- Hey, what's up, I'm Brenda.
I'm a Tasty producer and today
we're gonna be making my favorite Hispanic recipes.
(funky upbeat music)
Tortilla espanola is a dish that originates in Spain.
They will eat it in gatherings, mostly during the summer.
They can eat it cold and hot.
And the reason why I created this,
it's because my dad's family have Spain heritage.
So realizing that this is a very popular dish,
I wanna explore that other half of my culture
that I haven't been really connecting with.
So, when I made this, it's not only very simple
but it's very delicious even though a lot of people here
were not exposed to it.
They're familiar with this dish
but the ingredients are so common
that people of all kinds enjoyed it
and ask me for the recipe because that's how good it was.
And I thought well, this is the perfect excuse
to learn something new and to explore.
And when I made it, I realized that it has
a lot of commonalities with the South American culture.
Not only that but this simple dish
has a lot of potential to connect with people
who are not even Latin American
because the ingredients are so common.
So, really, you have don't have to go to Spain
to get a little authentic taste of this culture.
You can just grab a couple of tomatoes, eggs,
and then play with this ingredients
and you will be eating authentic Spaniard cuisine.
One of my favorite recipes called aborrajados
because it's Columbian which is where I'm from.
Also because it's super easy and delicious.
So, this is the first video that I make
which is amazing, it's great.
But get this, I'm making this with Adam Bianchi
which you probably know from Worth It.
So, there comes a part where we have to get the aborrajados
and break it in half and get that beautiful cheese pull
and this dude looks at me, the pressure takes over,
and there I am breaking that thing
as he's looking at me like you can do it!
And it happened.
It was incredible.
I managed to get a smile out of Bianchi.
You know he never smiles while I did
and I'm still in the books, on record,
as the one and only person who made him smile.
(bell chiming)
When we published it, in the comments,
a lot of people were starting claiming
this recipe as theirs.
Meaning, Ecuadorian people were saying
that's actually Ecuadorian, Peruvians, Puerto Ricans.
So, it was really cool to realize
okay, this is what I thought was a Columbian recipe,
it's actually this Latin American recipe
that a lot of people are calling different names
and making it in different ways so it's ours.
It was kind of enlightening to realize
that what I thought was ours is really Latin American.
And it's so easy.
Really all you're doing is grabbing some sweet plantains,
frying it, flattening it,
and then you put whatever you want inside.
In Columbia, we put a little bit of cheese
and sometimes a little bit of guava paste.
It's so amazing to see those different interpretations
of such a delicious, simple dish.
And guess what?
Not only did we get the cheese pull,
it was one of the most successful videos
that we had on Bien Tasty so thank you Adam.
Alright, you and I know that bread pudding
does not belong to Columbia or Latin America
but it's a very popular dessert.
Because what you're really doing is grabbing any extra
bread that you have laying around home
and adding whatever you want.
In this case, I noticed that there was a little twist.
People were adding a little bit of dulce de leche
which is flat caramel.
And instead of just sugar and heavy cream,
we were adding condensed milk which has everything.
It's creamy, it has the sugar, it's milky
so you have everything in this one ingredient.
When this was ready to go out, people tried it.
There was this girl at work, her name is Merrill.
She never had it before, not in this way at least,
and she said, can I just grab a little bit?
Can I grab a little bit more?
It was so popular and a lot of people
were texting me for recipes and begging me
to please make it all over again and so I did.
If you wanna please a big crowd, this is your option.
So, green plantain gives us a couple of things.
We char tostones also known as patacones
in my country in Columbia.
So, tostones is really just green plantain
that has been fried and then it's flattened
and then it's fried again.
So, as I'm going through Instagram, I realize
that there a couple of places in Columbia
who are making this plantain cone
and it's super cool because now you have
amazing, delicious plantain with a filling on the go.
Inspired by all of this post and this new trend,
I decided to bring it to Tasty.
And to my surprise, it was super successful.
A lot of people from different cultures
embraced this idea and soon after,
articles from around the world
started talking about this plantain cone,
which again, not my creation
but it was trending in my country.
And now, the whole continent knew about it.
It was cool to realize that by publishing this video,
I was somehow highlighting this little dish
in a little tiny corner of a country
and at the end of the day, a lot of small business
benefited because their recipe becomes popular
and it's super cool because now you have
amazing, delicious plantain with a filling on the go
inspired by all this post and this new trend.
(soft electronic music)
Papas rellenas is very popular in places
like Peru and Columbia.
All it really is is mashed potato
which houses whatever you want.
It can be beans, ground beef,
and that's really the whole concept.
So, I came to the United States when I was about to turn 15
and one of the things that I noticed immediately
is that although people do try to bring back the dishes
from different countries, there was something missing here.
Now that I'm working at Bien Tasty,
I get to share those dishes that I miss
so much when I arrived.
And I get to share them with a lot of people
in a lot of countries.
So, it's crazy how things played out for me
to be able to still work with my culture
as part of my job.
That's insane.
Every single dish, it's an expression of some kind.
Maybe it's a really fancy chef
who wants to show off his amazing culinary skills
or it's just a grandma in Ecuador
who is really eager to share her longtime tradition
of papas rellenas, whatever it is.
It's a message in every dish.
At the end of the day, you're eating
a little bit of someone's story.
Maybe it's just a story of how this
dish arrived to existence.
Maybe it's a story of the influence
of other cultures to yours.
Whatever it is, as a fan of stories, of storytelling,
I try to appreciate as much as I can
and a new dish, not just for its flavors and its looks,
but for its origins.
And that's something that I'm lucky enough to do
in every single video that I'm putting out there
for Bien Tasty and I get to do it with
a massive audience.
Alright, so if you haven't gotten a chance
to explore non-mainstream Latin American recipes
then please, I beg you to try these ones,
because they are delicious, they're easy to make,
they're affordable, and most importantly,
you will be eating authentic, amazing Latin American dishes.
Try them.
(upbeat electronic music)