An oft-heard, anguished cry these days chez nous is “there’s nothing to bloody eat in this house except baby food!”. Never actually true and rarely even close to reality, this refrain was aired again earlier this week when, left to my own devices while Amy enjoys a well-deserved week at her family’s shore house, I returned from work and opened the fridge. Having recently watched Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland”, I was reminded that the more one looks at something the more curious it appears, and an apparently bereft fridge began to transform before my eyes into a chest of plenty.

Curiouser still, I remembered that the small, peculiar-looking plant that we’d acquired in May which now resembled a bush and was in need of a drink, was none other than Plectranthus amboinicus, known in Puerto Rico as brujo oregano, or wizard’s oregano, and not really thinking about why I was doing it, I snipped off a couple of the fat green leaves and put them in my pocket. After watering the rest of our garden, and in an increasingly possessed mood that I’m blaming on the heatwave we’re enduring rather than the medicinal herbs secreted on my person, I began ransacking the kitchen cupboards, emerging sweaty and slightly crazed with a can of black beans in one fist and a jar of Haitian piklis in the other, convinced that together it all must feature in one kind of voodoo ritual or another.

Remaining somewhat unsure of my intentions but determined to step behind the burners in spite of the stickiness around my gills, I sought counsel from Mirta Yurnet-Thomas’ “A Taste of Haiti”, opening it entirely randomly at page 50 which showed a recipe for “Zepis”, a herb and aromatic vegetable blend used for the marinading of meats. How fortuitous that a rather tough piece of steak appeared, recently defrosted, on the counter? Again, rummaging through the fridge, and convinced that amid the browning and limp assortment of chilled vegetables I spied a white rabbit peeking out, I laid my hands on an onion, some aged scallions, and a head or two of our very own homegrown garlic. Chopping these all roughly and combining them with two tablespoons of piklis plus two additional tablespoons of piklis vinegar to create a marinade, I left the steak to tenderize, and went in search of a cauldron and broomstick.

An hour later, now highly perfumed with the dense, almost skunky, aroma of the brujo oregano in my pocket, and having drawn a blank on both these two sorcerers accoutrements, I started stewing the black beans with the oregano in a plain old saucepan. Some twice-fried green plantains spirited themselves in to tostones in a matter of minutes while the now tender and spicy steak was fired to a medium-rare. Left with a bold marinade and some black beans that though wildly aromatic lacked a little punch, I combined the two while the meat rested, bringing it to a satisfyingly thick and dark hubble-bubble.

Without ear of rat or leg of toad to add to the pot, I was unable to produce a potion that either shrank me or made me enormous (beyond slightly enlarging my already distended belly), but what I produced did have a hint of magic about it. The beans were among the best I have ever made, and the steak, similar examples of which can be found throughout many countries bordering the Caribbean, was satisfyingly piquant and juicy. I can’t speak to the exact causes of the fugue-state that brought on this bout of fevered concocting, and evidence of it persisting through the plating of the beans can be found in the plantain chip in the form of a pointy hat, but I can recommend that one be careful around ones fridge lest a parallel world beckon you from within.

While Queens may have the reputation for being the most ethnically diverse area in the United States, our very own borough of Brooklyn is certainly not bereft of global flavors. From the side-by-side Mexican and Chinese neighborhoods of Sunset Park to the century-old Italian areas of Carroll Gardens and Bay Ridge, to the more recently established Caribbean community of Crown Heights, there is rather more than a smattering of diverse flavors available to the curious epicure. Even gentrified Park Slope and Prospect Heights reflect the enduring presence of their Puerto Rican and Dominican populations with a wide selection of places offering “Spanish food”, a phenomenon which took me a while to decipher as it certainly isn’t Spanish in the European sense.

Dishes typical of Spanish-speaking countries, especially those ringing the Caribbean, but which also may be derived from actual Iberian cooking — known predominantly on the east coast as Spanish, or Spanish American — it’s basically a catch-all term that to me connotes delicious, often with tropical ingredients, but always complex and filling food. We’ve made mention of several of these neighborhood eateries in several previous posts – El Viejo Yayo, Los Pollitos, Bogota among them – but our most recent crush is on the wonderful Windsor Terrace institution, Elora’s.

Serving Mexican and Spanish food, whereby you can select from the greatest hits of Mexico as well as these Spanish-speaking Caribbean classics, Elora’s serves all these in such volume that one dish could easily feed a hungry family of four. And it is perhaps because of this, and their consequently narrow profit margins, that our regular server at Elora’s should, by rights, be enjoying the benefits of a comfortable retirement.

