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Fish and Seafood

Salt Cod with Peppers

Bacalao al Piemiento Morron

(Recipe from Gabriela Barraza)

Garbriela’s Salt Cod with Peppers is a Mexican version. Here it is eaten traditionally on Christmas Eve.

  • 3 lbs salt cod, soaked, cleaned and cubed
  • 6 lbs.green peppers, roasted, deveined, and halved
  • 3 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic

Fry garlic and onion until tender. Add green peppers and cook, stirring, until soft. Add the salt cod cook over low flame until done. May add a little olive oil if desired.

Don’t let salt cod recipes scare you off. Just make sure you really soak the cod for many hours and change the water often in order to get the saltiness out.

When my friend Linda and I went to Lisbon in 1991, we took a tram northiward along the coast and finally came to the end of the line. Being hungry, we went into a tiny restaurant that from the looks of it was the proprietor’s living room. No space to waste. The place was crowded. and looked like a good bet for some good food. Since one of the only things I recognized on the menu was Salt Cod, and since in Portugal it is something like the national dish, I ordered it. With wine, of course. I could not beliieve how delicious it was and I keep looking for more recipes, trying to equal what I had at the end of the tram-line.

Meat and Poultry

Mom’s Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

This recipe for cabbage rolls is the basic Eastern European version that we knew as kids: a savory melding of rice and ground meat rolled in cabbage leaves and smothered in thick tomato sauce. It was always served with sour cream.

Mom would make a whole turkey pan full of cabbage rolls, enough to feed the six of us and more for at least  two or three sittings. As the leftovers sat and aged in their sauce over the next few days, the taste intensified and filled out… I always preferred leftover cabbage rolls over freshly made ones.

There are endless variations of cabbage rolls. One Ukrainian version is pickled cabbage leaves (sauerkraut style) stuffed  with fried onions, ground meat, and buckwheat and baked in a meaty broth instead of tomato sauce. Similar cousins  are rice and lamb stuffed grape leaves in Middle Eastern cuisine.

Ingredients for Mom’s Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

  • 1 head of cabbage
  • 1 lb. mixed ground beef and ground pork (either half and half or slightly more beef than pork)
  • 1 finely minced onion
  • 1 cup cooked rice
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1-1/2 t salt
  • 1/4 t pepper
  • 1 large can tomato soup + 3 T ketchup*
  • 1 cup water
  • Sour cream for serving

Core cabbage. Place in large pot of boiling water with a splash of vinegar. Cook 5 minutes. Remove from heat, drain and let stand 10 to 15 minutes to cool. Sauté onion in a little butter. Mix together the ground beef, onion, rice, salt and pepper. Separate cabbage leaves. Shave off the ribs. Put a large spoonful of meat mix at the base of each leaf and roll up tightly. May fasten with toothpicks. Place in an oiled oven pan, nestling the rolls together so they won’t unroll. Mix together the tomato juice, catchup, and water. Pour over cabbage rolls. Bake, covered, at about 325 F for 1-1/2 hours.

These are best removed from the oven and let sit to settle and thicken the sauce a bit before serving. Place bowls of thick sour cream on the table, and mound a large tablespoonful of the cream on each cabbage roll before eating.

* Mom always swore by Aylmer’s tomato soup instead of tomato puree for making real Cabbage rolls., but it wasn’t always easy to find.

cabbage for cabbage rolls

Meat and Poultry

Gypsy Goulash

  • 3 lbs. pork chops, cubed
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 3 large onion, chopped
  • 5T shortening
  • Salt and pepper
  • 2 t paprika
  • 1 t caraway seed
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 3 green peppers, chopped
  • 1 cup bouillon or more
  • 1 large can sauerkraut
  • 1/2 cup sour cream

Dredge meat cubes with flour. Season. Melt shortening in large pan. Brown meat and onions, then stir in paprika, caraway, bay and green peppers. Cook 10 minutes. Drain the sauerkraut and rinse well. Add to meat with bouillon. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 1-1/2 to 2 hours or until meat is tender, adding extra bouillon if necessary. When done, stir in sour cream and reheat without boiling. Serve with homemade noodles.

