(Recipe at the end of the post)
I like to eat like a local when I travel, and occasionally I’ll encounter something that appeals to my palate so much I try to recreate it in my kitchen. I usually fail miserably…once so miserably I ended up with three fire trucks in front of my house. As frustrating as my kitchen failures are, for me and for the local fire department, they help me appreciate the culinary aspects of travel even more. And every now and then I succeed in recreating a dish I’ve sampled when traveling, which is the focus of this post.
My recent success involves a search for a new recipe that ended up with me rediscovering a dish I had when Janet and I visited Cuba in 2019. The funny thing about this dish is that I didn’t set out with the goal of recreating it. I didn’t even remember it when I started my search for a new recipe, probably because the dish involved mystery meat. I think it was lamb, and I’m not a big fan of lamb.
Rediscovering the dish five years later turned out to be a happy accident. I was searching for something I could make in response to comments my son Rob made about my post on the hot sauce recipe. His first reaction was to be somewhat horrified at the prospect of a recipe coming from the murder suspense show ‘Bones.’ After reading the article he expressed disappointment…that the recipe didn’t involve mystery meat. Rob gets his sense of humor from me.
I took Rob’s comments as a challenge and went in search of an episode of ‘Bones’ that featured a dish involving mystery meat. I found an episode titled “The Mystery in the Meat” which seemed perfect. Until I watched it. I'll spare you the details other than to say I'm glad my mother packed my lunch when I was school aged.
I dug back into my DVR archives and found a ‘Bones’ episode that presented me with an appropriate test dish with mystery meat. The dish was Ropa Vieja, a stew that is the unofficial national dish of Cuba. So where’s the mystery in the meat? Well…Ropa Vieja is supposed to be a beef stew, but nowadays in Cuba they make it with pretty much whatever meat they can get their hands on. When I ate it in a Havana cafe five years ago, the menu said it was a lamb stew. But was it? The mystery in the meat.
Unlike the hot sauce episode of ‘Bones,’ which I poured over for the clues I used to recreate that recipe, I only got a few clues from this episode. The biggest clue was the name of the dish, Ropa Vieja. The story line involved a Cuban immigrant who came into Bones’ lab as an intern and talked about a dish his grandfather used to make back in Havana, where the meat was cooked so long it fell off the bones. Ropa Vieja. That was the dish I set out to recreate.
In researching the dish, I found that Ropa Vieja originated in the mid 16th century from the Iberian Peninsula, modern day Spain and Portugal. Sephardic Jews came up with Ropa Vieja as a way to serve a hot meal without breaking the Jewish prohibition against cooking on the Sabbath. It was a simple beef stew made with whatever produce was readily available, usually onions, bell peppers and garlic...what we now call sofrito...as well as tomatoes, potatoes, garbanzo beans, and olives. They cooked the meat the evening before the Sabbath and then tossed the rest of the ingredients into the pot and let the stew simmer over a low fire through the night, serving it up along with sides of rice and black beans as their mid-day Sabbath meal.
Spanish immigrants from the Canary Islands brought Ropa Vieja to Cuba in the mid 19th century, and Cubans adopted the dish. They greatly simplified it in the process, leaving out pretty much everything except the beef, the sofrito, and the tomatoes. Which saved me the trouble, because I hate garbanzo beans.
One of the first challenges I encountered was that although Ropa Vieja is a simple dish, each of the recipes I found was different, and in ways that didn't make culinary sense. The one clue I took away from 'Bones' other than the name of the dish, was that the meat cooked so long it fell off the bone. That suggested it was cooked with a lamb shoulder or pork shank, but not beef.
Initially I found quite a few Americanized recipes that came from websites like the Food Network, the Cooking Channel, Serious Eats...my usual starting point when I go in search of recipes. I found even more from food blogs that claimed to offer authentic Cuban family recipes, but which were just recycled versions of the Food Network and Cooking Channel recipes in a ChatGPT wrapper. I rejected all of those, mainly because they didn’t respect the origins of the dish. They cut the cook time in half or less, and then used ingredients like Worcestershire sauce in an attempt to replace the depth and complexity of flavor you give up when you cheat on the cook time.
I decided to focus on a handful of recipes I found from Cuban cooks, mostly from paladares. A paladar is a private restaurant Cubans operate, often out of their homes, using family recipes handed down through the generations. Paladares started in the Castro era as a way for Cuban families to bring in extra cash...they mainly served the business and tourism industries, foreigners with money to spend. But the paladar recipes for Ropa Vieja were substantially different from the few recipes I found that dated to pre-Castro Cuba. I was confused, which is not hard to imagine if you know me. And that's when I remembered some of what I learned when Janet and I visited Cuba.
