It's hard to express how much I like pupusas. They're so perfect and delicious - the cheese sneaks out and gets all browned and crusty in spots. The warm cheesy corn contrasts perfectly with the tangy cool cabbage relish. So good. At the farmer's market a few weeks ago, Primavera was selling big bags of their wonderful fresh masa for only $3.50(!!), so I jumped. These photos were from my test run (using Heidi's instructions) before making them over at Ross's place for dinner. I used goat cheddar (that's why it's so white), and later also refried beans as filling. They're not that easy to shape well, but Ross got quite good at it after a few tries.
Before Xmas I did quite a bit of cooking and baking. One thing I made was a chocolate babka, a very enriched yeasted dough - brioche, pretty much - that was lacquered with butter and covered with finely chopped chocolate, the rolled up and twisted into loaves.
It came out fall-apart tender and richly marbled with dark chocolate. I particularly liked it toasted slightly so the chocolate got melty. The recipe follows at the end. My only complaint from a process standpoint is that I wish the recipe were in weight instead of volume measure. I think I measured my flour light for that recipe - the dough was almost unmanageably soft.
While I was in VT for xmas, my parents and I went up to Montreal to visit the excellent Atwater market. One of the many delicious things we bought was some locally-made Toulouse sausage, a pork sausage seasoned with white wine and black pepper. Mom and I have both been excited about trying to debone a whole chicken, so we tried that. We chopped out the backbone and deboned the chicken splayed out flat. Next time, I'll just chop off the wings at the shoulder - they are absolutely not worth the effort. The legs were a bit tricky too but well worth it. We cooked the sausage and mixed it up with some sauteed shallots and steamed, finely chopped chard. Stuffed the legs first, sewed them shut, then tightly stuffed and sewed the rest using cotton twine and a big needle. Leaving as much skin as you can makes the sewing much easier. It didn't spit out a whole lot of juice, but we made gravy from what little pan drippings it made plus the stock from the discarded skeleton. Pretty goddamn good. Great the next day with mustard between 2 pieces of bread.