Pushing 80 years old, Don Nicolas is without doubt the oldest but also the most charming and interesting waiter we have ever had the good fortune to be served by. Born to Sicilian immigrant parents in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and trained as a tango and opera singer, it is his daughter for whom the restaurant is named. His musical career spanned several decades and took him the length and breadth of the Americas, before he retired from singing, settled in Brooklyn and went into the restaurant business with his marital family.

On our most recent visit while we waited for our heavily-laden plates to arrive, Don Nicolas was explaining to us the secret of his youthfulness – “if I stop moving, I become stiff and I might not get started again! When you are young you don’t think about these things and spend all your time on the couch!” Indeed, many less energetic thirty somethings might have struggled with the amount of food he was charged with lugging from the kitchen. But manage he did, depositing immoderate orders of pernil, bistec encebollado and chicharrones de pollo on our table before returning spritely with sides of beans, rice, and tostones. Still not done, he surveyed the table and in a trice was back with a deep bowl of raw garlic in oil. “Prefieren un poco de salsa de ajo por su tostones, no?” (you’d like a little garlic sauce for your plantains, right?), he asked.

When we congratulated Don Nicolas on his fitness and asked if his health is reflection of his restaurant’s hearty fare, he responded diplomatically that he enjoyed the beans and rice and the pollo guisado (stewed chicken) most weeks, but found the Mexican dishes to be too hot for his Argentine tastes. “No tenemos alimento picante en Argentina,” (we don’t have spicy food where I come from.) he explained.

In fact, chicharrones de pollo, deep fried chicken, or more accurately translated as chicken cracklins’, are a popular Dominican dish, sometimes also claimed by Puerto Ricans as their own — we’ll leave it to them to fight over where it truly originated — in which chunks of chicken are marinaded for a lengthy period in adobe, lime juice, rum and either soy sauce or worcestershire sauce before being lightly dusted in corn starch and tossed into hot oil. If you like fried chicken (and those who don’t must ask themselves some searching questions) then you should try this recipe. It goes perfectly well with the tostones we had at Elora’s or the beans and rice we prepared more recently, but it is just as good on its own with a jigger of hot sauce and a cold bottle of Presidente Dominican beer. And, sure, it won’t necessarily help you live well into your 80s, but it will make the next couple of hours more enjoyable.

He’s certainly not the first to make such a remark, but when in a recent episode of his PBS show Mexico: One Plate at a Time, chef Rick Bayless commented that Mexican food may be the first “fusion cuisine” in the Americas, the concept resonated with me. The collision of cultures and culinary traditions that resulted from the European conquest of the Americas had as profound and delicious consequences for its Spanish, French and English protagonists as it had on the diets of its unwilling Native American and African antagonists. Indeed, and here I understand that I’m on sensitive ground, in cultural terms one might venture that one of the few short term benefits, that became a long term legacy, of this brutal period was the fabulous variety of new dishes that resulted from this coming together of New World, European and African ingredients and techniques.

Anthropologists and historians generally agree that apart from Brazil, the islands of the Caribbean are the most “Africanized” countries of the Americas because the extraordinarily harsh conditions, and consequential high slave mortality rate, in these places required that the plantation’s human capital be almost constantly replaced, continually refreshing African traditions. This sad history has allowed for the persistence of several West African cultural traditions, in syncretic religions like Haitian voodoo and Brazilian candomblé, as well as a variety of typical dishes, in the New World. Chief among the latter of these is the filling cassava mush known throughout much of Central and Western sub-Saharan Africa as fufu.

Most commonly served with a tomato or peanut based soup – which is sometimes garnished with seafood – fufu (fufuo, foufou, fougou) is believed to have originated in Twi-speaking regions of modern-day Ghana where the word foufouep (p is silent) means white and refers to the color of the cassava flour used in its preparation. When cooked with hot water and stirred to a similarly thick consistency as polenta or grits, and served on the side of a bowl of soup (or on a central platter), the diner takes a pinch of fufu, rolls it into an olive sized ball, makes an indentation with their thumb and uses it as an edible spoon for the soup.

The traditional shrimp and grits of the American South is, among many other variants, a direct descendant of fufu, where the American staple cornmeal has replaced cassava. In modern-day Cuba, one of the most traditional Afro-Cuban dishes, fufu de platano, has an even more direct bloodline to its African forebear in its use of that other West African starch, the green plantain.

