Pasteles - a Taste of Puerto Rico in Austin!

After (another) unplanned hiatus - this time three weeks! - I decided to come back big. I tackled pasteles, a kind of Puerto Rican tamale, which my friend Rachel requested I make a couple of months ago. I was slow getting to it, but I blame my sister-in-law for inducing me to read the Fire and Ice Chronicles (Game of Thrones series) which occupied my time completely for the first 6 weeks I was in Austin. There were days I didn't even leave the house because I couldn't stand to put the books down for more than 20 minutes. People asked me what I thought of Austin so far and I could tell them what I thought of the Starks and Westeros. Then there's that pesky "job search" thing. I don't know how many hours I've spent searching and applying for jobs, but the result of the effort is still lacking. Austin is a great city for live music, the software industry and the University of Texas - outside of that it's a bit of a struggle! So what I'm trying to say is, I haven't cared much about cooking for the past few weeks - but now I'm back.

Pork Noodle Soup

Oof, the internet is slow today. Anyway, when I was a kid (well, up to my teens) the only fast food we ate was Chinese. Okay, maybe once every few months we'd order a pizza or some subs, but at least once every two weeks (or more) we'd order from China Taste or China #1 or something like that. I suppose the main reason is that there  no other foreign fast food restaurants in Upper Marlboro, no Thai or Vietnamese or Ethiopian - I am pretty sure there still aren't and may never be - but also because we loved Chinese food. I've tried to make some dishes in my day but they also seem like they're missing something - probably MSG.

Pork Vindaloo

"Vindaloo is notorious for being hot and spicy," according to my Indian cookbook The Food of India: A Journey for Food Lovers.  Trust me, the book doesn't lie.  When I first made this dish I didn't have any dried chilies on hand, so decided 2 teaspoons chili powder equaled 4 dried chilies, ground.  Note: it does not.  Yet despite the sweat pouring from my eyelids and the fire-breathing skills we all gained during dinner, it was fantastically flavorful and delicious.  The roommate, though, had to throw in the towel and eat something else.  The carrot pachadi (yogurt-based salad similar to raiti) wasn't able to provide the relief I had hoped for.  Oddly enough, the heat died down overnight in the fridge, so leftovers were much more palatable. 

This time around I was smart enough to remember to reduce the chili powder to 1/2 teaspoon (still have no dried chilies in the apartment), switched to cane vinegar (because I had it), and left out the brown sugar (because I had used up my last bit making this cake.)  Of course, the fresh chilies I had were much hotter than before so the dish maintained its reputation, but this time we were all able to finish our plates.