Guatemalan Dreamin’ – Is there Guatemalan food in Antigua, Guatemala?

   For last few days I have been on a trip to Antigua, Guatemala. This is a small town about 30 miles west of Guatemala City. I travelled alone to GC on Friday, stayed the night near the airport and took a shuttle to Antigua. I had Saturday to myself before meeting up with my boyfriend on Sunday at a local resort.

When I travel to a foreign country I like to eat the local food. Although I am not usually cooking there, I really like to get an idea of what type of food the locals eat. I am not there to eat hamburgers or hot dogs, or a cuisine of another country. I wanted Guatemalan food. I get inspired by the local cuisine and usually try to find recipes to replicate my experience when I get back home.

   Well it was interesting as I wandered around town on Saturday. I saw Italian restaurants one after the other. Pizza, lasagna, polenta and pasta on the menus. Very strange and disheartening. And actually in the following days I saw Greek, Sushi and Indian restaurants as well. Now considering we couldn’t even drink the water anywhere I don’t know how I would of felt about trying the Sushi.

   However, I needed to eat, so I went into a nice looking place and took a seat. Okay so the menu is in Spanish for Italian dishes. I see Dorado (along with a couple of other fish dishes) on the wall for the specials. I think fish; that sounds good. The server did not speak English and all I could communicate was I wanted Dorado. He rattled off what I suppose was the description but I just smiled and said Si, Si. I did order a glass of Rosado wine. I figured the wine should be good and I knew it would be a Rose.

   A few minutes after the wine arrived, a tiny glass cup of cold bean soup arrived with a strip of tortilla chip in it, the only evidence of being in Central America. Although I am not a big fan of cold soup it was delicious in a cold sort of way. As I sat and waited for my mystery dish of Dorado, I enjoyed the lush green garden courtyard I was in. My main dish arrived and it was beautiful. There was a layer of grilled polenta, a layer of grilled asparagus, a layer of grilled Dorado and then strangely small shrimps in teriyaki sauce???? Hmm, well, that’s different.  Then there was a very appropriate savory smooth sauce around the edges of the plate. That was very good and actually I would have suggested it be used with the shrimp on top instead of the teriyaki sauce. Of course, I would have had to make the suggestion in Spanish for the Italian dish…..

   It really tasted delicious despite the oddness of the teriyaki. All was washed down with another glass of the wonderful Rosado. But sadly I hadn’t had any local food yet.

   The next morning I needed coffee and breakfast. The hotel I was staying at didn’t have any food so I asked about a good café. Well I didn’t really ask. I mumbled in slaughtered Spanish that I wanted coffee and breakfast. I managed to get the first part out but couldn’t find the word for breakfast in my little Spanish book. Luckily, the lady at the front desk understood what I wanted, didn’t roll her eyes at me too much and showed me on a map where to go. So off I went.

   I found the café and guess what – Italian. AHHHH, but the coffee came out of a bona fide espresso machine. Café, Por Favor, in a whiny little coffee deprived voice. I was promptly delivered a steaming Americano. So again I was faced with a menu in Spanish for Italian breakfast. Hmmmmmmm, I see Huevos listed and I recognized the word baguette. Eggs, bread, okay I know what that is. I pointed out to the server what I wanted. Again he rattled off a question that sounded wonderful but I had no clue what he was saying. I assumed he wanted to know what I wanted with the eggs because the menu had an entry that said 1 ingrediente for an amount and 2 ingrediente for an amount. No ingredients were listed so I could look them up in my little book. I know queso (cheese) so I said queso, por favor. Then he rattled some more and I heard the word tomat (tomato). Ah, that would be good, eggs, cheese, tomato and bread. Si, Si, Gracias. Off he went.

   Then I realized I had made a tactical error. Guatemala is a third-world country, sanitation is not easily practiced and the water is not something you drink anywhere unless it’s bottled. The food is usually washed in this non-potable water. Germs and bacteria have a grand old time living there. I had no idea how the tomats were going to be served. Fresh sliced on top, fresh mixed in to the food or cooked. I had no idea how to call the server back and ask. Oh well, I thought. I might have to pick it out or something. 

So I drank my Americano and stared at words in my little Spanish dictionary trying to figure out how to say I wanted more coffee. My breakfast was delivered and with hand signals indicated for more coffee. Well, the breakfast looked fabulous. I inspected my tomats. They were diced up into the eggs and cheese and cooked. I thought well it would be practical to pick them out but if there are germs that didn’t die by heat, they are happily mixed in with everything. Either eat it or pay and walk away. I ate. Later, my boyfriend advised not to order tomats with anything, too late now. The café was also a bread bakery. In the area I was sitting was a large cabinet with bins full of fresh baked bread and croissants (okay a bit of French influence as well).

The sandwich was delicious and 5 days later no bad effects! Sadly, still no Guatemalan food. But my tummy was happy and I was buzzing on caffeine.

   On Sunday, I met up with my boyfriend. He had spent the previous week on a medical mission in Tejutla, Guatemala. It is a village in the Mountains 6 hours from Antigua. He has done many of these missions and the team spends the last few days in Antigua for R&R. I regaled him with my food experiences and my inability to find local cuisine (not that that much time had gone by). He is very familiar with Antigua and reassured me there is Guatemalan cuisine.