Under Castro’s rule, paladares were a black-market enterprise, tolerated for a time until they weren’t. The government cracked down on paladares in the mid to late 1990s, and most shut down rather than risk going to jail. One of the economic reforms Raul Castro implemented after taking over from brother Fidel in 2010 was to legalize the paladares, and many reopened. They had to pay taxes in exchange for the government’s permission to operate, but the paladar owners I spoke with in Havana were philosophical about that. It brought them cash they otherwise wouldn't have even after giving up a percentage in taxes.
The paladar recipes all contained the same basic elements, but in different forms. For the stew base, some Cuban cooks used tomato sauce while others used tomato paste and beef stock. For flavoring and texture some used pimento peppers while others used red bell peppers. The biggest difference I encountered was the meat. Older recipes that originated before the Castro regime used beef, but the most modern recipes I found called for using lamb, pork, and even chicken. Once again, the mystery in the meat.
It took remembering a series of conversations with our guides and some paladar owners for me to put all the pieces together. From those conversations, I realized the differences I was seeing in the paladar recipes were not based on culinary science…they were based on availability of ingredients. Cuban cooks used what they could get using their limited ration coupons in government run stores.
As I was pondering the mystery in the meat, I remembered the stew I had in Havana and the conversation it prompted between me and one of our guides. I commented on the lack of any beef dishes on the menu, and the guide explained that before Castro came to power Cuba had more cows than Cubans. After taking over the government, Castro nationalized the agriculture industry and directed that all beef raised in the country be exported to bring much needed cash into the government’s coffers.
With beef off the menu, Cubans began making their favorite dishes with whatever they could get their hands on, with lamb being the most sought after meat for Ropa Vieja. The mystery in the meat was solved, sort of, and with that came the realization that the forgettable stew I ate in Havana was Ropa Vieja, probably made with lamb in place of beef. Which was why I found it so forgettable. I don't care much for lamb. I almost gave up at that point. Until I thought, what if I cooked it as it would have been made by Cubans before Castro took over? How might it taste if I cooked it up as it was meant to be cooked, with beef instead of lamb? I was intrigued by the possibilities.
Recreating a Recipe
With that understanding of Ropa Vieja’s origins and how it changed over the years, I started working on recipes to cook up in my test kitchen. For a proper taste test, I should have made a matrix out of the variables I found in the recipes and cooked up a dozen different versions with only a single variable changed in each. I should have run blind taste tests using versions made with beef, lamb, pork, and chicken. That would be the scientific approach, but unlike real test kitchens mine doesn’t have an unlimited budget. So, I settled on making two versions of the dish with multiple variables between them, trusting my palate to sort it all out.
One Ropa Vieja recipe would be my take on the dish as it was made before Castro, and the other would be how it is made in a paladar in today’s Cuba. Both would be made with beef and would start with a sofrito, because that was how the dish was supposed to be made. I would vary the rest of the ingredients while keeping it simple...tomato in some form, mild red peppers, and seasoning.
For the pre-Castro version of Ropa Vieja I went with an outside skirt steak, canned tomato sauce and paste, and pimento peppers. Through my research I found those ingredients to be readily available in Cuba before Castro came to power. There was less guesswork with the modern version since I had recipes from paladares that spelled it out. I went with a flap steak, though I could just as easily have used a flank steak or brisket, both of which I found in paladar recipes. One of the things we learned in Havana is that the biggest customers of fresh produce vendors are paladar cooks, so for the rest of the ingredients I went with fresh produce...tomatoes and red bell peppers.
I decided to use the same simple approach to seasoning in both versions of the dish. You can go crazy with seasoning in a dish like Ropa Vieja, but this is not a dish that begs for the exotic. I liberally applied salt and pepper to the beef before browning it, and then added bay leaves, oregano, and cumin to the stew. Some of the paladar recipes called for adding mild paprika, but since that is often made by grinding up dried pimento peppers, I worried it would unbalance the flavor profile of the fresh pimento peppers in my pre-Castro version of the dish. Pimento peppers are sweeter than red bell peppers with more complex flavors, including a touch of tartness that is lacking in bell peppers. And they lend a succulent texture to the dish whereas bell peppers are crisp. I didn’t want to do anything to interfere with that contrast, so I left the paprika out.
Several recipes called for adding a cup of red wine to the stew. Wine is not a common ingredient in Cuban cooking, but it is used in traditional Spanish and Iberian cooking, so I added some to my pre-Castro version of the dish. There is something about the flavonoids and acids in red wine that work magic in beef stews, and the long cook time for this dish ensures all but a trace of residual alcohol would cook off. In my modern version I left the wine out…today’s Cubans drink their wine, when they can get it, rather than cook with it.
