Updated 11/29/01
Here are the recipes for a typical Puerto Rican Christmas dinner.
Due to popular request by e-mail I am
now including the Pastele's recipe. I
am also including my own recipe for turkey,
lately turkey has become a favorite plate with Puerto
Ricans during Christmas,
the turkey recipe is after the roasted pork recipe. Plus I am now
including the recipe for Puerto Rican Coconut Egg Nog (Coquito).
Plus, I am now starting a new section of other favorite Puerto Rican plates.
Now you may post a message to your friends from Hatillo, P.R. on "Hatillo's P.R.'s Forum. Post a message and when you find a friend, you may use the new chat feature to chat with them.
Eddie's Green Banana Cakes (Pasteles)
Ingredients for Green Banana Cakes (Pasteles):
Recipe for 5 people, 2 green banana cakes per person.
1. You will need 2 to 3 green bananas (depending on the size of the green bananas) for each Green Banana Cake. For 10 Green Banana Cakes you will need 20 to 30 green bananas. 2. A small pork's thigh, or 1 lb. of pork's thigh meat with out fat and grease. 3. Two large diced potatoes (one inch square pieces). 4. Olive oil, 1/2 a cup. 5. Coriander and Annatto (Sasón) seasoning 3 packets. 6. Adobo with black pepper, one teaspoon. (see the "Rice with Pigeon Peas" recipe below to see what Adobo and Sofrito are). 7. Sofrito, 2 large table spoons. 8. Sasón Accent seasoning, one packet. 9. Half of a teaspoon of salt. 10. Green Banana leaves, cooking paper and cooking or kite string. 11. Stuffed Olives. 12. 1/2 a can of Tomato Sauce.
First put on some rubber gloves, peeling green bananas will stain the hands and anything else it touches.
Making the Green Banana Pulp Mass.
1. Carefully peel the raw green bananas using a small knife, cut off the end points of the bananas and cut the banana peel down the middle to open the banana peel and using the small knife peel the banana peel off (avoid stains they don't come out) throw away the peelings and use the inner banana and grate them or blend them in a blender into a very fine pulp mass. Make a mixture of 1 teaspoon of salt, then mix 2 packets of Coriander and Annatto (Culantro y Achiote) seasoning, then mix this into 1/3 of a cup of olive oil in the blender, blend well and take this mixture and mix it well into the green banana pulp mass in your blender or by hand.
Making the stew filling.
1. First take the pork and remove all the fat and grease, until you have one pound of cleaned pork meat. Cut the meat into 1 inch piece. Place the cleaned pork meat into a pressure cooker and boil the meat in a pressure cooker for 20 minutes to tender the meat.
2. After the pork meat is cooked (tenderize) in the pressure cooker for 20 minutes, open it and add 2 peeled diced (one inch square) potatoes, boil the potatoes in the open pressure cooker with the meat until the potatoes are cooked.
3. Next take 2 large table spoons of olive oil and place it into a large frying pan. Heat the olive oil and add 2 large spoons of Sofrito, the Adobo with black pepper, the Sasón seasoning and stir fry the mix. After stir frying the mix, add one half of a can of Tomato Sauce to the mix, mix in the cooked potatoes, then add 10 stuffed olives and add the cooked tenderized pork meat. Cook and stir over a low flame until it boils.
Making the Green Banana Cakes.
Finding green banana leaves might be hard for some of you people, if you can not find the green banana leaves just use cooking paper for wrapping the cakes. But the banana leaves do give the Pasteles a special taste, so try and get them by all means.
Cut a 7"x7" inch piece of banana leaf and spread it out on a large (over one foot square) piece of cooking paper. Take one spoon of the gravy of the stew and spread it on the banana leaf. Then take 3 large table spoons of the mixed green banana mass and spread it out evenly over the green banana leave only.
In the center of the spread out mixed green banana mass, place one heaping table spoon of the stew in the middle, this table spoon should have even parts of meat and potatoes with 2 stuffed olives for each cake.
Then carefully double the outer paper with all the ingredients in the middle to form the green banana cake to the size of the green banana leaf with the stew inside the green banana pulp mass. Then fold over all the over lapping paper to make a small package. Then tie it up with cooking string or kite string into a neat little package about 3 inches wide and 7 inches long.
Make as many cakes as you can with your ingredients until you run out of ingredients.