   So that evening we went out and found Tipico Plato at a restaurant not too far from the hotel. I had a dish with grilled beef, pork, chicken and chorizo. Also rice, beans, guacamole and salsa. (wasn’t allowed to eat the salsa due to it being raw, I didn’t protest and agreed with my sanitation expert). There was also freshly made tortillas. I couldn’t tell per se if there were special spices or marinades on the meats but they were very good. Not terribly tender but very flavorful as most tough cuts are. Cutting them on the bias helped immensely with chewablity. I accompanied it with the house red wine, nothing special but drinkable. I completely forgot to take a photo but it looked and tasted great.

Deflated by Bread Alone

Long ago, I had a sour dough starter my friend, Marsha, gave me. I kept it alive for many years but eventually killed it with neglect. Starters are like pets and kids, you have to feed them. I tried a couple of times to grow others but didn't succeed. I purchased a bread cookbook a few years ago called Crust & Crumb. It has master recipes in it to create fabulous bread. Or at least that's what it claims.The photos are fabulous and that's what sucked me in to buying it. All foodie's love food porn (sexy pictures of food).

So I decided to try to birth a starter. This book has a recipe that takes 5 days to create a starter. It basically uses flour, water and malt with some honey and raisin water thrown in. Raisin water consists of soaking raisins in warm water for 15 minutes and using the soaking water in the starter. The reason behind this is apparently the raisins have natural yeast on the surface (that white stuff on them, grapes have it too) and this helps get the starter started. Well, then I had a cup full of soggy raisins. I made Oatmeal Raisin bars with them.

BTW this is called a Barm in the book. Here is a quote from the author:  I refer to this starter throughout the book as barm to distinguish it from the milder levain starter. Barm is the English term for starter and is the root of the term barmy, which means "tipsy" or "ditzy". This is because the starter produces alcohol (ethanol, actually), which may rise to the top of the sponge if it is not stirred for a week or so. Alaskan gold miners used to skim off this alcohol and trade it with the local Indians for supplies. (I've been told it will give you a massive headache and hangover.) One of the tribes was called the Hoochinoo, and thus was born the term hooch as slang for whiskey. I guess it could also be used to run you car as well if it uses flex-fuel.

Anyway, after 5 days, there is then a 3 day process to get a sourdough baguette. Now I have had many failures at cooking. Exploding springrolls, unedible desserts (trying to go low-cal), cookies and cakes where I forgot the sugar or salt, so I am used to cooking fiascoes. But after 8 days I was hoping for a good baguette. Sadly, the four baguettes I baked were not edible. The dough just never rose correctly and it was dense and gooey. I made some tactical errors as well and as you can see by the photo looked pretty bad. However, the ends that were sort of cooked ok and tasted good, like sourdough. At least the oatmeal raisin bars were good.

I am not making the 3 day bread again, too much time. But I do think I have a viable barm that I am using today to make some bread that only takes half a day. Phew!

Enchilada Madness

Well I must say the enchiladas were fabulous. I have no idea how they would match up to "authentic" enchiladas prepared by a native of Mexico or are enchiladas even a real Mexican dish? Perhaps it's a TexMex thing. I made pinto beans, my friend made great Spanish rice and there was salad. Of course, I got carried away and made 3 different salsas: my world famous regular Salsa Fresca; a great roasted tomatilla salsa; and, although not of Hispanic nature, a mango salsa. Oh my, we were all stuffed.

But wait there was more. I couldn't resist making dessert. I thought of making Tres Leches cake but really didn't want a really difficult thing to prepare. I LOVE flan but making it can be tricky. Don't cook it too long or it gets weird, like tasty rubber. Don't under-cook it or you have a tasty gloppy mess (note: it's always tasty). I have a recipe for Citrus Caramel Flan. Using orange peel and lemon juice it calls for using individual custard cups to create cute little individual servings. It turned out well. I think it was a little over-cooked but still very good.

So is it really better from scratch?

I am making enchiladas this coming Saturday. Not hard but not easy either. I have always been ambivalent about enchilada sauce from a can. Easy to use but really, does it have decent flavor? I find the canned stuff tinny tasting and thin.

So I started Googling enchilada sauce and came up with a recipe that used this description: This recipe is for a classic Mexican red enchilada sauce or enchilada salsa. Try out the recipe. You will use it over and over because it’s so good.
The main ingredients which give the sauce most of its flavor are ancho chiles and chiles de arbol. The chiles de arbol are what give this enchilada sauce its heat. Reduce their number if you want to prepare a milder sauce.

So at the end of preparing the recipes there are still 2 roma tomatoes sitting on the counter. I reread the recipe twice to see what I missed. I didn't miss, the recipe never mentioned the tomatoes past the list of ingredients. Rats. It tastes good, looks good but now what. I went back to the web page to double check. No tomatoes in the directions. So I cooked up the tomatoes, strained them and added to the sauce. So far so good. It tastes great!

BTW here is the webpage with the recipe:
http://mexicanfoodie.com/red-enchilada-sauce-recipe/