Meat and Poultry

Sweet and Sour Beef (Svickova)

SVÍCKOVÁ (pronounced SVEECH-koh-vah)

  • 3 lbs rolled beef rump or rib roast
  • 3 slices bacon
  • 1 t salt
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup celery, diced
  • 1/2 cup carrot, diced
  • 2 T chopped parsley
  • 1/2 cup diced onion
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1/8 tsp thyme
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1/4 cup vinegar
  • 1 T sugar
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 2 cups sour cream

Loosen cord from around roast and place bacon slices evenly around it. Re-tie, rub with salt and set aside. Melt fat in heavy saucepan; add celery, carrot, parsley and onion; cook for 10 minutes. Stir in bay, thyme, and pepper. Place meat on top of vegetables; cover and simmer for 1 hour. Add water, vinegar and sugar. Cover and bake in 350ºF oven until very tender. Add water as needed. Slice thin and serve with a sauce consisting of: 1/4 cup flour blended and simmered with meat juices from the pan the meat was cooked in, into which is stirred 1 pint sour cream.The vegetables will have cooked apart and will help thicken and season the juices.

Drawing by Alois

Meat and Poultry

Chicken in Green Sauce

Pollo en salsa verde

  • 1 large onion
  • 1 handful of fresh coriander
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 6 tomatillos (Mexican green tomatoes)
  • 1 serrano chile
  • 1/4 cup water or chicken broth
  • 1/2 tsp salt, or 1 bouillon cube
  • 1 chicken, cut up
  • oil

In blender, combine onion, coriander, garlic, tomatillos, chile, water, and salt. Brown chicken in oil in a large pot. Add blended sauce and simmer until chicken is tender and sauce has thickened. Add more water or broth as needed. Serve with rice and tortillas.

Meatless Main Dishes

Porotos Granados

A Chilean white (cranberry) bean stew with fresh corn kernels and savory basil. This is the version Maria Teresa prepared on cold days in Santiago de Chile.

The Mapuche people, among others, have cultivated beans since pre-hispanic times and most of its ingredients are native to the Americas. The stew receives its name from its main ingredient, ripe harvested Cranberry (cargamanto) beans, originated in Colombia, but also is common among the Aymara people. The word poroto, unique to Chile, southern Peru and Argentina, originally comes from the quechua word for bean purutu.

Wikipedia contributors. “Porotos granados.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 3 Feb. 2016. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.

Ingredients for Porotos Granados

  • 2 lbs. cranberry or other white beans
  • 2 bouillon cubes
  • 4 or 5 large fresh basil leaves
  • 1 lb. yellow squash, cubed
  • 1/2 onion, minced
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 1 t paprika
  • 1 t finely chopped parsley
  • 1/4 t oregano
  • 2 cups kernel corn (best freshly cut off cobs)
  • Salt and pepper

Cook beans in 6 cups water with the bouillon cubes and basil. When about half cooked, add the squash and allow to cook over medium heat until tender.

Heat oil in a separate pan and add paprika to release its fragrance. Stir for 1 minute and add onion, parsley, and oregano. Season with salt and pepper. Add the onion mixture to the cooked beans. Add the corn and simmer for 15 minutes.

Servings: 6

If prepared with vegetable broth, which, traditionally, it often is, this recipe is vegetarian/vegan

 

Meat and Poultry

Serbian Meaty Rice

SzerbRizses Hús: A Serbian Rice

This is a recipe extracted and translated by Dad from the old Hungarian volume of Az Ìnyesmester Szakácskônyve (The Expert’s Cookbook). It smacks of the kind of home cooking favored in our family, even though it isn’t a family recipe, per se.

Ingredients for Serbian Meaty Rice

  • 4 oz. cubed bacon
  • 1/4 small onion, chopped
  • 2 lbs. veal or lamb
  • 1 T sweet paprika
  • consommé or marrow broth
  • 1-1/2 cups rice
  • grated cheese

Brown cubed bacon with chopped onion. veal or lamb, paprika, and a little consommé. Mix in rice and add consommé or marrow soup in correct proportion to rice. Cover and steam or bake until both rice and meat are tender. Remove from heat and add grated cheese (about 1 T). Serve with additional cheese on the side.

rice shoots