Tres Leches Cake

It is not certain what the origin of this cake is, but it is very popular in Central America and thus also in the large Central American communities in the U.S. Probably one of the most.delicious.desserts.ever. If you are not into baking, the easier way to do this is to buy a large sponge cake and give it the 3-milk treatment. That way, it is quick and easy. Do try this. Add some dark rum to the icing if you are feeling naughty.

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

5 eggs

125 ml sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

50 ml milk

1 can evaporated milk

1 can sweetened condensed milk

50 ml heavy cream

500 ml heavy cream, for whipping

3 tablespoons sugar

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Coat 23 cm X 33 cm (9 x 13 inch) pan well with butter

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.

Separate the eggs.

Beat the egg yolks with 100 ml sugar on high speed until yolks are pale yellow. Stir in the milk and vanilla essence. Pour the egg yolk mixture over flour mixture and stir very gently until combined.Beat egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. With mixer on, pour in remaing sugar and beat until egg whites are stiff but not dry. Fold the egg white mixture into the other mixture very gently until just combined. Pour into the prepared pan and even out the surface. Bake it for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Turn the cake out onto a rimmed platter and allow it to cool.

Or, Instead of all the above, buy a large sponge cake, square, if possible.

Combine the condensed milk, evaporated milk, and 50 ml heavy cream in a jug. When the cake is cool, pierce the surface with a fork all over (about 100 times). Slowly drizzle as much as you can of the milk mixture over the cake. Try to get the edges of the cake as well. Allow the cake to absorb the milk mixture for 30 minutes. Whip 500 ml heavy cream with 3 tablespoons of sugar until thick and spreadable.

Spread over the surface of the cake. Decorate the cake with whole or chopped maraschino cherries. Cut into squares and serve.

Carnitas

This another great accompaniment to drinks, with pieces of tortilla or pita bread.

Going with spoon measures here, as it does not have to be exact.

Ingredients

• 2 Kg boneless pork shoulder, cut into 5-inch chunks, trimmed of excess fat. (You could try filet mignon if not a pork eater)
• 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt
• 2 tablespoons canola or neutral vegetable oil
• water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 teaspoon chile powder
• 1 teaspoon ancho chile powder
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 5 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly-sliced

Rub the pieces of pork shoulder all over with salt. Refrigerate for 1- to 3-days. (You can skip this step if you want. Just be sure to salt the pork before searing the meat in the next step.)

Heat the oil in a roasting pan set on the stovetop. Cook the pieces in a single layer until very well-browned, turning them as little as possible so they get nice and dark before flipping them around. If your cooking vessel is too small to cook them in a single-layer, cook them in two batches.

Once all the pork is browned, remove it from the pot and blot away any excess fat with a paper towel, then pour in about a cup of water, scraping the bottom of the pan with a flat-edged utensil to release all the tasty brown bits.

Heat the oven to 180C

Add the pork back to the pan and add enough water so the pork pieces are 2/3 submerged in liquid. Add the cinnamon stick and stir in the chile powders, bay leaves, cumin and garlic.

Braise in the oven uncovered for 3½ hours, turning the meat a few times during cooking, until much of the liquid is evaporated and it is falling apart. Remove the pan from the oven and lift the meatpieces out of the liquid and set them on a platter.

Once they are cool enough to handle, shred them into bite-sized pieces, about 2-inches (7 cm), discarding any obvious big chunks of fat if you wish.(if using pork

Return the pork pieces back to the roasting pan and cook in the oven, turning occasionally, until the liquid has evaporated and the pork is crispy and caramelized. It will depend on how much liquid the pork gave off, and how crackly you want them.

It should be deeply, darkly, crispy brown on the outside.

Vegetarian Chili

Friends around for a week-day dinner, scrabbling around for something quick to cook: what better than a chili? Cue '80s theme night fun, a wicked big, fat, dark chili; a tomato salsa and lashings of sour cream with chili, rice and garlic bread to go alongside. Get in a stock of wickedly luscious Chilean red and put Kim Wilde on the iPod and we're laughing. Except two guests are vegetarian! Oh no! What to do?

Doddle. Here's the way out - and it freezes, as does 'real' chili, like a little dream!

Ingredients

• 200g button mushrooms, diced
• 1 red onion, diced
• 1 stick celery, diced
• ½ red pepper, diced
• ½ courgette, diced
• 100g potato, diced
• 2 red chillis, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 50g red lentils
• 1 tin aduki beans, drained & rinsed
• 2 tins chopped tomatoes
• 1 tin red beans, drained & rinsed
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 squares dark chocolate
• 1 tsp powdered cumin
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 2 tsp red chilli powder
• 1 tsp salt

Put the chopped courgette into a strainer and liberally drizzle it with salt, then leave it to stand for 15 minutes or so before rinsing. Heat the oil in a pan and then add the onions to soften, then the mushrooms. Add the lentils, then the other vegetables and fry, stirring. Combine the cumin, flour, chilli, salt and oregano and then add these to the mixture and stir in to thicken before adding the tomatoes, stirring well and taking the heat to low. After about 10 minutes, add the aduki and red beans. Cover and cook for a further 20 minutes, add the chocolate and stir it to melt in and combine. Taste and season, then cook, covered for a further 30 minutes on a low heat.

Chilli Con Carne

Easier than falling off a log, tastier than Kate Bush and more 80s than Spandau Ballet. Chilli Con Carne (or Chile Con Carne) is party food at the top of the party food food chain and this is my recipe, honed by years of trotting out chillis accompanied by a pile of steaming white basmati rice (as authentic as Angel Delight, I know), a green salad and piles of crisp hot garlic bread, washed down with bottles of balls-out New World Cabernets.

Woof woof!

Oh! A note for Tex-Mex purists. Boil yer heads. This is a pure, 100% authentic Watford Chile.

Ingredients

• 500g lean minced beef
• 2 tins red beans
• 2 tins chopped tomatoes
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp red chili powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 fresh red chilis, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 3 tbsp date syrup

Instead of date syrup you can use molasses or 4 cubes of dark chocolate.
In a wide bottomed pan, fry the minced beef over a medium heat until it has started to brown. Add the garlic and stir it up a bit, then add the spices, chili, salt and flour to the beef. Stir it all up and let it mix and bubble for a couple of minutes, then fling in the chopped tomatoes and tomato paste and stir them in. Reduce the heat to low. After about 15 minutes, add the date syrup (or chocolate or whatever dark and sweet thing you've decided to use) and stir it in, then the beans and stir them in too. Cover and leave to cook for another 30 minutes or more, depending on how you're feeling. An hour or so does no harm. Then, ideally, let it cool down in the pan and then reheat to serve. For some reason this transforms chili like an impending election transforms political debate.
And no chili in the world tastes as good as that reheated the next day. Honest.

Tomato Salsa

Purists will use plump, freshly chopped tomatoes for this recipe but I've been corrupted over the years and find a tin of chopped tomato is just perfect for the job.

Ingredients

• 1 tin chopped tomato
• 1 Indian red onion, chopped
• 4 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 large limes, juice and zest
• 1 tsp salt

Mix the above ingredients together in a bowl, and season with the salt and lots of pepper. Chill before serving. This salsa also makes a great dip for before you eat, use plain nacho chips to dip.

Guacamole

Goo akka molay: a most wonderful thing. Do take care to scrape the avocado skins well to remove the deep green flesh that will adhere to the insides. Juice the lemon first and, as soon as you prepare each avocado, put the flesh in the lemon juice and swoosh it around to cover. This stops it oxidising and therefore blackening.
A ripe avocado will be soft to the touch at its thin end. By the way, never buy an avocado that doesn't have a stub of stem still on the head of the fruit - avocados are cut, not picked and if the stem is torn off, the fruit goes bad around the stone. Bet you didn't know that...

Ingredients

• 3 ripe avocado pears, stoned, peeled & chopped
  
• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• 4 spring onions, very finely chopped
• 2 large beef tomatoes, skinned, deseeded & finely chopped
• 1 tsp salt

Mash the avocadoes with the lemon juice and zest so that there are no lumps, and mix in the other ingredients. Chill before serving.

Sour Cream

• 1 pint double cream
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh chives

Fold the lemon juice into the cream until it thickens and sours. Too much juice will spoil the cream, so be careful. Mix in the chives, chill and serve. Alternatively, the Bridel sour cream that Spinneys sells is outrageously expensive but excellent. ;)

Nachos

If you've already made the components, this visually amazing dish takes five minutes to put together and is a heart-attack inducing slice of Tex-Mex madness. It's great to serve for one of those evenings where it's more about the drinks than the food!!!

BTW - a 'quantity' is the amount you'll end up with if you cook the recipes given here on The Fat Expat. A variation on the below is to add a tin of warmed refried beans on top of the salad, which is a very naughty idea indeed...

Ingredients

• 2 large packets plain tortilla or nacho chips
• 1 quantity chilli con carne
• 1 quantity guacamole
• 1 quantity sour cream
• 1 quantity salsa
• 2 pickled jalapeno peppers, chopped
• 1 medium iceberg lettuce, sliced into strands
• 500g cheddar cheese, grated

Turn your grill to high. In a large baking tray, arrange the nachos or tortilla chips so that they cover the base. Sprinkle the cheddar over the chips, and place under the grill until the cheese melts. Layer the chilli over the cheese, then the lettuce, then the guacamole, salsa and finally the sour cream on top. Sprinkle with the chopped jalapenos and serve immediately. You'll need a pizza wheel or a knife to cut the portions, and a spatula to lift them!