You may now either freeze the green banana cakes for future use, or you may boil them for eating right away.
Cooking the Green Banana Cakes.
First if the Green Banana Cakes are frozen
let them thaw out then take a large pot and fill it half way with water, bring
the water to a boil and place the wrapped Green Banana Cakes into the boiling
water, let them boil for about 40 minutes. Serve 2 Green Banana Cakes with
cooked white rice per person with stewed red beans if you like, but it can be
eaten with rice alone with a nice salad on the side. And if you like Louisiana
Hot Sauce, give the hot Green Banana Cake a even coating of Louisiana Hot Sauce
to spice it up a little. Hmmmm! Delicious!
Pickled Green Bananas with Onions. (Guineos Verdes en Escabeche)
A: Ingredients for pickle sauce: 2 cups of olive oil, 1 cup of clear vinegar, 12 grains of whole black pepper, ½ teaspoon of salt, 2 Bay leaves, 1½ pounds of onions, cut in half circles.
B: Other ingredients: 10 large green bananas and enough water to cover them.
C: Other ingredients: 8 cups of water and 2 spoons of salt.
1. In a pot take all the ingredients for the pickle sauce, mix them and cook them at a low flame for 1 hour. After a hour take the sauce off the stove and let it cool completely.
Note: You must follow the instructions on preparing the green bananas step by step, so that the bananas cook right and can absorb the pickled sauce.
2. Cut the points of the green bananas, and make a cut from one point to the other on the green banana's peel, just enough to cut the banana peel. Do not take the banana peel off. Do this to all the green bananas. Take a large pot and put enough water to cover the green bananas, now put the water in the pot to boil alone. Once the water is boiling, carefully place the green bananas in the boiling water, let the green bananas boil with the pot's top on at a low flame for 15 minutes. Drain the water and peel the green bananas.
3. Now in a large pot, put the ingredients mentioned in C: above and boil the water with the salt. Once the water and salt are boiling, place the peeled green bananas into the pot and put the stove on a low flame for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, put a cup of cold water into the pot and keep on cooking them for 5 minutes more. Drain and let the bananas cool down.
4. Once the green bananas have cooled down, cut them in small wheels about 1 inch wide. Place the cut green bananas in a large glass or porcelain bowl. Now mix in the pickle sauce you made and mix everything together.
5. Cover the bowl with its top and place it in the bottom part of your refrigerator for at least 24 hours, so that the green bananas absorb the flavor of the pickle sauce. Take out of the refrigerator at least a hour before serving.
This plate is usually served with meat or fish alone or as a side dish as a salad with Spanish rice and meat. It is a very refreshing plate and tastes real good, it is one of my favorites, try it once and you will want to eat it again and again and again.
Spanish Rice with Pigeon Peas. (Arroz con Gandules)
A real Puerto Rican Christmas meal always has this rice plate, it is usually served with roasted pork or roasted turkey.
Ingredients:
A. ¼ a pound of butter, 8 spoons of Sofrito , 16 stuffed olives, 2 spoons of salt, one pound of Pigeon Peas, be it fresh or be it canned. (Sofrito is a mix of fresh Oregano, Parsley, onions, garlic, green peppers, Annatto, Coriander, a couple spoons of tomato sauce, oil or lard all blended together in a blender and can be bought ready mixed)
B. 4 cups of long or medium grain white rice.
C. 8 cups of water
1. In a big pot heat up 2 table spoons of vegetable or olive oil in a low flame and put in the Sofrito and all the ingredients mention above in (A:), stir fry for about 3 minutes. Then put in the rice (B:) and stir well.
2. Next put in the water (C:) leave the pot open with out the top on a moderate flame to cook and let the rice dry out.
3. As soon as you see the rice dry, turn the rice over, put the top of the pot on and put it on a low flame for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes turn the rice over again and serve.
Roasted Pork (Lechón Asado)
A real Puerto Rican Christmas dinner is made the above rice (Spanish rice with pigeon peas) with roasted pork, pickled green bananas or a salad. Some big family gatherings have the tradition of roasting a entire pig over a open fire or over red hot carbon or coals. Usually the pig is done only with salt and black pepper and is slowly roasted over a open fire, slowing turning it until it is very crisp on the outside. You can make a roasted pork's thigh for a smaller family gathering and as all Puerto Ricans know the pork's thigh is the best part for roasting. You may also do this in your oven at 350º for 3 hours. You may use the traditional recipe that is; wash the raw meat first with lemon, or bitter oranges and then season with salt and black pepper to your taste and roast in a preheated oven at 350º for 3 hours or until outer skin is very crisp. Or you may use my recipe.
