Today’s a good day to eat foods from different lands, like Cincinnati, Australia and Puerto Rico! You’ll probably feel like a world traveler when this is over. You’ll wonder, “Why has no one stamped my passport? Did all of my luggage arrive?” You’ll probably be pretty jet-lagged, so you’ll need to find a friend to make these foods for you while you take a nap or watch Captain Caveman.
VEGAN CINCINNATI STYLE CHILI 3-WAY
by Jamie
Going to high school in Northern Kentucky I discovered the Kentucky/Ohio/Indiana tri-state area is very serious about chili, with several chili chains in the region including Skyline Chili, Dixie Chili and Gold Star Chili. All three chains offer the three, four, and five way phenomenon, in which chili is piled on top of spaghetti with the choice of additional beans, onions, and cheese. WILD! And kinda weird. I’m partial to Skyline for mostly arbitrary reasons including the proximity of one to my Kentucky home and having a close friend who spent an ungodly amount of hours working there (Hi Jen!). Their commercials make me wildly nostalgic. Also, Skyline Chili is the official chili of the Cincinnati Reds so that’s nothing to shake a stick at.
It was actually a Greek immigrant in Cincinnati whose Greek food stand was failing who made the regional chili what it is today. He took a common Greek slow cook stew, kept the Mediterranean base flavors of cinnamon and cloves, then added ground beef and chili spices.
The Skyline Chili website makes this Greek family, the Lambrinides, sound a bit more premeditated in bringing us their chili, but you get the gist.
Apparently cooking is a science, also an art. I took a stab at making a simple vegan variation of the regional dish. In case you didn’t know, perfecting a chili recipe is a rabbit hole from which you may never return. My dad spends a week prepping for the annual office chili cook off. He also took this pic of our local Skyline:
High noon.
Ingredients:
1 box of spaghetti
1 box oyster crackers
1 bag daiya cheddar style shreds
1 package veggie protein crumbles
1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 quart water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 small onion
4 gloves garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 ounce unsweetened baking chocolate
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
You really should use a crock pot for this recipe because it needs to simmer for hours on end. I reduced the amount of bay leaves, cinnamon and cloves called finding them a bit overwhelming in my batch but here is the recipe I was drawing from, do as you wish! (Maybe start with my recipe and add more cinnamon and cloves to taste.)
1. Dice onion and saute in sauce pan with vegetable oil.
2. Once onions yellow, toss in veggie protein crumbles.
3. Saute onions and protein crumbles for a few hot minutes.
4. Toss the protein crumbles and onions in your crock pot.
5. Mix in tomato sauce, water, garlic, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaf, apple cider vinegar, baking chocolate, salt, and pepper.
6. Let simmer for 3-5 hours.
7. Suggestion: Sample that sauce after an hour and add more spices according to taste.
8. Cook some spaghetti separately.
9. Pile spaghetti with chili, cheese and oyster crackers to finish making the 3-way.
BONUS ROUND:
You could also toss the chili on a soy dog with some onions and cheese and make yourself a Cincinnati Cheese Coney!
FAIRY BREAD
by Crystal
In last week’s Australian Get Baked article, reader Kathryn pointed out that I overlooked an iconic Australian (or perhaps New Zealand) delicacy that is hugely popular, particularly at children’s birthday parties. It’s called Fairy Bread, and it might just change your life.
Ingredients:
Butter or a butter substitute
White bread, sliced
Hundreds-and-thousands (these may be called ‘sprinkles’ or ‘jimmies’, depending where you live)
Method
1. Spread the butter on the bread.
2. Coat slices of bread with hundreds-and-thousands. Shake off the excess. Repeat. (I put the hundreds-and-thousands on a plate and then press the bread on top, it’s far less messy).
3. Cut bread into triangles or rectangles.
4. Eat.
Tostones (Twice-Fried Green Plantains) With Garlic Dipping Sauce
by Alex
If you can’t tell by looking at me that my family heritage is Puerto Rican (sidenote: you can’t), you can definitely tell by my cooking. I can cook the hell out of this unit. Most of the recipes I know or I’ve made the most were my grandmother’s recipes, straight from Poncé. The easiest and by far the tastiest and crowd-pleasiest recipe of them all is twice-fried green plaintains, known as “tostones”.
First, for a background soundtrack, I recommend the Tito Puente station on Pandora. Got that going? I’ll give you a minute… okay, now we can get started.
This is your setup:
Ingredients:
green plantain(s)
a small onion
garlic
one lemon
cilantro (not pictured)
olive oil and salt – for the dipping sauce
Sidenote: the flavor of plantains varies greatly with how ripe or not it is. The yellower and darker the skin, the sweeter and gooey-ier your plantain will be when cooked. If the skin is green, the plantain is starchier and will be more like a cooked potato or something than a sweet banana. That’s what we’re going for here. You want the greenest plantain you can find. Unfortunately, my plantain is not at all as green as I’d like it to be. Neverless, I proceeded onward because I was really hungry.
