I did my presentation on my mom’s delicious tamales. Her tamales are really important to me because they were the first meal me and my mom cooked together. I was adopted at the age of 5. When I turned 18, I moved back with my biological mother. Before moving with her, I had only had her tamales one time. At that moment, they were the best things I had ever tasted. When I moved back with her it was only right that they were the first meal I requested.
The tamales are wrapped in corn husks (ojas). My mom is very picky when choosing the perfect oja. She have thrown away whole bags because they were not to her liking. The ojas must be cleaned because they have traces of dirt and corn hair. My mom soaks them water for some time then rinses them off one by one. The preparation of the masa is pretty simple. My mom only buys her masa from Amapola. They have the best masa around. But to add more fluffiness, she adds seasoning and oil. She then mixes it with her hands until it is not as sticky.
Spreading the masa on the oja is probably the hardest part (at least for me). The first time I ever made tamales with my mom, she had to redo every one I did. She says that the masa has to be evenly distributed because it cooks better. And she likes when her tamales have proportioned masa and meat. There have been times when she overlooked my disproportioned tamales and cooked them so, I definitely understand why she expects the masa to be spread in a certain way.
The meat is a secret! I will say that it takes hours to cook. My mom usually puts the meat to cook early in the morning on a medium heat. When she used to make pork tamales it would take a whole day because pork takes much longer to cook than chicken. However, I do not eat pork so, she stopped cooking them completely. The only time she does cook them is when family members ask her for a large order during the holidays. When I used to eat pork, she would make the red tamales with chicken and the green tamales with pork. I did not bring any red tamales but they are my favorite. I prefer them over the green but they are not as spicy as I prefer.
When the meat is done, she begins putting it in the masa. She likes to put a lot of meat in her tamales. When it’s time to wrap them she makes sure that each end of the oja has masa so the tamale stay closed. She said she do not like cooking tamales without wrapping them in aluminum foil because they do not cook as good. When I first made tamales with her, I thought it was okay to wrap the aluminum foil any way. Again, I was wrong. My mom likes to roll each end of the aluminum foil at least three times to retain the heat.
Once they are prepped and ready to cook, my mom uses her large tamale pot to cook them. She places a steamer at the bottom of the pot and puts a few cups of water in the pot. The water can not touch the tamales or they will be extremely gooey. She usually cooks a pot of 20 tamale for about an hour and a half. The more she adds the more time they require. I am happy that I am the only daughter who has the recipe.

Here is the link to Amapolas yelp page.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/amapola-super-deli-and-market-los-angeles

Image by Sarah McAnaw

Mujaddara

I know, the name is hard to pronounce! Mu-jad-dara, I bet if you say it now it is not as hard as the first time. That’s right, many Middle Eastern foods have weird names, weird pronunciation, and  frankly, I do not know where they got the name. Growing up partially in Kuwait, and raised mainly in the United States, I never cared to know the meaning of this meal’s name. All I know is that it tasted good, since we eat lots of rice, and tastes great with a tangy small chopped salad,Yummy! In the process of writing about Mujaddara which is derived from the  Arabic language, I had to find the meaning and history of this meatless dish made in many countries in the Middle East, and known by the same name in four countries in that region.

Mujaddara literally means”chickenpox”  due to the pock-mark appearance of the brown lentils in the rice(Sarah McAnaw).I guess this dish is going to appeal to appetites after knowing the meaning! The History of this dish was, according to Sarah McAnaw, author of Small Kitchen College, goes back to one version of the  “mess of porridge” of the Geneva Bible., when Jacob offered Mujaddara to buy the birthright of his brother Esau.According to McAnaw and my mother Zakiyah Manour, this dish was of poor people or peasant’s food. It was considered a poor man’s food when a meal did not contain meat. So lentil soup and Mujaddara are one of such foods.

