it's in my belly

More shots from Spanish menu class.

Eggplant stacks and Olla Gitana - Bienvenido a Espana! The stacks were prepared with Japanese style eggplants, anchovy, parsely, tomato jam and manchego cheese. Between the salty eggplants and anchovies and the sweet tomato jam, this tapa was layered with flavors. The Olla Gitana was prepared with squash, pears, carrots, garbanzo beans, green beans and chicken stock. Fairly easy to let everything cook down in chicken stock and then added saffron sauteed tomatoes, ground mixture of roasted garlic and almonds and finished with smoked paprika.

Arepas and pandebono. I made the arepas with farmers cheese, cilantro and corn meal, pressed into flat discs and fried in oil. The pandebono were kicked up with chili covered sesame seeds.

This was by far one of my favorite classes. The spices used in each dish were incredible, from the asafetida to the star anise, my palatte was in love.

Ras Malai. This Indian dessert is made from curdled milk, aka Paneer, and pistachios. First I brought whole milk to a boil and added about 4 TBS. of lemon juice to jump start the curdling. Once the pieces of “cheese” started floating to the top, I skimmed them out and hung to dry in a cheese clothe for an hour. Next I kneaded out the cheese and folded in ground pistachios, flour and baking powder and divided into small bite size pieces. The cheese pillows were boiled in a sugar water mixture at 220 degrees. Next they hang out in the fridge until cool and then tossed in a cream, rose water and pistachio sauce. Not the sweetest dessert, but the rose water gives it an elegant flavor.