“How does La Bandera represent the\u00a0red, white, and blue? The meat represents the blue in the flag, which stands for liberty. As you may have guessed, the rice means white, which signifies salvation. The red beans represent the red or the blood of heroes.<\/a>”<\/p>\n “Red beans, white rice and a side of\u00a0 We’re going to do our best here to ensure that blue remains a FIGURATIVE attribute of the meat portion of this dish.<\/p>\n So let’s get started.\u00a0 We’ve chosen to go with chicken for our stew, but beef would also be appropriate. The chicken is first marinated with a blend of onions, garlic, lime juice, and seasonings\u00a0 Whole chicken parts on the bone would probably be more authentic, (as well as including the more challenging bits) but we decided to lazy out this time and just get boneless breasts.<\/p>\n After a soak in the fridge, you brown a little sugar in oil in the pot.\u00a0 This didn’t seem to do much at first, since it wasn’t that much sugar.\u00a0 We picked the chicken parts out of the marinade, leaving the vegetables behind, seared the meat a bit, and then left it to braise for 15 minutes.<\/p>\n You’re supposed to keep putting in\u00a0just enough<\/em> water so it doesn’t burn. Like, a tablespoon at a time.\u00a0 We mostly kept an eye on it, but with the lid closed, it was easy to miss that it had boiled off until it started to smell a little burny at 15 minutes.\u00a0 I quickly poured in some more water….<\/p>\n …and that’s when the goddamned\u00a0alchemy<\/em> happened.\u00a0 After fifteen minutes of braising, the chicken was the same color as the picture above.\u00a0 Pour in half a cup of water at that point, and everything hissed, and suddenly:<\/p>\n It literally turned that color in under five seconds.\u00a0 I think we had caught it just in time, so that the sugar was cooking on the bottom of the pot, but hadn’t quite burned. Just witchcraft, I tell you.<\/p>\n Well, with that, it was time to toss in our marinade vegetables, along with some friends, and let the whole thing cook down a bit more with some tomato sauce.<\/p>\n So now lets jump back a bit in time and talk about the beans, which we were cooking at the same time.\u00a0 (Which may have been how the chicken got away from us.)\u00a0 We decided to use pinto beans, although pigeon peas are apparently also quite common. The Instant Pot once again proved miraculous for its bean-cooking abilities.\u00a0 We would definitely consume fewer legumes without some sort of pressure cooker.<\/p>\n The recipe for this one is a pretty standard stewed beans procedure: sweat some aromatics, then dump in the beans with their water, and let them boil until soft.<\/p>\n Seasonings were onion, garlic, thyme, cilantro, and a new one on us: celery\u00a0leaves\u00a0<\/em>rather than stalks.\u00a0 It didn’t seem to really add much one way or the other.<\/p>\n Finally, we were assured that this meal was always accompanied by a salad, so we made a quick one with cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions.\u00a0 Here’s the whole package, with some fresh Vancouver snow to really accentuate the tropical meal.<\/p>\n And it was pretty tasty!\u00a0 The chicken, in particular, had a LOVELY flavor from the caramelized sugar.\u00a0 The beans were fine, if not terribly exciting.\u00a0 However, this raises a point – when we make these meals, we try not to put in a lot of extra condiments on the first bash through, so we can appreciate the food directly.\u00a0 BUT – is that authentic?\u00a0 Would Dominicans be donking hot sauce into these beans?\u00a0 I honestly don’t know.<\/p>\n I can GUARANTEE that a heaping teaspoon of Spicy Chili Crisp is NOT authentic, but when we used it in the leftovers the next day, it sure did work.\u00a0 By the way, if you haven’t already, get you some Spicy Chili Crisp.\u00a0 Good stuff.<\/p>\n Finally, it was time for dessert.\u00a0 We decided to go with an\u00a0Arepa,\u00a0<\/em>or cornmeal cake.\u00a0 The Dominican version we chose used cornmeal, coconut and regular milk, brown sugar, and raisins.\u00a0 No raising agents at all, so a very dense bake.\u00a0 It is apparently often baked in a pot with a rounded bottom, to give a dome shape when turned out.\u00a0 We used a ceramic baking dish we had handy.<\/p>\n And turned out, it looked pretty good.\u00a0 It was VERY tasty, especially with coffee or hot chocolate to cut the richness.\u00a0 Since the lunch was\u00a0very\u00a0<\/em>filling, we waited a few hours to cut a few slices.<\/p>\n This was delicious, and served well as both breakfast and snack for the next several days, given that there are only the two of us.<\/p>\n So, Dominican Republic – nice job!\u00a0 We appreciate your food, and the incredible color changing stew.<\/p>\n And that completes the “D”s!\u00a0 Next week, we will PROBABLY do the southeast Asian country of East Timor, unless we decide to file that one under “T”.\u00a0 Never a dull moment!<\/p>\n Recipes: Last week we made our best guess at a meal favored by DomiNEEcans, so this week, let’s see what we can manage for the DoMInicans, shall we?\u00a0 The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, the only island … Continue reading blue<\/del> meat, usually chicken or beef. It\u2019s a simple dish beloved by many.<\/a>”<\/p>\n![\"Chicken](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/20210213_123148.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Seared](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/20210213_124404.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Browned](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/20210213_125614.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Vegetables](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/20210213_125246.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Beans](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/20210213_130152-e1613415338990.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Dominican](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/20210213_131750.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Baked](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/20210213_122932-e1613415749872.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Arepa](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/20210213_152202.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nLa Bandera Dominica<\/a>
\nDominican Arepa<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"