Mujaddara is very easy to make. In fact my mom used to make it on a lazy day, since she used to cook on a daily basis. I follow on that too. I cook Mujaddara once a month and the recipe is pretty simple and is not time consuming. The recipe uses rice, brown lentils, little spices,and sauteed onions for garnish which add a great flavor and little moisture to the “pilaf”.The recipe is simple and easy to prepare.Whether you eat the Mujaddara right away or  leave in the refrigerator for a couple of days, it should still be good to eat on those days where you are hungry and need something to eat quick.

Mujaddara Ingredients:

1 cup Basmati rice( washed and soaked 15 minutes then drained)

1/2 brown lentils

1 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt (as desired)

1/2 teaspoon Allspice

2-3 onions thinly sliced

1/2 cup olive oil

5 cups water .

Chicken Stock(optional)can be added as half of the liquid in the recipe

Directions:

Boil the lentils in water and simmer till tender but not mushy. In the mean time, slice onions then add olive oil to frying pan on medium heat. Saute onions till they turn caramel in color. set half onions aside and add the other half to the lentils, then mix in the rice, spices, and salt. Bring to a boil . Water in the pot should cover the rice mixture .Lower the heat and cover the pot.Simmer for about 20 minutes ,till the rice is tender. If rice is not tender and water has evaporated add little water and keep on simmer till the rice is well done. Flip the pot and pour rice into a platter and garnish with the rest of the caramelized onions. Can be eaten with plain yogurt or with small chopped salad with lemon and olive oil dressing.Enjoy!!!

Source: http://college.biggirlssmallkitchen.com/2012/05/five-ingredient-feast-mujaddara.html

Praline’s also known as the “pecan candy” was originated in the seventeenth-century in France by chef of César, duc de Choiseul, Comte du Plessis-Praslin when he coated almonds with sugar. French settlers brought the tradition of praline’s along with them to Louisiana. When African-Americans began working in French migrants’ kitchens, they replaced the almonds to pecans and added milk. Throughout the 1800s, African-American women began selling praline’s in New Orleans, and those women became the most popular street vendors. During the 1900s, the tourism industry grew and French Quarters started opening up praline stores with life size “praline mammies” in front of the store.

As a child my grandmother on my father’s side used to always give them to me. I used to get them at parties or sometimes after dinner. My mother’s father used to take me to his favorite restaurant called, Margarita’s Mexican Café, on Crenshaw Boulevard and 50^th Street. Growing up I thought of these as cookies, I just learned that it is a candy. Usually I would just eat one or two because they were so sweet. I’ve never seen praline’s been made before but it seemed pretty easy. As I was trying to follow certain instructions on how they are made, I quickly saw that the first batch wasn’t going to turn out to well. I sat and thought to myself, oh no, I’m the mom from the book by Ruth Reichl, I have completely destroyed these poor cookies. Feeling defeated but willing to try again, I did it. I learned that whatever you do, don’t stop stirring the mix. All I remember about my grandmother is that she was always in the kitchen, weather she was cooking, drinking coffee or watching mass, she was in the kitchen. Most, if not all of our talks were in the kitchen; she would have pralines set out on the table all the time and I would sit and break apart the “cookie” half way listening to mass and half listening to her. my mother’s father and my father’s mother were my two favorite grandparents and I no longer have either of them here with me. But this assignment has made me see that they are here with me all the time.

I decided to do my nutritional analysis on pecans since that was one of the ingredients that changed when it was brought into Louisiana due to the extensive amount of pecan trees. Pecans are a species of hickory that have a native to Mexico in the late 1600s and early 1700s. the first planting of a pecan tree was in Long Island, New York. The tree grows from 66-131 feet high, spreads 39-75 feet, with a 6.6-foot trunk. Since the pecan is considered a fruit, the seed part is edible and has a buttery flavor. The pecan seed is also used in wood making and flavoring of food. According to Shape, the National Pecan Shellers Association states that pecans are a healthy unsaturated fat and can help lower bad cholesterol. They contain over 19 vitamins and minerals and rich in age defying antioxidants.

In addition, today there are many forms and ways to make pralines. Many cover them in chocolate, pour it on top of brownies, add coconut, and even add ice cream.