Very similar to Cuban fufu is the joyously monikered mofongo of Puerto Rico – a dish that is so unbelievably delicious that it is even more fun to eat than it is to pronounce. Whereas fufu is often just mashed boiled plantains, mofongo (sometimes mofongu) is fried plantains that are then doused in a heavily-garlicked olive oil sauce while being pounded in a mortar. The mofongo is often then mixed with chopped up chicharrones (deep-fried pork belly cracklins), and shaped into a mound, before being dressed in an intensely savory tomato and shrimp-stock based gravy and garnished with sauted or fried shrimp.

More or less understood to be one of, if not the, national dishes of Puerto Rico, mofongo represents the creole (criolla) culture of that island in a truly unique way. The exotic tropical plantains native to Africa blending seamlessly with Caribbean-influenced sofrito used in the sauce and the typically Iberic flavors of olive oil and garlic into a colorful feast for the senses.

And a feast dish mofongo truly is. A Puerto Rican festival is said to be incomplete without mofongo, and this on an island where the perennial feast-time favorite, the long slow roasted pork dish called pernil is accompanied by both rice and beans and tostones. The competition in terms of delicious flavors being nothing short of extreme on that blessed island. Of course, we tend to wax lyrical about all the food we make here on WANF, but I want to stress that you have no idea just how amazing mofongo is, you just have to trust us and try it. It’s so rich, so intensely flavored, so texturally intriguing, and so quite unlike anything you’re likely to have eaten before. It’s a stunning combination that is as easy on the soul as it is invigorating for the intellect.

We first ate mofongo at one of a pair of fascinating restaurants in our Brooklyn neighborhood that have been serving the flavors of home to the area’s Caribbean population for more than 40 years. El Viejo Yayo (and El Viejo Yayo II) (meaning, roughly, the old man, or the grandfather), are the kinds of places – bright, harsh lighting, giant portions, patronized mostly by Latinos – that are a dying breed in our gentrified nabe, but can be relied upon for traditional island cuisine for these exact reasons. El Viejo Yayo serves a variety of mofongos, some as mains, others (almost unimaginably given their size) as side dishes, some with seafood, others with pork, and no matter how hard we try, it’s nearly impossible not to get one, in spite of the other wonderful offerings on their menu, including an outstanding soupy rice with seafood. [A propos of nothing, it's always interested me that they also make a mean brandy alexander, just one of many retro cocktails that they, unlike trendier places, never stopped making.] Under the bright strip lights, perspiring gently as pork and carbohydrates flood our system, we’ll often look around at our fellow diners – elbows on tables, giant plates or bowls in front of them, talking loudly and energetically gesticulating – and remark how lucky we are to have all this delicious diversity on our doorstep.

It sounds rather trite to conclude any piece about food in this way, but out of the myriad sadnesses of a shameful past shrouded in human misery, suffering and squalor, has risen, in mofongo (amongst the New World’s many great dishes), a gastronomic legacy that is truly a cultural phenomenon to celebrate and be proud of. And, perhaps, therein lies one of enduring maxims of great national dishes, that they speak simultaneously of what is ugly and painful as well as beautiful and serene about a country’s character, while reflecting the shared joy and peace to be found in the simple pleasures of the table.

What’s originally from India, can be green or yellow, starchy or sweet, is consumed throughout West Africa, the Caribbean, and Central & South America, and (best of all) can be used to mimic a phallus in hilarious kitchen antics? Yes, that’s right, it’s the plantain – aka banana plantain, cooking plantain, beer banana, bocadillo plantain, tostones, maduro, patacon, chifle, dodo, etc. – and like almost all the best kinds of foods (to us at least) it is most deliciously prepared deep-fried.

Throughout the Caribbean, Central America and the northern half of South America, starchy green plantains, aka patacones or tostones, are one of the principal components of almost every meal, and, depending on where you are and who is doing the cooking, you’ll find them sliced into rounds (Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic), cut on the bias to make wedges (Honduras, Cuba), or sliced length-wise into, well, long, um, sausages (Venezuela, Colombia, Jamaica, Trinidad)…Typically, the plantain is fried once before being lightly flattened (in some places this is done with a special tool, but we used a meat mallet or rolling pin to good effect) which gives more surface area, exposing more of the starch to oil, and hence creating crispier patacones/tostones. Then, it’s tipped back into the fryer and cooked until crispy and golden on all sides.

