Cubanology, Sonia Martinez "A Cuban in Hawaii"

My Name is Sonia Martinez, I am a Cuban who ended up in Hawaii....from one beautiful island in the Atlantic to another beautiful island in the Pacific after several years of living in the American South.

Since 1980, I have been involved in the kitchen shop, cooking school and gourmet business, in one form or another, first in South Carolina and later in Miami.

After moving to Hawaii I ran a Bed & Breakfast and cooking school with my son for several years; I've also written a cookbook and became a freelance food writer for several media newspapers, journals and magazines. In partnership with my son I also write restaurant reviews for the east side of our island. I became a Food Correspondent for Gather Network Essentials: Food, in late 2006, where my 'Tropical Taste' columns are published on-line twice monthly.

You can keep up with my adventures and ongoing love affair with tropical food by joining my Gather Network, or visiting my food & garden Blog at Sonia Tastes Hawaii. I live in a beautiful rural rainforest area on the Big Island of Hawaii where I love growing herbs, collect Cuban and Hawaiian cookbooks, work closely with several farmers, writing about them and introducing their products, developing and testing recipes with their products, doing food demonstrations around the island, read voraciously and work on crossword puzzles.

The Cocina Cubana Group - I am co-owner and moderator
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cocinacubanaintheexile

I hope you will enjoy reading my musings and trying out the recipes I will be sharing with you!

In the fall of the year as you drive up and down our roads, the pungent smell of ripe guavas follow you almost everywhere you go. So many guava trees grow wild all over the countryside that much of the fruit goes unpicked and just falls to the ground to rot. We don't pick the ones on the ground because they are probably already wormy.

There are several varieties of guavas (Psidium Guajava) and some are grown for commercial use; for juice, jelly and other products, but the ones I am talking about are the wild guavas. Not too big, not quite as sweet, roundish yellow on the outside and pinkish red on the inside. All guavas contain a lot of vitamin C. Actually much more than an orange!

On the way home from a little side trip we took last fall we spotted a little stand of guava trees and stopped on the side of the road to pick some ripe ones. We ended up with about 10 pounds of the fruit.

Usually with that amount of guavas I would have chosen to make guava shells in syrup (see link below) but these were not as large, so I decided to use them all in making a big batch of marmalade.

First wash and barely trim the ends. I quartered them and placed them in a large stockpot with about 5 - 6 cups of sugar. The amount of sugar can later be adjusted if you feel you need more,. It all depends on how naturally sweet the fruit might be. Do not add any water, the guavas will release a lot of liquid.

Cook down at medium-low temperature stirring every once in a while with a wooden spoon, until the mixture forms its own syrup. When it boils down to a nice syrupy consistency, place through a food mill, chinoise or medium mesh colander. You might have to do this in batches. Discard the seeds and whatever chunky debris remains. If the marmalade is too thin, you can cook it down some more until it reaches the consistency desired.

Uses for thin marmalade:
*Use as syrup, over pancakes, waffles, pound cake or ice cream.
*Blend it with minced garlic and brush over chicken or pork to be grilled or broiled. This last is a favorite of ours.

Guava marmalade in the glass bowl. Guava Mousse in the tall milkshake glass. Guava marmalade and vanilla ice cream in parfait glass.

Cubans love to combine guava with cream cheese. This time, besides spooning some plain marmalade in a small bowl with a piece of cream cheese, we also added some to vanilla ice cream in the blender to make a milkshake type drink. It actually came out like a very light mousse. We also added some to a parfait glass with vanilla ice cream.

However we decide to eat it; as a fruit sauce, a marinade for chicken, syrup, guava shells, marmalade, milkshake, mousse-drink or as part of a parfait, the guava never fails to take me back to childhood days growing up in Cuba.

These and several other recipes using guavas can be found in my Tropical Taste cookbook - (*Jose, in case you need the shortcut)

(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0976172801/1n9867a-20)

Other articles about guavas:

Stalking the Wild Guava - July 07 (*) http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977055497

The "Humble" Guava - October 06 (*)http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976806616

Whether you use the most expensive electric ice cream makers, the old-fashioned crank-style freezers, just pour into an ice tray or make into Popsicles, the results are very satisfying to the soul. As far as I'm concerned, ice cream comes into the category of comfort food.

If calories and fat are no object, the results by using whole milk, half and half or whipping cream are always sensuously delicious. If you are calorie and fat conscious, then there is always the alternative of using skim milk, low-fat yogurt or fruit juices. None
of us should deprive ourselves of this frozen treat on a hot summer day!

Habanero Chile & Mango Ice Cream
This is a recipe my son found on the Internet many years ago. It wasn't until 2 years ago that we finally made it. It is definitely
not for the fainthearted! Eat cautiously! It is deceptively cool at first, but then... Hot, Hot, Hot!

2 pints Half & Half
6 whole cardamom pods(*)
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
4 Tbsp cornstarch
Juice from one lemon
Juice from one tangerine
4 threads saffron(*)
4 Habanero peppers, cored, seeded and chopped
1 ripe mango peeled and mashed

Bring Half and Half and cardamom pods (if using) to nearly boiling. Do not scald.

