Sunday Night Dominican Cooking

On Sunday night, Eric and I decided to cook some Dominican-style food.

The menu:
Pollo guisado
with
Arroz con habichuelas

I got the recipes off of Aunt Clara's Dominican Cooking website.

The pollo guisado recipe was okay, but nothing special, so I'm not going to post it here. I do recommend using her recipe for rice; I had forgotten how to make my rice turn out "Dominican style", and I was very grateful for her recipe.

The habichuelas turned out ALMOST as good as I remember them. I used her recipe, but I am going to re-type it here, because I think that hers was a little confusing. Also, I remember that in the D.R., my best friend would go to the colmado and buy a small chunk of pumpkin to add to her habichuelas. I think that the pumpkin adds a little extra depth to the habichuelas, and so I am adding that into my version of the recipe.

Habichuelas rojas guisadas

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of dried red kidney beans
• Water in which you boiled the beans
• 1/2 cup of chopped celery
• 1 small red onion, cut into 4 quarters
• a "chunk" (between 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup) of pumpkin or squash (peeled and without seeds; you can either chop it into small pieces, or just put it into the pot with the other ingredients to cook out the flavor)
  
• 1 cube of chicken bouillon
• 1/2 teaspoon of chopped cilantro (or you can just put a couple of pieces of cilantro in - stem and all, instead of chopping it up; I prefer to do it this way; then you just remove it before eating the beans)
  
• a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon of tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon of oil
• 1 garlic clove, mashed
• 1 pinch of oregano
• Salt - a lot of it
  

Prep work:
1) Put 2 cups of dried red beans on a plate and make sure there are no stones or "bad beans"
2) Put the beans in a bowl and cover with water, then swish them around and pour out the water. Do this a few times until the water runs clear. Then drain the beans.
3) Soak the 2 cups of dried red kidney beans in water overnight.
4) Discard the water that the beans soaked in.
5) Put 2 cups of water in a pot and add the 2 cups of beans and bring them to a boil. Then cover the pot partially, and turn the heat to low. Cook them for about 2 or 2 1/2 hours (until the beans are tender). You can add about 1 tsp. of salt to the beans when they are almost done (when there is about 10 minutes left).
6) Once the beans are tender, remove the pot from heat and save the water the beans cooked in (I just leave the beans in the pot).

Preparing the beans, Dominican style:
1) In a different pot, heat the oil.
2) Add the oregano, onion, garlic, tomato paste, celery, pumpkin or squash, thyme and cilantro.
3) Stir
4) Add 2 tablespoons of the "bean water".
5) Now add the beans (without their cooking water - but save the rest of that water).
6) Simmer.
7) Once the water has almost evaporated, add the chicken boullion cube and 2 more tablespoons of the "bean water".
8) Stir.
9) Add the rest of the "bean water", and (if you want) mash the beans a little bit over the heat.
10) Boil at medium heat until it reaches a creamy consistency (this takes about 1/2 hour. Longer if you are Liz and you turn on the wrong burner...heehee).
11) Add more salt (probably 1/2 tsp. or more, but taste it first to make sure you aren't adding too much salt).
12) Take out the onions, thyme sprigs, and cilantro "sprigs".
13) Serve over Dominican style white rice.