Ropa Vieja

Today we'll be eating old clothes...hahaha....actually, joke aside, that's the name of the dish we'll be presenting: ropa vieja, or old clothes. A Cuban specialty, ropa vieja is just shredded flank steak meat with seasoning and tomato sauce. Its origins date back to the Canary Islands in Spain and there's even a clothing line named after it. I can guarantee you this dish does not taste like old clothes though.


Ingredients:

• 1 lb of flank steak
• 1 whole bell pepper
• 1 whole onion
• 3 pieces of garlic teeth
• 1 can of tomate sauce
• 1/2 lemon
• 1 tablespoon complete seasoning
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Preparation:

• Place the meat into a pressure cooker and fill with water until the meat is covered fully.
• Add a teaspoon of salt and let it simmer for 20 minutes.
• Cut the bell pepper, onion and garlic into small pieces.
• In a frying pan, add the olive oil and the cut vegetables and let it cook on moderate heat.
• Once the beef is tender, let it cool for a while and when chill, start pulling into shreds.
• Mix the shredded meat and the cooked vegetables together in a skillet.
• At this time also add the complete seasoning, cumin, lemon juice and tomato sauce and cook on slow heat for 10 minutes.

Finally, we have ropa vieja, served with white rice and tostones(fried green plantains):

Spaghetti a Caballo

Today's recipe is a one of my favorites: Spaghetti a caballo (spaghetti with a fried egg on top). Just talking about it my mouth gets watery and my mom's recipe is both easy to make and as always, exquisite. It is told that Marco Polo brought spaghetti from the Far East to Europe in the thirteenth century, however pasta had existed in Europe already for centuries. The originators, however, seen to had been the Chinese who had been making it since 3000 B.C. This particular recipe adds the egg on top and if you haven't tried it, you don't know what you're missing. It usually serves 3-4 people.


Ingredients: 

• 1 package of spaghetti
• 1 cup of Golby and Monterry Jack cheese
• 4 eggs
• Ragu spaghetti sauce
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil

Preparation:

• Fill a large pot with water and boil.
• Add a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of olive oil to the boiling water.
• Add the spaghetti to the boiling water and cook for 10-15 minutes.
• Drain the water and prepare to serve on each plate.
• Add cheese and spaghetti sauce according to your liking.
• Fry the eggs in a frying pan.
• Add the fried eggs on top on the served spaghetti.

 And now the final plate,

Fricase de Pollo

To kick off my blog, I decided to go with one of mom's most exquisite dishes, the fricase de pollo or chicken fricassee, also one of the most popular recipes in Cuba.

This recipe dates its origins to ancient Rome, when the Romans occupied the French provinces of Gaul, back in the first century B.C. It is also told it was a preferred dish by many U.S. presidents. The Cuban style fricase de pollo adds a lot of the typical Caribbean flavors. It usually serves 4-8 people.

Ingredients:

• 8 pieces of drumstick chicken
• Complete seasoning
• Ground cumin
• Bitter orange marinade
• Wine
• 3 medium size potatoes
• 1/2 can of tomato sauce
• 1/2 onion
• 5 pieces of garlic teeth
• 1/3 green pepper

Preparation:

• Get the 8 pieces of drumstick chicken and put them in an empty contained to be seasoned.
• Pour 4 tablespoons of the bitter orange to the pieces of chicken.
• Shred the onion and garlic teeth in the machine and cut the slices of pepper in smaller pieces.
• Mis the condiments with the chicken that is on the recipient and add 3 tablespoons of complete seasoning and 1 tablespoon of ground cumin.
• Fry the chicken in the frying pan until it gets golden colored.
• Insert the chicken in the pressure cooker.
• Pour 4 tablespoons of wine to the chicken and 6 tablespoons of tomato sauce. Do not add water.
• Close the pot and leave cooking for 15 minutes on medium high intensity.

Ladies and gentlemen, served with white rice, my mom's fricase de pollo:

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my little space on the web!

I have to say I was a little shy because I'm a newbie at blogging but I really wanted to give it a try as my friends suggested it was a cool and fun way to share a part of my life with the world. On this blog I specifically want to talk about something I take a lot of pride in, and that is my mom's homemade cooking, because we all have to admit it, there is nothing like our moms homemade food! My mom's specialty is Cuban food and her recipes, which I called delicacies, are impossible to resist. Thus, I feel the need to share some of her simple but delicious dishes to the whole world.

I hope you can take advantage of the simplicity of these homemade recipes and incorporate them into your menu! Enjoy!