A word of warning before I begin this recipe. First, if you go into a Cuban restaurant and they don’t have some variation on this dish – RUN! This is a classic dish and I’ve only gone to one place that didn’t have it. Of course, that place also didn’t have any plantains on the menu and the bartender didn’t know how to make a mojito. It turned out to be a big mistake.

Also, this dish takes time, but it does triple duty as you’ll see from the recipe.

Fun Fact: Ropa vieja means “old clothes” in Spanish. When you think about old clothes being thread-bare and shredded, it kind of makes sense since this is a shredded beef dish.

Ingredients

Preparing the beef for shredding

2 lbs lean brisket (or flank steak) cut into quarters against the grain
2 coarsely chopped onion
2 celery stalks cut in half
2 large carrots – cut in quarters
2 garlic cloves chopped
2 bay leaves
black pepper to taste
Enough water to cover the meat and other ingredients in your pot

Boil the brisket until fork tender. Do not do a hard boil as it will cloud the water, but a soft rolling boil. When fork tender, take the meat out and let it cool. Take out the celery and carrots. Toss the celery *yuk I hate celery*, but save the carrots. They make a nice cold carrot salad.

Preparing the tomato sauce for the beef

1 cup chopped red pepper
1 cup chopped green pepper
2 cups chopped onions
2 garlic cloves
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes and one small can tomato sauce
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon oregano
Salt & pepper to taste
Olive oil

Start by sauteing the red and green peppers in the olive oil until they begin to soften. Then add the onions and cook until translucent. Do not brown.

Add the garlic and cook it for just a little bit.

Then add the crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, bay leaves and oregano. Simmer for at least half an hour.

While this is simmering, shred the beef. Brisket and/or flank steak have a very pronounced grain and you can just pull and it will come apart into shreds. Keep them small. No longer than about 2 inches and not very thick either. You want the meat to absorb some of the tomato goodness.

When the beef is shredded, add it to the cooked tomato sauce and then simmer this again for about an hour or so to allow the tomato and beef to marry.

That’s it! I usually serve this dish over white rice with a side of ripe plantains.

Now why did I say this dish does triple duty?

Well, you’ve got that beef broth for starter. In my house I reduce it, add caramelized onions and make onion soup.

Also, I always make extra beef so that I can make another Cuban dish, vaca frita (fried cow).

I hope you’ll try this out one day!

Thanks to Marc Averette for releasing his ropa vieja photo into the public domain.

I really don’t know how the deviled ham sandwich, also known as a bocadito, got started in Cuba. All I know is that it was a staple of every party we ever had and it is always a favorite. The best thing: It’s EASY to make.

So here goes!

Deviled Ham Sandwiches

2 (two) 4 oz cans deviled ham spread (I use Underwood)
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup ketchup
1 8 oz bar cream cheese
Your choice of sandwich rolls or bread

Soften the cream cheese with the milk and ketchup. Blend until smooth and then add the deviled ham. Mix.

That’s it! There are variations that add mayo and/or chopped pimentos. I love pimentos so I may add them the next time to half of the mix for a little variety.

I like to refrigerate the mix for a couple of hours so it’s not so runny. Once it’s a little firmer, spread on the rolls and/or bread.

We love it on potato bread and we always cut off the crusts.

Hope you liked today’s nice and simple recipe!

Before I begin with this tribute to grandma and her fabulous cooking, a question for you. I’ve been thinking about compiling all the recipes into a cookbook that I would make available for sale. Any thoughts on that? I’d love to hear what you think about it.

And now, for a little bit about my grandma. Her name was Nieves which is now my middle name. Her father was a blacksmith so that meant her family was a little better off than those in her little village in Galicia in Spain.

Nieves was a very determined lady. She followed the love of her life to Cuba to find a better way of life and then took care of her daughter’s two little girls (my sister and me) for nearly two years as we tried to make our way out of Cuba and to the United States.

She was loving and cared for us daily since my mom worked. We were very lucky to have her and granddad living with us. He was a kind, loving and gifted man who could make or fix anything with his hands. They both sacrificed a lot for us and for my mom and for that I am eternally grateful.

