Laylita's Recipes from Episode 8
Bootie and Bossy had the honor of interviewing Layla Pujol, the creator of Laylita.com, an Ecuadorian food blog and one of the contributors to the cookbook Yo Cocino Latino (fun fact, after the book was published, Layla was interviewed by Books and Books, one of Bossy and Bootie's father's favorite book stores in Miami). Bootie has had the pleasure of tasting many of Layla's dishes and would recommend these to start your journey into this culinary wonderland. The photos on this page (other than the header and footer) are all courtesy of Laylita herself and available on her blog in English and Spanish!
Layla recommended this yummy cheese filled potato dish as an initiation into the flavors of Ecuador. You serve these with various sauces, including a peanut sauce, pickled onion and tomato salsa, and aji hot sauce, as well as avocado, egg, or chorizo (as pictured here). If you're local to Bootie, we talked about the Ladysmith cheese from the Samish Cheese farm near Edison in Washington state as a good substitute for Ecuadorian cheese.
This is where Bootie started when trying out Layla's recipes. It's super easy and also an excellent vehicle for the sauces that go with it.
This is probably the second recipe of Layla's that Bootie tried, and it has become a family staple (her son usually requests it when he's home from college). It's really easy to make and so light and refreshing! Bootie also highly recommends the langostino ceviche. It's also amazing and amazingly simple to make (Bootie usually finds the langostinos at Costco).
Somehow we didn't get to it on the podcast, but we have to include Layla's amazing empanadas!! Once again, the sauces add the extra flavor that makes it super special,
Layla talked about the tamarillo or the tree tomato which is native to Ecuador but currently being exported by New Zealand (who gave it the name tamarillo to distinguish it from the tomato). Layla has a recipe for a spicy tamarillo sauce!
