’t very pretty, but when it’s peeled, boiled and shaped into a bunuelo, it’s quite lovely. Bunuelos are similar to beignets, the donuts for which New Orleans is so famous.
At our recent “Boquete Gourmet Community Cookbook Party #2″, celebrating the 2nd printing of the cookbook, Chef Juan was one of 12 chefs who prepared and served their recipes to party-goers.

This is the recipe Chef Juan used to make the best yucca bunuelos you can imagine, and he served them with syrup made from block sugar, available in most Latin American markets.

Panamanian Bunuelos de Yucca

3 pounds yucca, peeled and cut into 1-inch slices
1 egg
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon anise seeds, crushed
3 cups dark brown sugar or blocks of panela cane sugar
1 cup water
7 whole cloves
Vegetable oil for frying

Cover the yucca with water and boil for 20 minutes, so it’s tender enough to grate but not too tender. Grate the yucca and add the egg, salt and crushed anise seeds. Knead and let rest. Meanwhile, make a syrup with the water, sugar and cloves and boil until it turns syrupy. Wet your hands and roll yucca dough into 1-inch balls. Fry them until golden brown, about 2 minutes, and drain on folded paper towels. Serve with warm syrup. Makes about 30 bunuelos.

If you’re looking for a fun activity to share with your dinner guests, get some yucca, prepare the dough ready for frying, and place it in the refrigerator. Make the syrup, but keep it at room temperature.

When dessert time is near, heat up the oil, ask guests if they’d like to help roll the balls, and fry away! Everyone will love them! You could also serve bunuelos dusted with powdered sugar or a mixture of cinnamon and sugar, my favorite topping.

Thanks Juan for sharing your recipe, and thanks Betty Dabney, for photographing Juan in action. After thinking about it, why not “eat dessert first”?
Cora

What’s a “Cookbook Party”?

That’s a very good question, I haven’t known of another “cookbook party” since the one Boquete Gourmet threw last year to celebrate the arrival of our town’s first culinary collection, “Boquete Gourmet Community Cookbook”.

On that occasion, everyone contributing recipes to the new cookbook, plus the entire Boquete community were invited to attend a cookbook party that included samplings of several of the dishes made from recipes published in the book.

The party was a huge success! Most of the fun was in getting cookbooks signed by the contributing chefs, and at the same time, the chefs were trying to get their books signed by all the other chefs, “round-robin” style. The food seemed secondary to meeting and sharing enthusiasm and camaraderie with each other.

This year’s Cookbook Party is quite different. The main events will include cooking demonstrations of many of the recipes from the book, actually being prepared by the contributing chefs. Party-goers will taste dishes as they are ready for presentation, enjoy live entertainment, and have an opportunity to buy, sell, and swap cookbooks of all sorts.

You’re invited to come to this very special party, to be held on Friday, August 26, at 100 El Santuario, Boquete, beginning at 3pm. You may bring cookbooks to sell, trade or donate to charity, if you like. Rare and unusual cookbooks from the The Book Mark Bookstore in Dolega will be on sale during the party, and Irene will bring a special cookbook collection just for this occasion. You’ll be able to pick up new titles not seen before in Boquete.

Five local charities contributed recipes to the community cookbook; Loco por Leer, Buenos Vecinos de Boquete, Animales de Boquete, Lions Club of Boquete, The Handicap Foundation and Unexpected Moments of Magic Foundation. Come and meet representatives from each group, and savour their dishes.

Tickets to the party are only $10 each, and include activities mentioned above, plus a copy of the 2nd edition of “Boquete Gourmet Community Cookbook”. Click “Reserve Now” on the calendar at the right of this post, and proceed to order your tickets while they last.

And, if anyone has ever been to another Cookbook Party anywhere in the world, I’d love to hear all about it!
See you there!
Cora

Tabuli Salad for Better Health

Boquete Gourmet Host Chef, Peace Farideh Azad brought a totally different idea of food preparation to our little mountain town in Panama, “Combining Foods for Better Health”. Participants learned unique, “plant-based” cooking techniques, with emphasis on properly combining ingredients to promote optimum health and wellness.

There are many charts that show how certain foods can be combined for better digestion. Peace advocates having certain fresh fruits prior to eating your meals. For instance, papaya stimulates your digestive fluids, so Peace prepared dishes of papaya for everyone to enjoy just before serving her Tabuli Salad.

In the Middle East, Tabuli, also spelled Tabouleh, is a fresh vegetable salad with the green ingredients dominating. The dish’s global popularity has led to new interpretations and regional modifications such as the use of couscous or quinoa in place of bulgur, which is traditional.