In many places, nothing more is done to it and it’s eaten just like that, maybe with some salt or sliced avocado. In Haiti, Dominican Republic and Cuba they are often dipped in criole/creole/criollo sauce and eaten with chicken or shrimp, whereas in Venezuela and Colombia they often go into sandwiches with meat and vegetables. Let’s face it though, they’re good anyway you like them. They’re like potato chips on steroids and will fill even the hungriest belly in double-time.

After eating them prepared in a similar way at a restaurant near us in Brooklyn, we spread our patacones with mashed avocado, but then gilded that lily adding sauteed onions, our world (ie: home) famous black beans, crumbled morcilla (blood sausage) and chunks of chorizo. A little squeeze of sour cream and hot sauce finished things off. If you can’t find, or won’t eat morcilla, it would still be delicious with just chorizo, but we can imagine topping patacones with shredded chicken, roast pork, shrimp, fish, or anything you like really. Half a green plantain each made a decent “light” dinner, but these would make fantastic finger-food at a party if you cut them into bite-sized pieces. Viva el patacon!

In honor or one of our commenters (Elra), we thought it would be helpful to actually post a recipe instead of posting an idea of how to make this. So, here ya go:

PATACONES (serves 2 as a meal and 4 as an appetizer)

Ingredients:

• 2 green plantains 
• enough peanut or veggie oil to fry
• lime
• salt

Optional toppings:

• Our “famous” black beans
• Smashed avocado with a bit of lime or homemade guacamole (avocado, lime juice, cilantro, bit of garlic)
• Sauteed onions and green peppers (saute some sliced onions and green peppers in some olive oil w/ a bit of lime juice and salt for about 8 minutes until semi-soft)
• Sauteed chorizo and/or morcilla sausage (again, slice chorizo into small pieces and crumble morcilla into similar small pieces, then saute in until warm and a bit charred – about 6-8 minutes)

What to do:

1. With a sharp knife, slice the plantain skin lengthways downwards about 1/2 inch deep.  Do not puncture the plantains, you only want to make it easier to remove the skin.  Remove skin.
2. Slice the plantian in half lengthways (from top to bottom).  Heat up oil. Fry each half of plantian for about 1-2 minutes then remove to drain on a paper towel.  Let cool for a moment.
3. Grab your mallet or tostonera, flatten the plantain as best you can until it is about 1/4 of an inch thick.  We basically just smashed ours with a mallet, but be kind of careful not to hit too hard because you don’t want it to split. Once they are all flattened, fry again until golden brown, the time will be determined by how hot your oil is.
4. Remove from oil and allow to drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with some salt and a squeeze of lime juice and top with your favorite toppings!

This appetizer was concocted by me because, well, I was freaking hungry and needed some crunch at that moment. I had leftover mango salsa that we had made for a previous meal and a green plantain that had to be used. I thought about those bags of plantain chips that are sold in the many bodegas here in NYC. They could be used in lieu of potato chips or anything else that could be used with dip. Why not make some tostones (fried green plantains) and use them as a cracker? So that’s what I did. I figure if I’m having more than a party for one (me), these could be a cheap and delicious alternative to the old boring chips and salsa.

FRIED GREEN PLANTAIN “CRACKERS” WITH MANGO SALSA

For Ingredients and Recipe for Fried Green Plantains, CLICK HERE:

Ingredients for Mango Salsa:

• 1 ripe mango, thinly diced



• 2 small red onion, thinly diced
• 1 ripe avocado, thinly diced
• 1 ripe tomato, thinly diced
• 1 serrano, jalapeno or any other type of hot pepper
• palmful of cilantro, minced
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• juice of 1 lime
• pinch of salt and pepper to taste

What to do:

• Mix all the ingredients for the salsa together and allow to marinate for at least a half hour.
• Make your tostones.
• If you are going to top your tostones with a bit of the salsa, only serve immediately after topping them – you don’t want to make them soggy! Otherwise, put tostones out for guests to dip into the salsa themselves.

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Ahhh, jerk chicken. One of my favorite dishes. It’s spicy, kind of sweet and when made well should almost melt in your mouth. On a cold winters night, there’s nothing that can snap you out of a cold-weather-depression than cooking up something from the Islands.

