Ensaimada

I have always wanted to make the Hizon style ensaimada which resembles the original Spanish ensaimada, i.e. flat and whitish inside, not the fluffy yellow almost cake-like Goldilocks ensaimada. The Hizon ensaimada I remember was golden brown and flattened further with a hot iron or maybe spatula to caramelize the sugar topping. It was delicious, bready, sweet and perfect with hot chocolate.

In one of my Spanish cookbooks the recipe for ensaimada is leavened with baking powder and has lard, not butter. It is shaped into one gigantic coil and left to rise for 7 hours before baking. I will try that recipe next time I make ensaimadas.

Today I used a Spanish recipe I found online. I was able to make two 7-inch ensaimadas using half of the dough and the other half I made into a coffee cake loaf filled with Nutella and hazelnuts.

Update: Goldilocks-style and Spanish Majorcan recipes here

topped with butter, sugar, and grated young gouda

Nutella and hazelnuts coffee cake loaf

Here is the ensaimada recipe that uses baking powder and lard:
5 cups flour
¾ cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup warm water
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup lard

• Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, eggs and water. Knead to form a smooth dough. Roll dough and spread the lard. Roll and fold several times until the lard is absorbed. Halve the dough (or use one dough recipe but it will be HUGE) and roll each dough as thin as possible. Roll the dough from one side like a poster. Coil the rolled dough loosely on 2 large baking sheets, cover with damp towel or plastic wrap and leave to rise for 5 - 7 hours. Bake in a preheated 300°F oven until golden brown. Dust with powdered sugar before slicing.

Who's Cool

I watched yet another Tadanobu Asano movie (Café Lumière) and I just realized how cool this guy is. He can stand there not saying or doing anything yet I am drawn to him, no matter how small the role or screen time. I have seen maybe a dozen of his movies and I liked him in all of them. Having seen hundreds of movies, I made a list of movie celebrities that I think are so cool, along with one or two of their best movies, IMHO.

The coolest guys in cinema


Humphrey Bogart - The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, Sabrina











Tadanobu Asano - Gojoe, Last Life In The Universe











Steve McQueen - Bullitt, The Thomas Crown Affair











Jonathan Rhys Meyers - Gormenghast, Velvet Goldmine











Alain Delon - Le Samourai, L'eclisse











My All-time Favorite Movie Performers

• Jimmy Stewart
• Humphrey Bogart
• Cary Grant
• Steve McQueen
  
• Katharine Hepburn
• Audrey Hepburn
• Jake Gyllenhaal
• Adrien Brody
• Johnny Depp
  
• Brad Pitt
  
• Ben Stiller
• Maggie Gyllenhaal
• Toshiro Mifune
• Tadanobu Asano
  
• Takeshi Kitano (Beat Takeshi)
  
• Jet Li
• Jackie Chan
• Takeshi Kaneshiro
  
• Tony Leung
  
• Maggie Cheung
• Vincent Cassel
• Jean Reno
• Alain Delon
  
• Audrey Tautou
• Colin Firth
• Jonathan Rhys Meyers
• Christian Bale
  
• Gary Oldman
• David Bowie
• Rachel Weisz
  

Empanadas

Empanada jumpstarted my blog a little over a year ago because, strangely, not one of the Filipino cookbooks I own at the time has the recipe for the Filipino empanada, although my Spanish cookbooks have. I searched online for the recipe and found a few sites that mention empanada but not the recipe, one of them is the very funny filipeanut which I have been visiting regularly since. I finally found one site called English Patis and made my first empanada following her recipe. I also found in her blog a list of Filipino bloggers, some I still read at least once or twice a week. I got inspired to start my own blog by one of those Filipino bloggers, which btw I don't visit anymore as often as I used to.

Empanada
pie crust
2½ cups pastry flour
1 stick very cold salted butter, cut into small cubes
1 stick salted butter, sliced very thin or flattened to 7 x 6 inch rectangle (should be very cold)
½ teaspoon sea salt
½ cup ice water

• In a medium bowl, mix salt with flour. With fingers, mix in the cubed butter until crumbly, add water 1 tablespoon at a time. Lightly mix with a fork and form into a ball. Flatten slightly, wrap in plastic film, put in a gallon zipper bag and refrigerate overnight.
• The next day, roll the pastry into a 10 x 8 rectangle, put the flattened butter on the top 2/3, fold the bottom without butter over, then fold again like a letter. Roll and fold, wrap in plastic film and let rest for 1 hour in the refrigerator. Repeat 2 more times before using. You can eliminate the folding and incorporate all the butter at once but the empanada won't be as flaky. Roll into desired thickness and cut into rounds, fill, pinch edges and crimp, brush with egg wash, then bake in a pre-heated 425°F oven until golden brown.

filling
2 tablespoons grapeseed or olive oil
5 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 cup each potato and carrots, finely diced
2 pounds lean ground beef
1 finely chopped chorizo, optional
1 cup raisins
1 cup canned sweet peas
2 teaspoons sea salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon soy sauce
water

• In a skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil and fry potatoes and carrots for 4 minutes, set aside. In a medium saucepan, heat the remaining oil and saute garlic and onion for 3 minutes, add the beef and chorizo, cook until beef is no longer pink. Add the potatoes and carrots, raisins, salt, black pepper and soy sauce. Stir fry for 3 minutes, add 1 tablespoon water, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes until all the liquid has been absorbed. Add the well drained sweet peas and mix well. Transfer to a shallow container and let cool completely before using, or refrigerate overnight.

juicy beef filling inside flaky and tender pie crust

photo Neal Oshima

What I am interested to know is the recipe for the empanada with wavy multi-layered crust (like a mille-feuille) that comes from Silay, Negros. (BTW, the Neal Oshima photo below is from my cookbook Memories of Philippine Kitchens by Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan). If anyone has the recipe or knows how to make that distinctive layered crust, please, pretty please let me know.

DVD Review - 300

300 D-

This movie failed to make me love it, or at least like it. Before I watched the dvd I asked my daughter what she thought of it and she said I might not like it because it is a 'dick flick', as opposed to chick flick which I am not a fan of either. But I have read so many rave reviews from both men and women so I went ahead and borrowed, watched and cringed. This is one inane, pointless movie. The only thing that saved it from an F grade is the photography. It's okay, I guess, since it is based on a comic book, graphic novel to others, whatever.
First, I didn't like the soundtrack, having unnecessary and misplaced 'dramatic' music. I was annoyed when whipping sounds came out of all 5 speakers of a....TORCH! What the heck was that, it's just a moving torch which should not get the viewer's attention as if it's a beast or something. Laughable. And then, lots of unnecessary female nudity, a gratuitous sex scene, yeah, yeah, yeah, the king makes love to his beautiful wife, why does he look like he's having sex with a ho? The foolhardy king led his men wearing nothing but a shield, a red cape, and a black speedo/diaper, to fight a horde of ugly Persians. The diaper reminds me of the costume Sean Connery wore in ZARDOZ but Sean's was a nicer saffron-colored diaper with a matching X bandolier and go-go like boots (see photo at the bottom). Also the whole movie is full of cliched dialog, and during the battle a lot of blood spilled that just evaporated in mid-air because you won't see them anywhere on their newly waxed and perfectly chiseled Greek manly chests, on their shields or on the ground. As I said this movie is based on a graphic novel so it's forgiven. Bad story and bad bad king, going to war without adequate planning and let his men and himself die needlessly because they're all macho warriors, (hmm, why does this sound familiar?)

doesn't it look like a diaper?

Sean Connery in ZARDOZ