Eddie's Roasted Pork ( Pernil Asado estilo Eddie)
Ingredients:
A: ½ cup of Adobo Criollo Seasoning, 2 small packets of Sa-són Accent, one table spoon of grounded black pepper, 3 table spoons Worcestershire Sauce. (Adobo Criollo Seasoning, is a mixture of salt, powdered onions and powdered garlic.)
B: One pig's thigh.
1. Take the pig's thigh and thaw it out completely, this may take a day or so in the bottom part of your refrigerator. Cut the outer skin of the thigh lose almost completely, but not completely from the meat, make sure you leave it on the meat, cut the skin from the meat just enough to be able to place the ingredients from above (A:) inside in-between the skin and the meat, leave strains of fat holding the skin and meat together. You may also take of the skin completely to roast it apart to have a crispier skin. Beware when roasting the skin apart with the thigh, the skin will cook before the thigh is cooked, so check the skin after a few hours.
2. Put a light coating of Worcestershire Sauce in-between the meat and the skin, then place a good coating of the rest of the above ingredients (A:) inside in-between the skin and the meat. Note: Always use the Worcestershire sauce lightly, it has a strong flavor. Next take a large sharp knife and make about 4 to 6 cuts on top and on the sides of the pig's thigh, cut through the skin and meat about 4 to 5 inches long about 4 inches deep, season these cuts with the above ingredients mentioned above (A:) again. (If the thigh is big you might have to use more of the ingredients (A:) and make a few more cuts to season the meat deep inside.) Once this is done, put a nice coating of the ingredients on top of the skin and all around the outer side. Do not worry about placing too much ingredients on the outside, most of it will fall off when being cooked.
3. Place the seasoned thigh in the bottom part of the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, over night would be better to absorb the taste of the ingredients
4. Place in a preheated oven at 350º, for about 3 hours or until the outer skin is very crisp. Cut pieces of meat in slices and place a piece of crisp skin on top and serve.
So far everyone that has tried it this way has loved the taste.
Eddie's Roasted Garlic Turkey.
Ingredients:
A: One 15 lb. turkey, thawed out. B: 2 packs of Sasón Accent Original Seasoning and 2 packs of Sasón Accent with Cordander and Annatto seasoning. C: 2 whole heads of fresh garlic. D: 4 big table spoons of olive oil. E: Adobo with black pepper.
Tips: Preheat your oven at 350 degrees before roasting the turkey. Season the turkey the night before you are going to roast it and leave it at the bottom of your refrigerator over night so that the turkey absorbs the seasoning for a greater taste.
Preparing the Turkey.
1. Take 2 complete heads of fresh garlic and peel it all, place the garlic in a blender and blend to a pulp. While still blending, add 4 table spoons of olive oil, 1 pack of Sasón Accent Original Seasoning and 1 pack of Coriander and Annatto (Culantro y Achiote) Seasoning, then add 2 heaping table spoons of Adobo with black pepper. Make sure all the ingredients are well mixed.
2. After the garlic mixture is made, take the thawed out turkey and pull out the neck, the wire and the other stuff it has inside. Wash the turkey with clean water inside and out. Then wash your hands well and dry them.
3. Now here comes the secret that makes this turkey different from other other roasted turkeys. Where the opened stomach cave is, find the end of the skin of the chest, pulling softly up, introduce your fingers slowly, separating the skin from the meat. Slowly work your hand down the chest separating the skin from the meat with your fingers with out breaking the skin, leaving it in place on top of the breast, leave the last part of the chest skin around the neck of the turkey connected. Keep on working your fingers to separate the skin until you get to the thighs and the legs, separate the skin from the thighs and the legs also, but not at the end of the skin of the legs only the meaty part, leave the last part of skin on the legs connected . Now all the skin should be separated, but it should still be in place on the turkey and the chest's neck skin and the end of the leg's skin should be still connected to the meat.
