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

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

Panama’s Abundant Harvest

When it comes to food prices these days and the manner in which they are becoming more expensive, Panama is the place to be. It’s especially nice to be in Boquete, the “market basket” of Central America, where fresh produce, poultry and livestock are bountiful.

Boquete Gourmet Host Chef, Juan Linares, designed a creative and delicious menu around the many accessible and reasonable ingredients available in these Highlands of Chiriqui, Panama. The resultant Underground Dinner was exquisite. Chef used ingredients that he found in Boquete’s local markets, ones that are stacked on displays, or easily found behind glass meat counters.

This was Chef Juan’s premier dinner, and guests were very delighted with each dish as they were presented throughout the evening.

Panama Harvest Underground Dinner

Lemongrass Martini
Curvy Queen on a Chip
Black Bean Soup with Mini Toasted Cheese Sandwiches
Plantain Slaw
Coconut Fish Moqueca with Lemongrass Rice
Black Roast Beef
Passion Fruit Torte
Handmade Natural Mint Liqueur

The menu speaks for itself, lots of nutritious, low-priced vegetables and fruits, dried beans at pennies per pound and imported vodka priced at $10.00 liter, duty free. Of course, everyone won’t be able to create truly gourmet dinners from these ingredients. It takes a fine chef like Juan to work his magic and bring to the table some of the finest, most elegant and tasteful dishes available anywhere.

Plantains, lemongrass and mint grow everywhere in Panama. It only took a minute to pick them fresh from our gardens. Chef Juan taught us how to make liqueur from the mint and extract from the lemongrass, both served at this month’s Underground Dinner.

You can see how Chef Juan approved of his Lemongrass Martini, it was a tasty treat to get the evening’s festivities started.

To make the Plantain Slaw, Juan boiled the plantains whole, then they were peeled, shredded, and mixed with a snappy, creamy dressing. The sweetness was all natural, no sugar added. Many guests remarked that the slaw was the favorite dish of the evening, not counting the mint liqueur, of course.

Chef Juan prepared the local corvina fillets with lots of fresh vegetables and herbs, and served them over lemongrass rice.

The final dish of this month’s dinner was Juan’s Passion Fruit Torte, made with natural yogurt and local Graham crackers. The actual recipe can be found by searching this Boquete Gourmet site, using “My Passion for Passion Fruit”. Once you make this beguiling dessert, you’ll know how to make it by memory, and passion fruits are easily available everywhere in Panama.

It’s amazing to watch how many local, plentiful ingredients can be made into a very elegant, gourmet dinner. Panama truly has an abundant harvest all year around. It’s wonderful to be able to enjoy preparing and eating the world’s freshest, most reasonable foods that are available everyday in Boquete.

Thanks Juan, for sharing your talents with everyone, to our daughter Kirsten Peck as sous chef, to David as sommelier, and to Betty Dabney for capturing the abundance of fun on film.

Thanks, guests!
Cora

My Passion for Passion Fruit Torte

We are lucky to be living in a tropical country where passion fruit is not only abundant, but very reasonable, about 20 cents each. In Boquete, Panama, we can purchase them in at least three colors.

The passion fruit is round to oval, either yellow, green or purple at maturity, with a soft to firm, juicy interior filled with pulp and numerous edible seeds. The fruit can be grown to be eaten or for its juice, which is often added to other fruit juices to enhance the aroma.

David and I grew passion flower vines in Gulfport, Florida, but we never saw them produce fruit. The delicate flowers are magnificent and there is a legend that relates the passion flower to Christ’s life, as told on Wikipedia. I always loved to show guests the vines and unusual flowers, at least they are unusual in Florida.

The fruit in this photo is mature for juicing and culinary use. For eating right out of the fruit, the fruit should be allowed to wrinkle for a few days to raise the sugar levels and enhance the flavor.

Passion fruit can also be cut in half and the pulp easily scooped out with a spoon. Passion fruit-flavored syrup is a popular topping for shaved ice, it’s sold in Boquete off push carts in our local parks.  Ice cream can be flavored with passion fruit, as well as many other desserts such as cookies and cakes. I really enjoy passion fruit juice at 99 cents a quart, mixed with our local rum, it’s a very “passionate” drink!

This unique recipe came to me from Boquete Gourmet Host Chef Juan Linares, and it’s one of my favorite desserts.

Passion Fruit and Yogurt Torte

1 can sweetened, condensed milk
1 can natural yogurt
1 can passion fruit pulp, strained
3 rolls Maria galletas (cookies) or 3 packages Graham crackers

Open and empty the can of sweetened condensed milk into a large bowl. To prepare the passion fruit, cut the fruit in half and scoop out the pulp into a blender. Blend and strain enough pulp to fill the empty milk can and empty it into the bowl with the milk. Fill the empty can again with yogurt and add to the milk mixture and combine.

Then, cover the bottom of a 9″ X 12″ pan with whole cookies or Graham crackers and pour some of the mixture over the top, then layer more crackers and mixture until you have several layers. Press and smooth the top of the torte, as shown in the photo. I kept a little of the passion fruit pulp with seeds to pat on top to make a nice, shiny top “crust”. Chill for at least 3 hours, cut and serve. You may garnish with whipped cream, a cherry and sprinkle with crushed graham crackers. A sprig of fresh mint brings yet another color to the dish, yum!

This dessert is very easy to make, especially when passion fruit is so abundant in Boquete. It can be made a day ahead, in case you have a busy day preparing the other dishes for your dinner. Actually, David and I had Juan’s Passion Fruit and Yogurt Torte for breakfast the day after serving it for dinner. It was even better then.

“Eat dessert first”, don’t they say???
Cora