Friday, February 22, 2008

Comida, Glorious Comida!

So...the reason I have Dominicans on the mind is because yesterday I started looking up various ethnic recipes, and I started with Dominican food. Now that is good stuff. And I discovered why that is, once I had read through a few recipes. Let's just say, keep your gallon of oil close at hand in the kitchen, folks. :)

I only partly jest. I did also notice that if you stock up on a few (okay, a little more than a few) key ingredients, you can make ANYTHING THAT HAS EVER BEEN SERVED BY A DOMINICAN. This is actually true for other ethnic foodal items, but I was really struck by it looking through the recipes.

So yesterday for dinner I tried making stewed red beans, or habichuelas rojas guisadas. I thought it turned out pretty well, although a little salty, and it did remind me of my mission. I'll have to try that one again. Braden wanted to marry the fajitas, and those were made from a McCormick packet of undetermined age. But he's not a big bean fan anyway, so...more beans for me!

I'm also looking up how to make authentic refried beans along with Mexican rice. I'm at the point where I get so excited about collecting various recipes that I can't decide which one I want to make, so I've got to be careful. :)

I just made some Phad Thai, also from a packet, and that was a little disappointing. Braden really liked the General Tso's chicken and sauce that I made about a month ago, so I thought I'd try something else from the same company. This one was all right, but it was just missing something. Ah well. At least we know we like the General Tso one. And no, I don't always make stuff from packets (it's actually not that common for me to do so), but they sure are convenient sometimes. This is especially true when you're not all the way unpacked, and you can't find your certain key ingredients. :)

There's a marketplace near here that has an awesome ethnic foods section. We got all excited when we stumbled across it a few days ago. We're talking "hunt for the product name in English because everything on the label is Chinese/Japanese/Thai/Spanish" authentic. Gooooooood stuff. They even have several brands of mango nectar, which is such a mission memory for me. I remember my companion and I each downing a quart of mango nectar right before starting a companionship fast one time. I loved the stuff. The nectar, that is, not so much the fasting while walking miles and miles in the Bronx. Running...out...of...ener...gy.....

4 comments:

Carolyn said...

How do you guys afford to eat all that specialty ethnic foods?

When ever I try to buy special stuff to make a new meal it ends up being way expensive.

But yummy!

dan said...

Bandera!!! Arroz habichuelas y... carne!

The official food of the DR.

I was very alone in this opinion, but I really dug the spaghetti that they served there too. Hard to describe what it exactly was

annahannah said...

beans, yeah, my fave.

Braden said...

We can't afford to make most of the specialty ethnic foods. Most of the recipes I do make don't require exotic ingredients, and that's why I'm able to make them. For example, a lot of Latin food calls for rice, beans, garlic, onion, green pepper, oil, etc---stuff that I already have at hand. If a recipe requires a bunch of ingredients that are expensive or hard to come by, I move on to the next recipe very quickly! :)

Dan--I was a big hit at this one Dominican party when I was asked what the Bandera was. I responded, "Arroz, habichuelas y carne", and there was this roar of approval for the gringa!