Ancho Chile-blackened Grilled Shrimp homemade Wraps with Mango Salsa

I have always been a fan of Mexican (or Mexican-American) and Tex-Mex cuisine, and even though, being Italian, I do not have a family tradition of making South of the border-inspired dishes, over the years I have encountered a number of recipes that have prompted me to offer a taco-bar themed dinner at home, with everything fresh and made from scratch. 

Here is one favorite recipe, with great complementing flavors and succulent textures.

The dose is for 6

The shrimp:

12 medium size wild shrimp, peeled and deveined

ancho chile powder (about 2 teaspoons)

paprika (about 2 teaspoons)

cumin powder (1-2 teaspoons)

2-3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped

2 tablespoons of olive oil

juice of 1 lemon or lime

1 tablespoon of chopped cilantro 

salt to taste

Coat the shrimp with the three spices, then place in a bowl and mix with the olive oil, garlic and cilantro. Cover and refrigerate while preparing the salsa and tortillas.

Before grilling, add the lemon/lime juice. The reason the lemon juice is not added in the beginning is that it will "cook" the shrimp and compromise its texture.

Grill on a hot griddle, ribbed pan, or grill, about two minutes on each side,  while brushing the remaining spiced marinade, until they turn pink. Do not over-cook, as the shrimp will lose its succulence and will turn rubbery. 

Taste a piece of shrimp, and if needed, add salt to taste (some shrimp are inherently salty, so I recommend not adding the salt right away). 

Mango salsa :

1 ripe mango, chopped

1/2 pint grape tomatoes, chopped

juice of one orange

juice of 1 lemon or lime 

1-2 tbsp chopped cilantro 

1 small red onion, chopped

1 chopped jalapeno pepper (optional)

salt to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, and set aside (may refrigerate, covered, and use within a day or two)

Tortillas:

The idea of making homemade flour tortillas came to me after watching a show with chef Rick Bayless. So I based my recipe off of his, except that I use a food processor instead of mixing by hands. Also, instead of lard or vegetable shortening, which I never have in my kitchen, I substituted with butter, which perhaps takes away some of the authenticity of the tortillas, but works just fine. I have also seen recipes with vegetable oil, but I have never tried it before. Lastly, even though I didn't on this occasion, I often add a few teaspoons of flax seeds to the flour mixture, for extra crunch and health benefits.

Here is the recipe (adapted from Rick Bayless)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus a little extra for rolling the tortillas

2.5 tablespoonslard or vegetable shortening, or a mixture of the two
a pinch of salt
About 6 tablespoons of warm water

Combine the flour and fat in a food processor and pulse a few times until incorporated.   Dissolve the salt in the water, and pour about 2/3  of it to the mixture while cup of it over the mixture and turn the food processor to the ON setting, and blend while adding a stream of the remaining water (or more if necessary). The dough should be of medium-stiff consistency, but not firm, and not as soft as most bread dough. 

Divide the dough into 6 portions and roll each into a ball. Set them on a plate, cover with plastic wrap and let rest at least 30 minutes (to make the dough less springy, easier to roll).

Heat an ungreased griddle or heavy skillet over medium to medium-high heat.On a lightly floured surface, roll out a portion of the dough into an even 7-inch circle: Flatten a ball of dough, flour it, then roll forward and back across it; rotate a sixth of a turn and roll forward and back again; continue rotating and rolling until you reach a 7-inch circle, lightly flouring the tortilla and work surface from time to time.

Lay the tortilla on the hot griddle (you should hear a faint sizzle and see an almost immediate bubbling across the surface). After 30 to 45 seconds, when there are browned splotches underneath, flip it over. Bake 30 to 45 seconds more, until the other side is browned; don't overbake the tortilla or it will become crisp. Remove and wrap in a cloth napkin placed in a tortilla warmer. Roll and griddle-bake the remaining tortillas in the same manner and stacking them one on top of the other.

Assemble the wraps: 

Place the grilled shrimp and mango salsa in the middle of the tortilla, and if desired, top with a dollop of sour cream, Cholula or other hot sauce, a few piece of lettuce (romaine or baby greens), and a few pieces of finely shredded red cabbage. 

Fold and enjoy!

Mini Carrot Ginger Chocolate Chip Cakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot bread and carrot cupcakes are two of my favorite, easy go to recipes with carrots.  The recipe is the same for both, except that the cooking time is reduced by about half for the cupcakes, and  I have adapted  mine from classic carrot bread recipes, with the following variations:

Given that I am not a fan of  adding cinnamon to anything and everything, I do not  include it in many of my recipes, as I believe it masks the flavors that we want to highlight.  On the other hand, ginger confers a fresh element of spiciness, while the candied ginger provide  additional textural complexity. The orange zest is almost a must in this recipe, as it complements the carrots and ginger. Going full circle,  both ginger and orange pair well with chocolate, so I have included some mini chocolate chips. As a trade off, I add some oats and milled flax seeds, which provide whole grain and omega-3. These mini cakes are delicious and nutritious, but you can choose to omit or substitute some of the optional ingredients, as you prefer.

Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• ½  cup canola oil
• ¼ cup of  butter (or vegan butter) at room temperature plus extra for the cupcake pans, unless silicone
• 1 ½  cup of peeled freshly grated carrots
• 2 tablespoons minced candied or crystallized ginger
• 2 teaspoons of freshly grated ginger
• zest of 1 organic orange
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp of milled flax seeds
• ¼ cup of rolled oats
• 1 cup organic sugar
• ¼ cup mini semi sweet chocolate chips
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tsp of vanilla essence
• 1 pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease an 8-cup muffin pan (or 12-cup for mini cakes) by brushing inside every slot with some melted butter. If using silicone cups, there is no need to grease them.In a medium bowl, combine the butter, oil,  sugar  and eggs, and with an electric mixer (either hand-held or standing mixer) cream the mixture until smooth. Mix the vanilla essence and grated fresh ginger into  the creamed batter.Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda into a separate bowl, and mix in the oats and milled flax seeds. Add the salt.With a spatula, mix the  flour mixture into the batter, in two additions, until well incorporated and smooth. Fold in the carrots, crystallized ginger, orange zest and chocolate chips, a bit at a time until evenly incorporated into the batter.Spoon batter into greased muffin cups, filling each 3/4 full.Bake cupcakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Turn cupcakes out onto racks and cool completely.

Even though these cakes carry enough flavor on their own, you can further jazz them up with cream cheese frosting, and drizzle with honey and sprinkle with chopped pistachios.

For the cream cheese frosting:

• 4 ounces unsalted butter, softened
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp honey for the drizzle
• 2 tbsp chopped (roasted if preferred) pistachios

Directions:

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer. With the mixer on low speed, add the powdered sugar a cup at a time until smooth and creamy. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Note that I use ½ of the sugar of most frosting recipes because I drizzle with honey. Also, the saltiness of the pistachios balances the sweetness nicely.

Food Saving and Repurposing Ideas

I don’t fancy being wasteful, so I am always compelled to make use of what I have in my kitchen before it goes bad. Although I must admit, as my husband points out, to avoid pitching $2 worth of ingredients, I will end up spending a lot more in time,  and additional ingredients, just  to save the one item that is about to expire. But that is beside the point...although he makes a good point.  Well, this weekend I was in this food saving mood, as that carton of buttermilk that was still sitting unopened in my refrigerator was begging to get utilized. So I decided to make homemade buttermilk pancakes, which the kids enjoyed with Nutella and/or real maple syrup. I made enough that they also had some for breakfast on Monday.  Pancake breakfast on a school morning is always a special treat.  

And while I was on this baking kick, I thought, why not use the remaining buttermilk to make fresh biscuits? And so everyone enjoyed one (or two..) for brunch with smoked salmon, avocados, grape tomatoes, baby greens, eggs (boiled or poached).

 But I wasn’t done yet!  You may have seen me post various assortments of cereal treats on my Facebook page "Kitchening with Francesca", and the reason being is that there is always leftover cereal at my house that nobody wants to consume, and rather than wasting it, I always enjoy experimenting with it to make treats. And most of the times they turn out good enough to eat :o) In fact, on this last round of experimenting, the chocolate chip soft bake cookies were such a hit with the kids, that they were gone by the next day.  For these, I adapted a chocolate chip cookie recipe by substituting some of the flour with flour obtained from organic oat and marshmallow cereal (all I did I put the cereal in a food processor (or vitamix blender) and reduced it to powder.  Because I used cereal which was already sweet, I of course used less sugar than the recipe called for.   For the whole grain granola treats, I used a mixture of raisin bran and granola, but the recipe is a bit more involved, so I will save that for another time. But I can assure you that not much is left of those couple dozen whole grain treats.

In the meantime, go ahead and experiment, and feel free to share your results.  

Happy saving, happy baking, happy savoring.

Fresh Ricotta Ravioli with Saffron Sage Butter, Zucchini Blossoms and Orange Zest

This dish is absolutely delicious...fresh, delicate, yet flavorful, buttery, earthy, tangy, all packed in one succulent bite. Here are the directions for the butter sauce. For the ravioli, see further down for my recommendations.

Ingredients (serve 4-6)

16 large ravioli

a few sage leaves (rinsed)

1/3-1/2 stick of butter

6 zucchini blossoms, stamen and sepals removed-all you want is the petals.

a tiny pinch of saffron

the zest of one organic orange (making sure you don't grate the white part along with the orange peel)

a pinch of salt

Directions

Separate the blossoms into strips by pulling away from the bottom of the flower with your fingers. Set aside.

