Around the World - 2nd Stop - CUBA!

Sass Muffin said:

I wish I'd discovered I didn't have enough rice before I started this dish

Anyway, it came out delicious. Had it with some crusty bread. Very tasty.

http://www.tasteofcuba.com/shrimpcasserole.html

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Yum-O!

Thank you Cooksie

We started the meal last night with mojitos. Mint, lime, rum, simple syrup & club soda. Tall, cool, & refreshing. It's my favorite thing Cuban!

For dinner, I was determined to make an Arroz con Pollo that we'd really like. For Christmas, I received Bobby Flay's Throwdown cookbook. He took on Arroz con Pollo against a chef in Spanish Harlem. Jorge Ayala of La Fonda Boricua supposedly makes the best in New York City. Well, the judges declared him the winner over Bobby Flay, and the recipes were in the book. So I decided to go for it.

I made a couple changes. I only had red bell peppers, so I used them instead of red & green. I skipped the chorizo, and used all chicken thighs with the skin on, instead of skinless. It seemed to me it would protect the meat from drying out when you seared it.

I cooked the achiote seeds in oil to make my own annato oil and adobo spice mix. The olives sounded unusual, but they really added a nice touch. I got a really good fond going, so it made the rice darker and tastier than the typical pale yellow.

All in all, we both loved it. SousChef insisted that it was leaps and bounds better than anything we ever had in a Cuban restaurant. So I was pleased.

As a side dish, the remaining plantains were nice and dark brown now, so I decided to make a sweet plantain dish. I sliced them and browned them on one side in several tablespoons of butter. While the first side was cooking, I sprinkled them with brown sugar on the other side. After 3 or 4 minutes, I turned them over (sugar side down), then added a splash of vanilla (homemade) and a tablespoon of dark rum. They caramelized beautifully, and were almost a dessert.

The only thing I'd do differently is to add something green to the plate. While everything had a beautiful golden color, it was a little monochromatic.

That is absolutely beautiful!! I love the color of the veggies. Therice looks fantastic. Can this be made with other chicken parts? I really want to try this.

Arroz con Pollo is beautiful and looks like something that I would really like to eat. I have tried plaintains many ways and could never learn to like them. We used to do a lot of Caribbean cruises (Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines), and that was their answer for a starch for almost every meal. Lol--I just wanted my potato . I learned to just tell them to please leave them off of my plate. Some of our cruising partners liked them though.

SilverSage said:

Lee, I've never been a big fan of Cuban food. It's not bad - it's just not my favorite. To my taste, the flavors seems 'muddy'. Although I like cumin in chili, the dominance of cumin and achiote (annato) in Cuban food I think is what causes the muddiness. Bell pepper is usually the pepper of choice, which doesn't have much heat. I much prefer the hotter peppers used in the other islands. In Mexico and Asia, they usually add lime to brighten the flavors, and in Europe they frequently add lemon for the same reason. Mexico and the southern Caribbean often add cilantro to perk up a dish. But in Cuba, those balancing ingredients are usually absent. You rarely find any sweetness to balance a dish either, like you do with the fruits and coconuts of the other island cuisines. I guess I just find it rather one dimensional.

They use a lot of root vegetables, but not the ones we are used to. They tend to be very starchy and bland. Like the tostones, I am hard pressed to attribute a flavor to them. They are just a little fried thing on the plate.

And pretty much everything seems overcooked. Keltin's comments about cooking the chicken breast to death rings true.

Maybe it's an acquired taste, but I've eaten in enough Cuban restaurants that I should have acquired it by now!

But I charge on........tomorrow is arroz con pollo, the Cuban interpretation of paella. It doesn't have the chorizo or seafood that I so love in a Spanish paella. We'll see how it works with just the chicken, rice, sofrito & achiote.

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I was born, grew up and spent most of my adult life in Miami Florida. I tend to agree with most of your statement above except when it comes to peppers. I've sure eaten a lot of home cooked native Cuban food in my life and I have never found it much more than bland in heat. I've actually had Italian and Spanish foods hotter never mind Jamaican or even Cajun foods tend to be a whole lot hotter. I do enjoy it though once in a while.

Love the mojitos, SS!!!

The Arroz Con Pollo looks mouth-watering! I love all the stuff in it (but you skipped the CHORIZO???), and I'll eat pretty much anything if it has olives in it.

Great Around-the-World effort!

Lee

Karen,

I really have to thank you for choosing Cuba. I have never been impressed with the food in Cuban restaurants, consequently I never would have attempted it at home. I wouldn't have given this cuisine even a cursory look if you hadn't suggested it. But I learned that the flavors can be very good if you just find the right recipe.

This is the fun of this trip around the world. We get to try things we wouldn't otherwise try, and we may come to appreciate foods that we had previously overlooked.

Last night's dinner was excellent, and I never would have discovered it if you hadn't suggested this stop on our trip.

Thanks again!

My DIL Aimee is Puerto Rican.
She said that Cuban dishes are very similar.
When I told her what I was making for dinner last night she said "what? no rice, peas or tarragon?" LOL

Thanks, SS! You have really given this your best, and the Arroz con Pollo looks wonderful.

