Arroz a la Cubana
I dare say that anyone who has spent a great deal of time cooking has made arroz a la cubana at least once…knowingly or unknowingly. :) Wikipedia simply defines Arroz a la Cubana, which literally means Cuban-style rice, as “a Spanish dish consisting of rice, fried egg and tomato sauce.” How simple is that?
In my 4 years in high school, I remember having one too many servings of this dish at a popular fastfood among UST students located on Dapitan Street, Janet’s. It is served on a sizzling plate with a piece or two of fried saba bananas and a fried egg on top of the ground beef. That’s pretty fancy for students, don’t you think? ;) My friends and I ended up smelling like the dish by the time we got to class but we didn’t really mind. It’s nothing a little baby cologne couldn’t fix. 
I have whipped up this dish countless times in the 6 months that I’ve made the kitchen my territory. It’s simple and one could do very little to sabotage it. Hahaha! It’s one of hubby’s favorite dishes…one that his paternal grandma, Lola Sion, used to make for him. Well, I could never compete with Lola Sion’s arroz a la cubana, or anybody’s lola for that matter! ;) But my most recent version of the dish just had hubby complimenting me to high heavens. ;) Credit goes to MarketMan whose version I followed, save for the ground pork (which I have ran out of) and addition of green peas. :) Thank you, MarketMan!
The not so secret procedure and ingredients: Saute some garlic and chopped onions in vegetable oil for a minute or two. Throw in some chopped tomatoes (or just add tomato paste). Then add the ground lean beef and ground pork and cook until the liquid evaporates. Add several tablespoons of Kikkoman soy sauce and 1/2 or 1/3 the amount of Worcestershire sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste if you feel the dish still needs further seasoning. One may add green peas but hubby and my daughter didn’t want any so no green peas for us. Hubby isn’t a big fan of raisins in dishes as well, but I held my ground on this and went ahead to add about a tiny box and a half of raisins. He just picked them out of the dish.
I fried some bananas to accompany the dish. The bananas needed a sprinkling of sugar as they weren’t sweet at all. I miss Philippine saba bananas! :( We had fried eggs as well! ;) The arroz a la cubana “showcase” won’t be complete without the hot steaming rice. Yum! 
Not bad at all, if I may say so myself!
Beef, Rice | Comments (7)
