Pucusana

08/31/2012

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Here are some photos from Pucusana, beachtown and a traditional fishing village on the Central Peruvian Pacific cost, 60 kms south of Lima.

During the holiday weekend of 28th July (Peruvian independence day known as Fiestas Patrias) we  stopped shortly here, to eat some seafood and even ended up making a little improvised fishing trip I was the first one to catch fish! But it was too small, a little fish called borracha, "drunk fish", so it was liberated.  More than fish, we saw giant, jelly medusas floating at the surface of the water!
Once back at the harbour, we saw a professional fishing boat arriving after two weeks out on the sea. Boat full of swordfish, biggest ones weighted 190 kgs. 


As July is winter time in Peru, the town was rather quiet. But supposedly it is a very busy spot during the summer season.
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Sweets from Brazil

08/13/2012

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 Dulce de leche, a.k.a manjar blanco is a food product I wish was easier to find in Europe. It's a soft and sticky spread that tastes like toffee/caramel. You can either eat it au naturel directly from the jar, of in a more civilised way spread on crêpes or pancakes, or use it as an ingredient of various pastries, like alfajores.

Another product I really like is condensed milk. When boiled it turns into manjar, but it can also be used as such for baking. I have now tried a couple of times to make Brazilian sweets called brigadeiras  -literally means brigadiers, brigadier being a name for an army officer. I was wondering why the sweets were called like that, and with a little help from my friend Google, I found explanation here. I will not write it here because this is aiming to be very politically correct and family oriented blog ;)


I discovered the recipe (in French) originally from a blog called The Blind Taste -there are other very tempting recipes on that site, too.


These sweets have always vanished very fast from the fridge whenever I've made them, so I dare to say that they are really delicious. Ingredients are simple: butter, cocoa powder and a can of condensaded milk. For toppings, you can improvise: coconut, cocoa powder, crushed nuts or almonds...The only tricky part is to make the little balls, but if you are patient and leave the dough long enough in the fridge it should be quite easy peasy.

Brigadeiras brasileiras:

1 can of condensed milk

25 gr of butter

6 table spoons of cocoa powder


Melt the butter on medium heat, then add the condensaded milk and cocoa powder. Cook until it gets solid enough to see the bottom of the caserole while you are mixing the spread. Then pour it on a plate and place in the fridge to cool.

Once it's cold you can spread some butter on your hands and start making little balls. Roll them in grated coconut, cocoa powder or crushed almonds or nuts. Here I used cocoa powder, crushed peanuts and coconut with some blue color on coconut to make them look funky  

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