La ropa real

So if anyone is looking to try a recipe from my blog, I'm going to make an official recommendation to try the rope vieja I posted last week courtesy of Emeril.

The recipe yielded quite a bit of the shredded meat, and I spent most of the week pushing it on friends and eating it for lunch at the office. For starters, I was surprised some people had never heard of the traditional Cuban dish (or in my case Dominican). But those who observed me eating it at work thought it looked and smelled delicious. Some even asked for the recipe.

Perhaps the greatest compliment of all was from my friend Cat, who has Cuban friends in Miami. She tried it last night. Apparently it was only the second one she had. The first was from a Cuban grandma. She ranked mine right up there.

I can't take any credit, though. It all goes to Emeril. The recipe is really fairly easy to make, just fairly involved. And just remember that it does take a while.

My second recommendation would be another one from Emeril - the Greek Moussaka. That one, however, is really for the fairly ambitious home cook. Slicing and frying all that potato and eggplant is pretty tedious.