Posts from the ‘Cuba’ Category

Sep 8

A New Season

I may have waited until the very last weekend of the summer to have my first lobster roll, but now that I had, I wasn’t letting it scuttle away just yet. I decided to try a recipe from the 1930s for Lobster Havanaise, a cross between a Thermidor and Newburg but with rum instead of brandy. The rum is added off heat just before serving so the flavor is very pronounced. I started at Fish Tales in Brooklyn since they’re always helpful and let me take complimentary limes, even on a 1/4 pound of salmon. I almost left empty handed when I realized I would need at least two Maine lobsters to make up for the 2 pounder called for in the recipe. They pointed me instead to the Brazilian rock lobsters right for Caribbean cooking. With no claws, rock lobsters carry all their meat in the tail (no kidding, and I thought the only Cuban element was the rum). Though they’re not as sweet as the Maine variety, they’re in season from the end of the summer through winter, so they’re is plenty of time to play with. Read more

Sep 3

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Fritas

With a long weekend ahead and no barbecues in site, I’ve been thinking about fritas. A Cuban-style hamburger with more spice than size, it’s pan-fried and topped with crispy shoestring fries. Miami even has it’s own Rey de las Fritas challenging Ronald, Wendy and the Hamburgler for drive-thru supremacy. It was my favorite after the beach snack growing up, and I made my first batch last night. The only missing ingredients to make it a perfect burger madeleine were 1970s strength sun tan oil and sand. Read more

Aug 21

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Pastel de Mango Verde

I still remember seeing the “Cookies” sign for the first time. Just off the corner of Smith Street, I was drawn to the bright blue storefront realizing with disappointment that they were closed for the night. Peering through the grating into the store (it was pretty sad), I knew I’d be back. I reasoned that if an entire bakery was dedicated to just making cookies, they must be really good cookies. If the same cookies were displayed lovingly gift wrapped, they must be uniquely great. I’ve been scratching at their door ever since. Read more

Aug 18

Huevos en Cemitas

A couple of years ago, I found a recipe for eggs baked in brioche that I decided to make for Mother’s Day. It went over better than I’d hoped since it reminded my Mom of a breakfast she’d loved as a little girl in Cuba. Not having had it since then, she vaguely remembered ham and béchamel sauce added to eggs baked in rolls called cemitas. I was especially curious since I’d always thought of traditional Cuban breakfast as pressed pan cubano and cafe con leche. A few weeks ago, a friend lent me her copy of the book Cuban Cookery by Blanche Z. De Baralt. An American who lived in Europe and studied at Packer Collegiate, a few blocks away from where I live now, she moved to Havana at the turn of the century with her husband, a Cuban doctor. Published in 1931, I fell in love with the combination of her Edith Wharton English with her use of “our” and “we” to describe traditional Cuban food. She’d clearly gone native, and I liked her that much more for it. When I found her notes on Huevos en Cemitas or Eggs in Rolls – a hollowed out breakfast roll filled with chopped meat, petits pois, and cream sauce topped with a raw egg and baked till set – I knew I’d found my mother’s missing recipe. Read more

Aug 12

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Yucassoise

I’ve had waxy brown yucas on my counter for a couple of weeks. There were so many things that I wanted to make with them – salads, empanadas, croquetas – that I ended up doing nothing at all. My absolute favorite way of eating yuca is on Christmas day, standing around my aunt’s kitchen while she fries up perfectly golden batches of fries using the boiled yuca left over from Noche Buena. Dipped in garlic aioli, it’s impossible to let it cool long enough before diving in, but worth the burn. With Christmas months away, I flipped through a few books to see how I wanted to use the increasingly reproachful yuca I’d been putting off. That’s when I found Alex Garcia’s recipe for yucassoise from In a Cuban Kitchen. There is nothing suave about barklike, starchy yuca so I loved the idea of transforming it into a smooth, cold soup. Read more

Aug 10

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Getting Warmer

I made yet another attempt at producing Cuban pan de agua this morning with mixed results. If my last loaf went French, this one stopped by Italy came out a pan de ciabatta or ciabatta de agua. The barely there crust of Cuban bread still eludes me but the slightly sweet flavor and airy texture were much closer. When it rised up perfectly and plumped in the oven, I thought I finally had it but it wasn’t to be. Nevertheless, I am getting warmer and will be diving into the flour bag again. It’s hard to tell where my Cuban bread will go next. Greece? Morocco? Spain? I’ll find out soon enough.

