An abundance of green mangoes

Yes, I have an abundance of green mangoes, about half a dozen of them. Jonna wrote on her blog that the mango tree under which their RV is parked is literally raining green mangoes on them. When life gives you green mangoes, you can make green mango chutney, green mango pickle and of course just slice them up and serve them with chile and lime. I once made a pilaf that called for green mango, it was pretty good, but I don't remember where the recipe came from. I also saw a recipe for flatbread that called for green mango, but I don't feel like making bread right now.
Eventually I decided to make green mango chutney and green mango pickle. I find it amazing how you can take basically the same ingredients and make two very different but equally tasty things. Don't worry the recipes are coming, just not today.
Now ripe mangoes are wonderful too, don't get me wrong,I love ripe mangoes. At the grocery stores there are several types of mangoes available, the Yucatecans like the little yellow manilas the best, but I usually buy whatever is the least expensive, I don't have a developed enough palate to be able to tell the difference.
Usually, when you come across a reference to a mango, it invariably notes that mangoes are messy and difficult to eat. I remember a children's book that had a drawing of a proper looking gentleman in tails sitting in an old fashioned bathtub to eat mangoes. One of the many advantages to having a Cuban mother, is the fact that I grew up knowing how to prepare and eat mangoes. When I married Husband the mango preparation became his job, his knife skills are superior to mine. Husband even taught my comadre had to fillet a mango. Recently, Yucatan Living came out with this article called How to Eat a Mango,Yucatan-style. I recommend it for those of you who have up to now thought that mangoes are messy eating.
For some more mango recipes check out La Gringa's blogicito (in Honduras) post called Lounging Mangoes for more mango cutting advice.

Chinese food in Merida

I be you all think that I haven't been doing any cooking lately. Not so, I just haven't been blogging about it. We've been having some crazy weather, one day hot and muggy and then a long spell of cooler weather,just when I thought the heat was here for good, it rained yesterday!

As you might know, Husband and I have put on a bit of weight, so we've been revising our eating, and (boo hiss) exercising, actually, the exercise has been walking, we've been getting up early and walking in our neighborhood.

While we don't eat a lot of junk nor do we drink much soda, it the quantity of food that has been our down fall.

Eggplant seems to be the vegetable that I have been concentrating on. Recently, I had a craving for Chinese food so I made Szechuan Eggplant with pork. Try it out, even if you don't like eggplant you might find that you like this one.

Speaking of Chinese food, we recently had dinner with another expat couple,while she was born in Hong Kong, he is the one who stir fries. One of the dishes he prepares was a simple bell pepper stir fry. It was perfectly done,crunchy and tasty. Unfortunately, they have headed north already, but when they get back, I am eager to have him fine tune my stir frying technique. There is nothing like getting instruction from someone who knows what they are doing.

I have never had what I would consider good Chinese food in a restaurant here in Merida, and coming from the San Francisco Bay Area, I realize that I have high standards. My oldest daughter spent a summer in Missouri when she was 13, she went with her best friend. She came back and announced that one evening they went to the next state for Chinese food. While they were choosing the food, my daughter made comments like "My mom makes that" or "My mom taught our 4-H cooking group how to make that". They would look at her in amazement and ask her "Your mama cooks Chinese food? You know how to cook Chinese food?".

Seriously, I think stir frying may be a really good technique for me to start using more of,now that the weather is getting hot again. Or should be getting hot again.

Cuban Food Night

We got together with our friends Jonna and Mimi at Tom and Debi's house to socialize,drink mojitos and eat Cuban food. Jonna makes great mojitos by the way. I volunteered to bring ropa vieja. Debi says that ropa vieja is JLo's favorite food by the way. While I was at the grocery store buying the ingredients for the ropa vieja, I spotted rabo de res. I haven't seen ox tails in any of the supermarkets and have been considering going to the meat markets in search of them. Well, beef tails seem like a close enough name. I bought several kilos of it to store in my freezer to make things like ox tail soup and Rabo Encendido. Which translates as tail on fire. The heat is supplied by black pepper and Spanish chorizo. Not wanting to disappoint everyone, I decided to make the ropa vieja but also bring along a bowl of Rabo Encendido, after all we all want to broaden our culinary horizons don't we. This photo is of the Rabo.

