I have been missing Colombia lately and am currently unable to travel. Only thing I can do is try to bring a little of Colombia home to me. Through pure dumb luck, I stumbled on the blog of a Colombian woman from Medellin that married an American and has been in the states for 10 years. She shares traditional Colombian recipes, but written in English.
Colombian food is an undiscovered treasure. The country is blessed with an incredible variety of delicious native ingredients. The cuisine leans heavily on traditional European/French techniques, combined with the country's wealth of raw inputs, to come up with some beautiful dishes.
First up: empanadas. The ubiquitous Colombian street food - like tacos in Mexico. Many Latin American countries make empanadas, and each country is different. All the correct ingredients are available locally, so no cheating here. Traditional potato/pork/beef filling. These are served with the ubiquitous Colombian hot sauce, aji. Actual aji chiles are not to be had here, but it is acceptable to substitute fresh habanero, which is available here. As a rule, Colombian food isn't hot & spicy. Aji is one of the few exceptions.
While I was making up a big batch of empanadas, the pork was roasting in the slow cooker. I had a nice picnic shoulder, which I rubbed down with salt, pepper, and fresh chopped garlic. I seared this in a white-hot iron skillet, and used a propane torch to brown the areas that couldn't get hit by the skillet. After transferring the pork to the slow cooker, I reduced the heat a bit and deglazed the pan with some chardonnay. Then in went Colombian blackberry pulp, some frozen domestic blackberries and raspberries, sugar, and more wine. Half to the slow cooker with some stock for braising liquid, and the other half reduced for a glaze to serve with the finished pork. It came out fantastic - 195 internal temp and it was fork tender and delicious.
Sorry about the colors here...crappy iphone pic. This is before the spinach went on the plate and brightened things up.
This was the knockout punch...Pastel de Coco or Colombian coconut pie. I managed to find frozen shredded coconut imported from Colombia - it is much different than the dry/chewy shredded stuff in the supermarket baking aisle. Lots more texture and flavor. Cooked this with some vanilla extract, cinammon sticks, evaporated and whole milk, and sugar. The pie came out incredibly rich - one thin slice goes a long way.