Traditional Praline Instructions

Ingredients:

1 stick of unsalted butter

½ cup of light brown sugar

1 ½ cup of white sugar

1 ½ cup of pecans

½ cup of evaporated milk

A teaspoon of exact (vanilla or cameral)

Tools:

Wooden spoon

Nice size pot

Wax paper

Directions:

Before you start, make sure you have all your ingredients already measured out and have the space to set the candy down ready.

Put the wax paper on top of newspaper so you don’t mess up your counter top.

Put the pot on high heat and add all ingredients in the pot (excluding pecans and exact).

Always stir.

Allow the ingredients to come to a boil.

There are two boils that happen. First a rapid boil and then a medium volcano boil. You want the one the slow volcano boil.

Once you reach that, put the fire on low and let it stand for three minutes only.

Once that is done, take it off the fire, add in the pecans, and stir for about one minute.

Never stop stirring.

Add the exact and keep stirring until it comes to a creamy texture.

Put the candy onto the wax paper and let cool.

References

Borsari, K. “Pop a Pecan, Not a Pill,” Shape. Retrieved November 7, 2016 from, http://www.shape.com/blogs/fit-foodies/pop-pecan-not-pill

n.d. “The History of Pralines,” Southern Candymakers. Retrieved November 7, 2016 from, https://www.southerncandymakers.com/history-of-pralines

Nunez, M. C. “Praline or “Pecan Candy” Vendors,” New Orleans Historical. Retrieved November 7, 2016 from, http://www.neworleanshistorical.org/items/show/259

Pecans. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved November 8, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecan

Quiche

Symbolic Analysis

I chose a Quiche as my food presentation. This French dish reminds me of my mother, she is from Shreveport, Louisiana. I asked my mother who taught her this dish and she said one of her cousins. Quiche is a snack that we would eat around the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Quiche is the perfect light dish to eat while we were cooking that big holiday dinner. We would get up early in the morning, heat up some quiche and hot coffee, began to cook dinner while we laugh and talk. This pie is fluffy, tasty, cheesy and savory with a crispy crust on the edges. My mom did not cook traditional soul food dishes, all her dishes were influenced by her creole culture. She would cook chicken etouffee instead of fried chicken and shrimp creole instead of fried shrimp. My mom has passed down many creole recipes to me and I love sharing them with my children.

History

Quiche is known as a classic French cuisine, it is originated in Germany, in a medieval kingdom named Lothringen. The German name for quiche is Kuchen, which mean cake. Under the French rule, they changed the kingdom’s name from Lothringen to Lorraine. The first quiche is called the Lorraine, this an open faced baked pie that contains an egg custard with smoked bacon. The crust was originally made from bread dough like brioche pastry. The crust is now made with short crust or puff pastry. The hardest techniques to master is preventing the custard from overflowing out of the pastry. The quiche became popular in England, then in the United States during the 1950s. In the 1900s, the dish was considered unmanly because of the small amount of meat in the quiche. Henry IV was served this dish at his coronation in 1399, his quiche had honey and saffron in it. A quiche contain many cheeses, eggs, cream, meat or seafood and a variety of vegetables. A quiche can be served for any meal breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner or snack. It can be served cold, warm and hot. It can be cooked for parties, special occasions and holidays.

Nutritional Analysis

One of the main ingredient in a quiche is the eggs. Quiches contain vitamins, minerals, calcium, protein, riboflavin and selenium due to the milk and eggs. One egg contains 6.5 protein and vitamin b-12, which is good for your nervous system. The egg yolk alone contains calcium, iron and zinc. Eggs have been linked to type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol, when you eat too much. One whole egg can contain 47 percent and a large egg could have 62 percent of cholesterol in them. Eggs have a large source of phosphahdylcholine (lecithin) which is converted to a compound linked to heart disease. The white flour, the crust contains unhealthy saturated fats that can clogged up your arteries over time. The cheese ingredient can be substituted with low fat cheese to cut down the fat intake.

