recipe | Bewitching Kitchen

The moment I stumbled on this amazing blog – Ghoulatheart.com – I knew I had to make something from it right away. The recipe for Muertos Rancheros called my name really loud, as I had the right pan for it and the timing could not be more perfect: the week before Halloween! I made a tomato-free version, so if you want a more authentic version, check her blog post.

MUERTOS RANCHEROS
(inspired by Ghoulatheart.com)

Mock tomato sauce:
1 jar of roasted red bell pepper (12 ounce)
8 ounces mushrooms
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
salt to taste

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 shallot, finely minced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 pound ground turkey
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1 can black beans
cilantro leaves to taste
chicken stock to adjust consistency

jumbo eggs, whites and yolks separated
olive oil spray

garnish (optional)
flour tortillas cut in ghost shapes
olive oil spray

Heat oven to 350F.

Cut flour tortilla in ghosts shapes of varied sizes. Spray olive oil on both sides and bake until golden. Reserve for garnish.

Make the bell pepper sauce by running all ingredients in a food processor until super smooth. Reserve.

Heat the olive oil on a large skillet, add the celery and shallots, season lightly with salt. Sautee until fragrant. Add the ground turkey, salt, chili, cumin, and cook until the turkey is almost cooked through. Add 1 cup of the red bell pepper sauce, cook gently in low heat for 10 minutes, with the lid on. Add the black beans, cilantro, and a little chicken stock to loosen the sauce and make it a good environment to place the eggs over. Cover the pan and keep it at a simmer.

Make the eggs. Spray the skull pan with olive oil, add the egg white of the JUMBO egg, season lightly with salt. Cook in the oven for 4 minutes. Remove the pan, add the egg yolks, one per cavity. Put back in the oven and cook for 3 to 4 minutes more. Remove the pan from the oven, go over the edges of the eggs with a plastic knife or spatula to make sure it is loose enough to slip off the pan. Place a parchment paper and a baking sheet on top of the pan (careful, it is HOT), invert it. Eggs should slip off easily. Carefully place them with a silicone spatula over the sauce, with the heat turned off. You might need to add more chicken stock depending on how dry the sauce looks. Serve immediately decorated with tortilla ghosts.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: If you ever need to adapt a recipe that calls for tomato sauce due to food sensitivities, I recommend you try this red bell pepper version. I saw it online in a discussion forum and was intrigued. We really like it a lot. It is of course a huge departure from the ranchero sauce, but I hope the Ranchero Police won’t come after me. Cooking the eggs in the pan can be tricky, I had a big mess on my first try, I did not use spray, I rubbed olive oil in the cavities and that was clearly not effective. Some readers of her blog recommended adding the yolk to the sauce and just cooking the whites in the pan, but I found it harder to invert the egg whites only as the volume is very shallow. I think what works best is add the eggs to the sauce with the heat OFF, and let the yolks just cook in the residual heat. You might want to practice with one egg in your oven and see how it goes. Nudge the egg gently with a plastic spatula before inverting on the parchment paper.

Such a fun meal for scary times! The tortilla ghosts I saw on FoodTV The Kitchen show, and thought it was a good way to add something else to this meal. Poor little ghost was a little scared, knowing his end – another end – was near!

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These were made with a colleague from our department in mind, it was a big Birthday for our IT wizard who is also a lover of German Chocolate Cake. I decided to make a filling that started as a brigadeiro would, but with coconut for good measure. Some toasted pecans in the center. And a coating with chocolate. Gold luster powder to add the mandatory bling, as if you don’t sparkle on a Birthday there is something wrong with you!

GERMAN CHOCOLATE MACARONS
(from the Bewitching Kitchen)

For the shells:
200g powdered sugar
115 g almond flour, preferably super fine
115 g egg whites at room temperature (approx. 4 eggs)
1/8 tsp of cream of tartar (optional)
100 g granulated sugar
¼ tsp vanilla paste or extract
brown and a tiny bit of red gel food color

Line 3 heavy baking sheets with parchment/baking paper or Silpat mats. Layer the powdered sugar and almond flour in a food processor. Pulse until the mixture looks like fine meal, about 12 pulses. Pass through a sieve and transfer to a small bowl or to a sheet of parchment/baking paper. Set aside.

Place the egg whites and cream of tartar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Make sure that the bowl and the whisk are impeccably clean. Starting on medium speed, whip the whites with the cream of tartar until they look like light foam. The whites should not appear liquid. The foam will be light and should not have any structure.

Slowly rain in the granulated sugar in five additions, trying to aim the stream between the whisk and the side of the bowl. Turn the speed up to high. Continue to whip the meringue until it is soft and shiny. It should look like marshmallow creme (marshmallow fluff). Add the vanilla. Whip the egg whites until the mixture begins to dull and the lines of the whisk are visible on the surface of the meringue. Check the peak. It should be firm. Transfer the whites to a medium bowl, add the gel color.

Fold in the almond flour mixture in two increments. Paint the mixture halfway up the side of the bowl, using the flat side of a spatula. Scrape the mixture down to the center of the bowl. Repeat two or three times, then check to see if the mixture slides slowly down the side of the bowl. Put the mixture in a piping bag fitted with your choice of piping tip (round, ¼ or ½ inch in diameter or 6 – 12 mm). Pipe circles. Slam each sheet hard four to six times on the counter/worktop. Let the unbaked macarons dry until they look dull but not overly dry. Drying time depends on humidity. In a dry climate, the macarons can dry in 15 to 20 minutes; in a humid climate, it can take 35 to 40 minutes.

While the macarons are drying, heat the oven to 300 F. Bake one sheet at a time on the middle rack. Check in 11 minutes. If the tops slide or move (independently of the ‘feet’ when you gently twist the top), then bake for 2 to 3 more minutes. Check one or two. If they move when gently touched, put them back in the oven for 1 to 2 more minutes until they don’t move when touched. Let the macaroons cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. The macarons should release without sticking.

Assemble the macarons: find two macarons similar in size and add a good amount of filling to the bottom of one of them. Place the other on top and squeeze gently to take the filling all the way to the edge. Store in the fridge for 24 hours for perfect texture.

For the filling:
1 can condensed milk
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1 tbsp cocoa powder
toasted pecans, chopped fine
melted dark chocolate or candy melts
toasted sweetened coconut
golden luster spray (optional)

Before filling the shells, melt chocolate or candy melts and dip ONE shell that will be the top half way into it. Immediately sprinkle toasted coconut on top.

Make a “brigadeiro” mixture by adding condensed milk, butter, cocoa powder and coconut to a sauce pan. Heat in medium heat constantly stirring until the mixture releases from the bottom of the pan. Transfer to a bowl and let it cool, but do not refrigerate. You can pipe it on the shells if it is still slightly warm, but not too hot.

Add a circle of coconut brigadeiro to a bottom shell, sprinkle a little bit of pecans in the center. Cover with the decorated and fully set top shell. Spray gold luster if you like. Place shells in the fridge overnight.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: I normally prefer not to add cocoa to the shells, just to the filling, because macarons are finicky enough and sometimes “stuff happens” when you add cocoa. I had never used brigadeiro to fill them, and from the feedback I got, it worked quite well. I did not have a macaron but tried the brigadeiro mixture and that is one good tasting brigadeiro, I might repeat it and roll it like the traditional stuff.