Mexican Warmed Chocolate Drink: Champurrado

This is a warm chocolate drink thickened with corn flour, which is finely ground just like all purpose flour. It is not the cornmeal used to make American cornbread or Italian polenta. You want to limit the amount of corn flour, or you'll end up with chocolate pudding, which isn't a bad dessert, but this is supposed to be a beverage. If the mixture gets too thick, thin it out with some warm milk. In more recent times, Mexican chocolate is pretty easily found in supermarkets (it may be in the Latino section) and it certainly is available in Latino shops and stores. I'm sure there are several brands, but in the U.S. I've commonly seen "Ibarra" and "Abuelita" (owned by Nestlé). The solid chocolate form comes in a hexagonal box, and the chocolate comes in discs or tablets of about 3 inches in diameter, divided into quarter sections. Piloncillo is whole cane sugar, brown in color, that comes in blocks, rounds or cones. It too is available in some supermarkets, but it is easily found in Latino shops. You can substitute brown sugar (I use dark brown sugar). 

 

Ingredients (2 servings):  

2 cups milk (I use canned evaporated milk, not sweetened condensed milk)

1 whole round of Mexican chocolate 

1 cinnamon stick of about 2 inches

2 tablespoons piloncillo or dark brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

pinch of cayenne pepper

3 tablespoons corn flour

2/3 cup warm water

2 teaspoons grated dark chocolate 

In a heavy-bottomed pan add the milk, the Mexican chocolate, brown sugar/piloncillo and cinnamon stick over medium heat. Keep stirring to prevent any sticking, and you can certainly lower the heat too, if you'd like.When the chocolate and sugar are dissolved and mixed in, remove the cinnamon stick and take the chocolate mixture off of the heat. Whisk together the corn flour and warm water until smooth. Return the chocolate to medium heat, then whisking constantly, add the corn flour/water mixture to the chocolate, then add the vanilla extract and the pinch of cayenne pepper, whisking to mix well. When the mixture begins to lightly boil, reduce the heat to low. Continue whisking and cook over low heat until the chocolate thickens. Top each serving with a teaspoon of grated dark chocolate. 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Cranium-This word is related to "corn" (not the noun meaning "grain," but rather the noun meaning "thickened, hardened patch of skin"), a Latin-derived word borrowed by English from French, to "corner," also Latin-derived and borrowed from French, and it is related to "hart" (male deer), "horn" and "hornet," all words from the Germanic roots of English. "Cranium" goes back to Indo European "ker," which meant "horn, head;" thus also, "top." This gave transliterated Greek "kara," meaning "head," also secondarily, "top." This gave Greek "kranion," which reversed the "a" and "r," and meant "upper section of the head, the skull, top of the head." This was borrowed by Latin as "cranium" meaning "skull." English borrowed the word in the early part of the 1400s as "craneum/cranium."   

Haitian Cornflour Drink, Porridge or Pudding: Akasan

Akasan is a thickened drink made with cornflour, which is NOT to be confused with cornstarch, which is also called cornflour in some cultures, nor is it quite the same as the cornmeal typically used in the U.S. to make cornbread or mush or to make polenta in Italian cuisine. If you don't have cornflour, it should be easily found in supermarkets in the flour and meal section, or it might be in the Latino section, and you won't need to take out a loan to buy it, as it is reasonably priced. It also comes in various size bags, like 4 1/2 pounds down to 1 1/2 pounds, and it is sold under at least a couple of  brand names. It will naturally also be easily found in Latino grocery stores. Rather than a drink, some call Akasan a porridge, and I've also seen it referred to as a pudding (keep reading). Akasan is a common drink in Haiti, while often served somewhat chilled, it can also be enjoyed warm. Just to be clear too, you use canned EVAPORATED milk, NOT canned sweetened condensed milk. This was the first time I ever made this, and it is easy to make, although you need to whisk it a lot to prevent lumps. One of the reasons human beings put various types of flour or meal into liquids is to help thicken them. Understand, because this is made with cornflour, if you give it more than a little chill, it will firm up a good deal, and you will find out why those who call it a pudding use that term. In that case, you can eat it with a spoon, which is just fine, or you can try adding some milk to thin it out, but it will likely be lumpy. After I looked at many recipes for akasan, I decided to use the smallest amount of cornflour, which will also help to keep it from getting too thick. You can, of course, use a little more cornflour (like 2/3 cup, instead of 1/2 cup) and then eat the thickened dish as a porridge while it is still warm. I suggest making just enough to enjoy relatively fast. As I mentioned, this was the first time I made this, so I'm learning too. 

