Monday, April 13, 2009

Huevos A La Cubana

I was listening to NPR the other day and the Splendid Table came on. It is usually a pretty good show. This time they had a guy from Spain who recently released a cookbook on Spanish food in an American Kitchen. I haven't seen the book myself so I won't link to it. Anyway, he was saying that one of the all time favorite Spanish home cooking foods is Huevos A La Cubana, or eggs, Cuban Style. Cuba was a colony of Spain and the dish originated there and was brought back to Spain. He described it as eggs fried in olive oil until the edges just start to turn crispy. These are served with white rice and a tomato sauce. He also said that fried bananas are often included.

I looked all over the internet for a good recipe but I couldn't find one that tripped my trigger. I decided to make my own, based on his description.

Tomato Sauce

4 plum tomatoes, peeled and seeded
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt
pepper
olive oil

Heat olive oil in a sauce pan. Drop in garlic and saute until just softening. Add in the tomatoes. Use a potato masher to mash them up a bit. Cover the pan, reduce heat and cook until tomatoes are nice and soft. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Rice

1 1/2 cups rice
3 cups water
2 T butter
3 t chicken bouillon granules

Dump everything into a rice steamer and go.

All you have to do now is fry the slices of banana in a little peanut oil and fry your eggs in olive oil.