Costa Rican Cooking

Last weekend, I went to my Spanish teacher's family house near Jaco Beach. There were two objectives for the weekend. The first, of course, was to check out the area and the local beaches. The second was to learn how to make several Costa Rican dishes.

A traditional dish here is "arroz con pollo" or rice with chicken. The recipe is a little complicated but I'll try to explain.

Chicken
Cook 2 chicken breasts (still on bone) on stove in water with:
1 pkg chicken consomme
1 pkg chicken w/herbs mix
Sazon Complete (cover chicken) - Season Salt as substitute if no Sazon Complete
6 cloves of unpeeled garlic
2 tablespoons Lizano salsa
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 red pepper - unchopped
handful of cilantro
1 carrot, thickly sliced diagonally
handful of oregano

Once cooked, let cool. When rice is almost finished, deskin and debone chicken into long pieces (vs. chunks). Grate 4 tomatoes and simmer the tomato meat on the stove. Add the chicken when the tomatoes are boiling. Mix well and cook 5 minutes.

Rice
In rice cooker (or on stove), mix, 1/2 cup of cooking oil, oregano, 6 cloves of garlic (peeled and finely chopped), large onion (finely chopped), cilantro (finely chopped) and 1/2 red pepper (diced) and 1/2 cup of achiote. Add chicken broth, 1/4 cup of Lizano salsa, 1/2 cup of Sazon Complete, and 1/4 cup of ketchup. Add 1 pkg of consomme and 1 pkg of chicken and herbs mix. Add 2 lb. of precooked rice (precooked in a package, not precooked like you cooked it an hour ago!) and cook until rice tops liquid.



Grate 1 big carrot and add to rice. Add chicken and can of mixed vegetables, drained to rice and mix with fork.

Serve!



I love this dish served with platones fritas, which is very, very simple to make. Slice a ripe plaintain (the ripe ones are yellow) and fry over medium heat in cooking oil until slightly browned. Pat dry and serve.



The other dish we made was very simple as well. It's called ceviche and we made it with fish. I've also had it with shrimp. Both are delicious.

Ingredients:
raw fish - white fish is what is usually used...tilapia, sea bass, etc.
red pepper
onion
cilantro
límons
ginger ale

Finely chop red pepper, onion and cilantro. Chop fish into 1/4" cubes (approximately). Mix together and squeeze fresh límon juice until it covers the fish mixture. (I plan to use limes with maybe one lemon for good measure.) Let sit for at least 3-4 hours in the refrigerator. In addition to adding flavor, the citric acid causes the proteins in the seafood to become denatured, which pickles or "cooks" the fish without heat (thank you Wikipedia!). Serve with saltine crackers. In Costa Rica, many people mix in ketchup and mayonaise. I prefer a little hot sauce.

To make shrimp ceviche, follow the same steps but use peeled, whole raw shrimp instead of fish.

Yum Yum!