 

When the drink was invented is unknown, and where its name comes from is also something of a mystery, although the "san" part is thought to be from the French-based creole language of Haiti and means "one hundred." Haitian creole is heavily based upon French, but with many influences from African languages, native Amerindian dialects, Spanish and Portuguese, and it seems to have developed into its modern recognizable form around 1700.

 

 

Ingredients (3 or 4 large, or 4 to 6 smaller servings):

 

1/2 cup cornflour (the flour type, not the larger grain type)

2 1/2 cups water

3 star anise

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 to 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (depending upon your preference for cinnamon)

1 can evaporated milk (12 ounces)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 to 6 tablespoons sugar, depending upon desired sweetness 

Use a heavy bottom pan, and bring 1 1/2 cups of the water, star anise, cinnamon, and salt to a boil. Meanwhile, in a bowl, mix the remaining 1 cup water with the cornflour to make a kind of batter. Slowly begin adding the cornflour mixture to the boiling water, whisking constantly to prevent lumps or to break up any lumps that form. Reduce the heat to low or very low and continue whisking as the mixture cooks for 4 to 5 minutes. Do not let the cornflour stick. If it begins to stick, remove it from the heat immediately and keep stirring, then put it back on the heat (adjust the heat to the lowest setting). Take out the 3 star anise and add the evaporated milk, vanilla extract and sugar, stirring well to mix everything together and then remove from the heat. You can serve this right away while warm, or you can put it into the refrigerator for an hour or so to just chill it a bit before serving (see above about chilling).

 

 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Cent-This word is closely related to "centurion" and to "percent," both borrowed by English from Latin (see further below about "percent"), and to "century," a Latin word, "probably" borrowed from that language, but with French influence or reinforcement, although perhaps the other way around, and to "decade," a word borrowed from French, which had it from Latin, which had it from Greek, and it is distantly related to both "hundred" and to "ten," words from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to Indo European "dekm," which meant "ten," and its altered form "kmtom," which meant "hundred." This gave Latin "centum," with the same meaning, and this was rendered in Latin-based Old French as "cent." English seems to have first used "cent" in the mid 1500s^ from the expression "per centum" ("by the hundred"), but with the form "cent," presumably from the French form, which gave English "per cent," then combined into "percent," which led the meaning to "a one hundredth part of something." The 1780s saw "cent" by itself proposed for a monetary unit in the United States to represent "one hundredth of a dollar."

 

^ I say "seems" because many sources on "cent" have different times the word entered English, with some mentioning the 1300s (with the meaning "hundred," but it certainly had little, if any, chance of replacing the native English word "hundred") and others later, including the example I used above. Some say the earlier form was from Latin, others say it was from French, and with a number of Latin-based words borrowed into English, at times it is tough to tell the exact source, as the French forms are similar or even the same. I'm getting along in years, and I don't know how much time I still have, but I'm not going to spend it in consternation over whether English borrowed "cent" in the 1300s, the 1400s or the 1500s. I chose the 1500 example, because that is apparently when the word took on the meaning still with us today.       

