Happy Dominican Independence Day!!
To celebrate, Matt and I will be attending a fiesta hosted by the BYU Student Association for Latin American Studies. I have high hopes for this event--there will be dominican food, music and dancing.
Speaking of food, I recently found this awesome site: http://www.dominicancooking.com/recipes. Which, as you can see, has authentic dominican recipes. I'd just like to highlight those dishes that I ate most frequently on my mission:
La Bandera ("the banner") as they call it, is the most basic of dominican meals: rice, beans, and meat, occasionally with a modest green salad on the side. This is what we would get if we were going out for "fast food." I think I ate this meal at least once a week in my second area.
I did not like plain white rice on my mission. Because of this, I either covered the rice with beans, or I would get Moro de habichuelas (Rice cooked with Beans), Moro de guandules con coco (Rice cooked with pigeon peas and coconut), or even Arroz con maiz (rice with corn):
Anything I could do to flavor it.
Either way, rice was served as a part of every meal. Even with spaghetti:
Yup. To be honest, while I ate these meals and appreciated them at the time, they aren't ones that I would ever choose to make again.
The following recipies, however, ARE foods I would make again. Mostly because they are delicious and fattening. Up first: fried plantains. Best eaten with ketchup.
Second: empanadas.
This is like a fried pastry. Dominican empanada dough is generally made with flour, and filled with meat, cheese, eggs, or vegetables. In my first area, I had two empanadas every Monday morning for breakfast.
Third: Quipes
Quipes are made with whole grains and stuffed full of ground beef. I was not able to eat these too often, however, because they were more of a party food, like for Christmas.
I'll stop for now, since I'm getting hungry (and this post is getting long), but stay tuned for a follow up post about dominican drinks and desserts!
Rhetorically,
Rebekah
Have fun at the fiesta! :)
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