The Taro

Last week I was doing my typical routine to shop food at the boqueria market, suddenly I saw something familiar, yes, this thing you see in the picture; the "ñame" yep, I have never cooked it, but some recipes in my natal city are made with it, one of my favorites is a soup called "Mote de queso" is just good I was thinking to make it, a warm and tasty soup, I never thought I could find it here in Barcelona, this is a tuber type, like yuca(manioc or casava), sweet potatoe, etc

I was wondering what is the name of this thing in english? Is"Taro"(thank you wikipedia) and I started to read the origins; I realized Taro is native from southeast Asia, that`s interesting, by the way, Taro is cultivated here in Spain too, in Canary Islands. Great!

If you want more info click here

The "Panela" a natural sweet flavor

Have you ever seen this thing? not my hand :) this brown stone of course, probably at latin stores?.

I remember when I was a child I used to play many sports games all the time, football and baseball overall, and other kids games, that kind of games that you are running all the time and expending energy. I used to bring in my pockets small stones of this.

Panela was my energy charger to keep moving. the reason; is made with cane sugar, is an unrefined whole cane sugar, typical of Latin America, which is basically a solid piece of sucrose and fructose obtained from the boiling and evaporation of sugarcane juice.

totally natural and the best ingredient for my recipes, the taste is not like brown sugar but is close, if you have the chance to get it buy it because we are gonna cook a lot of recipes with it!

These are common Spanish names: chancaca, papelón(venezuela), piloncillo(mexico), panocha, rapadura, atado dulce or empanizao. In India and Pakistan a similar product is made which is called gur or jaggery. In Brazil, it is known as rapadura.

more info about panela by clicking here