Welcome to the DailyChef Blog - Helping You Make the Food You Love

Your Ad Here

Category : Latin American

Leek Salad

A leek salad is something I’ve never even considered before.  Before this salad, I usually found myself at a loss when confronted with these giant  green onions.  They have a much lighter flavor than their more compact cousins, which surprisingly works amazingly well in this salad.

I first saw this recipe at a BBQ and got it third hand from a Venezuelan grandmother.  The key to this salad is slicing everything into thin pieces ~ 1/4″ wide.  The salad then ends up being much more like a slaw than a traditional salad.   The leeks, cilantro, green onions, celery, carrots and lettuce mesh amazingly well with a mayo-based balsamic vinaigrette.  Because the salad is so refreshing, I highly recommend this recipe on a hot summer day.  Just remember to make enough dressing to coat the salad!  I was a bit stingy up with dressing initially and it ended up being a tad dry.  I also used this recipe to top my Caraway Seed Pork Burgers (to come later).

Read More…

6 Comments

Dry rubbed BBQ chicken

I’ve been making this dry rub chicken to bring to BBQs for almost a decade now.  The recipe has gone through several variations, but I always return to a few key ingredients:  garlic, onion, black pepper and salt.  In this variation, I added a bit of Latin flavor – cayenne, cilantro and some white vinegar – but these these additions are optional. The four core ingredients work well by themselves.  I recommend playing with your own flavors too!

Chicken on the grill is always hard to cook right.  Remember to cook with the skin side down, on indirect heat with a 2-zone fire, and with the grill covered.  Finally, give the chicken some time – you won’t regret it.

Read More…

6 Comments

Arroz con Pollo

Arroz con pollo.  Although it translates into chicken and rice, the sum of its parts is much greater than the individual ingredients!   There are probably hundreds of ways to make this traditional Spanish/ Hispanic/ Latin dish.  I’ve found this dish on the menus of fancy restaurants and in hole in the walls or food stands on sketchy corners.  Sometimes it’s delicious, sometimes it’s merely edible.  At its heart, arroz con pollo is comfort food, and I think I have a great recipe to recommend.

Read More…

5 Comments

Chicken and Pineapple Skewers w/ Chimichurri

Now that you know how to make Chimichurri, how about a recipe to pair with it?  Readers of my last post know that the perfect pair for Chimichurri is Asado!

Full disclosure – this is not a traditional Asado.  Traditional Asado includes eclectic meats like morcillas (blood sausage), chinchulines (Pig intestines), and mollejas (thymus, pancreas).  However, more common meats such as flank steak, pork chops, and chicken thighs work wonderfully when simply flavored over the grill.  And, of course, don’t forget your side of Chimichurri!

Because I didn’t want to marinate the meat, but still wanted to give it some sweetness, I used pineapple.  And because my friends wanted to watch their health, I used chicken breast instead of chicken thighs.  It’s a tradeoff, since the extra fat of dark meat would have made the flavors a little richer.  Aside from the pineapple, I used a bit of salt and pepper and a dash of chili powder to give the skewers a little kick.

Read More…

3 Comments

Chimichurri

The scent and taste of food is unique in its ability to revive old memories.  As soon as I catch a whiff of certain scents or taste the first drop of a childhood treat on my tongue, I’m always transported to the environment that I associate most strongly with the food.  And for me, chimichurri is reminiscent of warm nights filled with asado and cervezas by the parilla (grilla).

Chimichurri is a parsley and garlic-based sauce as important to South and Central American grilled meats as teriyaki for Japanese, yogurt sauce for Middle East/Mediterranean, and bbq sauce for the American South.  No grilled meats is truly complete without the sauce.  And, since I’ve posted some meat recipes, I thought sharing a chimichurri recipe would be the perfect accompaniment.

Read More…

12 Comments