Salvadoran Filled Tortillas: Pupusas

If you've never had "pupusas," please give them a try. They are easy to make and they don't require any difficult to find ingredients or accompaniments. You can fill pupusas with meat, cheese, beans, vegetables or a little of each. For this article, I used refried beans and cheese to fill the pupusas. Salvadorans serve pupusas with "curtido," a type of pickled cabbage.* They are also often accompanied by hot sauce and crema, which is a kind of mild sour cream.** Besides making the actual pupusas, you can also make the refried beans yourself,*** or you can buy your favorite brand at local supermarkets or any Latino market, along with some "masa harina," a white corn flour.
   
Ingredients:

refried beans (homemade or 1 can)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese 
2 cups masa flour (masa harina)
1 2/3 cups hot water
1 tablespoon salt

Combine the flour, water and salt into a dough. The dough should not be loose, so if you need to adjust either the amount of flour or water, do so. Roll pieces of dough in your hands into rounds slightly larger than golf balls. Let the rounds sit while you make the filling for the pupusas. For the filling: This is tough now.... Mix the shredded cheese into the refried beans. Okay... maybe it's not so tough. You might want to put a little oil on your hands, then flatten and pat the dough rounds into about 4 to 5 inch diameter cakes. These are not supposed to be the thin tortillas most people likely think of, but rather they are thicker. Put a heaping tablespoon or two of the bean/cheese mixture in the center of the cake, then pull up the edges of the dough around the filling to close it off. I rolled the cakes back into rounds, then carefully flattened them again. I had a small amount of dough left over, which came in handy to "patch" a place or two in some of the pupusas  where the filling tried to come out. Add a little oil to a skillet (cast iron is great for this) or to a griddle, over medium heat. Cook the pupusas for "about" 3 to 4 minutes per side, or until they develop a little browning. You can serve them Salvadoran style with "curtido," as well as with crema or sour cream, and hot sauce.


* "Curtido" is also easy to make. Here is the link: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2019/03/salvadoran-spicy-pickled-cabbage-curtido.html

** You can find "crema," probably more as "Mexican Crema," in many supermarkets or Latino grocery stores. The tartness may differ slightly between Mexican crema and some other countries, but "creme fraiche" is essentially the same thing, and you can easily make it yourself, if you can't find "crema" near you, or just use some sour cream. Here is the link: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2017/07/make-your-own-creme-fraiche.html 

*** For the article on refried beans, here's the link: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2018/11/refried-beans-frijoles-refritos.html

The hot sauce is Mexican, but I'm sure Salvadorans won't mind ... and that's also some "curtido"

I pulled the pupusa apart ...

And with some crema ...

WORD HISTORY: 
Actual-This word is closely related to "act," a word of Latin derivation borrowed by English. It goes back to Indo European "ag/ak," which had the notion of "drive, move;" thus, "do some motion or process." This gave Latin "agere," meaning, "to act, to do an action," which spawned the noun "actus," meaning, "an act, an action, a deed;" thus also, "a performance." This provided Latin with the adjective "actualis," meaning, "relating to an action, pertaining to an ongoing action." This passed into Latin-based French as "actuel," meaning, "current, ongoing, up to date, in the present." This was borrowed by English in the first half of the 1300s, and the meaning extended from "ongoing, current," to "real." German, too, borrowed the word from French in the 1700s as "aktuell," also meaning, "current, in the present, real (presently, currently, as an adverb)."

Venezuelan Arepas

Unlike Colombian arepas,* the Venezuelan arepas (pronounced as if, "ah-ray-pahs") are commonly used as a kind of sandwich, filled with any number of fillings, like cheese, black beans or Venezuelan shredded beef.** "Typically," they are made with white arepa flour,*** but I have the yellow arepa flour, so that's what I used. Some Venezuelans grill the arepas, which can give the arepas some blackened spots on them. Others use a griddle to fry the arepas, while still others fry them in a skillet, which is what I did. The cakes will crisp on the outside, but may not completely cook through, so I chose to finish them in the oven, which is also called for in some Venezuelan recipes I read, and they only need about 10 minutes in the oven.     

