Blueberry paletas

On an incredibly hot day when you have a gang over for a bbq, you don’t necessarily want a heavy dessert but a hit of cool sweetness is always welcome. Mexican paletas, or popsicles, are the perfect solution. I prefer making my paletas without cream or yogurt but there are lots of people out there how will make blueberry or strawberry ones with dairy. Also, not having dairy means you can have them with a meat dinner if you’re kosher and swing that way and they are vegan.

You will need a popsicle mold for these.

Yield: 8-10 depending on the size of your molds.

Ingredients

500 g blueberries (frozen works fine)

2/3 cup water

2/3 cup of sugar

juice of half a lime

a few fresh mint leaves

First make a simple syrup. Mix the water, sugar, and mint leaves in a small pot and heat until the sugar has completely dissolved. Let it sit to cool for a bit. Once it’s cooled down, remove the mint leaves.

Put the syrup, lime juice, and blueberries into a blender and liquify it all. If you are using the fresh, larger blueberries, you might want to strain the liquid in a fine sieve to get rid of all the little seeds.

Pour the blueberry mixture into the popsicle molds and freeze. You need at least three hours, if not more, for them to freeze nicely.

To serve, loosen them from the molds by running a bit of hot tap water on the outside. They should slip out pretty easily.

© 2016 Gail J. Cohen

Albondigas mexicanas

I am consistently trying to think of ways to marry the classic meatball with Mexican flavours. So here’s another go at it. This sauce is deep and rich but not very spicy. It also gets better with time.

Ingredients 

Sauce:
2 guajillo chiles
1 poblano chile
2 medium tomatoes
2 large or 3 smaller tomatillos
4 cloves of garlic
2 tsp Mexican oregano
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp of salt
1 small onion
2 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
1 tsp sugar
juice of 1/2 a lime (if it’s juicy, use a whole one if it’s not)

Meatballs (you can easily double this because the above makes A LOT of sauce):
1 lb of extra lean ground beef
1 tbsp of chopped fresh parsley
1 large egg
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp breadcrumbs
pinch of ground pepper

Roast the poblano. If you have a bbq or gas stove, char the skin over the flame. If you have an electric stove, put it under the broiler for 10-15 minutes turning it so all sides get charred. Put the hot pepper in a bowl, cover with a tea towel, and let theitm sit/steam for 10 minutes or more. The skin should now come off easily when you rub it. Remove as much as you can then cut out the stem and seed. Rinse it to get all the black stuff off and remove the final few stubborn seeds.

Boil up some water. Stem and seed the guajillo chiles. Soften them slightly on a comal or in a non-stick frying pan. Just heat them for a few minutes on each side until they are soft, don’t burn the flesh because it’ll make your sauce bitter. Put the chiles in a glass bowl, cover with boiled water, and let sit for about 15 minutes.

Peel and thickly slice the onions. Dry roast the slices,  garlic (with the skins still on),  tomatoes, and the peeled and washed tomatillos in the pan or on the comal.

Once blackened, let the garlic cloves cool then peel and toss them into a blender along with the reconstituted chiles, tomatillos, onions, tomatoes, oregano, cumin, salt, cilantro, lime juice, and up to a 1/4 cup of the chile liquid. Waz it up until you get a really great smooth sauce. If it’s too thick, just add a bit more water.

Now put the egg into a large bowl and whisk it. Add the meat, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, and chopped parsley and mix it all together with your hands. Then form the meat into walnut-sized balls.

Heat the oil in a medium-sized pot and once it’s really hot, pour the sauce into it – watch out for the splatter! Stir, stir, stir. It’ll boil fairly quickly then turn it down to simmer. Add the meatballs. Cook for at least half an hour. You can simmer it for up to an hour to smooth out the flavours of the sauce even more. This would also be a good dish to make in the morning or day before and heat up later.

Serve over your favourite rice and be generous with the sauce.

As is the case most of th time, meatballs in sauce taste much better than they look.

© 2016 Gail J. Cohen