My grandma could cook something truly delicious with what she had at home. Nothing went to waste. Nothing. So today’s recipe is my grandma’s recipe for soup, but with some changes. First, however, a picture of my grandparents and my mom!

Grandma’s Chicken Soup . . . Kind of

Ingredients

2 chicken breasts
chicken parts if you have them (necks, wings and backs)
1/2 cup finely chopped carrots
1/4 cup finely chopped celery greens (the inside part of the hearts)
1/2 cup finely chopped onions
32 oz chicken broth
32 oz water
1 leek, sliced
2 or 3 sprigs of fresh parsley
1 cup sliced carrots (on a bias for a little nicer look)
4 small corn cobs (or 2 large ones snapped in half)
egg noodles (as many as you like! I like my soup really noodlely)

Directions

Saute chicken breasts in a large stockpot until just starting to brown.

Add chopped carrots, celery and onions and sweat until onions are translucent. Do not brown.

Add broth, water, leek, parsley and bring to a slow boil. Do not make it too hard a boil as it will cloud the broth.

Let simmer for at least one hour. If you used chicken parts also, now is the time to remove them, take off any chicken meat and return just the meat to the pot.

Add carrots and corn and cook for another hour. Taste for salt and add if necessary. Remove parsley sprigs.

Add noodles when you are just ready to eat. Too far ahead and they will be soggy and soak up all the broth. One trick to consider is to boil the noodles in some chicken broth on their own and add to the plates as you serve. This will let you keep the rest of the soup for longer and also adjust noodlelyness (LOL!) to each person’s likes.

For an added zip of taste, serve with lemon slices and squeeze a little juice into the soup.

For another added zip, dice up some ripe avocado and spoon about 1/3 cup into the soup bowls. Yummy!

You can also substitute cheese tortellini for the noodles for a change of pace.

Hope you enjoyed today’s recipe.

In FOR LOVE OR VENGEANCE the Cuban FBI Agent hero, Miguel Sanchez, takes his partner and love interest, Helene, to eat at a Cuban-Chinese restaurant. Yes, Cuban-Chinese. A unique mix, but many Chinese immigrated to Cuba to work the sugar plantations and their take on Cuban food is delicious.

Miguel and Helene might have ordered a dish like today’s recipe – Fu Fu. Now, there are lots of variations on Fu Fu and others make similar dishes, like Mofongo. The difference is a combination of the kind of plantain used and what’s added to the mashed plantains.

This is my family’s variation on it. We always used green plantains which are not as sweet and therefore give you a dish that’s more like mashed potatoes than variations made with ripe and semi-ripe plantains. If you like sweet, let the plantains turn yellow or go to black and try your own mashed variation.

A caution about plantains. Although Latins will often call them bananas, they are very much a vegetable and cannot be eaten raw. They must be cooked and Latins have all kinds of dishes, like plantain chips, ripe plantains (maduros), squashed flat plantains (tostones), etc. They are a staple much like potatoes and rice.

Cuban Mashed Plantains

4 green plantains
1 chopped onion
2 gloves garlic
4 chopped slices bacon

Cut the plantains into one inch chunks. Cut a slit or two across the skin (from end to end and not along the circumference) until you reach the flesh of the plantain. This will help you peel them once they are boiled. The skin will split away from the plantain beneath while boiling.

Boil until fork tender. Make sure to put some salt in the boiling water.

Cool and peel as soon as possible.

Cook the chopped bacon until almost crispy. Remove some of the bacon grease and add the chopped onion. Cook until almost caramelized and then add the garlic. Cook for a few more minutes.

While you are waiting for the final cook of the bacon/onion/garlic mix, mash the plantains. Do not mash them too much. You do want some texture and different sizes and you don’t want it to get gluey. This is especially true if you are using a ripe one.

Once mashed, top with the cooked bacon/onion/garlic mix. Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the top and serve.

Yummy, trust me. I mean, it’s got bacon. What doesn’t taste good with bacon? LOL!