Ingredients:

2 cups white or yellow arepa flour
2 cups warm water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon corn or canola oil
enough butter and oil (corn, canola or olive, but not extra virgin olive oil) mixture to make a little more than a coating on the bottom of the skillet (the oil helps to keep the butter from easily burning)
pats of butter for serving
filling of your choice 

Gradually stir the arepa flour into the warm water (with the salt added), mix well and let the dough sit for about 10 to 12 minutes. By that time, the dough should have a good consistency for shaping into rounded cakes about 4 to 5 inches in diameter and 1/2 inch thick. Over medium heat, melt the butter in the oil in a large skillet (cast iron is good, but not really necessary). Fry the cakes on both sides until they are golden brown, about 6 minutes on each side. The outside of the cakes will be crisp. Put the fried cakes onto a baking sheet and bake in the oven at 350 F for about 10 minutes. After the cakes cool slightly, you can slice the cakes in half (use a serrated knife), or you can slice through the cakes, but not clear through the cakes, leaving one side to act as a "hinge" (like a clam or an oyster). Add a small pat of butter and "close" the arepas to let the butter melt. Gently open the cakes and add some filling of your choice. 

* For my article on Colombian arepas, this is the link:  http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2018/03/colombian-arepas.html

** For the shredded beef or black beans, here is the link to my article with those recipes: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2017/05/venezuelan-creole-pavilion.html

*** Arepa flour, which comes in yellow or white, is made from ground, precooked corn meal, and from my readings, people from Venezuela and Colombia adamantly insist there is NO substitute for it. You can find arepa flour in many Latino markets or in some supermarkets (check the Latino food section), and it is available online, but if you have masa harina or polenta/cornmeal, you can use it, but it will not be quite as genuine. Arepa flour is precooked, a bit starchier (because of the way it is processed), and it is finely ground, more so than the aforementioned products, and the cakes come out with a crunchy outside, but a soft and smooth inside.

I deliberately overfilled this arepa for this photo. This is filled with Venezuelan shredded beef. The red pieces are red bell pepper. You can see the browned top of the arepa. 

WORD HISTORY: 
Condor-This word for large types of vultures from the Andes Mountains of South America and from the western United States, primarily California, goes back to Quechua^ "kuntur," the name for the large bird. This was taken by Spanish as "cóndor," and this was borrowed by English (through North American colonists) in the early years of the 1600s.

^ Quechua, pronounced as if, "ketch-oo-wah" (some also say, "ketch-wah"), is a language family in South America best known as the language of the Incas.   

Colombian Arepas

"Arepas," pronounced as if, "ah-ray-pahs," are a type of corn flour cake common in Colombia and Venezuela. Each country has its own style of arepa, and the people of each country defend their country's arepa as the best. This article will deal with the Colombian style of arepas, and I will do the Venezuelan version soon. In Colombia, arepas are commonly, but not exclusively, eaten at breakfast, and they are also sold by street vendors. The major problem with making authentic arepas, from either Colombia or Venezuela, is its main ingredient, arepa flour. This flour, which comes in yellow or white, is made from ground, precooked corn meal, and from my readings, people from Venezuela and Colombia adamantly insist there is NO substitute for it. I actually read some heated replies to people who dared suggest that masa harina (the flour used to make tortillas), or American cornmeal (used to make mush, as well as cornbread), could be used in the making of arepas. WHEW! This type of response is not uncommon about "ethnic" or "national" recipes, and it is certainly not limited to Colombians and Venezuelans. Let's not forget how some Americans in the Northeast can argue over milk/cream-based New England clam chowder and tomato-based Manhattan clam chowder, so even regional differences in recipes can provoke a surly exchange, but I really think Bostonians and New Yorkers just like to torment each other. Likewise, there is a debate, centered in Texas, over whether "real" chili has beans. 

