Exploring New Latin Ingredients

Pundits have so exhaustively picked apart the popularization of Latin American cuisines that we could probably recite the reasons for their rise in our sleep. There’s the oft-mentioned travel theory, which posits that holidays spent scaling Chichén Itzá or lolling on Ipanema Beach have transformed our taste buds. Then there’s the media angle, which credits the Internet, not to mention the culinary coverage in consumer foodie magazines, for bringing Latin America to our kitchens. And finally, you’ve got the very real contribution of immigration—mainly from Mexico, Latin America and the Hispanic Caribbean, but increasingly from South America, too.

“It’s all about flavor,” says Jeffrey Clark, chef and culinary designer, Something’s Cookin’, Georgetown, TX. “And the flavors from those areas are bold, contemporary and craveable. They’re exciting—refreshing.”

And we’ve only hit the tip of the iceberg. “It’s a huge range of territory,” says Oona Settembre, director of culinary research and development, On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina, Dallas. “Every day as you start looking into these cuisines, you discover things you’ve never heard of, even as a chef.”

Mexico has only begun to reveal its true charms to the typical diner, which is why when Matthew Burton, 

CRC®, director of culinary innovation, ConAgra Foods, Omaha, NE, hears people expound upon the Latinization of North American palates, “my first question is, well, how do you describe Latin American food? If you describe it as nachos and burritos and tacos—which a lot of America would still do—yes, it’s everywhere. But when you start talking about the sofritos and recaitos, those are still just seeping in.”

And that initial cooking step—one you don’t see with typical salsas—gives these sauces an edge that fresh salsas lack. “When it comes to these simmer sauces,” Burton says, “anytime you can introduce slow foods to the American cook and let them do it quickly, I think you’ve got a huge opportunity.”

Another tasty import Burton’s been “playing around with” is achiote paste. A classic of the Yucatán kitchen, where it’s called recado rojo, achiote paste’s main ingredient is the same annatto seeds that manufacturers have used for decades to color cheese, butter and salad oils. Grinding annatto seeds and adding a little garlic and oil makes an amazing, brightred paste, he notes. “Traditionally, you’d rub it on baby goat and bury it in a pit to roast—that’s a traditional dish out of Oaxaca—and then you’d pull it out, shred it and put it on a small tortilla with a little bit of salad.”

“There are ways of using interesting batters and breadings and deep-frying avocados,” says Clark. He suggests dipping a golden-fried avocado into a chipotle crema, or even into an avocado crema. “And it works,” he says. “The people I serve them to say, ‘Wow. Why haven’t we seen this before?’”

Speaking of cremas, Settembre is a confirmed advocate. “I love crema,” she says of this Mexican and Central American counterpart to French crème fraîche. It’s simply unpasteurized cream thickened by naturally occurring bacteria to a pourable consistency, and drizzled atop everything from tamales to enchiladas to chilaquiles. However, she notes, “There are all different types of crema.” Central American versions eschew crème fraîche’s sour tang for a sweeter note. “You can put them on fried plantains—drizzle them on things, because they’re kind of sweet.”

Crema poblana from Puebla, notes Settembre, isn’t necessarily sour, but does have more of a salty savor than its southern cousins. “It’s great drizzled on sopes, tostadas, taquitos and salads.” She also notes that it makes fantastic cream sauces. “It’s already slightly thickened, so you cook it together with roasted peppers or a salsa with toasted the chiles and you come up with a wonderful cream sauce.”

STINKING WEEDS AND FLOWERING VINES 

Effectively a Latin American spin on buttermilk, crema is an obvious mainstreaming candidate. Less easily assimilated, however, may be some herbal ingredients that Settembre also enjoys. Take epazote, for instance. “The word comes from the Nahuatl words epatl and tzotl, and means ‘an animal with a rank odor,’” she says. That’s not likely to win it many converts on its own, but the “very particular flavor” of this time-honored Mexican herb just may.

The solution is often to find a happy medium. While we could feature epazote in Mexico’s traditional, slowsimmered stews, soups, and beans, “now I also see it being shredded and put into a salad, or in a salsa,” Settembre says. She likes the idea of an epazote quesadilla: “a couple of corn tortillas, a little bit of good cheese like queso fresco, and some of this epazote. Just pan-fry it in a little oil so it gets a little crispy. Serve that with a good guacamole, and it’s so clean,” she says. Again, the flavor is “very particular, but once you taste it, you say, ‘Hmmm, give me another bite.’”

