Latin American, Spanish Recipes
2 recipes found
Chicharrones
A snack prized for their crunch and salt factor, chicharrones commonly involve fried pork skin. You’ll find versions across Spain and Latin America where they might be crisped by methods that include deep-frying, baking or boiling. This recipe uses long, 1-inch-wide pork belly strips that include the skin, fat and belly. In order to get them as crisp as possible, they’re rubbed with baking soda before cooking. Next, they’re rinsed and submerged in water in a nonstick skillet. They’ll simmer and tenderize as the water evaporates, then eventually they sizzle in their own rendered fat. (A splatter screen will help protect you from the pork belly skin as it crackles and crisps in the pan, and long sleeves will help prevent any hot oil burns.) Serve these meaty, crunchy chicharrones on their own, with lime wedges, or with one-pot rice and beans.
Chickpeas Escabeche With Plantain Strips
In the Spanish-speaking world, the technique of cooking ingredients and then immersing them in vinegar is called escabeche. Anything can be made escabeche; it brings a lovely little shiver of sourness to the table. The writer and cultural critic Alicia Kennedy, who lives in Puerto Rico, likes to use chickpeas, simmering them in vinegar, olive oil and sofrito, a potent blend of garlic, onions, sweet peppers, grassy-bright cilantro and its swaggering cousin culantro. Just before serving, she adds Spanish stuffed olives, for extra richness. The beans are meaty enough to sate and small enough to scoop up with a chip — or, as Ms. Kennedy prefers, to be spooned, almost daintily (‘‘like caviar,’’ she says), onto a delicate strip of crisped plantain, hot from the skillet.