4. Now take 3/4 of the garlic mixture you made and carefully spread it inside of the turkey between the skin and the meat, make sure you get all the meat, even the thighs and the legs. Then take the last 1/4 of the garlic mixture and spread it all over the outside of the turkey. Then on top sprinkle Adobo with pepper all over the outside and inside the chest's cave of the turkey. Also sprinkle 1 pack of Sasón Accent Original and 1 pack of Sasón Accent with Coriander and Annatoo seasoning all over the outside of the turkey. Rub the ingredients all over the outside of the turkey.
Baking the Turkey.
After leaving the turkey over night seasoning, preheat the oven at 350 degrees. After the oven is ready, place the turkey in a turkey roasting tray, cook the turkey for 1 hour uncovered. Bask it with the juices at the bottom of the roasting tray and cover the turkey, be it with the tray's cover or aluminum foil.
Baking time depends on how many times you bask the turkey. Me I bask the turkey every hour, so a 15 lb. turkey takes me a little over 5 hours to cook, so this varies, it could be anywhere from 4 to 6 hours. Once you think the turkey is cooked it is wise to insure the turkey is completely cooked by taking a knife and cutting into the joint of the thigh and the chest deeply, if you see blood, it needs more time. Bask it and leave for another hour and recheck again before serving.
The garlic mixture gives a great taste to all the meat and the skin, not just the outside skin and the olive oil makes the meat moist, not dry. The turkey tastes great all over.
Eddie's Turkey Stuffing.
Of course no good turkey is complete with out a good stuffing.
I make a turkey stuffing using a box of "Stove Top's Turkey Stuffing", but of course with changes. Instead of water, using the amount of water recommend by the box, I boil a chicken leg with it's thigh for one hour to make a real fresh chicken's broth, with 1 pack of Sasón Accent Original Seasoning (use the cover on the pot when boiling). Then I add 1/2 a of stick or 2 oz. of real butter to the hot broth. I then fry up 6 strips of bacon until they are crisp.
Add the buttered chicken broth according to the measurements of water of the box to the "Stove Top Turkey Stuffing Mix" in a large pot and mix. Then take off the skin of the chicken leg and thigh and cut the chicken meat into little pieces, one inch in size. Take the crisp bacon and break it into little pieces, more or less 1 inch in size. Then take 10 large or 15 small olives and slice them into little pieces, leaving the seeds out.
Just before serving the still hot stuffing, add all the other ingredients, bacon, chicken, olives into the stuffing with the buttered chicken broth and mix, so that it is freshly made. Makes a great stuffing for one turkey. Serve one large heaping table spoon per person. But beware, they will ask for more.
Try this turkey recipe and you never will be satisfied with turkey made any other way. Hmmmm, delicious!
Of course a Puerto Rican Christmas Dinner would not be complete with out a Puerto Rican Coconut Egg Nog (Coquito) which is a favorite rum laced beverage on Christmas day.
Eddie's Coconut Egg Nog. (Coquito)
Ingredients:
1. One can of Coco Lopez, cream of coconut. 2. One can of condensed milk. 3. 1/3 of a small teaspoon of grounded Nutmeg. 4. 1/2 of a small teaspoon of grounded Cinnamon. 5. 2 raw yellow egg yolks. 6. 2, jiggers of white rum.
Making the Coquito.
Fist take a high speed blender and place in the 2 yellow yolks in it with 2 jiggers of rum. And blend them alone with the high speed blender for about a 2 minutes. This should help to kill any bacteria the raw egg yolks may have and helps to cure the egg yolks.
Then add one can of Coco Lopez cream of coconut and one can of condensed milk and blend also. Slowly while blending sprinkle the Nutmeg and the cinnamon in the mixture.
Place in the refrigerator and serve cold in a very small cup.
You may add more white rum to your taste if you like, me I like it light.
Well there you have it, a typical Puerto Rican Christmas Dinner, of course this dinner is accompanied by good company, music, refreshments and some type of typical sweet desert. But the recipes of all the typical deserts served at Christmas in Puerto Rico would take a book to write. But I will give you one fast Puerto Rican desert that I make that is easy to make.
