Arroz Verde a Mi Manera (Green Rice my Way)

This is my recipe, I made it up myself. I have a Peruvian friend who would make "Arroz Verde", I really liked it so I would make her's sometimes, but I decided to completely adjust it to the taste of my household and make it "Cubanized" I guess one could call it "Arroz Verde Estilo Cubano" (Cuban style green rice?) It is very flavorful and delicous, it's a very simple side dish.

I do mine in a rice cooker you can adjust it to do it stove top.

Ingredients:
-3 cups long grain white rice
-1 big bunch of cilantro (cleaned well, but with stems and all)
-1 onion finely minced
-1 green bell pepper finely minced
-5-6 cloves garlic finely minced (I use a mortar and pestle most of the time or garlic press)
-3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
-1 teaspoon ground cumin
-1/2 teaspoon finely ground fresh black pepper
-2 teaspoons salt
-1/4-1/2 tsp. monosodium glutamine (msg... it's optional popular brand is Ajinamoto)

Directions:
(1)Heat olive oil on medium high heat, sautee onion and bell pepper 5 minutes, add garlic sautee 2 minutes. Meanwhile blend cilantro in a blender with 1 cup water. When garlic is fragrant, add the blended cilantro and stir well bring to boil.



(2)Meanwhile, now wash rice well drain, and add to rice cooker, throw in the stuff you sauteed, add salt, cumin, pepper, and msg stir well, add water necessary to cook rice.

NOTES:
(1)Water may vary I use a long-grain jasmine rice that is new crop it only needs equal water to rice. Regular long-grain white rice needs no more than 1 1/2 cups water per cup. Also don't forget the water in the blended cilantro counts to.

(2)For the original "Peruvian version" you only use cilantro ,garlic, onion, and Peruvian yellow pepper, and season with only salt, black pepper, and msg. Sometimes they will use chicken stock.

(3)This rice tastes fabulous with some fried eggs on top.

(4)If doing on stove top, make the sautee in a large pot, and add blended cilantro, spices and water, bring to a boil and add washed, add drained clean rice stir once, cover and simmer on low for 30 minutes.

Ruedas de Camote Frito (Fried Sweet Potato Rounds)

Title is explains most of it. This is a very simple dish my grandmother makes with either regular "Camote" (orange fleshed sweet potato) or "Boniato" (cuban white sweet potato), more often than not we use "Camote" (orange fleshed sweet potato) because it is very abundant in the USA and popular, right now in late November the price dropped to 7 lbs. for 99 cents US. Sometimes it drops to 10 lbs for 99 cents US. So I take advantage and buy tons of them (about 40 pounds) we can eat through them fast and know how to prepare them in many ways (both healthy and unhealthy)

Ingredients"
-Sweet Potato (washed very well, NOT peeled, cut into 1/4 inch rounds)
-salt to taste or sugar (depends see note)
-oil to deep-fry (I use canola oil, other good choices I like are sunflower oil and peanut oil)

Directions:
(1)Heat oil on medium high heat for about 5 minutes, when hot enough fry the sweet potato in small batches, in one layer, each one fry's for about 5-7 minutes per side until they are lighter in color and lightly browned.



(2)Afterwards set in a plate with papertowels to drain and sprinkle with salt while hot, or sugar.

PLEASE NOTE:
(1)If we are eating them as appetizers for dinner we sprinkle some salt on them, if we want it as a snack or dessert usually we dust them in regular white sugar.

(2)These are not suppose to be crisp and dry, they are firm, but soft when you bite into them, the peel is left on to let it hold it's shape, when eating after cooked you have the option to either eat the peel, or remove when eating with your hands easily :)

Pollo Frito a la Criolla (Fried Chicken Creole)

Well this is not my families recipe or anything like that. The title it's deceiving it isn't really "Fried Chicken" it's just chicken marinaded in a garlic citrus marinade with spices, then browned, smothered in onions and simmered in the garlic citrus marinade.

My grandmother does make a fried chicken though that is Cuban but it's different (she just rubs chicken thighs and drumsticks with some cumin, lots of garlic, fresh lime, and salt then she deep-fried it until the skin is crisp, her procedure makes it juicy and tender, she fry's it on medium high, and covers it to simmer fry and at the same time steam in the oil it's a little tricky I'll share that some other time)

Back to this recipe, I got the recipe online, I was surfing through the Internet and bumped into a bunch of sited with a recipe they called "Pollo Frito a la Criolla" I have never consumed that, but the ingredients and procedures are very typical of Cuban cooking so I thought I'd give it a try. I have made this recipe before successfully once and it was a hit in my home, so I am doing it for the second time.

I did alter the recipe to suit my families taste, the recipe called for too little garlic (only 3 cloves for 1 chicken that's ridiculous it's Cuban cooking for crying out loud we use at least double of that in most dishes especially for a "Mojo" (pronounced mo-ho) type marinade) I also went heavier on the pepper (but that is to taste).

Ingredients:
-1 whole chicken, skin left on, washed cleaned, cut into medium sections I did 16 sections)
-6-12 cloves of garlic (I used a whole head which is 12-13?)
-2 teaspoons salt
-1 teaspoon ground cumin
-1 teaspoon dried oregano
-1/2-1 teaspoon ground black pepper (to taste your choice how much)
-1 cup freshly squeezed bitter orange juice (if you don't have it substitute it for 1/2 freshly squeezed lime juice and 1/2 freshly squeezed orange juice)
-1 large onion cut into rings

Directions:
-After the chicken is cleaned, washed, and drained due the following: in a mortar and pestle add peeled garlic cloves and salt, mash it to a paste, add pepper, oregano, and mash to a until everything is finely ground, now add cumin and mash more, now incorporate the bitter orange juice.

(2)Mix the chicken in a large bowl with the marinade, let it marinade around 2-12 hours or even more, up to you.

(3)Slice the onions into rings and lay over the chicken, cover well with a plastic wrap or whatever. Then let it marinade in the fridge.

(4)When ready to cook, heat a pan on high heat until really hot, add olive oil and lower to medium high, add chicken do not overcrowd pan and let it brown 5-7 minutes on each side, remove from heat, now add all the reserved marinade and onions, deglaze by bringing to a boil and scraping with a wooden spoon. Now simple add chicken back into pan with sauce, coat and spoon over some of the sauce.



(5)Cover and simmer for about 20-35 minutes until l chicken is cooked through.

Enjoy with any type of Cuban dishes but don't forget eat it with some rice :) and black beans wouldn't hurt either.


NOTE: You can do this with any cut of chicken, like skinless boneless chicken breast just make sure to simmer for less time because you don't want to dry it out :) Also I don't know why but I felt like adding 2 tablespoons of white vinegar. You can also do it with all lime juice if you want my family prefers more acidic pungent flavors.