Try The Most Popular Latin American Cooking Recipes

By Mattie MacDonald


Latin American food is rich, colorful, robust and flavorful, in short, fun to explore. This region includes Caribbean and Mexico and South and Central America, and every part has its traditional dishes. Latin American cooking recipes are inventive in every single part, and here are some traditional ones you will surely enjoy in.

There are several types of empanadas, and one of the most popular comes from Brazil. This filled, deep fried pastry is delicious, and it is quite easy to prepare. For the dough, you need three cups of all purpose flour, salt, teaspoon of turmeric, six tablespoons butter and six tablespoons shortening, maybe one half cup beer and one egg. Mix dry ingredients, add butter and make the dough adding beer and egg. The dough needs to rest for fifteen minutes.

For the filling, you need to saute one small diced onion with two diced tomatoes and one can of hearts of palms in two tablespoons of butter. Pour in two spoons of Sherry and add one tablespoon of tomato paste. After two minutes, add half pound of cleaned and diced shrimps. Season it with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Flatten the dough and cut it into three-inch rounds. Place a small spoon of filling on each, brush the edges with mixed egg yolk and fold in half. Seal the edges with your fingers or use a fork. Preheat the oil on 190 degrees of Celsius and deep fry each empanada for maybe four minutes.

Cuban sandwiches are highly popular, but people mostly add jalapenos and mayonnaise in them today. Traditional Cuban sandwiches don't contain such ingredients. You will need two slices of Cuban or French bread, yellow mustard, four pickle slices, four slices of ham and four slices of roast pork, and three slices of Swiss cheese. Put it in a sandwich press. You can add some butter as well.

Tasty and creamy coconut rice is another popular dish you can easily prepare. You will need some long grain rice, the same amount of water and coconut milk, sugar, a little bit of salt, raisins and crispy coconut flakes. Coconut flakes are best when toasted.

Cook rice, sugar, salt and coconut milk until water evaporate. Stir occasionally. Cover the saucepan and continue cooking on the lowest temperature for maybe twenty minutes. Add raisins, stir and leave it covered for two minutes. Serve sprinkled with toasted coconut flakes.

Churro is Latin American doughnut, sometimes called Spanish doughnut. This simple but delicious snack is cheap, easily prepared and tastes great when hot or cold. All you need is flour, salt, sugar, vegetable oil and cinnamon, and maybe fifteen minutes of your time.

Cook sugar, salt and oil in two cups of water. Remove from heat and stir in flour, until the ball of dough is formed. Make strips of the dough using your pastry bag, and deep fry until golden. Mix one cup of sugar with cinnamon and roll drained churros in this mixture. You will positively enjoy in these simple snacks.




About the Author: