Rice with Pigeon Peas – Arroz con Gandules

22 Dec

Rice with Pigeon Peas (Arroz con Gandules) is one of the quintessential Puerto Rican Xmas dishes.  Around this time, you can find fresh pigeon peas at the Farmer’s Markets or Plazas del Mercado.

RICE WITH PIGEON PEAS

2 cups of whole-grain rice
5 cups of water
2 tbs annatto oil
2 tbs sofrito
1 vegetable bouillon cube
1 tsp salt
1 ½ cups fresh pigeon peas – if they’re dry, you will need to soak them for about 2-3 hours before using them in the recipe
½ cup of stuffed Spanish olives
 
  1. Wash the rice well.
  2. In a large pot over medium heat, add the annatto oil, vegetable cube, sofrito, olives and pigeon peas.  Sauté everything and cook for 15 minutes.
  3. Add the washed rice to the pot.  Mix everything well to make sure the rice is coated with the oil and seasonings.
  4. Add the water and mix well.  Cook at medium heat for about 20-25 minutes until most of the water has evaporated.  Stir the rice and cover so the rice can finish cooking and all the water is absorbed.

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Annatto Oil (Achiote)

22 Dec

 I do not use this in my regular cooking, but cooking with Annatto Oil is extremely popular to make very traditional Puerto Rican dishes like Arroz con Gandules and Pasteles.  It’s easy to make and keeps well…

 

ANNATTO OIL (ACHIOTE)

1 Cup Vegetable Cooking Oil
½ Cup of Achiote (annatto) Seeds

  1. Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat, and when it gets hot, turn down the heat to low, and add the annatto seeds.
  2. Stir every now and then, for about 5 minutes, or until the oil turns a bright orange.
  3. Cool the annatto oil completely and strain through a paper lined sieve, into a glass container.  At the yoga center, they have a sieve specially for the achiote oil.
  4. Store covered in a cool dry place.

Be careful when cooking with it because the oil stains like crazy…

 

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Green Banana Escabeche

21 Dec

When I was growing up, I loved to eat these “guineítos” at my mom’s office parties.  I loved the tanginess of the vinegar…  You can eat these with toothpicks as an appetizer or as a side dish with your Arroz con Gandules and Pasteles.

 

GREEN BANANA ESCABECHE

24 green bananas, boiled and cut into slices
½ cup of green bell pepper, chopped
Salt to taste
Drizzle of vegetable or canola oil
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2 cups of extra virgin olive oil
½ cup vinegar
About 12 black peppercorns
4 bay leaves
3 cups of yellow onions, sliced thin
12 cloves of garlic, sliced
The juice of 1 criollo lemon or lime
Salt to taste

 

  1. In a large pot filled with salted water and a drizzle of vegetable oil, place green bananas to boil.  They’ll be ready in about 20 minutes.  I show you here a step-by step process to boil the green bananas.
  2. When they’re boiled, peel off the banana skin, allow them to cool off and slice them into 1/2” rounds slices.  Set them aside.
  3. In a medium saucepan, add the olive oil, vinegar, onions, peppercorns, bay leaves and garlic.  Cook over medium heat for about 10-15 minutes, until the onions have softened, but not browned.  The onions should remain as white as possible.  Let the mixture cool a bit.
  4. In a glass pyrex dish, while the banana slices are still somewhat warm, mix together the green banana slices and the olive oil/onion mixture and green peppers.  Season with salt as needed.  Let the green bananas marinate in the escabeche mixture for at least 2-3 hours.  After the banana pieces have cooled off (at about the 1 hours mark), you can continue the marinating process in the refrigerator.

Serve directly from the fridge or at room temperature.  You can drizzle the juice of one criollo lemon or lime before serving for added zip.

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Puerto Rican Typical Xmas Menu

20 Dec

Xmas season in Puerto Rico is very special… I do enjoy the snow and the caroling as I have spent several Xmases in either NYC or Miami, but Xmas season is different here.  This is what’s normal and typical for me:  Sunny days to enjoy it at the beach with some cooler breezes, houses decorated with multi-colored Xmas lights, a festive ambiance all over, typical  “parranda” music, parties of all sorts to celebrate the season and to welcome the new year approaching.  The cold weather is only felt when you go to the mountains in the center of the Island…

    

Logo of ‘Parranda’ app for iPhone and iPod touch. Learn how to turn any party into a Puerto Rican parranda from your phone by visiting www.parrandapr.com.

 And a great part of what makes a Puerto Rican Xmas special is the typical menu.   The Puerto Rican typical menu is not fully vegetarian… but if we just omit certain ingredients that are not essential in the basic traditional recipes, they can certainly be enjoyed by everyone.  The essence of the Puerto Rican menu is certainly present in this spread here:

Arroz con Gandules – Rice with Pigeon Peas

 

Pasteles en Hoja – Pasteles in Banana Leaves

 

Potato Salad

I know this may sound out of season…  my former college roomate told me potato salads are a summer salad, not for the holidays, but here in Puerto Rico, arroz con gandules and potato salad are a key part of the holidays.  Even if someone serves the combination at some point in the year, the comment is that you’re eating holiday food.

 

Guineítos en Escabeche – Green Bananas Escabeche

Tembleque

tembleque-mami

Arroz con Dulce – Sweet Rice

Coquito

p1020013.jpg

OK… I’ll come clean here.  Some of the recipes I have already shared with you, but I’ll share with you other new recipes I have made before at some point but, they’re not mine.  Hey, I may not even master them fully.  But I feel confident you’ll be able to follow them and execute them successfully.  Here’s the thing…  I am too young still to be THE ONE making the bulk of the Xmas cooking.  These dishes are always made for family gatherings or activities at the yoga center by the “grown-ups”.  I have just helped make them many, many times, but I have never done these recipes all by myself.  So please accept my apologetic disclaimer…. And enjoy a Puerto Rican vegetarian Xmas…

¡Feliz Navidad!

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Tortilla Casserole

18 Dec

I work from home quite a lot… and half the time, by the time I get hungry I am too hungry to prepare something to eat.  So I usually have a fridge full of delicious stuff to cook and I end up having a boiled potato or a sandwich for lunch.  I just can’t spend 30-40 minutes cooking something right in the middle of a work day.

I had a bunch of tortillas I had bought to experiment with a few Mexican dishes I learned in Mexico and got tired of seeing them in the fridge, so I searched several recipes and found a few interesting ones, but of course all included some kind of meat.  I had some left-over tofu-chón in my fridge and I decided to mix and match recipes to see what would work.

I liked one in particular because it needed to chill overnight before baking… I thought it was awesome for lunch because I could just pop into the toaster oven at about 11AM, leave it alone and by the time I would get hungry, it would be ready.  My kind of recipe… 

I am not certain if the overnight soak is essential, but I love that this is an easy assembly you can prepare while making another dish the night (or even a few nights) before.  It’ll be ready when you are…

 

TORTILLA CASSEROLE

7 corn tortillas, cut into ½” strips
6-7 slices of marinated tofu, sliced into small pieces – I used this tofu-chón recipe here
1/2 cup mild or medium salsa
1 can of condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 medium onion, finely chopped
½ a packet of white button mushrooms, sliced (about 2 cups)
4oz sour cream
½ cup plain low-fat yogurt
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
¼ cup of water, if needed

 

  1. Prepare the tofu… first you need to press the tofu for about 1 hour and marinate in the adobo mixture for about an extra 2-3 hours.  So I recommend you making this tofu ahead and save them in the fridge and have them ready for you when you want to make this recipe. 
  3. Add salsa, mushroom soup and onions to a medium bowl and stir to combine.  If you find it too thick, add the ¼ cup of water in small increments to avoid making it too watery.  Set aside. 
  4. Now mix together the sour cream and yogurt in a separate bowl.  Set aside too.
  5. Spread 1/2 cup of the salsa mixture in bottom of a medium baking dish that can fit into your toaster oven. Place half of the tortilla strips in an even layer over salsa mixture
  7. Followed by half of the tofu, half of the mushrooms, half of the remaining salsa mixture, half of the sour cream/yogurt mixture, and half of the remaining cheese. Repeat process with remaining ingredients. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
  10. Uncover and transfer baking dish to a 300F degree oven. Bake until casserole is heated through and cheese is melted ad golden brown on top, about 1 hour.

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