I made Pollo Guisado (Cuban chicken stew) tonight, and planned to make tostones...but when I peeled them (already had the oil hot) , it turned out they were really great big sweet bananas! (Everything banana-like is called "plantano" here, and I just bought the wrong thing.) Having already made the dipping sauce for the tostones, I quickly fried up some flour tortillas (pretty sure they don't eat those in Cuba, but we loved them on the side, especially Jerry.) The sauce is mayo, sour cream, garlic and chopped yellow chiles (pretty hot). I actually combined a couple of different recipes for the Pollo Guisado, which has green beans, olives, capers, raisins, tomato, onion, garlic, green peppers, cilantro, tomato sauce and chicken stock. The recipe called for a good bit of oregano, and I think it would have been a little better with slightly less. I would also withhold the cilantro for a garnish at the end, because the taste simply cooked out of it. All in all, though, it was very tasty, with many layers of flavor and texture. I will make it again.

KAREN!! YUMMY!! That looks so good. Very colorful and I love green olives cooked with tomato!

That looks delicious, Karen!

I want some of those brown crunchy things on the right!

Lee

QSis said:

That looks delicious, Karen!

I want some of those brown crunchy things on the right!

Lee

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I want some of ALL of it!
Karen, that is SUPERB!

Oh thanks, guys - those brown, crunchy things are just fried flour tortillas, that I salted as I drained them. They were delicious! I'll definitely do that again soon. Our neighbor makes these exceptional flour tortillas that are so flaky and almost translucent. I know she doesn't use lard, because she's a vegetarian (lots of 7th Day Adventists in our town). I think she must use vegetable shortening...they are outstanding.

I'm going to make some fried tortillas and use the recipe for your dipping sauce Karen.
I can't get them out of my head now lol

I'm going to make some again very soon, too, Sass. They were yummy. For the sauce, I used some yellow Guero chiles, which are similar in their heat to jalapenos. I also used Johnny's garlic salt/seasoning, mayo and sour cream. Some cilantro added would be good as well, I think. We buy these luscious flour tortillas all the time from our neighbor, and I often have to think up ways to use them up (very good as a wrap for a sammie). Flour tortillas fry up better because they have fat in them (of course - that's why they're so GOOD).

Wonderful dishes going on here!!

MexicoKaren said:

I'm going to make some again very soon, too, Sass. They were yummy. For the sauce, I used some yellow Guero chiles, which are similar in their heat to jalapenos. I also used Johnny's garlic salt/seasoning, mayo and sour cream. Some cilantro added would be good as well, I think. We buy these luscious flour tortillas all the time from our neighbor, and I often have to think up ways to use them up (very good as a wrap for a sammie). Flour tortillas fry up better because they have fat in them (of course - that's why they're so GOOD).

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Thanks for those tips hun.
Much appreciated.

lilbopeep said:

Can this be made with other chicken parts? I really want to try this.

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Yes, it typically is made with both thighs and legs. I just happened to have a package of 6 thighs in the freezer. I'm not sure if breasts would dry out, but you could certainly try them. I would just be sure to leave the skin & bone on.

Cooksie said:

I have tried plaintains many ways and could never learn to like them. We used to do a lot of Caribbean cruises (Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines), and that was their answer for a starch for almost every meal. Lol--I just wanted my potato . I learned to just tell them to please leave them off of my plate. Some of our cruising partners liked them though.

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This way they weren't starchy at all. They were more like a dessert - think Bananas Foster. As a matter of fact, they would have been great served over ice cream.

QSis said:

(but you skipped the CHORIZO???)

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Trying to cut down on the calories! Seriously, I thought I had some in the freezer and it was just too late to go get some.

MexicoKaren said:

I would also withhold the cilantro for a garnish at the end, because the taste simply cooked out of it.

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Interestingly, I found the same thing. My recipe called for cooking the cilantro into the sofrito. By the time the dish was cooked, it seemed to have disappeared. My chicken was marinated in lime juice and adobo spices before cooking. The lime juice, while I'm sure it did it's job in imparting a flavor balance, was undetectable in the finished dish. I actually think that's part of the style of cooking - everything melds together into one cohesive unit, and no particular ingredient comes forward.

But I agree with you. I would save some cilantro for the finish and serve with lime wedges on the side.

MexicoKaren said:

All in all, though, it was very tasty, with many layers of flavor and texture. I will make it again.

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It sure looks tasty. And I love your mixing of the best parts from 2 recipes! It sounds like the sweetness of the raisins and the brininess of the olives & capers really balanced the earthiness of your stew.

I loved your story about the bananas - once they get black, they do all look the same.

Beautiful job, Karen!

When I was on vacation last week, I ordered an appetizer of fried plaintains for the table.

The plaintains were sliced in half, then sliced thinly on a mandolin and fried. Served with an EXCELLENT guacamole and some sort of a garlic-oil sauce that was both too garlicky and oily.

Really good plaintains with the guac, though!

Lee