Cuban Night
We went to Amy’s for a Cuban dinner party this past weekend
and it was a great time. I have never
had some of the ingredients and flavors she worked with and I was excited to
try them all week. Mandi went over and
helped her take pictures and cook in the afternoon, then we all showed up
around 7. Amy will be writing the rest
of the post, but I may leave a few comments in red. Also the Recipes (as usual) are at the bottom
of the post.
Beautiful
Butt (don’t be fooled – this is the shoulder of the piggy)
MMMM Mandi and I
bought one of these on the way home!
Typical Cuban marinade or mojo
If you don’t have this, use 2 parts OJ, 1 part lime juice, 1
part lemon juice
Had leftover pearl onions, so used that for the mojo
Black beans after soaking overnight
Just stirring the mojo.
See here for recipe
Hello tomatillo!
Hello chayote, which I have appropriately named butt fruit
Husked and washed tomatillos. I just wanted to add a little something to
the guacamole that wasn’t customary. It was an impulse buy that morning at the store.
Mandi about to chop the pepper for the beans later
I’m with stupid
Ever seen the inside of a tomatillo?
Why yes, I have.
Roast tomatillos until they are soft and you can puree in
the food processor
Mojito time
Isn’t it like 1:30 pm?
Mull mint with some sugar
Mandi starts the quacamole (not Cuban, but I thought we
should have something for the tostones)
Flavor injector of awesomeness!
Pureed tomatillos
Guacamole delicousness.
The tomatillos have a slightly sour smoky taste, so very little lime
juice was used in this guac
Lemon rind for the flan
Boil the chayotes/ mirlitons, whatever your country calls
them. These are for the salad
An early peak at the pig after it’s been in the oven for 30
minutes or so
Sugar for the flan (organic, of course – they actually have
this at Marketplace!)
Melt sugar to make caramel
Sugar is hot
Note – don’t use plastic utensils, or they will melt in your
That HAD to be Mandi…
Ok, second batch
Any proper Southern girl has ham hocks in her freezer. I am no exception. These are for the beans
Beat eggs with sugar
Flan after cooking
Beans cooking. Just
beans and water and ham hocks
Get the thinnest steak you can find
Then pound the crap out of it on each side
Marinate for a couple of hours in the fridge
Happy ham hocks. I
would normally pick the small amount of meat on these, but I ran out of time
Stirring in the cooked green peppers, onions, garlic etc,
per recipe
Tony looks over us approvingly “Say Hello to my little
friends!”
Salad (prior to dressing)
Happy piggy, soon to be inside happy tummies
Green plantains. Get
them as green as you can find them
Heating up mariquitas salsa with oil
Shawn & Marek
My Puerto Rican friend Jen puts them in water with garlic
salt before fry #1
Fry #1
Remove from oil and place between wet paper towels
Mash with something
In to fry 2nd time. Tostones literaly means “twice fried”
Sprinkle with salt when you remove from oil
I had about 20 of these.
Steak in skillet with butter. It shouldn’t be so wet, so dump some of that
marinade
You actually want to brown on each side for a couple of
minutes
The finished plate (missing a tostone – it was in someone’s
mouth probably)
MINE
Release edges of flan with a toothpick
Put plate on top and flip
THANKS AMY! I had a great time. And it was delicious!
Recipes:
Flan:
The only change is that I used half and half
in place of the cream. I saw several
recipes that used just milk, so I figured this would be fine.
I stuck to the ingredient list, but didn’t
really measure any of it. I also added
ham hocks to mine (a little bit of pig makes everything super delicious)
Again, I didn’t measure anything. I also added fresh orange, lime and lemon
juices to liven it up a bit. The sour orange
juice came from
Sucka!
use a recipe. Mandi and I just threw in
the following to our [impeccable] taste.
Avocados
Tomato
Onion
Tomatillo puree
Tad of lime juice – just enough to keep it from browning
because the tomatillos have a sour taste to them already
Salt
Cumin
(No garlic – only because everything else had plenty of
garlic)
This is really what Cuban’s use for fresh
made yuca or plantain chips. It’s not
needed for the tostones, but I wanted to have a couple of things to dip them
in, hence the guac and this. You
sometimes see a garlic sauce served with tostones in Cuban restaurants. When I saw cilantro and garlic in this
recipe, I just wanted to try it.
but then catered to our tastes.
syrup and not sugar. Simple syrup is
equal amounts of sugar and water, heated over medium heat until all sugar is
dissolved.
winged this, including the dressing. Not
a traditional Cuban salad, although some traditional ingredients. Just put in the proportion of whatever
ingredients you would like
Avocado
Chayote
Radishes
Mango
Hearts of palm
Red onion (soaked in cold water for a bit to tone down)
Dressing:
Vinegar (whatever you have – I used both Cider and Red Wine)
Grain mustard
Lemon juice
EVOO
I ran out of oil, so put in the following to thicken it up
1 tomato
Pineapple and juice
Central Grocery olive salad (if you don’t already know what
this is, you’ll have to wait for a muffulleta sandwich post this summer)