Potato and Sweet Corn Soup & Tamales

The Food Nanny
July 27&28, 2009
Meal 1: Potato and Sweet Corn Soup, Rustic Rolls, Cucumber and Eggplant Salad
· Warm the soup on the stovetop, or perhaps eat it chilled.
· Warm the roll.
· Serve the salad chilled. Be sure to season it with salt as this ingredient was omitted to prevent wateriness.

Meal 2: Pinto Bean Tamales, Black Bean & Rice Salad, Mixed Greens
· Heat the tamales in a microwave or in the basket of a steamer insert. It should take about 5 minutes.
· Enjoy the rice either at room temp or warmed in its casserole dish. Alternately you can warm it in a pan with some oil and a dash of water.
· Dress the greens and serve.

Local Notes:

Technique:

Cooking Egplant- is terribly imortant. There is, to my knowledge, no great recipe calling for undercooked eggplant. It is a volatile plant so my experience in technice comes with a caveat. But here's what I do: Cut the fruit appropriately and salt it generously. Allow it to steep as long as you may, but not more than an hour is necessary. Next, rinse the eggplant pieces in a collander and shake them off. Dress them with oil and perhaps some seasoning and prepare to grill tem or pan roast them. To pan roast them do use some oil but generally allow the pieces of eggplant to toast being sure to cook them through with one turn.