Eggs have been one of our everyday foods, in many parts of the world. Since the eggs is in high demand, the chickens have been known to live in unhealthy conditions. These dirty conditions have contributed to the exposure of fecal matter on the shells. The pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella effects the outside and inside of a normal egg, resulting in making people sick. Eggs is also one of the most common food allergy in infants.

Arroz Congri or Congri

My presentation is going to be on Arroz Congri. Arroz Congri is the pairing of black beans and white rice. This can be eaten with any typical Cuban plate. However, I associate this with our annual Lechon dinner which we had ever Christmas. This dinner is something that my mother has passed down to me. Her father taught her how to make this dish. He learned how to make it in Cuba, where he once was a cook. My memory of eating this dish goes as far back as to when I was a toddler. The day before Christmas my mom would go out and buy all the stuff for the Lechon dinner. As a kid, I was not feeling this tradition my mother had unspoken bestowed upon the family. Her shopping would lead her to bring back a meaty, super-red pork shoulder. The dinner had to be accompanied with black beans, white rice, mojo, sofrito, garlic, red or green bell peppers, platanos maduros (ripe plantains), orange, lime, and lemon juices, onion of any color would suffice, bay leaf, cumin, salt, pepper, yucca, and olive oil. These ingredients were needed to make the traditional Cuban dinner, that my mother had eaten with her parents.

But, for my presentation I will focus on the Arroz Congri. I will come back to the full recipe for my final. Let’s begin with the making of the black beans. The black beans would eventually be married with the rice. I soaked them overnight in cold water to let all the gases escape. The beans must scream Cuban style and how to do this one may ask? Well, they must first be infused with some intense flavors. Those flavors are as follows one onion which must be chopped, one red/green bell peppers, ¾ of the garlic clove, one bay leaf, a sofrito pack which can be in the Latin section, and as much salt as needed, cumin (optional), and black pepper. The softrito is part of the Goya product line which is essential for cooking traditional Caribbean Latin food. If pork is not the main dish, then you can add a pork shank or bacon to the beans to add flavor. These ingredients would be mixed in with the beans and would be cooking for half of the day. If my mother did not want to mix the rice and beans they were called Morros y Cristianos. It means the Christians and the colored (which is in reference, to the Spanish conquest of the island). Each item could be eaten separately but complimenting each other’s flavors. The beans could be layered on top of the rice. If they were to be mixed in it is called Arroz Congri, the meaning is Spanish for “rice with” or (rice with grease). Rice mixed with different beans is common in Latin America but are called different names. 

Black beans and rice, are a staple in Cuban cuisine. Rice was first cultivated in Asia. It was then brought to the America’s by the colonization of the Spanish Empire. It feeds up to 20 % of the world’s population. In the United States, it is recommended not to rinse the rice before cooking as it will lose its nutritional value. Rice is grown on every content in the world except Antarctica (Rost, 1997). It is the seed of the grass root oryza  (London, 2016). The origin of the name is Greek. It is the first grain to be cultivated and it can sustain a whole civilization. Once it was produced in Asia, it made its way down to India. From India to the Middle East, Africa, the societies of the Greeks, and Romans embraced it.  Other European countries began to cultivate it and eat it. Colonization of the America’s by the Spanish and Portuguese Empires introduced rice. This became a prevalent side dish in most of Latin America  (Attribution, 2016). Rice can be categorized as long, wild, small, or medium.

Just as there are many types of rice, so are there beans. However, in Cuba black beans are the preferred. Beans were not a staple in Spanish cuisine. Beans were introduced by the Natives to the Spaniards. (Fernandez, 1989-2016). Black beans can be called turtle beans  (Filippone, 2015).  Black beans are very healthy for a person. They carry phytonutrients. Beans can be eaten fresh or dried. Before they were cultivated in the America’s they were first eaten in the Middle Eastern countries. They need to be grown in very warm climates. Beans can be eaten dry or wet. Beans are eaten all over the world just in different variations. Apparently, black beans are great for the colon.