PEACE’S TABULI SALAD

1 package quinoa, prepared as directed
2 large bunches parsley, finely chopped
2 spring onions, sliced thinly
2 pounds tomatoes, diced
1 cucumber, finely diced
10 fresh limes, juiced
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt to taste, sea salt is preferred if possible

After the vegetables were carefully prepared, each was placed in their separate dish, mis en place style. It was easy for Peace to combine the ingredients in a large bowl, toss them with flare, and serve garnished with fresh sprigs of mint.

During the cooking process, Peace wanted to simmer the quinoa and water very slowly until it became tender. This is almost impossible to do with the gas-top burners she was using. The lowest setting was just too hot, which is often the case with my burners.

Because this is a common concern with most cooks in Boquete (our gas is bottled), a friend discovered a new gadget to solve this problem, the “Simmer Mat”. This clever device was invented in New Zealand, where cooks must have the same problem as we have in Boquete. 

Carol brought a mat back from the states for me to try, and I love it. The cast iron heat diffuser works perfectly to spread the heat to ensure long slow cooking.

If you’d like to order a Simmer Mat from Amazon, click here, it’s only $14.95.

Peace completed her menu by making a delicious Plant-Based Soup using quinoa, Vegetable Curry with yucca, and two versions of Brown Rice. No dessert was needed following the lunch, because at the end of the afternoon everyone agreed they felt full of energy from the well-combined meal they enjoyed during the class.

The Tabuli Salad was definitely the highlight of the class, as there were no salad leftovers at all!

Thanks to all the “souz-chefs” for making each ingredient so beautiful, as you can see. Thanks to Peace for showing us another way to improve our overall health and well-being, and in such a delightful manner!

Salud!
Cora

Lemongrass Martini – Chef Juan’s Style

The word is out, “Chef Juan is making Lemongrass Martinis!” Anytime someone hears those words, it’s time to head to his house, to a party or dinner featuring his drink, or to his Panamanian cooking class!

What makes Juan’s martinis so AMAZING??? The taste, of course.

We are lucky to have a lovely clump of lemongrass growing in our garden, and we’re able to pluck nice stalks of lemongrass the year around. This is how we learned to make this very tasty and habit-forming drink.

LEMONGRASS MARTINI

4 oz vodka or seco
1 oz lemongrass extract
1 oz lemongrass syrup

Place ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake well. Serve in a chilled martini glass with a lemongrass stirrer. You can alter these measures to your taste, if you like a stronger drink add more vodka or seco, if you like it less sweet reduce syrup, if you want more lemongrass flavor add more extract.

LEMONGRASS EXTRACT: in a blender place 1 cup of lemon or lime juice, 2 cups of chopped lemongrass stalk (no leaves, no root). Blend at high speed to liquefy; strain blend through a fine sieve or cheese cloth or similar; put in a container, a plastic squirt bottle is ideal; chill extract.

LEMON GRASS SYRUP: boil 2 cups of water with 1 cup of sugar until it reduces about 1/3; add 2 cups of chopped lemongrass root and 1 bark of cinnamon , boil 2 minutes, turn off heat and let cool completely. Strain into a container and chill. Lemongrass root is the woody part below the stalk, it must be scraped clean with a knife and washed before using.

LEMONGRASS STIRRER: cut a stalk (no root, no leaves) lengthwise and peel sheets from around the lemongrass stalk. These make lovely stirrers to garnish the martinis.

Once you have your extract in the fridge you can make martinis any time, the syrup is very good to sweeten coffee. To harvest lemongrass with the stalk and root, grab the stalks at the base and pull; discard leaves and any sheet of the stalk that is dried or damaged. You can use green leaves to make tea, it will help you sleep. You can chop the leaves to dry and keep for tea.

This drink will relax you and it actually is good for you, as lemongrass is loaded with antioxidants and vitamins. But, Juan warns us not to drink too many of these martinis, two are just right.

Thanks for your recipe, Chef Juan! On August 26, you will be able to watch Chef Juan prepare one of his recipes from the Boquete Gourmet Community Cookbook in the kitchen of the Boquete Gourmet, in Boquete, Panama. See details on the calendar at the right, click August 26 to register. You won’t want to miss the upcoming “Cookbook Party #2″, which includes cooking demonstrations, tastings, live music, and a copy of the cookbook, 2nd edition.

You can also read more about Chef Juan’s recipes and upcoming classes at www.latinamericancook.com.
See you at the party!
Cora