With epazote firmly in place, the popularization of loroco can’t be far behind. Lowhat? Loroco, Settembre continues. The flowering bud of a vine, “It’s an ingredient that’s really interesting,” she says, with “a very nice, green-herbal type of flavor.” Loroco is a staple in Salvadoran and Guatemalan pupusas—those thick, stuffed corn cakes that are gaining favor on pan-Latino appetizer menus across America. “So think of a mini pupusa,” she suggests, “with queso, loroco and a nice little salsa. It’s delicious.”

In other words, “You almost have to be a culinary detective to uncover just exactly what’s available at what time of the year,” Clark continues. But “that’s the fun.” And as the market for now-obscure Latin American items develops, he predicts that “there are going to be smart people who are going to have them available. It’s just a matter of uncovering them if they don’t come to you first.”

Settembre appreciates how pasilla de Oaxaca tips the balance toward flavor over flames, adding, “We’re all looking for flavor from peppers rather than just heat. The smoke adds a lot to it, and yet it’s also very versatile. So you can use them in salsas by toasting and boiling and grinding them. Or you can stuff them, too.”

Clark touts another pepper that he’s working with on the menu of a Mexican-style tapas bar in Las Vegas. Called a chile chilaca, the pepper “comes from the hills outside the Federal District in Central Mexico,” he says. “What we’re doing is combining that with cheeses to produce not so much a queso—which is more Tex-Mex—but a fondito, which is a more spreadable style of queso from Mexico.”

Settembre found the mirasol aji in South America. “It’s got a lot of flavor, and it’s very versatile,” she says of this red-golden-yellow, medium-heat chile. And how might we use it? “Treat it just like you would any Mexican pepper,” she says.

Ecuadorians use ajis in their national dish, the llapingacho. That’s a potato cake, Settembre explains, “so you take mashed potatoes, green onions, garlic and seasonings, and you make a mixture. And in the middle, you shove a piece of cheese. You pan-fry them in little cakes to get them crispy, and then you serve them with a salsa de mani, which is a peanut-tomato sauce.” And that’s where the mirasol aji comes in. Settembre has adapted the traditional recipe to include achiote, garlic, some cilantro and those powerful little peppers.

Crispy, cheesy potato cakes with a spicy peanut sauce: hardly a stretch for even the most hidebound yanqui palate. And yet these surefire appetizer hits are unmistakably Ecuadorian. “How simple is it?” Settembre asks. “It’s a fried potato cake. But it’s something new and it’s something accessible.”

And as far as Latin American influences are concerned, there’s plenty more where it came from.

Kimberly J. Decker, a California-based technical writer, has a B.S. in Consumer Food Science with a minor in English from the University of California, Davis. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where she enjoys eating and writing about food. You can reach her at kim@decker.net.

Granos Integrales

Advice to eat more whole grains doesn’t stop at the United States border. And while those of us in the United States tend to equate “whole grain” with whole wheat, the equation in Latin America is quite different.

Or, at least it used to be. Today, the region’s staple starches run from corn and beans to potatoes and rice. But in pre-Columbian times, ancient grains like amaranth and quinoa won the day. The former is a tiny, peppery-flavored kernel that was the main grain of the Aztecs until the conquistador Hernando Cortez, in an attempt to eradicate the native culture, declared its cultivation a capital offence. Quinoa traces its roots to the Andes, where the Incas made it a pivot point in their diets. Not a grain per se, but rather a relative of Swiss chard, quinoa is a small, round seed that, when cooked, takes on a pearlescent appearance and a bright, nutty flavor.

Both share the signal advantage of having a high content of nearly complete vegetable protein, and both make novel Latin American additions to our catalogue of whole grains. Matched with seasonings and dried vegetables, quinoa practically begs to star in a boxed side-dish mix, and Latin Americans have already landed on the perfect use for amaranth: popping the kernels and mixing them with honey as a healthfully sweet snack.

In Latin American markets, you just see these whole-grain amaranth candies in giant bags, notes Matthew Burton, CRC®, director of culinary innovation, ConAgra Foods, Omaha, NE. “So it’s easy to think about using amaranth in the snack category—popping it or making it into little bars.” However, he adds, “If you grind the amaranth into flour, it could be perfect for an unlimited number of multigrain baked applications, such as quick breads or for cereals. In fact, in Mexico, amaranth flour was used before corn flour. Really, there are product development areas to explore.”