Let cool completely, at least 4 hours. Meantime, steep the saffron threads (if using) in the lemon juice to release color. Mash the threads into the juice a bit with bowl of a spoon. Bring water, sugar, cornstarch, lemon and tangerine juices to boil; simmer till mixture begins to thicken.

Let cool completely. Remove cardamom pods from cream.

Add juice mixture, Habaneros and mango pulp to the cream mixture. Mix thoroughly. Freeze in ice cream maker, according to directions; or, freeze in large bowl and whip every couple of hours until desired consistency.

(*)The last time I made this recipe I did not use the cardamom or the saffron and experienced no noticeable difference in the taste.

My friend Cookie in Miami shared this recipe. During my last trip to that Mecca of Cuban food, she gave me some fresh red beans, fresh bay leaves from her tree and some cachucha peppers to bring home. Cachucha peppers are in the Habanero family. Similar shape and taste, but they are not hot.

Check during cooking to make sure liquid level looks alright. Adjust seasonings during the last hour of cooking.

If beans start to get too thick, add half a cup of warm water or more stock. If not thick enough you can mash some of the beans to thicken or else you can put all of the beans, potatoes and some liquid in a blender to puree them and serve as a potaje or thick soup. Mix well with the rest of the remaining broth and serve in soup bowls.

What happens when a Cuban marries the sister of another Cuban and the second Cuban marries the Irish sister of the Irish wife of an American Viking from Minnesota and they all like to cook.....? They all become Cuban family and write cookbooks!

The first cookbook the "brothers-in-law" wrote together was available as an e-book to be downloaded from Amazon. It was called Three Guys from Miami Cuban Food with Attitude! (c) 2001, 2002, 2003 by Musibay, Lindgren & Castillo. LLP. I found it while doing a search and of course had to buy it and downloaded it by copying out all 215 plus pages, punching holes in them and stored them all in a navy blue 3 ring binder with a decal of the Cuban flag on the spine.....

I sent them an e-mail congratulating them and telling them how excited I was, only to receive a very nice note from Glenn who mentioned they had a cookbook in the works and I would be told about it when the time came! Glenn forwarded my note to Raul and Jorge, who also replied and little by little a friendship developed.

Now...don't think that just because I consider them friends I am trying to plug their books....;-)) I'm here to tell you I own not only the first e-book but also the two books that followed, published through a publishing house - Gibbs Smith Publishers from Salt Lake City - and consider the books to reflect not only the true essence of Cuban cuisine, but also the added flavor imparted through the fusion of the South Florida scene.

Even though the cookbooks are beautifully illustrated with mouth watering photographs by Nancy Bundt for the first one and by Mary Snorlum for the second, these are books to cook by!

A beautiful book containing 100 recipes that have been tested and perfected through the years by these three brothers-in-law who also happen to be great friends.

Easy on the eye, with well written and clean looking pages most containing beautiful color photographs of the food, the authors and Miami. In a congenial and chatty way, these three friends discuss each recipe in the book using short and sometimes funny "sound-bites".

All the traditional Cuban recipes are included, some with an updated twist. They have also included recipes for other Latino food that has been quickly assimilated into the Cuban recipe repertoire such as the very rich and sinfully wonderful Nicaraguan Tres Leches Cake and the Colombian Arepas, a cornmeal and cheese delicacy that has become quite a popular snack to munch on during the many Miami street festivals. You can also find the delicious recipe for the Cuban Tamales in this cookbook.

Can there be anything wrong with a cookbook that starts with desserts up front.......? Definitely not in my opinion, especially when the first recipe is for Coconut Rice Pudding!

This is the second cookbook by this winsome trio and in my opinion also destined to join their first one on the best seller list!

In their own inimitable bantering style, Glenn Lindgreen, Raul Musibay and Jorge Castillo deal in serious business.....seriously good food business, I mean... Whether you are familiar with Cuban food or not, the book is a promise that 'if you read it, and, of course, cook from it, they will come...to your table', to paraphrase a well known movie's most famous line.

The format is easy to read and follow and none of the recipes are very complicated... You will find a few comments on the margins by Glenn, Raul and Jorge, sometimes explaining a recipe, a name, an ingredient, a cooking term or even making fun of themselves.

The beautiful color photos throughout the book make your mouth water in anticipation and you will find little bits of information scattered among the pages explaining certain customs, holiday traditions and everyday way of life in the Cuba we used to know.

I hope you enjoy this cookbook as much as I have.....and yes, the first recipe I made from this cookbook is the Coconut Rice Pudding!

You can find their books at your favorite books store, through their website www.icuban.com , Amazon or through my blog site at www.Soniatasteshawaii.com

You can read about my meeting with 2 of the 3 guys in April of 2007 here when I was honored with one of their famous pig roasts!

(c) Sonia R. Martinez is a foodie who loves to write about food and you can find Other articles here and my food and Garden Blog here