Flavors, Cultures and Eggs

I like experimenting with different recipes from various cultures.

Mixing up the flavors and ingredients. South American flavors combine very well with Mediterranean I find.

Here's a Cuban recipe known as Achiote Chicken.

These are the measurements needed for two chicken quarters

Achiote powder 2 tbsp

Garlic 4 cloves

Cumin 1 teasp

Evoo 2 tbsp

Fresh cilantro 2 tbsp

Sea salt to taste (or none at all)

Make a paste out of the above ingredients.

Coat the chicken with it and refrigerate over night (at least 6-8 hours)

Grill on high heat for some nice grill marks and then move to indirect heat to finish.

If you don't have a grill, you can use a cast iron pan to sear it on the stove and then move to the oven. 325 for about 20 minutes should do the trick.

I also "blackened" a few eggplant on the grill and then removed the skin. Tossed that in the food processor with 2 small cloves of garlic. To go with that, I made some tahini dressing.

Tahini, 1 small clove of garlic, drop of lemon juice, 1 tbs evoo and water. Add water at the end and keep adding so that you get a runny dressing consistency. It is great drizzled over the eggplant mush, but also great to dip your achiote chicken in. The farmers market had fresh Okra, so I picked up some. Simply sauteed with onion and dried California chili peppers that I bought at a little roadside farm stand. They are not spicy, but have lots of flavor.

Delicious!

EGGS;

At that same roadside stand, I bought some fresh eggs.

Now I need your help, I'm not 100% sure theses are chicken eggs.

What do you think? They are HUGE in comparison to the Organic Valley brown eggs (lower right for comparison) I have in my fridge. The shell of these eggs seems thin. Any thoughts?

I have some cool posts coming up with reviews of a new REAL FOOD cook book.

More details to follow.

I think you're going to like it.