Labio

June 14, 2011

My last post contained a rather glaring typo I missed, which has since been corrected. The average daily wage of Ecuadorians is $10 per DAY (not per hour as originally posted).

For the last couple of months, I’ve been getting together with my local friend Elizabeth (a picture of her is in my last post from the Quimbita party – the gal in white shirt, sitting next to me with our arms around each other).  She wants to learn English, and I want to learn Spanish….neither one of us has ever been a teacher, and I think we confound each other more than learn after each lesson, but we have a lot of fun together during those times.  But for instance, she pointed out to me a few weeks ago how difficult it is for Spanish speakers to hear the difference between “eyes” and “ice” or “flowers” versus “floors”….And for us English speakers, the same could be said for hearing the difference between “dias” (days) and “diez” (the number ten).  And we certainly had a raucously bawdy. lewd chuckle when we were reviewing the names of body parts – the Spanish word for “lips” is “labio” and I pointed out with much gesturing how similar that word is to our English word for another (female) body part.

I am in high heaven right now because a new meat store has just opened up in Montanita (gringo proprietor Andrea is a friend of ours) and he offers great beef, pork, and chicken, – even spare ribs!!! The meat is good quality (coming from a Cuenca source) and if I have to single handedly spend $5 a day to help him stay in business….I’m on it. He is also beginning to include olives, cheeses and certain specialty sauces. It is right across from a great, rather new bakery (owners from either Argentina or Venezuela – I haven’t quite figured that out yet) that we patronize daily. Both are in great locations – right next to the Montanita bus stop on the corner.

  

New Montanita Bakery

Now a couple of recipes I want to post:

Pico de Gallo

• 6-8 chopped tomatoes (in the States, I used Roma tomatoes)
• 1 large chopped purple onion
• 1 bunch of finely chopped cilantro *
• 2-4 chopped fresh hot peppers (in the States, I used serrano peppers, but I have become a big fan of the Ecuadorian ají peppers. We have an ají bush in our yard. These little red peppers may look innocent, but they have a powerful bite, and I like all things picante).
• 1 finely minced clove of garlic
• Juice of one freshly squeezed lime
• 1 or 2 capfuls of cider vinegar

  

  Aji bush

  
• Salt to taste

Add more or less of any of these ingredients. I usually add more tomatoes here because they are dirt cheap (30-50 cents a pound).  The *cilantro here is not quite the same as in the States (more “feathery” rather than leafy, but it works okay).  For those who don't like cilantro, parsley works as a good substitute.

Those who have read my earlier posts, know I am not a big seafood fan (which is a shame, because it is so good here), but I have literally been living on bean and cooked rice burritos and this Pico de Gallo salsa (packaged flour tortillas easily found around localy in the last year or so - I always ightly warm them up in an oiled skillet first). The beans I like to use here are the Facundo brand of “menestra de frijol rojo” (red beans in sauce), because the sauce has a little kick to it, and I add a little cooked rice to it, plus a lot of butter (we Kansas people like our butter – forget that margarine shit), and mash it up a bit.  Sometimes I add some shredded chicken that we buy at our favorite roasted chicken place in Montanita ($4.00 for a quarter of chicken, plus rice and beans, and the ever present tasteless patacones, which even Daisy won’t eat).  And now that we have our new meat market, I’m all over the chorizos Andrea sells.

Our favorite EC KFC

Another recipe that Todd and I enjoy fixing (since all the ingredients are readily available here) is one we came across in one of our favorite books “A Trip to the Beach” by Melinda and Robert Blanchard (about a New England couple who moved to the Caribbean island of Anguilla to open a restaurant and their experience). It’s a great book, certainly one that inspired us (go buy it!), and also contains about 5 great recipes, but the one that we regularly make is the banana bread recipe below.

Caribbean Banana Bread

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter either one large or two small loaf pans and dust with flour.

C ream together:

• 1 and 1/3 cups of room temperature butter
• 2 cups white granulated sugar until light and fluffy.
• Beat 4 eggs into the butter mixture, one at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl after each addition.

On low speed, also blend in:

·         6 smashed ripe bananas

·          ¾ cup lemon juice (I use the bottled version).

 In a separate bowl, whisk together:

·         4 cups flour

·          2 teaspoons baking soda

·          2 teaspoons salt

Still on low speed, add the flour mixture and other mix until just blended. To avoid over mixing, do the final blending by hand with a rubber spatula.  Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about an hour.  A knife inserted in the middle of the loaf should come out clean when the bread is done.

Sometimes we add a little sprinkle of cinnamon/sugar on top.