Empanadillas à la Puerto Rico: A Latin Cultural Cooking Experience

On Denison's campus, Preston House is the residential site for language students. With language at the core of cultural exploration and identity, students are organised by target language and meet regularly to celebrate cultural dimensions of the language. During my Filipino food and culture program, I was invited to join the Spanish language students on a Latin cooking venture of their own. Little did I know beforehand that I would soon be learning so much from the starting point of a dough-filled pastry and its culinary (and cultural) variations. On the menu: empanadillas of chicken and pizza; yellow rice with turkey sausage; potato salad; and chocolate chip cookies.

Béchamel, Attempt 2 (Successful); Meringue, Attempt 1 (Not so much)

It's a bit difficult to spend time plating and taking photos while having hungry guests, so this was all tastier than this photo leads you to believe...

This evening, I set out to master my béchamel/Mornay sauce and came across an astounding revelation. Okay, it wasn't exactly astounding, but I was certainly geeked about it: the proportional ratio for this sauce is 1:1, 1:1, 1:1. For the roux, for every tablespoon of butter you melt, incorporate a tablespoon of flour. And for every tablespoon, you need an equivalent cup. For every cup of milk you mix into the roux, add a cup of cheese off the heat. Also add a pinch of sea salt and a pinch of ground black pepper, to taste, off the heat as well. You can finish the sauce off with a touch of nutmeg or for the recipe below, paprika. So, all of that said, two of the guys in the res hall I live in joined me for tonight's culinary tasting lab, or rather "dinner." Tonight's menu included empanadas, mac 'n cheese (with béchamel and bacon, and a side of broccoli), and nectarine blueberry meringue pie. In addition to my overjoy when it came to this whole ratio deal, I should also note that the majority of this meal was Food Network chef guided and inspired.