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.

Dominican Republic: Ropa vieja with kidney beans and rice

I'll start by acknowledging that I am fully aware ropa vieja is most widely considered a Cuban dish. The wikipedia list of national dishes, however, describes the national dish of the Dominican Republic as white rice topped with stewed kidney beans and braised beef, served with a side of salad. The dish is known as bandera nacional, or national flag. I have no idea how they came up with that.

Either way, when I started looking for recipes for a braised beef dish unique to the Dominican Republic I kept running across recipes for Dominican ropa vieja. All of those recipes looked quite similar to the so called Cuban ones. I also learned that ropa vieja is quite popular in countries throughout the Caribbean, including the Dominican Republic, Panama and Puerto Rico. Besides, no one claims it as their national dish so I thought I'd give it a go. (Cuba claims a pork and vegetable stew called ajiaco.)

There are apparently varying stories about where the name ropa vieja - which means old clothes in Spanish - came from, but one of the most popular is about a poor old man who could not afford to buy food for his family. So he went to his closet, got some old clothes and cooked them. His love for his family turned them into a beef stew. Impressive.

I once again turned to the man himself, Emeril Lagasse for a ropa vieja recipe. I probably cheated a little because the meat isn't so much braised as it is boiled and simmered for hours. There was no searing or oven involved. And yes it definitely took hours to cook. Three hours for the initial simmering, and then another 30 to 40 minutes after you shredded the beef (which this recipe called for brisket). The result though is a nice pot of tender, shredded beef in a thick sauce flavored with peppers, onions and tomatoes. I'll be curious to try the leftovers and see how it tastes once the flavors melded. I served the ropa vieja with the white beans and kidney beans.

Now, on to Tunisia...

Back at it

After my brief weekend of laziness (if one would call preparing four dishes for a dinner party lazy) I've dipped back into the wine bag of fun and pulled out the next two countries.

The two I pulled were the Dominican Republic and Tunisia, so hopefully this weekend I will get to both of those. Stay tuned ...

Panama: Sancocho, Part II

I've successfully completed my first solo global cooking adventure, a sancocho from Panama. I did pretty well finding all of the ingredients (this was a fairly easy one). The only thing I didn't find was the plantains, but admittedly I didn't try very hard. Florida might as well be the 28th official Spanish-speaking country, and my local grocer usually has plantains (and an assortment of other ingredients common in traditional Latino cooking) on hand. Not today! And I was too lazy to look elsewhere. I also used a yam instead of a sweet potato, since they're pretty much the same thing anyway.

As I scoured the veggie section for my root veggies, I came upon a yucca. I've never cooked with one before, but remembered seeing it in one of the recipe variations I looked at. What the heck? I decided to live on the wild side and toss one in for good measure. The yucca is a white, potato-like root vegetable that has a thick brown skin on it. It was surprisingly easy to peel, and not that difficult to slice. About the same thickness as a sweet potato. I thought it had a texture and taste similar to a mild coconut.

So here's how I did it. As always, I'm not big on measurements. I'll give rough estimates, but use your best judgment and flavor to taste! The end product is a rich tasty stew that highlights the earthy taste of the root vegetables. You can taste the sweetness of the carrots and the sweet potatoes, balanced by the chiles, onions and garlic that give a kick to this dish. A fun and hearty take on chicken soup. I ate mine with a carmenere from Chile.

P.S. - My friend Emily thinks I need to get back to making the blog more personal. What can I say, it's been a tough week getting back from traveling and my ultra exciting trip to NY (recall, the Bobby Flay situation). And believe it or not, preparing that German feast was pretty exhausting. Plus, there were several post-birthday celebrations this week. But seeing as Emily is trapped in Senegal in the Peace Corps and relies on quasi-lame and unexciting stories from my life for entertainment, I will try harder to be more exciting in the future.

Ingredients:

Canola oil
3 yellow onions

6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

Oregano

Salt

Pepper

1 quart chicken broth

1 sweet potato (or yam)

1 potato

1 yucca

3 carrots

About six cloves of garlic

About 4 tbsps. chopped cilantro

1 cup of green onions

Dried chiles

1 can of diced tomatoes

2 ears of corn

What I did:

I start by heating some canola oil in a large soup pot. I slice one of the onions into thin half circles and then throw those in and let them start cooking. Then I add the chicken, season with some oregano, salt and pepper and cook until the meat is done. Scoop out the chicken and onions and put in a bowl for later. (I use one of the onions so the chicken can absorb the flavor as it cooks). Save the juices in the pot to cook the root vegetables.

I cut the root veggies into cubes about an inch each way and add them to the pot in the order I think they will take longest to cook: sweet potato, yucca, potato, carrot As they cook and get tender, I gradually add chicken broth to the pot so they always have a little bit of liquid to cook in. I slice the rest of the onions into half rounds and throw those in, then season the mix with some more (maybe two tablespoons) of oregano, salt, pepper and chiles (I like things spicy) and let cook for a few minutes. As they're cooking, I add the cilantro, green onions and tomatoes.

After the root veggies are pretty soft, I add the rest of the chicken broth and the corn (broken into half ears). I cut the chicken from the first step into chunks and add it (with the cooked onions) to the pot. Bring to a boil and then let simmer. The longer the better because the flavors will meld more. I always like my soups thicker, closer to a stew so I let mine go quite a while to thicken.

Panama: Sancocho

So the first country out of the bag was Panama, and a check of the Wiki list of national dishes reveals that natives of this country have one they call sancocho.

I consider this a real score for me because I love making one pot dishes, especially soups and stews. There's just something about the ease of cooking and how the flavors get all melded together that I find appealing.

Sancocho is just that - a soup or thick stew made of meats, various root vegetables and spices native to the region. Some more Internet research shows that sancocho is actually a popular dish in many Central and South American countries. The recipes vary from place to place, with some using chicken or beef and others using ingredients as unique as a cow's stomach lining. One other country - Columbia - also claims sancocho as its national dish. That's not surprising since until 1903, Panama was part of Columbia.

The Panamanian version is commonly made with chicken, yams and an herb called culantro - apparently similar in taste the the more common cilantro.

I spent some time exploring the Internet and found that recipes for the Panamanian version are more difficult to come by than those from other places (like Columbia and Puerto Rico). I found a few decent ones, but like the potato pancakes was not entirely happy with any of them. I think I'll have to develop my own based on the best from all of them.

I used the other recipes to come up with a list of ingredients. Right now I'm looking at chicken thighs, potatoes, carrots, onions, plantains, yams (if I can find some), corn on the cob, garlic cloves, oregano, cilantro, green onions, salt, pepper and chicken broth. I'll look for the culantro, but am skeptical I'll find it in any of the local groceries. I'll update with a recipe this weekend after I have some time to experiment.

As far as beverage pairings go, it seems Panama is another big beer country. It appears most of the wine drunk in Panama actually comes from Chile, my favorite wine producing country (Yeah!) So I'll probably pick a few from there to pair with my stew. I may be in the market for a crisp sauvignon blanc. Although it's always hard for me to resist a good red, especially one from Chile.