Canarian Christmas Recipes

Christmas in Tenerife

Canarian Christmas Recipes
The Christmas Season
Nochebuena/ Christmas Eve
Navidad/Christmas Day
Day of the Innocent Saints
Año Nuevo/New Year's Eve

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These recipes are just some of the sweet things traditionally eaten at Christmas time in the Canary Islands. A note about Canarian cuisine, it is felt rather than measured, so quantities and their conversions are vague and given merely as a guide.

Truchas de Batata  (Sweet Potato Pies)

Ingredients: For the pastry:- 3 tablespoons of lard, 1 small glass of olive oil, 500 grams (1 l.b.) flour. For the filling:
500 grams (1 l.b.) sweet potatoes, 250 grams (8 Oz) almonds, 1
small cup of caster sugar, 3 egg yolks, a teaspoon of aniseed, a
dash of rum, a dash of aniseed liqueur, a teaspoon of ground
cinnamon, grated lemon rind, oil for frying.

Preparation:

Filling: Boil the sweet potatoes in water with a little salt.
When they are done, peel them, pound to a pulp and mix them with
the almonds, flavourings and liqueurs.

Pastry: Mix together the lard, oil and flour until a mass is
formed and leave to rest for a short time. Cover a surface with
flour and roll out the pastry until it is very thin. Cut out
small rounds with a cup and put a small amount of filling into
the centre of each. Close them by folding in half to make little
semi-circular patties. Press down and seal with the aid of a
fork. Fry in hot oil then sprinkle with sugar.

Polvorones  (Powder Cakes)

Ingredients: 500 grams (1 l.b.) of sugar, 500 grams (1 l.b.) of
lard, 1 KG (2 lbs.) of four, a good pinch of ground cinnamon, the
grated rind of a green lemon and a good pinch of ground aniseed.

Preparation: Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix with the hands until it forms a paste. To make the polverones, take small handfuls of the mixture and make into small ovals, something like cookies. Place the polverones onto a baking tray, greased with butter or lard, and bake them in the oven until golden brown. Temperature? The original recipe from which I have translated this, did not state, but my educated guess is that the recipe dates from a time when ovens came with but one setting - HOT.

A variation on the above, Mantecados, can be made with the same
method and ingredients, to which have been added six eggs and a
pinch of salt.

Turrón de Chocolate (Chocolate Nougat)

This typical Christmas sweet is simple to make even for kids.

Ingredients for one bar of turrón: 250 grams of butter, 250 grams
of cake, 100 grams (4 Oz) of almonds, 100 grams (4 Oz) of
walnuts, 1 x 150 gram (6 Oz) tablet of chocolate and 8
tablespoons of sugar.

Method: Put the chocolate in a basin over a saucepan of hot water
and leave it to melt. Work the butter with the sugar until you
obtain a creamy consistency. Add the tepid chocolate to the cream
with the crumbled cakes and mix the whole lot together well. Add
the almonds and walnuts, well chopped. Turn the mixture into a
rectangular mould, lined with greaseproof paper that has been
spread with butter. Leave it to set in the fridge or a cool place
for 24 hours before removing from the mould. (That's the hard
part.) Cut into squares to serve.

Mistela (Liquor)

Ingredients: 1 litre (2 pt) of aguardiente (spirit from sugar
cane), 1.5 kilos (3 lbs.) of sugar, three-quarters of a litre of
water, the peel from 4 locally grown oranges, lemon peel, 2
cinnamon sticks, aniseed.

Preparation: Boil all the ingredients for half an hour. Leave to cool, filter
and bottle. (NOTES: Another recipe suggested that the ingredients
should be placed together in a glass container, stoppered and
left for 15 days before proceeding to the boiling part. Yet
another suggested 8 days and the addition of half a litre of
white rum to the mixture. Take your pick!)

Christmas Champagne Cocktail

In a wide glass place a teaspoon of white sugar, dampen the sugar with angostura bitters, add a slurp of Cuantro, another of Red Curaçao and another of Brandy (Spanish of course). Stir, add some cubes of ice and fill the glass with Cava (Spanish champagne).

Decorate the side of the glass with orange and lemon peel, add a cherry and, the advice goes on to say, don't abuse it too much because it is a strong cocktail. Would we?

Roscón de Reyes (Crown of Kings)

Ingredients: 6 people:
1/2 kg (1.1 lb.) flour, Glacé Fruits, 40 gr (1.4 oz) bakers' yeast, 100 gr (3.5 oz) sugar, 150 cc. (1/3 pint) milk, 1 small cup vintage rum, 3 eggs, 1 small cup orange blossom water, 120 gr. (4 oz) of butter, grated orange and lemon rind, 10 gr. (1/3 oz) of salt, 1 heat-resistant Surprise

Method: Knead half of the flour with the yeast and 100 cc. of lukewarm milk. Make a ball, make cuts in the top part, cover with a cloth and leave rest for 90 minutes in a warm place.

Beat the eggs with the melted butter, then add the salt, sugar, rum, the rest of the milk, orange blossom water, the orange and lemon rind, binding it with the remaining flour and knead for a good short while.

Add the mass to the rest work everything together (energetically, it says) until you obtain a fine and elastic mass. Make it into a ball again, place it in a container, cover it with a cloth and leave it to rest, this time for three hours until it's double its size again.

Grease an oven tray. Take the paste, knead slightly and make it into the form of a crown by making a roll, twisting and joining the ends, then place it on the tray. Cover it with a cloth and leave it to rise for another two hours.

Paint with beaten egg, adorn with the Glacé fruits, place the surprise somewhere inside and place in the oven, preheated to a medium-high temperature for about 40 minutes.

In case that it browns very quickly, cover it with a sheet of aluminum foil until the baking finishes.

NOTE: It is very important that air cannot get to the mass at any point during the fermentation process.

About the author: Pamela Heywood has been resident in Tenerife since 1992. This article first appeared in Tenerife Topics, a monthly newsletter that looks mostly at the other face of Tenerife from that the tourist usually discovers.