Tres Leches

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 5 whole eggs
• 1 cup sugar, divided into 1/4 and 3/4 cups
  
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cups milk
• 1 can evaporated milk
• 1 can sweetened, condensed milk
• 1/4 cups heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350.
Grease a 9x13 " baking pan.
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in large bowl.
Separate the eggs, and beat the yolks with 3/4 of the cup of sugar until the yolks are pale yellow.
Stir in milk and vanilla. Pour egg mixture over the flour mixture and mix to combine.
Beat egg white on high until soft peaks form. With mixer running, add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Whites should be stiff.
Fold egg white mixture into the batter. Be gentle.
Pour into the pan.
Bake for 35-45 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Remove from baking dish and transfer to another dish with a rim/ridge.
Combine condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream together. When the cake is cool, pierce cake with fork all over. Pour the milk mixture slowly over the cake. If you like a wetter tres leches cake, use all the milks. If you like a slightly drier one, reserve 1 cup of the milk.
Allow cake to absorb milks for 30 minutes. Eat.
You should top this with whipped cream, also.

Thoughts: Fucking amazing. That is all.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Xinxim

Possibly one of the strangest recipes we've done so far.
Ingredients

• 1.5lbs of chicken thighs, cut into thick pieces
  
• 3 limes, juiced
  
• ~4 cloves garlic, crushed
  
• salt and pepper to taste
  
• 1/2lb pre-cooked shrimps (if not pre-cooked, just add them a little sooner. The original recipe called for raw, but we didn't have 'em)
  
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
  
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
  
• 2 large ripe tomatoes, seeded and chopped (why seeded? I don't know.)
  
• 1c chicken broth
  
• ~1/2c dried shrimp
  
• ~1/2c cashews
  
• ~1/2c toasted peanuts
  
• 1 lobe ginger, peeled and finely chopped
  
• 2tbsp palm oil
  
• 1 can coconut milk
  
• (optional) cilantro
  
• 2 spicy sausage links, cut thickly (chorizo would work, we just used "hot italian sausage" we found at the grocery)
  

Mix lime juice, garlic, salt, and pepper. Place chicken and sausage in one bowl and shrimp in another, and put about 1/3 of this mixture over the (non-dried) shrimp and the remaining 2/3 over the chicken and sausage. Stir to coat. Let marinate for 15 minutes. In the mean time, place the dried shrimp, cashews, and peanuts in a cuisinart and crush them down to a fine meal. In a pan, heat some oil with a high smoke point (peanut oil, for example). Put the chicken and sausage in and cook until they're more or less done. Set aside (back in the bowl of marinade, possibly).
In the same pan, add the green bell pepper and the onion and sautee until soft. Then add the tomatoes, chicken & sausage (and all the marinade they were sitting in), and the chicken stock. Let simmer on low for 30 minutes. Add the nuts/shrimp meal and the ginger. Let simmer for another 5 minutes. Then add everything else, stir well, and let simmer another 5-10 minutes. Serve.

Thoughts: Really great. We could use more soup liquid - more stock. The taste really matured after refrigerating a day (leftovers were really great). Dan felt it was a little greasy - maybe less or no palm oil next time. Also, we could chop the peanuts and cashews up a LITTLE more finely than we did. This made a LOT of soup - next time we could cut the recipe in half and still have enough leftovers for a week. Finally, skip seeding the tomatoes. Just use 1 can of chopped tomatoes. This recipe was really complicated, so anything to simplify it.

Disaster Index: 2/10

Fried Plantains

Plantains are good for you. Who knew?

Based on a recipe by Aaron McCargo Jr.

Ingredients

• One medium yellow-skinned plantain
  
• 2 tbsp neutral oil (I used peanut oil)
  
• 2-4 tbsp honey
  
• A little margarine (apparently optional)
  

Cut the plantain on a diagonal, with slices about 3/4" apart to create... a series of elipses, I guess. Anyway, heat the oil in a sautee pan or frying pan over high heat. When it's good and hot, drop the plantains in - make sure they don't stick together. Turn the heat down to medium-low and continue to let cook for about 3 minutes, until lightly browned on both sides. Add honey and margarine (actually, I think I added a little more oil) and stir to coat, cooking continually. Remove from heat and serve.

