Dumpling Update: Masa Ball Soup
Apr. 7th, 2011 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
multipurposegoddessAn actual April recipe! Sopa de Bolitas de Masa from Mexico. The English translation amuses me.
This is like tortilla soup, but instead of tortilla strips, its got fried balls of masa (with added cheese and cilantro and jalapeno). My frying technique (the recipe calls it "shallow frying", basically shaking the balls in a 1/2 inch of oil) needs work, and I need to not eyeball the tablespoon of oil that is to be left in the pan for cooking the tomatoes and onions and spices (cooking that stuff down into an unrecognizable paste before adding it to the broth, by the way, is a new technique to me and I love it! Fresh tomatoes and onions are not my favorites, but cook them enough and their great) as I ended up with way too much oil in the finished bowl of soup. I also ended up adding more broth to the dumpling batter as it seemed very dry when I first mixed it up, which, may have contributed to my frying difficulties. OTOH, I used my homemade stock and it's quite gelatinous, so I may actually have needed the extra moisture. In any case, I suspect a higher temperature and less oil will make the frying work better.
But even with these flaws, this made for a delicious meal. Would be easy to make vegetarian or vegan, already wheat-free.
3 servings of masa balls in the freezer for future soups.
I found palm sugar at the grocery store today, so next time I make onde-onde I'll try it with that. I believe I've got a 9-layer cake recipe coming up soon that also calls for palm sugar. Now I just need to find pandan.
This is like tortilla soup, but instead of tortilla strips, its got fried balls of masa (with added cheese and cilantro and jalapeno). My frying technique (the recipe calls it "shallow frying", basically shaking the balls in a 1/2 inch of oil) needs work, and I need to not eyeball the tablespoon of oil that is to be left in the pan for cooking the tomatoes and onions and spices (cooking that stuff down into an unrecognizable paste before adding it to the broth, by the way, is a new technique to me and I love it! Fresh tomatoes and onions are not my favorites, but cook them enough and their great) as I ended up with way too much oil in the finished bowl of soup. I also ended up adding more broth to the dumpling batter as it seemed very dry when I first mixed it up, which, may have contributed to my frying difficulties. OTOH, I used my homemade stock and it's quite gelatinous, so I may actually have needed the extra moisture. In any case, I suspect a higher temperature and less oil will make the frying work better.
But even with these flaws, this made for a delicious meal. Would be easy to make vegetarian or vegan, already wheat-free.
3 servings of masa balls in the freezer for future soups.
I found palm sugar at the grocery store today, so next time I make onde-onde I'll try it with that. I believe I've got a 9-layer cake recipe coming up soon that also calls for palm sugar. Now I just need to find pandan.