It has been a long time…
I’m back! It has been a long time since my last post, I’m so sorry about that, many things came along but I’m finally back to blogging again =)
I have been to Prague recently…while waking on the streets of one of the most beautiful cities in the world and looking at the Vlatava river, Charles Bridge and Prague Castle, I said to myself there is no more beautiful place in the world than Paraguay, sounds crazy, no?…love is so subjective but at that moment I realized that wherever in the world Iam, there will never be a more beautiful place than my own, no matter where I go, no matter how far I go to find the perfect place…there is none but one, just one.
I found myself suddently thinking about the present Xmas time in Paraguay, that I will be missing again this year, I imagined myself buying Flor de coco from that street vendor at street a light…the smell of flor de coco is so unique, that is the Xmas smell. I cant never relate Xmas to the cold weather…Xmas for me is in summer with warm weather…hard to imagine no? well, that is the way I grew up.
Now friends are telling me that Xmas is becoming also very commercial, that is the part that doesnt make any sense for me…but well, thats the “evolution” of times I guess.
It is so funny when you go to the malls in Asuncion where they put the airconditioning on and on their Christmas trees the lay cotton simulating snow, I always observed that, they want to recreate a cold inviroment for Christmas but the true is that people even die of heat during the summer.
I hope that Asuncion is not become that fast and crazy kind of city…it’s been 8 years since I left, I guess that many things have changed but I hope that some things will always be the same…at least in my imagination.
Cheers…to the most beautiful city in the world!
Here a little xmas gift for you!
Chipa Guazu Recipe, to prepare for Xmas!, very traditional on Xmas table and one of my favorite Paraguayan Dishes!
Origin of the name
The “chipa guasu” owes its name to the conjunction of two words. The first, “chipa” refers generically to a diverse group of cakes that has corn as a base for its preparation and that is part of the “Tyra”, a Guarani term that names every food consumed to accompany the “mate cocido”, milk or coffee, or prepared just to be an addition to other dishes. The second word that intervenes in the composition of the name, “guasu”, means “big” by which it can be inferred that “chipa guasu”, is the biggest of all “chipas”.
Ingredients
In the preparation of “chipa guasu” are used: medium size onions, water, salt, pork fat, eggs, Paraguay cheese (a very fresh cheese), milk and corn grains.
Preparation
* I use butter instead of pork fat and canned corn, just modify this recipe, i wont taste as the originally but it still will taste great with some practice.
Chopped onions, water and salt, are boiled in a pot for about 10 minutes, and then let cool down. The pork fat is whipped until it turns creamy and a much lighter color, then the eggs are added one by one along pieces of fresh cheese, all without stop whipping. The boiled onions are added to this creamy preparation, and also the grains of corn (that have been previously mollified) and the milk.
Mix all together and the result is a paste that is put in a buttered or floured oven tray.
It’s cooked in the oven, at low heat (around 200°C) for about an hour and a half.
A variant of “chipa guasu” may not contain eggs, in which case it requires more milk.