I added one more variable to my challenge. I cooked the skirt steak version as a one pot meal in my InstantPot, cooking up the rice and black beans in the stew toward the end of the cook time. For the flap steak version, I browned the beef and made the sofrito in a cast iron skillet, then transferred them to a crock pot to make up the stew. If you go with the InstantPot version, DO NOT use pressure cooker mode. It will cook the dish up in a fraction of the time, but you lose the infusion of flavors you get from the traditional slow cooker approach, and that's what makes this dish so special.
The results of my taste test challenge were night and day. The flap steak version turned out with a flavor and texture profile like every other beef stew I’ve made. It was good, but the skirt steak version was amazing and explains why Cubans first fell in love with the dish. It had complex flavors rich with beef, tomato, and subtle seasonings, and it had a silky, succulent texture. That’s the version I will make anytime I feel like Ropa Vieja…comfort food at its very best. Try it…you won’t be disappointed. Unless you make it with mystery meat.
Jeff’s Rope Vieja
Ingredients:
EVOO
1 skirt steak (outside skirt is best but inside skirt will do)
Salt and pepper to flavor the beef
1 medium onion, diced, for the sofrito (I used a Vidalia onion for the extra sweetness, but any onion will do)
1 medium green bell pepper, diced, for the sofrito
4-6 cloves garlic, diced, for the sofrito (more if you like garlic, less if you don’t)
7 oz jar of Goya whole pimento peppers, drained and sliced lengthwise into thin strips, or diced if you want to infuse more flavor into the stew. I diced. Set aside 1-2 TBS diced pimento for garnish.
Note: Goya is a Hispanic-owned food company known as the leading supplier in this country for food items sourced from Latin American and Spain. You can use other brands, but Goya makes for a more authentic dish.
1/8 cup water to deglaze the skillet (you can use the same amount of a dry white wine if you don’t care about adding alcohol to the dish…it does little to flavor the dish but it is a more effective deglazing agent)
8 oz tomato sauce
4 oz tomato paste
2/3 cup hearty red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon or Zinfandel are best)
1 cup beef stock (use more if you prefer your stew to be a bit thinner…if you cook the dish without wine, add more stock)
Note: I used beef stock, but you can use chicken or veggie stock if you want a smoother flavor profile. For me this dish is all about the beef.
2 bay leaves
1 Tsp cumin (more to taste)
1 Tsp oregano (more to taste)
1 cup basmati rice
1 can of Goya black beans, drained and rinsed
Directions:
Cover bottom of your InstantPot with a thin layer of EVOO and turn on sauté mode.
Heat the oil until it starts to shimmer.
Season the skirt steak well on all sides with salt and pepper, then cut it into portions to fit into the InstantPot. Brown the beef in stages so the portions don’t touch. As the portions brown, remove them from the InstantPot and set aside.
Prepare the sofrito. Keep the Instant Pot on sauté mode and cook up the diced onion and green bell pepper until caramelized to your liking, stirring occasionally. A proper sofrito takes 25-35 minutes to cook, but I got impatient and only gave mine about 10 minutes. At that cook time you fully sweat the veggies and caramelization is just getting started.
Add pimento (dices or slices as you prefer, I used dices) and sauté for an additional 5 minutes. Add diced garlic and sauté for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Be careful with the garlic…it goes from fragrant to burnt in seconds and once burnt, the sofrito is unsalvageable. I go with my nose, cooking it until it is fragrant.
With the sofrito still in the InstantPot, add water or wine to deglaze, scraping up the beef and veggie bits from the bottom.
Add the tomato sauce, red wine, stock, and seasonings, stirring well to mix with the sofrito. Switch Instant Pot to slow cooker high mode and set the timer for 6-7 hours. Be sure to set the cover to non-pressure mode and do so anytime you remove it to stir or adjust ingredients.
Add the beef back in, making sure it is fully immersed in the stew. Cover in non-pressure mode and let it simmer for two hours, stirring occasionally.
At the two hour point check the level of simmer and switch the InstantPot to slow cooker low if it is closer to boiling than simmering, as I did. This is also the time to stir in tomato paste, making sure it gets fully integrated with the sauce. You can add a bit more or less, depending on how much tomato flavor you prefer in the final stew. I added the entire 4oz can.
Cover and continue to cook for about three more hours, stirring occasionally to help the flavors blend.
About an hour prior to serving add in the rice, cover, and let it cook for about 30-45 minutes stirring periodically and checking to make sure the rice hasn’t absorbed all the liquid in the stew. If it does, stir in more stock.*
About half an hour prior to serving, add the black beans and stir.* This is also a good time to further adjust the thickness of the stew, adding more stock if you prefer it thinner.
Remove bay leaves and garnish with sliced lemon, reserved diced pimento peppers, freshly chopped cilantro, and serve. Total cook time should be 6-7 hours.
*Note: If you prefer a more traditional treatment to the dish, cook up the rice and black beans separately and serve on the side.
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