Baleadas: VERY typical, popular Honduran food. - Printable Version +- Cuisine at home Forums (https://forums.cuisineathome.com) +-- Thread: Baleadas: VERY typical, popular Honduran food. (/showthread.php?tid=108007) |
Baleadas: VERY typical, popular Honduran food. - labradors - 09-17-2010 Thought I had posted this, a while back, after the first time I had made them completely from scratch, but I couldn't find it. Then I realised that I had waited to get more information about the tortilla part of it but had never found anything satisfactory. Thus, I have rewritten that part a bit. Baleadas are flour tortillas folded in half after having been spread with refried red beans and sprinkled with grated queso duro. They taste much better when the tortillas are made to order, instead of precooked or store-bought tortillas. In their most basic form, baleadas are VERY inexpensive, but other fillings may be added (with an increase in cost, of course), such as scrambled eggs, which are an especially common filling when having baleadas for breakfast. Other typical fillings are listed later. Note that the proportions of the ingredients (especially for the tortillas) can vary, quite a bit, from one cook to another. In fact, some people use milk, instead of water, to make the tortillas more tender, and some even add some an egg and a small amount of sugar. Adjust anything to make the tortilla dough easier to handle for your own brand of flour, humidity conditions, etc. Baleadas Ingredients for the Flour Tortillas:
Re: Baleadas: VERY typical, popular Honduran food. - Mare749 - 09-17-2010 Very good info here, labs. Thanks for posting all of it. I'll give these a try one more time. Only tried once and wasn't too happy with my results, but maybe your recipe will work out better for me. Copied and saved! Re: Baleadas: VERY typical, popular Honduran food. - labradors - 09-17-2010 Please do try these with freshly-made tortillas, even if you choose some other recipe for them. Just don't make them the super-thin, mass-produced type you can buy in the supermarket. It makes a huge difference. Since the time when I had started writing this, a couple of friends in the States have tried the Refried Red Beans and given them "thumbs up," so those should work for you. It's okay to add some more bell peppers and/or jalapeños, if you like, but they aren't usually super spicy. In fact, the places that sell baleadas usually keep bottles of Tabasco-style sauce handy for those who want to add more heat. Good luck! Re: Baleadas: VERY typical, popular Honduran food. - cjs - 09-18-2010 Labs, I have two flour tortilla recipes in my book, 'light and thin' and 'chewy flour' - and your recipe seems to be a combination of both of them. The 'light & thin' uses water and no b. powder, the 'chewy' uses milk and b. powder. Will have to try yours also. Boy, do Baleadas sound good! Also, I don't put cumin in my refried beans, will have to try that. Thanks for posting all this. Re: Baleadas: VERY typical, popular Honduran food. - Harborwitch - 09-18-2010 Oh Jean I always put cumin in my refried beans. Oh, shoot, I put it almost all my beans - with epazote. Re: Baleadas: VERY typical, popular Honduran food. - foodfiend - 09-18-2010 These sound so good, but I have recently had to come to the realization that I just cannot eat beans, they play havoc with tummy way too much. It seems as though they are an integral part of the recipe, though, and filling the tortillas with cheese and some of the options would be very good, just not baleadas. Re: Baleadas: VERY typical, popular Honduran food. - labradors - 09-18-2010 Jean, If those two recipes are T&T for you, then go with the chewy one. Baleadas are not thin the way American "wraps" would be. Cumin is use a lot, here. In fact, in the spice aisles of the supermarkets, they sell combined (and either whole or ground) cumin and black pepper, and it's used as a single seasoning. Sharon, I haven't seen epazote here, yet, but have recently seen some recipes (where else, but on El Gourmet) that call for it, so I'm going to have to look around more closely. Vicci, it's a shame you can't have the beans, since they truly ARE the primary filling of baleadas, as you say. Without them, you'd just have some kind of soft taco (and the type and amount of cheese used isn't something that could be called a quesadilla). I've heard that cooking a little baking soda in with the beans can help with some of the digestive problems, but have never tried it, myself, since they don't bother me. Re: Baleadas: VERY typical, popular Honduran food. - cjs - 09-18-2010 That's what I was thinking also, Labs. Re: Baleadas: VERY typical, popular Honduran food. - foodfiend - 09-18-2010 Labs, we have epazote growing as weeds around here. Seriously, my fields are packed with them! I've used every way possible to make beans "like" me... at least a dozen different soaking-and-cooking methods, adding epazote, adding baking soda, and even quadrupling the recommended amount of Beano before indulging. Nothing works. And I swear, this happened the week after I turned 50... wah!! Oh the other hand, a friend suddenly became allergic to alcohol several years ago. So maybe I should be thankful that my body decided to reject beans! Re: Baleadas: VERY typical, popular Honduran food. - labradors - 09-18-2010 For all I know, it could be around here, somewhere, too (as with the achiote, lemmon grass, etc. that grow here), but I haven't heard it mentioned anywhere. Need to check. So sorry about the beans. Sometimes, these things happen. |