The Baker and Food in Cuba

A blog post about The Chocolate Museum

The non-baker and baker are currently in different cities in different countries and thus the baker finds it necessary to wax poetic about the flavors and textures of Cuban food herself.

After a long arduous day of drifting the streets of La Vieja Habana, learning about the layered architecture from the 20th century, and staring at the imported Asian cars and antique US ones, the baker found herself worn out. It was time for a snack.

She has no kitchen in which to bake for herself in Havana, nor would she really want anything hot, as it is already so hot and humid here. Instead, she wandered into the line outside The Chocolate Museum.

This little chocolate café is in the center of old Havana, near shops and cluttered with people in line to get in and order their chocolate fresca.

As readers of this blog know, the Baker is an odd one because she does not enjoy cocoa flavoring. That means no chocolate pudding or ice cream or milkshakes or milk. However, this cold chocolate drink was a very notable exception.

First the lady fingers arrived. These were different shapes and sizes, but their lack of uniformity made them all the more intruiging. The baker bit into a plain one. The soft crunch was surprisingly airy and savory. But, it was also dusted with cinnamon sugar. Yum.

Then the chocolate fresca came. The tall cool glass was already precipitating from the cool liquid it encased. Foam filled the top eighth of the glass. The first sip was wonderful. It was cold and frothy, yet full of flavor. It was thick and not syrupy. An milky iceshake. Then a straw and a napkin were brought. The baker wiped her chocolate moustache.

Where did the shake go? Was the glass really that small? There was only about a fourth of the glass till full.

She dipped the lady finger cookie. It softened and grew in size a little as the chocolate froth permeated the crisp exterior. Then in her mouth, it dissolved into crumble. Why didn’t I dip this before and order about 5 more of these?

Then the shake was gone. Only the aftertaste of the sweet shake lingered softly and sweetly in her mouth.

Blizzard creativity

So the Baker and the non-baker dealt with some......interesting weather this week. And, as a result, the non-baker didn't leave her house for something on the order of 48 hours. Since the non-baker never remembers to go grocery shopping, it was time for a bunch of creative cooking.

The non-baker managed to convince one of her roommates that a blizzard was the perfect weather in which to try out a recipe for scallion pancakes that she had made over the summer. She mostly used this recipe. Well, sort of. First they mixed up the dough, doubling the recipe, and using 5-ish cups of flour and 2 cups of water and kneading it into dough and coating it with a little bit of oil. Then they let it sit for 30 minutes.

And this is where she started to change the recipe. She didn't have scallions sitting around, and so used onions instead. Then they took pieces of dough and, as per her roommates instruction, put some onions in the center and then flattened the dough into a pancake shape. They then heated up a pan, put a little bit of oil in the bottom of it and cooked the pancakes, a few minutes on each side until they were a bit brown on each side.

Rather than a traditional dipping sauce, they mixed up a bit of soy sauce with white vinegar.

But they ended up with a fair amount of leftover dough, since they had made so much to start with. So, the next day, the non-baker used more of the dough, this time making plain flatbreads, since they had used up all the chopped onions the day before.

But even that didn't use up all of the dough. So, the next day, the non-baker decided to use some of the dough to make a dessert. As usual, the non-baker wanted to find a way to include chocolate and peanut butter, which shouldn't be a surprise, given her penchant for peanut butter and chocolate nutella. The non-baker decided to make chocolate peanut butter potstickers. She made little potstickers, put 2-3 chocolate chips in them, and a small bit of peanut butter.

Then she warmed up a pan, put a little oil on it and browned the bottom up the potstickers. Then she added a quarter cup of water to the pan and covered it, letting the water dissolve. And voila! Delicious dessert potstickers.