Cebollas Encurtidas (Pickled Onions)
February 8, 2009 | Filed Under Announcements, Ecuadorian Recipes, Latin Recipes, Laylita's Recipes blog | 13 Comments
Hi Everyone. I haven’t meant to seemingly abandon this food blog. I know it’s been a while since I’ve put up a new post here. Unfortunately, life is keeping me extremely busy and stressed. As a result, I haven’t had much time to blog here or visit other blogs. Forgive me, please. Thanks to everyone who e-mailed me and left messages here to make sure I was okay. I very much appreciate your concern.
Anytime I go to the neighborhood Dominican restaurant and order mangú or one of my other favorite Latin meals, it comes with a typical side dish — cebollas encurtidas (pickled onions). They are tasty sweet/sour-tasting pink, thinly sliced onions. Normally, I have to beg them to add an extra serving of the pickled onions. Depending on who waits on me, I get an amused or annoyed look before they comply.
Thanks to Laylita’s Recipes, I’ve now found out how to make my own cebollas encurtidas. My own pickled onions! Yay! I no longer have to beg for an extra serving of onions. Surprisingly, it’s easy to prepare. All I need are red onions, lime, salt and a little bit of time of patience (waiting three hours or overnight for the onions to turn pink). Oh, Layla’s recipe calls for sunflower oil. I didn’t have that and used olive oil on one occassion and canola oil at another time. And viola! I have my tasty onions. The only thing I need to practice is cutting the onions to produce nice, fine slices. I’m told that it takes a good tomato knife and lots of practice. I’m ready to practice my heart out to make nice, even onion slices. Thanks, Layla!
Before I end my post, I wanted to let you know that I’ve opened a Zazzle Gallery, where I’ve put up a few postcards for sale. These postcards have photos of NYC that you’ll see on my photo blog. At the moment, I have 10 postcards featured. If there’s a photo, in which you’re interested, let me know I’ll see it is possible to turn it into a postcard. Check the gallery when you have a chance.
If any of you miss New York Monday, don’t forget that you can always go here to find a NYC photo.
Paz
Cebollas Encurtidas (Pickled Onions)
Ingredients:
2 small red onions
Juice of 3 limes
1 tablespoon sunflower oil
1 tablespoon salt + more to adjust taste
Preparation:
- Cut the onion in half, slice very finely (a mandolin is very helpful with this part) and place in a bowl
- Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon salt and a squeeze of lime juice, let rest for about 10 minutes
- Cover the onions with lukewarm water and let rest for another 10 minutes
- Rinse and drain the onions
- Add the lime juice, salt and the oil, and mix well.
- Cover the onions and place in the fridge, the onions will start to turn pinkish after about 3 hours, and will turn very pink if left overnight. Taste again before serving and add salt if needed.
Rice and Beans: Moros y Cristianos (Arroz con Habichuelas)
September 19, 2005 | Filed Under Latin Recipes, Latin Recipes, Rice | Leave a Comment
I saw this recipe demonstrated on Sara Moulton’s cooking show, on the Food Network channel. She had guest chef Juventino (love the name Juventino!) Avila cooking with her, and they prepared dishes mainly from the Dominican Republic. Out of the three recipes prepared on the show, I tried the rice and beans recipe first. I’ve made this recipe twice and both times, my rice and beans have come out GREAT!
The recipe includes black beans, long grained white rice, diced white onion, diced green peppers, garlic, store-bought sofrito, oregano, ground cumin, chicken stock and salt and pepper.
The second time I made the arroz con habichuelas (rice and beans), just before I started to cook, I discovered that I’d forgotten to buy the sofrito, which is an important part of the recipe because it is the base of Dominican cuisine (and a lot of Latino cuisine, in general). Sofrito consists of vegetables, spices and herbs that are sautéed together and cause the flavors to come out even more.
Luckily, I had the recipe for fresh sofrito from Latina T.V. Chef Daisy Martinez. I had most of the ingredients on hand (and what I didn’t have, I improvised). So, I ended up making my own sofrito from scratch. I’m telling you, I impressed myself.
Now that I’ve tasted the difference between the store-bought and freshly made sofrito, I find that I prefer the fresh one to use in my cooking; and now that I know how to make it, I don’t mind going the extra step to make it.
Paz
Rice and beans: Moros y Cristianos (Arroz con Habichuelas)
1 1/2 cups Goya dried black beans (or canned pre-cooked) 3 cups long-grain white rice 2 1/2 cups white onion, diced 2 1/2 cups green peppers, very small dice 1/4 cup olive oil, for sauteing 4 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped 1/2 cup sofrito 1/2 teaspoon tomato paste 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1 tablespoon ground cumin 1 bay leaf 4 1/2 cups chicken stock Salt and pepper Cover the dry beans with water in a large pot. Do not salt the water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and cook until tender, about 1 hour.
Rinse the rice with cold water until the water runs clear.
Use a large, 8-quart covered stockpot. Saute the onion and green pepper in the olive oil until tender. Add the garlic and sofrito and saute another 1 to 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste, black beans, oregano, cumin and bay leaf. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring gently.
Add the chicken stock and the rinsed rice. Season with plenty of salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and cook for about 20 to 30 minutes, or until rice is fully cooked.
Sofrito
Makes about 4 cups.
If you can’t find ajices dulces or culantro, don’t sweat. Up the amount of cilantro to 1 ½ bunches.
| 2 medium Spanish onions, cut into large chunks 3 to 4 Italian frying peppers or cubanelle peppers 16 to 20 cloves garlic, peeled 1 large bunch cilantro, washed 7 to 10 ajices dulces (see note below), optional 4 leaves of culantro (see note below), or another handful cilantro 3 to 4 ripe plum tomatoes, cored and cut into chunks 1 large red bell pepper, cored, seeded and cut into large chunks |
Chop the onion and cubanelle or Italian peppers in the work bowl of a food processor until coarsely chopped. With the motor running, add the remaining ingredients one at a time and process until smooth. The sofrito will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. It also freezes beautifully. Freeze sofrito in ½ cup batches in sealable plastic bags. They come in extremely handy in a pinch. You can even add sofrito straight from the freezer to the pan in any recipe that calls for it in this book. Pantry Notes: Ajices Dulces, also known as cachucha or ajicitos are tiny sweet peppers with a hint of heat. They range in color from light to medium green and yellow to red and orange. They add freshness and an herby note to the sofrito and anything you cook. Do not mistake them for Scotch bonnet or Habanero chilies (which they look like)—those two pack a wallop when it comes to heat. If you can find ajicitos in your market, add them to sofrito. If not, up the cilantro and add a pinch of cayenne pepper. Culantro is not cilantro. It has long leaves with tapered tips and serrated edges. When it comes to flavor, culantro is like cilantro times ten. It is a nice, not essential addition to sofrito. (See Sources for both the above.)
Diced onions and green pepper in pan
Beans and sofrito added to the pan
Rice added to the pan
