Shecancreate’s Weblog

all over my face.

That’s right I have burns all over my face. And, they hurt. (Actually I started writing this post like 2 weeks ago when the incident was still pretty terrifying and  I couldn’t bring myself to finish. Right now the burns have healed and are not so terrifying.)
I have to say my first attempt at making buneulos without a Colombian nearby was a miserable failure, since it landed me in the emergency room. (Also, you should know, I am not sure I am spelling Buneunlo correctly and get results from google no matter how I spell it, so if it is wrong…Sorry?)

What’s a buneulo? Well it is deep-fried heaven. it is kind of like a hush puppy made with cheese, yucca flour and cornstarch. The result is a crispy ball of cloud, that is proof of the food gods love for your taste buds. Actually in Colombia and other Spanish countries buneulos are a Christmas time  treat, a la the buckeye (which does not involve hot oil).

They are deep-fried, and that was/is the problem. I have never been too into home deep-frying, there are a lot of risks involved in deep fry heaven. buneulos seemed to be worth the risk.

Now let us learn how not to make buneulos…

First, eat a proper dinner so that you don’t get the urge to deep fry at 10pm on a Sunday night.

Second, when you discover that box of buneulo mix , that your BFF left for you when she abandoned you for China, leave it where you found it. At least leave it until you have the time and energy to use the translator, on your Google homepage, to turn all that Spanish into English. This was my biggest mistake, the instructions were in SPANISH. I don’t read, speak or comprehend SPANISH. But alas I tried any way.

Third, don’t assume that because you have been present for two separate buneulo making sessions, that you have any idea how it is done, and therefore “Don’t need no stupid box!”

I got my oil nice and hot started rolling up some balls. I even got through the first not so perfect batch before

POP!

My dear brother, when I relayed this story to him, told me what he felt I had done wrong… Apparently when you make hush puppies, you have to let the dough sit for about a half hour to let the corn flour absorb the water… So that the water doesn’t make the oil splatter. My response was “well the problem wasn’t a splatter it was more of a pop”…

Dear brother might be right, but here is where I suspect I erred:

All the recipes I have viewed since the incident caution against the oil being up to temp before adding the buneulos. Apparently the oil should be WARM, not hot. I repeat warm, not hot.

I should have let the oil get warm, not hot, then added the buneulo and then turn the heat up. Sort of slowly deep fry them. And maybe letting the water absorb would have been a good idea, too.

Still I am not sure what went wrong but I know I will be avoiding it happening again. On the bright side I did do a couple things correctly:

When the oil popped and sprayed onto my face I was wearing glasses (protective eye gear) otherwise I might be blind.

I immediately turned off the fire and moved the hot pot away from the heat… Even before screaming and running into the bathroom to check for damage.

After checking my personal damage I rechecked to make sure the fire was off.

I freaked out and called a friend who drove me to the hospital.

I kept my face cool. I did this by first, melting a tray of ice on my face and then thawing a bag of corn… also on my face. For future reference this is not the recommended way to ease burn pain. actually the recommended method is to run cool water over the burn, not ice which might shock the burn, although, I have no idea what that means. I personally did not suffer any shocking side effects from melting ice on my face. And, honestly the monotony of rubbing ice on my face helped mentally calm the fear of Phantom of the Opera-esque scarring.

So, the point is that I  will not be deep-frying any time in the near future. As a result of not using my brains, I currently have experienced a panicked trip to the ER, a kitchen covered in a half inch of cooking oil that took over an hour to properly clean and a scarred face.

I managed to snap this awesomely dramatic pic on the way to the hospital.

And this not so dramatic one a couple days later.

Thankfully I do not currently have Phantom of the Opera face! I learned that kitchen burns don’t typically cause those. And that when you complain about it “kind of hurting” in the ER they give you narcotic grade pain killers… yet when you tell you primary care doctor that the pain in your foot “unbearable” she gives you alieve…. in essence I learned that there is a reason they charge so much for the ER (they are freaking drug dealers).