What is a Cuban meal without black beans or rice? Debi made this Cuban classic Moros y Cristianos (Moors and Christians). She also made some really yummy appetizers, a brushetta with tomatoes, cheese and balsamic vinegar, but I forgot to photograph it. I wish I had remembered because it was a lovely looking dish.
These are bolillos, Jonna said that she got to have the Mexican experience of buying lots of rolls at the panadería. She was referring to the fact that often at the bakeries you see people buying dozens and dozens of these rolls. I think they are either making tortas or molletes.
Now we come to the ropa vieja. Not only JLo's favorite but Husband's too.
Let's face it, you have to have bananas with Cuban food. These were baked with rum and butter among other things. It's not a dessert but a side dish, like candied yams.
This is the fixings that Jonna brought for the mojitos. The rum is called Flor de Caña, a Cuban rum now made in central America. I can't remember where, but maybe Jonna will remind me.
Here is a filled plate, showing all the food. Looks pretty good to me!
Husband is clearly enjoying himself. You can't really tell but he has on a guayabera over his swim trunks, just another Cuban touch to our Cuban food night. In the background is T&D's lovely backyard and swimming pool.

Rabo Encendido

3 pounds ox tail (rabo de res)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
juice of 2 limes
1/4 cup olive oil
2 white onions diced
1 large green bell pepper,or 1 large chile poblano or 3 chile dulce, seeded and diced
4 cloves garlic minced
1 cup tomato sauce (puré de tomate)
1/2 cup sherry (jerez)
1 cup red wine (vino tinto)
2 cups beef stock (caldo de res)
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin (comino)
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper (or more)
1 bay leaf (hoja de laurel)
1 large dry imported spanish chorizo or 2 chorizos españoles, sliced into 1 inch rounds
6 white potatoes (papa blanca), peeled and cut into large chunks

1. Sprinkle the oxtails with the salt,pepper and lime juice. Let marinate at least 20 minutes.
2. In a dutch oven or other heavy pot, heat 1/4 cup oil, when the oil is hot, brown the oxtails. Remove the oxtails from the pot, discard the oil.
3. Brown the chorizos, remove from the pot saving as much grease as possible. If you would rather not use the chorizo grease, heat up another 1/4 cup of olive oil.
4. Cook the peppers,onions and garlic until transparent, stirring constantly. Add a teaspoon or more of water to the pan if it gets too dry.
5. Return the oxtails and chorizo to the pan. Add the rest of the ingredients except the potatoes.
   
6. Bring the stew to a boil, cover and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 2 hours.
7. Add the potatoes and cook until the potatoes are done.
8. Serve hot with bolillos, or plain white rice

Plantanos Machos baked with rum and sugar

6 large plátanos machos (plantains) as ripe as possible
1/4 cup unsalted butter cut into pieces
1/2 cup rum
1/3 cup sherry (jerez)
1/3 cup piloncillo*
1/4 teaspoon salt
ground nutmeg (nuece mascada) and ground cinnamon (canela) to taste,

1. Slice the machos into chunks, I like to roll cut them. Put machos in a single row into an ovenproof baking dish.
   
2. Pour the sherry and rum over the machos.
3. Evenly distribute the butter and piloncillo over the machos
4. Sprinkle the salt,nutmeg and cinnamon over the machos.
5. bake covered in a preheated 350ºF oven for 30 minutes
6. Uncover,stir the machos and bake an additional 30 minutes until brown and soft.
7. Serve warm

Notes:
I buy the granulated piloncillo in bags at Walmart and Comercial Mexicana, if you can't find it, you will need to grate the piloncillo. You can also substitute a 1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar.
Here is a video I found on how to roll cut.