In a pan, melt the butter and add the sage leaves, allow to bubble without burning the butter,  then add the blossoms strips and cook down for a couple of minutes, again, making sure not to burn the butter. Mix in the orange zest and the saffron, cook for another minute, then set aside on a warm burner.

Boil some salted water in a pot, add the ravioli, one by one, making sure they don't stick together. Cook for a couple of minutes, and then strain by either gently pouring in a colander, or by gently removing the ravioli with a slotted spoon one by one. Toss the ravioli in the pan with the sage butter sauce, then transfer to a serving plate. Enjoy immediately. 

If you want to get fancy, you can do a tempura of whole blossoms and sage leaves, and serve them along with the ravioli.

If you cannot find zucchini flowers, you can also make this dish without, and it will still be delicious.

The Ravioli

There are several options you can choose in making the ravioli, from fully homemade, to store bought.

If you don't have time to prepare your own ravioli, hopefully you will find some that are made with good quality ricotta and that are not doughy or too thick. Otherwise, the next option is semi-homemade with wonton skins. 

And the ones pictured here are those that I always buy, since they are veil thin and yield the most delicate ravioli. On a side note, I also used these squares to make lasagna (lasagne in Italian), and there is no need to boil them first.  

You can find these wonton squares in most Asian groceries. If you choose this option, then all you do is arrange the squares on a flat surface (I do six at a time). Add a dollop of filling, wet all four sides with lukewarm water with the tip of your finger. Lay another wonton skin on top, and seal by gently pressing with your index and thumb finger tips along each side, being careful not to leave any air inside the raviolo. In order to minimize this, gently press the top square from the center out, and when sealing, try to squeeze out any air. If you have too much air inside the raviolo, it will blow during the boiling and it may break. Once sealed, run a ravioli wheel cutter along each side, about 1/8-1/4 of an inch from the edge. Using the ravioli cutter will help further seal your ravioli, and it will also give them that nice serrated appearance.

As you seal your ravioli, place them on a lightly floured surface. I typically cut parchment paper into rectangles which fit inside a pan, and I lay them on lightly floured parchment paper (about 8 per rectangle) and stack them inside the pan, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate up to 1-2 days or freeze up to a few weeks.

The final option is to make your own dough, then layer it on a surface and cut it in squares of desired dimensions. Homemade pasta dough recipes are plentiful on the web, but if you need specific directions please leave me a comment and I will be happy to assist. Because a gourmet raviolo has to be thin, and making veil thin pasta dough can be a challenge for the novice cook, if you don't think you can pull it off, go for the wonton skins :o). 

The ricotta filling

For the filling, you also have a few options. You can either buy ricotta, or make your own. The problem with store bought ricotta in the US, it's that the majority of what is sold in stores is not real ricotta, does not taste like real ricotta, and the texture is gritty, so for these reasons it does not make a very attractive filling. Therefore, unless you can find hand-dipped ricotta, which is quite rare, you are better off making your own. 

Making ricotta at home is not that difficult, although I admit, I have had a few blunders. Although the one I made just recently was perfect.  I used Trader Joes organic 2% milk (about 1/4 of a gallon) and a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream. You don't want to add too much cream otherwise the milk will not boil. Also add a pinch of salt.

In a saucer, bring to a boil, without boiling over. As soon as the milk is boiling, add the juice of one lemon, remove from heat, and gently stir with a wooden spoon to allow the citric acid to mix in. Allow the milk to curd up for a few minutes. Then pour it through a fine mesh strainer or a ricotta mold which you have sitting on a bowl. The strainer will catch the curd, while the liquid will be collected in the bowl. If you want, you can pour that liquid back in a saucer and boil again and add more citric acid to obtain additional curd, although the second round you do not get as much, of course. Reserve some of the liquid.  Once you have collected all the curd in the strainer or ricotta mold, transfer to a small bowl in which you will add a bit of the remaining liquid. Then seal with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. 

You can also make this dish with a squash filling, for which I will have the recipe in my upcoming cookbook.

Flat-bread sandwiches (schiacciatine)

I prepared this flat-bread sandwich for my friends over the weekend and they absolutely loved it.  Even though I bake my own homemade flat-bread, you can also use baguette, or other  bread of your choice, as the true star of this sandwich is the filling.

The picture shows the open face sandwich before the other half of the flatbread is placed on top.

It contains thinly sliced prosciutto, pickled eggplant with a pesto made of parsley, fresh garlic, and red chili peppers, and boiled quail eggs.

In this video recipe you can learn how to make the pickled eggplant. I prepared one vegan sandwich with the eggplant and roasted red peppers, and one with the prosciutto and eggplant as in this photo, although the variation in this photo has added boiled quail eggs, which go very well with the prosciutto and eggplant combination.

Enjoy!