Cuban Night...

So, right then…Cuba. I have to confess I felt slightly underprepared going in to this feast…only through lack of time, not interest!

Plantain Soup

http://recipes.epicurean.com/recipe/19294/ripe-plantain-soup.html

We realised after some time that our plantains were not as ripe as needed really. I think more thought will be paid now to seasonal ingredients. However, we soldiered on and it still worked-just required a fair amount more water in the soup than suggested in the recipe. Before that it was more of a paste than a soup! The meaty, salty flavour of the chorizo worked really well with the plantain though and all round it was a lovely fresh tasting start to the meal.

Cuban spiced pork chops with black beans & rice

http://www.cuba-junky.com/cubans/recipes-pork-chops.htm

http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_5503844_make-beans-rice-quick-easy.html?cr=1

 

Elle was injured just before we reached Cuba and was limited in her range of motion round the kitchen, but like a trouper she carried on in the face of adversity and chopped the veg for the rice and beans. This also required a little more water than the recipe advised and does depend on how long the rice you’re using takes to cook. It was a fresh and tasty accompaniment to the pork, but could have done with being a little spicier. The spices that feature a lot in Cuban cuisine are oregano, cumin, and garlic; and adding these to the rice would have worked a treat me thinks. Also featured are saffron, bay leaves and lime so if you feeling really adventurous you could try and incorporate those fellas too.

The pork was a great success, really simple marinade and the orange juice really worked as the base for the marinade and then cooking sauce. We added rum instead of sherry here and it worked a treat. The chops were really well cooked using the recipe without adaption.

Mojito bundt cake served with homemade peppermint ice cream

Now on to the highlight of any meal….pudding. This was our own creation, but we did use a basic bundt cake recipe that we then adapted to fit our own needs.

Peppermint Ice-cream

Oh yummy, this ice-cream is very easy to make...well, if you have an ice-cream machine it is! The recipe I used was not a custard based one so it was very quick and simple to put together...I doubled the recipe and made 2 pints (shh don’t tell Lucy I kept one back and added chocolate chips to it....mmmm...but also ow as they froze and were a little hard to eat...karma).

300ml milk, heated with 75g caster sugar just until the sugar has dissolved, then stirred into 300ml double cream. Add a dash of peppermint essence and a dribble of green food colouring, then pour into your ice-cream machine and churn until almost set, about 20mins, remove to a tub and freeze.

Mojito Bundt Cake

Taking a basic bundt recipe we added chopped, fresh mint and the zest of a lime...then once it was baked and smelling insanely good we turned it out and stabbed to top with a cocktail stick (well actually first I stabbed the bottom til Lucy pointed out I was being a fool...I blame the intense back pain, or perhaps the numerous rums already imbibed, you know, to numb the back pain...). Once the top was all nice and stabbed Lucy made a glaze with icing sugar and rum, which was then liberally applied.

Served still warm with a generous mound of minty ice-cream this was a most pleasing end to our Cuban feast.