Jerk was used as a way to preserve and cook meat and was originally only made with pork. Interestingly, I found that the work “jerk” comes from a Spanish word called “charqui” which means dried meat. This is how we coined the term “jerky” for that awesome, chewy and salty dried meat we can pick up in 711′s or other corner stores or truck stops. Another possible meaning of the word stems from what happens to the meat when you prepare and cook it – you poke it/or jerk it to produce a hole in order to fill it with the spice mixture (which I didn’t do). I also read that it could come from the reaction your body has as you eat the spicy meat – your body jerks. How about the way you cook it – you ‘jerk’ the meat off the coals. Whatever the derivation all I know is that it’s absolutely delicious! What’s even cooler is that jerk pork’s origins can be traced all the way back to 1655 during the pre-slavery days of West African hunters (the Cormantees) through a group of Jamaican slaves (Maroons) that escaped from the British during the invasion of that year. The Maroons supposedly developed and perfected the jerk as a way to preserve the meat while they lived in the mountains fighting the British troops.

Nowadays, various jerk recipes are passed down from Jamaican family to Jamaican family, but each recipe always includes allspice, hot chilies, salt and various spices and herbs. Traditionally it should be grilled slowly over a wood fire made of pimento (allspice) wood, just to infuse the flavor even deeper into the meat, and continuously basted with the marinade. Because it’s winter in NYC and we will be purchasing a new grill this summer, I enjoy oven-cooking my jerk. If you stick on the broiler for a bit at the end, you can get a bit of crisp on the skin. WHOOOO HOOOOOO… absolutely fabulous! Give it a try yourself – it’s easy. Make it along with a some rice & pea and fried green plantains for the perfect balance of salty and sweet. The crunch of the tostones (SEE BELOW FOR A PICTORIAL “HOW TO”) make the dish. Our friend, Bren, has a great piece on all the different ways you can cook plantains

Also, we’d like to thank our friend, Pixie, who gave our recipe a whirl and had a taste of the Islands in the UK one night. THANK YOU!!

JERK CHICKEN WITH RICE & PEA AND TOSTONES (FRIED PLANTAINS) (SERVES 2-3)

For the chicken and marinade:

• 2 breasts of chicken, skin on
• 2 legs of chicken, skin on
• 2 tbsp. allspice
• 1 tbsp. dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon hot paprika
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 scotch bonnet pepper (or other spicy hot pepper)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/2 cup of cilantro (you can substitute 1 teaspoon coriander seed)
• juice of 1 lime
• splash of orange juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 scallions
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• pinch of salt and pepper

What to do:

1. If you are using allspice berries/seeds and whole cinnamon sticks, grind the spices down with a spice grinder. Then blend all the ingredients together in a blender until smooth (or smooth enough – you’ll have a bit of chunks of garlic and hot pepper). I used the olive oil to make it a wet rub. If you feel like you need more or less, adjust so it’s a thick paste.
2. Slab this on your chicken (remember to get under the skin if you can!). Wear some gloves if you have ‘em… this marinade contains hot pepper. Allow this to marinate for an hour at least, if you have the time. If you can marinate overnight, even better.
3. Cook your chicken pieces at 400 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until juices run clear. For the last minute, put on the broiler and allow some of the skin to crisp up a bit. Don’t let the marinade burn!

RICE AND PEA

What to do:

• 1 cup white rice
• 1 can red kidney beans
• 1 small onion, minced
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 scallion, sliced
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional – I really love garlic)
• chicken stock

What to do:

1. Saute your onions and garlic over medium heat for a few minutes (keep em a bit crunchy). Add your rice, the garlic powder, scallions and beans. Add the rice and stir all together.
2. Pour enough chicken stock over your rice that it comes up the width of 2 fingers above the level of the uncooked rice (make the peace sign, put your 2 fingers together, turn your 2 fingers clock wise 90 degrees – that’s how you measure – I’M TELLING YOU – IT WORKS EVERY TIME PERFECTLY). Bring to the boil and allow to cook down until it reaches the level of the rice. When the chicken stock has reached the level of the rice, stir ONCE, turn your heat to low and cover. Cook on low for 20 minutes.
3. After 20 minutes your rice will be perfect, give it a stir and enjoy.

****Traditionally, Jamaican rice & pea should be made with coconut milk. Just replace the chicken stock with 1 can of coconut milk plus enough water so that the total amount of liquid follows the “2 finger rule” (see above).

TOSTONES (FRIED GREEN PLANTAINS)

Ingredients:

• 2 Green Plantains
• veggie oil
• salt

What to do:

1. Heat your veggie oil – you want enough to almost cover the plantains.
2. Peel plantains and cut into slices, about 1 inch thick.
3. Fry your cut plantains once for about 2-3 minutes. Drain on paper towels.
4. Smash with a mallet and then fry again for another 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Drain and season with some salt.

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