Eddie's Coconut Ice Cream
A. One 15 oz. can of (Coco Lopez) Cream of Coconut.
B. One quart of milk
C. 4 table spoons of sugar and ½ a teaspoon of real Vanilla extract.
1. Mix the sugar, Vanilla extract with a cup full of milk until completely mixed.
2. Mix in the can of Cream of Coconut and the rest of the milk.
3. Pour into plastic disposable cups and freeze.
4. After frozen, take a high speed blender and place the frozen mix into the blender and whip it up until creamy smooth, but do not let the mixture melt. Pour the blended still half frozen mix back into the plastic cups and freeze again. Serve when the blended mix is completely frozen again.
You may also make a Banana Ice Cream this way, instead of using the Cream of Coconut (Coco Lopez), use 3 to 4 very sweet ripe bananas.
It is delicious my kids and family love it.
You may use the same basic recipe for making a delicious coconut pudding. Mix in 3 to 4 spoons of corn starch into the sugar first, mix well and then pour in the milk little by little while mixing, until it is completely mixed . Mix in the rest of the ingredients. Pour into a pot and stir cook over a low flame, remember the mixture must be stir all the time it is cooking until it becomes kind of thick, so that is comes out smooth. Cool and serve.
Eddie's Puerto Rican Coconut Coffee.
If you are a coffee drinker and like to experiment with something different, try coffee this way.
A. Hot black Puerto Rican coffee.
B. One or two spoons of Coconut Milk per cup, you may use one spoon of (Coco Lopez) Cream of Coconut per cup, but Coconut Milk is better. (Do not confuse coconut water with coconut milk.)
Coconut Milk can be extracted from the coconut by grating the sweet coconut meat first very fine in a blender. After you have the coconut pulp, add 2 large table spoon of very hot water and blend it again. Then take the mass of the coconut and place it into a clean fine white cloth, squeeze the mass over a clean bowel to extract the Coconut milk, squeeze in a twisting motion until it is dry.
C. One or two spoons of cream or milk per cup. (optional)
1. Mix and serve hot and enjoy.
I have only barely touched the P.R. Christmas recipes that exists. There are other recipes like, Lechosa dulce, that are favorites on Christmas but the ingredients would be hard for most of you to find and making them is a lot of hard work. I hope you try, like and enjoy the basic easy Puerto Rican Christmas recipes I have given you.
Once again, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, or as we would say it down here, Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo !
And to top all this off, I have a free Christmas gift for you at the bottom of the page, check it out.
Web Master: Eddie Ferrer
Remember to get your FREE Christmas Gift at the bottom of the page.
Here is a little bit of advice, go to "File" and print down this page. Click on the button below and while you are waiting for your P.R. Christmas Dinner to cook up, you can listen to my "Parranda Electronica" of Typical Puerto Rican Christmas music made especially for your enjoyment.
Visit my on-line store and get your Super Discount Cool Stuff, the best discount prices on the internet and don't worry about the shipping cost we have the lowest shipping costs on the internet. And don't worry about not having a credit card, just print out your order form and send it by mail with a money order.
Do your Christmas Shopping here to avoid the hassles of the streets. (Terrorists, traffic tickets, robbery, parking and get better prices.)
Need a Harry Potter Toy or any other hard to find toy for that special child in your life, try here. FREE SHIPPING on all toy orders over $99.00 for a limited time.
Do your Christmas Shopping here, to avoid the hassles of the streets.
Need a new computer or a extra computer? Get a modern computer for as little as $299.99, click below to see for your self.
For the best prices anywhere on computer stuff, check out Tiger Direct, click below.
Check and see what the Fiestas of the Mascaras of Hatillo, P.R. is all about.
Visit my Super Discount On-Line Store and get Super Discounts up to 80%, I have on stock, Jewelry, Toys, Security Stuff, Cellular Phones, Powerful Air Guns, Cross Bows, Swords, Knives, Stun Guns, Tools, Binoculars and lots more Super Discount Cool Stuff.
Don't worry about the shipping costs, we have the lowest shipping cost rates on the internet. And don't worry about not having a credit card, just choose the option of paying by money order and print out your order form, fill it out and send it by mail, and you will get your order ASP by Priority Mail.
And here is your FREE Christmas gift, so that you will never miss a phone call again, download it today. Merry Christmas friends.
Para regalos para todas las partes del mundo, compras seguras, Serenatas, Joyeria, Perfumeria, Contratos de Salones para Fiestas, Boletos para Conciertos, Eventos, etc. y tramite de documentos, oprima enKargame.com. .
Page created by: Web Master Eddie Ferrer, Dec. 2000
Copyright 1998-2001