Jul 29

Switching Things Around

I’ve been playing with Nitza Villapol’s Cuban version of Pollo Frito A La Milanesa. The first time I made it with the canned tomato sauce and jarred peppers called for in the recipe. It was good but a little too sweet and a touch too heavy for the summer we’ve been having. Egged on by the appearance of the Schnitzel & Things truck in my neighborhood, the other fried meat, I tried it again with fresh peppers, tomatoes and breadcrumbs. The peppers and tomatoes worked well, and I’ll make it often when a larger variety of tomatoes reach the farmer’s markets, hopefully in the next few weeks. The fresh breadcrumbs however were a disaster. The cutlets would brown unevenly and required way too much oil. I decided to do what the recipe called for in the first place and use ground Cuban crackers to bread the chicken. Though I also substituted olive oil for vegetable and replaced the whole eggs with egg whites, it was the cracker meal breading that offered the continuity from home, transforming it into the comfort food I associate with hot days. I don’t know why I argue.

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Jul 21

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Under Pressure

I’ve always associated pressure cookers with Cuban cooking. I think it was the cha-cha-cha of the old rockers. I also associate them with terror. If we so much as looked towards the kitchen when the cooker was going, we were reminded that it could, and very likely would, explode at any given moment. Perfectly tender carne con papas or terrible domestic catastrophe. Both were on the menu, and in a few minutes we’d know which was coming to the table. That’s why I’m always surprised when family or friends recommend them. Weren’t they scared? After coming across some pressure cooker recipes I wanted to try and being scolded for not having one when I forgot to soak the beans overnight, I decided it was time to buy one. Nothing crazy, just a harmless 4 qt, stainless steel Presto, just to have on hand in an emergency. When I told my mother, she thought it was a great idea having just replaced hers. Maybe they’d exaggerated the dangers when we were little to keep us shoed away? She then went on to list 4-5 vaguely terrifying way it could possibly kill me. Guess I remembered correctly. Still, I think I’m going to start easy – some platanos sancochados or fricaseé de pollo. No sudden movements. You never know when it’s going to blow.

Jul 16

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Something Sweet

This week I’ve been practicing my Abuela Carmita’s natilla, a traditional custard similar to the Spanish crema catalana. A teacher in Cuba, my sister and I were left with her in the morning to learn Spanish which our parents worried we’d forget. After making us cafe con leche with toast (sliced in thirds and sprinkled with sugar), she would start the natilla early so it would have time to chill. Setting aside the whites to make meringues later, she’d heat the milk and beat the egg yolks. My sister and I would watch her stir, ready to fight over the wooden spoon and the raspa left behind in the still warm pot after she’d poured out the custard into individual blue bowls. Mixing the meringue with my grandfather, they’d piped it into tiny mounds and set them to bake, then he would make lunch while we sat down to our lessons. Lamenting that if we still lived in Cuba we’d be learning French instead, she’d lead us through the letters and rhymes in our silabarios until lunch was ready. When it was finally time for dessert, my grandfather’s bowl would have the cinnamon stick and lime peel (not sure why) while ours had our initials written across the top in cinnamon (which I just realized is almost impossible to do). The crisp meringues would disappear in a puff leaving behind a slightly soft center while the custard was smooth and creamy but held its form. Teaching myself the recipe, I worried that the yolks would scramble and spent almost an hour in my sweltering kitchen stirring one batch over too little heat. Remembering her easy patience, I tried again. Getting it right on my third attempt, I can’t stop going to my refrigerator to look down at the same blue bowls finally full of my grandmother’s natilla. Read more

Jul 10

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So Near, Yet So Far

I had planned on including a recipe for Cuban pan de agua, but my bread went French on me and not in a good way. It was my third attempt, and I thought I had finally found my mistake. Having misread the recipe before, I measured everything out carefully, kneaded it, let it rise, and shaped it before putting into a cold oven with boiling water. The result wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t Cuban. Instead of a barely golden, plump loaf it had the dark heavy crust of a disappointed baguette. A friend suggested that just like a French soufflé needs quiet, maybe Cuban bread needs shouting. I’ll have to try that the next time.