Mango brown sugar rum jam. Need I say more?

 

Homemade jam is always the way to go. Mangoes have a special place in my heart anyway, so I’m pretty much always going to say yes to them, in any way shape or form. The brown sugar in Panama and most other Latin American countries leaves absolutely nothing to be desired: it’s called raspadura, and it hasn’t been processed to high heaven, so there’s a molasses flavor to it, and so much of the syrup that comes from the cane that it’s extracted from that it holds itself together. (I don’t actually know if that’s true, but I think that’s the case. At any rate, once you’ve started eating raspadura, there’s no going back. White sugar tastes like plastic.)

Add a little bit of rum and you’ve got a perfect tropical near-the-equator jam, at least when Candice makes it. Here's her description: 

Mango Jam with Brown Sugar and Rum: Organic Mangoes.  Slightly chunky!  Great as a pie filling or on french toast and ice cream!   Use within 2 weeks or freeze.

 So, what do you do with it?

Well, I found that once I popped open the jar I couldn’t wait long enough to go get ingredients to make anything more involved, although I instantly had a ton of ideas of what it would be good with. Instead, I ate it on toasted yucca bread from one of the local bakeries. Yucca is a tuber that I most often see as either a potato-like mash or as fries here, but the yucca bread at Ceiba bakery has this crunchy sweet crust on the top, and it’s soft and squishy and just what you’re not supposed to like anymore in this day and age of whole wheat bread. I should have made it into French Toast, but like I said I was impatient, so I just toasted the bread and slathered it in jam. I had accidentally squished it on the way home, so it doesn’t look near as pretty as it could, but there you have it:

But as soon as I had eaten my way into a stupor, finishing the bread and most of the jam, I was finally able to think about other options for this delectable goodness. Here’s a short list:

• On French Toast or waffles, with whipped cream and toasted pecans
• Wrapped in a crepe with ricotta or mascarpone cheese
• Served on a cheese platter, with aged queso manchego or other hard aged cheeses
• On buttermilk biscuits
• Inside a scone, like the ones they sell a the county fair
• And I’m going to go out on a limb here, but it would probably be pretty tasty with cornbread with bacon in it. No? Fine. I didn’t want to share with you anyway.
• It would be great warm on vanilla ice cream, and as a glaze on the top of a tart. And you know what? It would probably be absolutely disgustingly amazing baked onto pork tenderloin medallions with cilantro. Just sayin.

Adventures in Sauces

I have to let you in on a little secret: as far as food is concerned, the only thing that I'm missing here in Boquete, Panama is good Mexican food. Not the ingredients for good Mexican food, mind you: just the ability to get in a car, drive somewhere, get out and be in a place that serves delicious Mexican cuisine. 

As far as great, high-quality ingredients and specialty products -- Israeli cous cous, spelt flour, brown Basmati rice, spirulina, flax seed, etc. -- we're covered. Don't even get me started on the coffee: some of the best coffee in the world is grown here, and I have gleefully enjoyed tasting all sorts of different brands and types. 

When it comes to fresh, organic produce, I am positively basking in possibilities. Each week I get an email from my favorite farmers, I send off my order and when I show up at the Tuesday morning market, there is a bag of goodies waiting for me in their truck.

In the couple months since I've been here, I have slowly but surely built up a friendship with Curt and Candice, owners of Palmira Produce, originally from Northern California and now farmers and -- wait for it -- sauce  makers for the lucky inhabitants of Boquete, "land of eternal spring." 

Although I had seen Candice's list of sauces every week, I mostly just stuck to the produce, with the occasional foray into the amazing things she had to offer. Her homemade Sriracha sauce is BETTER than the original. Her homemade dill pickles are DELICIOUS, and her peanut sauce is creamy and spicy and downright amazing. 

In four months of being here, though, that's very little compared to the list she has, organized by continent, and made mostly with ingredients from her garden.

So when she walked me to the cooler in the back of her truck a couple weeks ago and started pulling out sauces, what could I do but say yes to trying some? Well, it was less of a "yes" and more of a "HELL YEAH!"

First of all: Banana ketchup. Wha??

Pan fried noodles & vegetables with banana ketchup

Candice's sauce description:  
Caribbean Banana Ketchup:  This is really fun to use. It really does not taste much like bananas. Those who have sampled it have mentioned flavors like A-1 Pic a Pepper Sauce or Worcestershire with a slight sweetness (no added sugar) to balance out the flavors and texture like ketchup.


You heard right. Banana. Ketchup. The consistency of ketchup, with the same vinegar bite, but with a much less acidic consistency (regular ketchup often feels like it's burning my tongue). It pours like ketchup and is surprisingly less sweet. 

I wanted to put it on everything, so I did. I used it as a sauce for my pan fried chow mein and stir-fried veggies, and it went especially well with the purple cabbage I included, even MORE especially because I cooked it in coconut oil. Since the banana ketchup is less sweet than regular ketchup (in my opinion), the coconut oil's touch of dulce was perfect. 
And because my favorite combination is sweet and spicy, I also added some of her Sriracha to the mix. :)
Aside from my concoction, it would be a great accompaniment to sweet potato fries, patacones (the local fried green bananas) and I bet it would be REALLY good on a Hawaiian chicken burger with a slice of pineapple. Ooo, and you know what else it would be good on, even if it's already perfect the way it is? Caribbean Pork Tenderloin.

"I have Harissa," Candice said, her head in the cooler. 
Radio silence.
"Do you know what Harissa is?" she asked.
I had to admit that I didn't. 

Candice's sauce description:   
Moroccan Harissa:  A sauce / paste made from Dried Red Chiles, Roasted Sweet Red Peppers with lots of garlic and various spices, such as caraway, mint and cumin.

Oh thank the gods that I still get to learn new things about food! The Harissa was delicious: almost smoky in flavor, it would make a great better-than-barbecue-sauce topping for a burger, a broiled pork chop, or grilled chicken. I found a recipe online for a Harissa Bloody Mary, with balsamic vinegar. (Note to self: buy some vodka)
It had just enough kick to make me happy, and enough depth of flavor to make me swoon.
I made a phad-thai type dish, with rice noodles, all the vegetables I had on hand -- carrots, cabbage, onions, kale, etc. -- scrambled egg and harissa as the sauce. 
When it came right down to it, though, it was missing something: sweetness. Call me a one-trick pony, but I like my food to have the whole wheel of flavors: spice as in depth, spice as in hot, and sweet to play a little bit on the tongue. So...I added papaya.

Harissa Phad Thai with Papaya

It wasn't bad, but it could have been better. Papaya was what I had on hand, but the real answer that I was looking for is my favorite sweet ingredient that I put in pretty much any dish with savory vegetables: golden raisins. If I had had any, this new concoction of harissa phad thai would have been PERFECT. All thanks to a native Californian with a penchant for sauces that decided her paradise was the same place as mine.