Quesadillas

Tex-Mex fun for vegetarians - not a piece of diced, sliced or minced beef in sight!

Ingredients

• 6 peppers (2 each yellow, red and green)
• 4 medium-sized Indian red onions, sliced
• 2 tbps olive oil
• 4 flour tortillas
• 250g cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup fresh coriander leaves, chopped
• 8 jalapeno peppers, sliced
  

Place the peppers on a baking tray under the grill and then grill them, turning every 4-5 minutes, so that they are cooked evenly all over. Place the hot peppers in a large pan and put the lid on to let them steam a little as they cook and then pick the skins off under a cold tap: the skin should come away quite easily. Discard the stems and seeds, then slice the peppers lengthways into thickish strips. In a frying pan, soften the onion in the oil and then add the jalapenos and the mixed peppers to heat through, as well as a good shake of pepper and salt. After a couple of minutes, add the coriander.

Heat the tortillas in a pan, spreading each with an equal amount of the cheese. When each layer of cheese melts, add an equal amount of the pepper mix, before folding up into a roll and then pressing lightly to flatten. Turn the tortilla to cook on the other side and then remove from the pan, cut it in half and store in a warm oven while you fill the other tortillas. Serve with guacamole, salsa and sour cream.

Chilli Con Carne

Such a simple dish and yet I have had more revolting versions of this ‘student’ grub that I care to think about; insipid, watery, heatless and yet all it needs to be great is a little bit of care and attention.

Another brilliant thing about this dish is that you can recycle it as tacos or enchiladas at a later date so do make up a big batch and freeze what you don't use.

I will confess that a long time ago I stole the basic idea of this recipe from an article I read about an annual chilli cook off competition in the States and they printed the recipe of the winning entry. I have played around with it a little but essentially it remains close to the original winning formula. Let’s see if we can repeat that feat!


You will need:

1kg minced beef (not the lean stuff, you need a bit of fat for flavour)
1 large brown onion chopped very fine
3 cloves garlic chopped very fine
1 carrot, peeled and grated
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 red bell pepper diced finely
Button Mushrooms (small handful) chopped very fine
1 can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1tbsp tomato puree
500ml homemade beef or lamb stock
1 330ml bottle lager
2 tbsp chocolate powder (cooking not drinking type)
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp cumin powder
2 tsp coriander powder
2 tsp paprika
½tsp pimenton picante
2 (or more) thai chilli chopped very fine


This dish is very heavily populated with ingredients from the nightshade family (tomatoes, chilli, red pepper, paprika, pimenton) and the healthy eating people believe that sufferers of arthritis, psoriasis or cystitis should avoid this food group. I have absolutely no idea if this is just mumbo-jumbo or if it actually works but I thought I would pass on the information anyway.

If you want to make a more authentic Mexican dish don’t use mince but instead use rump steak and mince it roughly by hand. This will obviously create a more ‘lumpy’ texture but it closer to what you will find in Mexico.

I have used Thai birds eye chilis, which are fiery little buggers, because they are easy to find here but for a true Mexican taste you should use fresh jalapenos, anchos or poblano chillis. If you are really brave, and a little mad, use habanero chillis. With the quantities below do not under any circumstances use more than one habanero otherwise the Pacific Ring of Fire will be positively polar compared to what you will be feeling.

Right, here we go:

• First of all in a heavy casserole dish over low/medium heat put a good glug of olive oil and gently soften the onions, garlic and grated carrot.

• Once soft add cumin seeds, cumin powder, chopped chilli, coriander powder, paprika and pimenton picante and cook for 2 minutes or so, stirring all the while to make sure nothing sticks.

• Add beef and cook until all browned

• Add the beer and stir

• Add rest of ingredients and bring to a simmer.

• Cover with tight fitting lid and place in 350F/175C oven for two and a half hours. This slow cooking gives all the flavours a really good chance to develop and meld.

And that is all there is to it.

This recipe with the special super ingredients of the grated carrot, beer and the chocolate powder really do produce a wonderfully thick, deep, dark dish with both heat and sweetness. Delicious!!

As I said at the begiining the good thing about cooking a big batch of this is the other dishes you can make with it.

Buy some flour tortillas, put two or three tbsp of chilli in the middle of one tortilla, roll it up and place in baking dish. Pack as many tortillas in as the dish will take, pour over a tin of enchilada sauce and cover in grated cheese (needs to be a strong hard cheese like mature cheddar or Monterey Jack), bake in 400F/200C oven for 25 mins and there you have some great enchiladas!