The thing is, Americans long ago learned to "bend the rules" a bit when it came to dishes from their original homelands. As immigrants came to the U.S., they could not always find every single ingredient for some of their beloved recipes from home, so they did what they needed to do... they IMPROVISED! Of course today, especially in more recent times, the world has shrunk, as products are flown from distant lands to other countries in a matter of hours, making more "authentic" recipes possible. And don't forget, "authentic" is in the eye of the beholder, as I noted above with "chili" and with "clam chowder." Myself, I enjoy trying to duplicate recipes from around the world, and regular readers know I've been traveling the globe without ever leaving the kitchen, although I did once have Hong Kong flu and I wasn't anywhere near Hong Kong, damn! While it's great to cook and enjoy foods as authentic as possible, I also like to try new things or variations to old recipes, and if that includes substitutions of ingredients, so be it. Believe me, the world will not end because of such silly things.

So what should you do to make this recipe? You can find arepa flour in many Latino markets or in some supermarkets (check the Latino food section), and it is available online, but if you have masa harina or polenta/cornmeal, you can use it, but it will not be quite as genuine. Arepa flour is precooked and a bit starchier (because of the way it is processed) than the aforementioned products, and the cakes come out with a crunchy outside, but a soft and smooth inside. Just a guess here, but maybe if you mix a little regular flour (just a couple of tablespoons per cup) with the cornmeal it will help a little? That's just a guess, because I used real arepa flour, which is not really very expensive.    

Just remember when making this, you are not making a batter, but rather a "dough;" you know, as in the song lyrics, "dough a deer, a female deer." Ah wait, that's the wrong "doe," I mean, "dough." 

Ingredients:

2 cups arepa flour, yellow or white
2 teaspoons salt (the cheese and butter have salt)
3 1/2 to 4 cups warm water (see instructions below)
1 cup shredded mozzarella or provolone cheese
2 tablespoons butter, softened (room temperature)
oil for frying (use a neutral oil, not one like extra virgin olive oil, which has flavor and will then flavor the cakes)

Add the flour to 3 1/2 cups warm water in a bowl. Add the salt and mix, making sure there are no lumps. Let it sit until the water is fully absorbed, about 10 to 15 minutes. If the mix is too dry, add a tablespoon or two of warm water at a time, until there is no dry flour, but it should not be runny or "loose." * Add the shredded cheese and the softened butter, mix well by hand. You can roll out the dough into about 1/4 inch thickness and use a cookie cutter or glass to cut out rounds of arepas, or you can form them by hand. If you have a griddle, you can lightly oil it and fry several arepas at a time; or, you can use a skillet with a little oil, to fry the cakes. Medium heat is a good setting and fry the cakes until they are browned on both sides. Serve with a little more shredded cheese on top. In Colombia they are often served at breakfast with a fried egg on the side or placed right on top, but other toppings or side dishes are not uncommon. 

* The first time I made arepas, I added too much water, which I corrected by adding a little more arepa flour and by letting the mix sit a little longer. 

I had these arepas for lunch, along with a few anchovy stuffed olives from Spain; one of my weaknesses.

WORD HISTORY:
Animal-This word goes back to Indo European "ane/ene," which had the meaning, "to breathe." This gave its Latin offspring the noun, "anima," which meant, "breath, wind, air," and by extension from "breath," "soul or spirit, life." This produced Latin "animalis" (adjective meaning, "living"), the neuter form of which produced the noun, "animal(e)," meaning, "living being, breathing being." English borrowed the word around 1300, with likely reinforcement from French, a Latin-based language, which had the same form. Gradually "animal" ousted the native English word (of Germanic derivation) "deer," which had long been the general word for "animal" (the closely related German word "Tier," is still the general word for "animal" in German), and "beast," a word borrowed by English and of Latin derivation, which was often already replacing "deer" in the general sense. With "deer" so long established in English, it did not die out, but rather it continued to develop the more specific meaning for the type of animal of its meaning in modern times, which had begun prior to the borrowing of "animal." "Beast" expanded in meaning beyond its general use for "animal," to most often carry a negative meaning for both humans and animals of an especially cruel nature. The general use of "animal" did not take place until the 1600s.