So first, peel your plantain. Keep those peels, we’re going to need them later!
Also, while you’re doing this, fill a sauteé (or frying) pan with vegetable oil until it’s about ¼ of an inch in depth. I know that may sound awful to your arteries, but we’re frying these suckers so you have to be down with this.
Cut the plantain into pieces that measure no more than an inch in width. I think even some of mine ended up too big. Err on the side of smaller pieces, would be my advice.
When the oil in your pan is medium-hot, throw them in there (not literally) and brown them up a bit. They’re not going to cook fully through the first time around.
Remove them and place on a paper towel to cool, because now’s a good time to make the dipping sauce.
And let me tell you – you can’t fuck this up. It’s so easy. I didn’t measure anything. Also I didn’t have cilantro and the dip was still awesome.
Throw all that stuff into a food processor – the onion (mine was big so I did half), some garlic, the juice from one lemon, cilantro, salt and a touch of olive oil and just pulse it until it’s combined. Boom done. Make sure you taste it and add extra of whatever you think.
What you get is this awesome lemony garlicy sauce. It’s awesome. Set the dip aside.
It’s time to smash/squash the plantains. That’s why we saved the banana peels from before! This is what this process sort of looks like:
Get some heat under your frying pan while you’re doing this. You want it to be really hot and ready to go as soon as you’re done smashing your last piece.
Fry the plantains again. This time will be much quicker. You’re looking to brown and crisp them up. Salt them as soon as you take them out of the oil and place them on the paper towel.
Here’s our final product! It’s definitely a great side dish or party snack or something of the sort. Except maybe if it’s a make-out party… the onion/garlic would not be appropriate for that situation. But it would be very appropriate for every other situation in life. Promise.
Share your favorite dishes from your homeland in the comments!
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i had tostones at a brazilian restaurant in rhode island (yea exactly) for the first time like 3 years ago and have been in a perpetual state of trying to recreate that flavor explosion ever since. excellent choice!
Aaaaand…It’s off to the market I go!
OH MY GOODNESS. I grew up in Australia, and fairy bread was my childhood in a nutshell. SO good. I’ve gotta go make some now.
the tostones recipe made me sooo happy. reppin (queer) boricua pride right hereee
Yeah boi!
PUERTO RICAN TOSTONES ARE THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD.
Those tostones look absolutely delicious, despite my fear of bananas which has kept me from trying plantain dishes.
On a side note, how are those ceramic knives anyway?
i have a ceramic knife–it was great (really, really great) initially but I feel like it’s maybe losing its edge a bit, after four years or so, and I don’t know how to get it sharpened…
That’s what I don’t understand about them, though good to hear they work well.
Fairy bread makes you believe in love.
I had fairy bread at my wedding
No wedding ever will ever match up to your wedding, ever.
Ever.
That is awesome.
I just moved from Cincinnati to San Jose..Goldstar has an amazing veggie 5way that will blow your mind to sprinkles. Plus they’re open til like 3am and have a drive thru which is purrfect for when you’re drinking and driving and impatiently hungry.
On behalf of the San Jose PD, and because I don’t want to have to park outside Goldstar waiting for you, I’m going to pretend that says “..for when you’re drinking and your sober friend is diving..”
Thanks, and wear your seatbelt.
HUNDREDS-AND-THOUSANDS
FAIRY BREAD
fairy bread was everything my mother didn’t want us to eat and therefore one of my favorite parts of visiting australia
Haha awesome. I made some myself the other day. Found the hundreds and thousands (they were called some other weird name though) at the candy store. It’s not real birthday party for an Aussie kid if there’s no fairy bread ;)
I feel like it’s important to note that that isn’t a banana in the tostones since some people seem to think it is. Plantains look like bananas but are much starchier and never really eaten raw because ugh.
(That being said platanos maduros for LIFE!)
Platanos maduros OH MY GOD. yes. Tajadas made from them is the most delicious food ever.
Fairy bread sounds awful but now i feel compelled to try it :S
yes. It *sounds* awful, but trying it will be one of the best things you ever do, promise.
Platanos! Latina Autostraddlers! You give a Panamanian girl butterflies.
In Colombia and Panama they’re patacones. I always use platanos that are just starting to turn yellow. Until now I’ve used the heel of my hand a paper towel like Nana and Papi taught me, but the peel idea is PURE GENIUS!!!
Can’t wait to try it. :D
For extra points, use Nutella instead of butter on your fairy bread.
This sounds like it might just be the best thing to ever happen to me.
oooo baby.
I just had a mental culinary orgasm reading that.