Thoughts: Plantains have this interesting flavor that's like a banana with a hint of lemon. And the texture is really unique, too. This was delicious served over french toast, and it's incredibly filling. One of my favorite new ingredients after this recipe.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Latin American Peanut and Potato Soup

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp peanut oil
• 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• about 6 red potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1 can chopped tomatoes (about 7 oz)
• 1.25 cups of unsalted peanuts
• 6.25 cups of beef stock (or veg)
  
• salt and pepper
• fresh cilantro, chopped
• honey
• cayenne pepper

Heat the oil in a large heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook for about 5 minutes, until onion starts to soften.
Add the garlic, potatoes, pepper, and tomatoes. Stir well to coat everything evenly, then cover and cook for 5 minutes until softened.
Meanwhile, toast the peanuts by cooking them in a large dry frying pan over medium heat. Make sure they don't burn. Move them around often. You don't want burned peanuts.
Set a 1/4 cup of the toasted peanuts aside to use as a garnish. Put the rest in a food processor and grind them up. Add them to the vegetables.
When vegetables are done cooking, remove them from heat and transfer to a blender and blend until smooth.
Return mixture to the pot and stir in the beef stock. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Serve, garnished with the chopped cilantro and toasted peanuts.

Thoughts: This wasn't too difficult to make, and it was pretty delicious. I had the thought of adding some cayenne pepper, and Dan had the thought of adding honey. They make lovely additions to this dish, so by all means, add them both (probably just before serving). Also, I had the idea that buying fresh, in-the-shell peanuts would be a good idea because they would taste more fresh. This is probably not true, and they were a pain in the ass to shuck. So just go ahead and buy the canned ones (as long as they aren't salted! Christ!). We're having a little bit of difficulty coming to a consensus about the rating on this one. It was an unobjectionable soup, but it wasn't particularly striking. I would probably make it again.

Disaster Index: 1-2/10

Update!
only use 3c water,
4 cups worth of beef bouillon
about 2-3 tbsp honey (until you can JUST taste the sweetness)
juice of 1/3 to 1/2 a lemon
pinch of salt
pepper
cayenne to taste

Proceed as usual. About half way through the vegetables being cooked, throw HALF of them in a blender with the 3c of water. Blend smooth and re-add to the other vegetables with the 4 cups of beef bouillon. Bring to a boil and cook until the chunks of potato are tender - 10 minutes or so. Take off the heat and add remaining ingredients, tasting after each addition.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Tostones with Cilantro Mayonnaise

Tostones:

Ingredients

• Plantains, cut into 3/4" to 1" slices
  
• Oil for frying
  

Cut the plantains and put them flat-side down in hot oil over medium heat. Cook two minutes per side, and then take them out of the oil to drain on a bed of paper towels. When they've drained, place them one at a time between two sheets of waxed paper and smash them to about 1/2 the original height with a potato masher, frying pan, or just anything with a flat side that would make a good smashing implement.

Now, re-fry them until golden, again over medium heat, making sure to turn them half-way through the cooking process. Place them back on the paper towels to drain. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, chile pepper, thyme.

You can also use this dipping sauce to dip the tostones in. Recipe follows:

Ingredients

• 2 tbs mayonnaise
• a lot of cilantro. Like, 2 cups.
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• liberal salt
• liberal pepper
• 3 tbp vegetable oil
• 2 cloves garlic

Grind these things up in a food processor or blender or whatever, until the consistency looks like mayonnaise, but with cilantro in it.
Tostones are also delicious with salsa.
If you have leftover cilantro mayo, you can use it as a dipping for chips! It's great!

Thoughts: Make sure that the oil temperature isn't too high when you're frying the tostones. Try to keep it at medium. There's still a little something missing from the cilantro mayonnaise. Maybe more salt? Pepper? Not sure yet, but it was pretty darn delicious for being completely made up.

Disaster Index: Tostones = 1/10, Cilantro Mayonnaise = 3/10

Guacamole

This recipe is taken from a bunch of FoodNetwork chefs. I think we have about 2 parts Tyler Florence, 2 parts Bobby Flay, and 1 part Rachel Ray.

Ingredients

• 2 avocados, scooped out of the rind and chopped
• 1/4 red onion, chopped
• 1 lime, juiced and combined with chopped avocados
• 1/2 garlic clover, minced
• 1/2 tomato

Mix ingredients. Chill.

Thoughts: This was not a shining moment. The red onion was far too strong, as was the lime juice. The tomato probably should have been a roma tomato, or no tomato at all. After a few days, the guacamole got kind of brown anyways. Maybe I would have used yellow onion rather than red onion? Furthermore, we didn't ever add cilantro, which was a huge mistake. Even after adding a third avocado, the lime juice was far too strong. Maybe cut the lime juice in half while adding another avocado.

Disaster Index: 6-7/10 - Needs work. I wouldn't eat it again.