Oops, there she is. (In my defense I refreshed approximately 5 billion times and that comment didn’t show up.)
The Dutch have a variant on fairy bread using chocolate sprinkles (hagelslaag) (no relation to the tasteless brown sprinkles americans eat on ice cream) and fruity sprinkles (vruchtenhagel) and sugar-covered anise seeds (muisjes). You can make it with normal bread or these rusk things called beschuit.
They don’t save this stuff for birthdays. They eat it for breakfast ALMOST EVERY DAY (except the anise, I think that’s supposed to be for celebrating the birth of a baby because they come in pink and blue, but what the hell they’re delicious so I eat them all the time). I fucking love being half-Dutch. My breakfasts rock. When the Dutch import store we bought hagelslaag from closed down I almost cried.
I would never eat the pink “girl” muisjes as a kid. I’d only eat the blue “boy” ones. My taste in breakfast food knew I was gay way before I did.
breakfast of champions
I was about to comment with the same thing! I eat my hagelslaag with butter and whipcream on waffles. Hagelslaag>fairy bread
Imposter!
Also, for even more extra bonus points, substitute mini m&m’s in place of hundreds&thousands.
contemplating walking to the grocery store and picking up some white bread, sprinkles and butter at this very moment. why is this fairy bread not a thing in america?
My Gram used to do it with sugar crystals..Sugar and butter is every kids dream..But sprinkles sounds interesting..Might need to do this.
Add cinnamon and you have The Best Breakfast Food My Dad Has Ever Made.
Gotta say I’m a little let down after seeing the ingredients for the fairy bread. I was hoping that the binding ingredient was unicorn semen, or something a little more magical than butter…
When I first moved to New Zealand they introduced me to Fairy Bread and it was the happiest day of my life.
My gf and I just ate these tostones and they are *delicious*. I would recommend frying them in coconut oil for extra umph!
I had no idea that fairy bread was Australian. I have never been prouder.
Fairy bread is only a NZ/Aus thing?! I grew up thinking it was eaten all over the world!
Childhood wouldn’t have been the same without fairy bread :)
We hardly ever ate white bread in my family though, so it was so special :D
POUTINE!
Oh Canada…
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine
I can’t believe that no one really knows about it outside of the great white north!
Although I’m living in Melbourne now and Lord of the Fries has a vegan version that is vewy vewy relevant to my interests.
what,nobody knows about it? sara quin talked about it once. so I assumed everybody is like me and googled it,stat!
The best is when you toast your bread, butter it then put the sprinkles on. They get all melty…
Being Dutch is basically the best.
as if fairy bread wasn’t enough, sprinkles being called “hundreds-and-thousands” is the CUTEST THING I HAVE EVER HEARD OF IN MY LIFE.
Didn’t Agatha Christie once write a story where the mystery hinged on the audience not being aware of what hundreds-and-thousands were? She totally did.
Fairy bread! I had a fairy-themed birthday party at the age of six or seven, held at an actual fairy grotto and hosted by professional sprites and pixies (as I was informed at the time and have no reason to doubt today). Because a classic is a classic, fairy bread was served.
Favorite homeland food is coming up at the end of the week: MATZO BALL SOUP
Was far too lazy to get out the bread and butter out of the fridge. Ate the spinkles. Mmmmm easy recipe!
TOSTONES! so you can also make sandwiches out of tostones: slice the plantain lengthwise instead of into coins, fry-smash-refry the long slices, and then use them like bread for a sandwich (with cheese or tofu or meat, lettuce & tomato, salsa or mayo) ! It’s called a jibarito and it’s the best thing I learned how to make in Chicago.
Oh my holy Jesus, how can you NOT have fairy bread in America? It’s the epitome of everything Americans love ;) (Also they are totally hundreds and thousands, NOT sprinkles, haha! And do you know what is the most amazing thing? We also have these: http://www.griffins.co.nz/by-name/cookie-bear-hundreds-and-thousands )
I’m proud to be from New Zealand so that we can share fairy bread knowledge with you. Now we just need to convert everyone into liking vegemite =P
FYI,
Tostones are fried green plantains exclusively. They are not sweet.
Maduros (or Amarillos as named in Puerto Rico) are fried ripe plantains exclusively. These are sweet.
This distinction must be made because if you try to prepare “tostones” out of ripe plantains, you will have a mess on your hands since these are too ripe to fry then press. To make the ripe ones just slice and fry only once.
Just being a persnickety Puerto Rican.
<3
Aaaah, fairy bread. This was the staple of all my birthday parties and my friends when I lived in Australia. I revisited the experience at my 20th when I was at uni here in the UK…everyone loved it!!! A bit too much as I was finding hundreds and thousands all over my flat and in my clothes and hair for days. Still, it was fun though!