The Hirshon Puerto Rican Beef Stew – Carne Guisada Puertorriqueña

My glorious and unmatched Citizens of TFD Nation! I am now nearly on week 4 of My Nordic business excursion, with plans to head back home to California for a brief one week before returning here for the remainder of December! While My time in Norway and Finland remains a joy, My palate craves tropical flavors – and Puerto Rican carne guisada is what today’s recipe brings!

Puerto Rican cuisine consists of the cooking style and traditional dishes original to Puerto Rico. It has been primarily a fusion influenced by the ancestors of the Puerto Rican people: the indigenous Taínos, Spanish Criollos and sub-Saharan African slaves. As a territory of the United States, the culinary scene of Puerto Rico has also been moderately influenced by American cuisine.

Puerto Rican cuisine is a product of diverse cultural influences, including Taíno Arawak, Spanish Criollos, and Africans. It is characterized by a unique blend of Spanish seasonings and ingredients, which makes it similar to Spanish and other Latin American cuisines. Locally, it is known as cocina criolla.

The roots of traditional Puerto Rican cuisine can be traced back to the 15th century. In 1848, the first restaurant, La Mallorquina, was opened in Old San Juan. The island’s first cookbook, “El Cocinero Puerto-Riqueño o Formulario”, was published in 1859 and actually included a version of carne guisada in it!

Many of the arrowroots and root vegetables used in Puerto Rican cuisine, collectively known as viandas, have their roots in the diets of the indigenous Taíno people. These include cassava (Spanish: yuca) and three kinds of tannier (Spanish: yautía) which are staples in traditional Puerto Rican dishes.

Other popular root vegetables include sweet corn root (Spanish: lerén), sweet potato (Spanish: batata mameya), celeriac (Spanish: apio criollo), white sweet potato (Spanish: batata) this potato has purple skin and white flesh and yambee (Spanish: yambi), all of which are cultivated in the mountain regions of the island.

It is hypothesized that Taínos used cooking methods that resemble what is called barbecue today. By some counts, the earliest recorded use of the term barbecue can be traced back to a journal entry made by a Spanish settler upon landing in the Caribbean.

The term was used by the indigenous Taino people, who referred to the practice of slow-cooking food over a raised wooden platform as barabicu, which means “sacred pit” in their language. While the Tainos likely slow-roasted fish due to the region and their diet at the time, this cooking method may have given rise to what we know today as barbecue.

The Taíno ate a variety of spices, herbs, fruits and foods, including squash, allspice, avocado (fruit and leaves), chili, beans, peppers, papaya (fruit, leaves, and seeds used as a spice), guava (fruit and leaves, wood was used for fire and cooking), soursop (fruit and leaves), corn, lippia, peanuts, and culantro.

Some of these foods are still part of Puerto Rican cooking today. The Taínos hunted birds, reptiles, and small mammals, such as hutia and gathered snails, eggs, honey, clams, oysters, and mussels. They also captured manatees and turtles.

Dishes made by people of African descent are often overlooked in Puerto Rico, their cultural contributions to the island are significant. Several popular Puerto Rican dishes date back to African influences including mofongo, bacalaitos, funche, and pasteles.

Africans transformed the ceramic cooking tool used by native Tainos to make casaba (yuca-based flatbread) into an iron griddle called “burén.” The tool is used for cooking coconut-based candies wrapped in banana leaf, mondongo, sancocho, coconut rice, gandinga, cazuela, and many plates they brought to the Puerto Rican culinary culture.

Important ingredients such as bananas, plantains, yams, orégano brujo, pigeon peas, and maybe even rice were introduced by Africans through the slave trade. Africans also brought spices and used the native spice annatto in food. Before then annatto was used by Tainos for body paint and a repellent against the sun.

The slave trade brought guinea fowl to the Caribbean from West Africa in the 1500s. Guinea fowl is a traditional Puerto Rican dish that can be prepared as a fricassee in lemon zest, sofrito, wine, raisins, olives, and other ingredients. Roasted and marinated traditionally in adobo, orégano brujo, sazón, citrus, and vinegar and often stiffed with mofongo or arroz junto (rice, beans, and pork).

A traditional and typically meal in the Caribbean is braised fish, meat, vegetables, and beans that derived from the African gastronomia. In Puerto Rico these braised dishes called guisadas are served over rice, mofongo, or funche. In Puerto Rico guisadas are typically made with olives, capers, cumin, annatto oil, bay leaves, recaito, lippia micromera, coriander seeds with tomato sauce, potato and pig feet to thicken the sauce.

Chicken can be made with bits of ham and beer while beef switches out beer and ham for wine, mushrooms and adds roasmerry, both have carrots and sweet peas. Beans like black, red or pink are cooked with additional squash and also bits of ham or salchichón (Puerto Rican salami) in water or broth. Salted cod fish guisadas is also a popular dish with no pork included cooked in white wine, cream and/or coconut milk and served with guanimes (Taino dish similar to tamal).

Chorizo is a sausage brought over from Spain, that keeps is Spanish tradition and used in a variety of Puerto Rican dishes. Arroz con pollo is frequently done with chorizo, asopao con pollo y chorizo (rice soup with chicken and chorizo), arroz mamposteao (Puerto Rican fried rice with chorizo), chorizo potato salad, and classic breakfast chorizo with chayote and eggs.

Breadfruit was introduced to Puerto Rico by Captain William Bligh in 1793, and has since become a naturalized part of the island’s landscape. This fruit is used as a replacement for plantains as it’s used the same way. It is a favorite among Puerto Rican and frequently paired with fish and coconut or as a dessert with coconut and banana.

Mofongo de pana, breadfruit flan, alcapurria de pana, tostones de pana (re-fried breadfruit), pasteles de pana, pastelón de pana (breadfruit casserole), relleno de pana (breadfruit version of papa rellena), and cazuela replacing cassava with breadfruit. Breadfruit flour is widely available throughout the island and used to make cookies, empanada dough, fry batter, bread, pancakes, and waffles.

Carne guisada has become a staple of Tex-Mex cuisine, but even most Texans are unaware that carne guisada originally hails from Puerto Rico – there are other key differences between the two, including that Tex-Mex carne guisada is thickened with flour, while the Puerto Rican is not. There are also many classically Puerto Rican spice blends and techniques not used in the Tex-Mex version.

These include sazon and soffrito – sazon is a type of seasoned salt used in Spanish and Mexican markets as well as Puerto Rico. The ingredients vary, but typically include coriander (cilantro), annatto (achiote), garlic and salt. The seasoning is used to flavor meats, fish, poultry, soups and stews and is a key flavor profile in carne guisada.

Sazon is a key ingredient in My version of this classic carne guisada recipe, and I recommend the usual go-to brand utilized in Puerto Rico for the most authentic recipe – and this is it!

Sofrito is a basic preparation in Mediterranean, Latin American, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese cooking. It typically consists of aromatic ingredients cut into small pieces and sautéed or braised in cooking oil for a long period of time over a low heat.

In Puerto Rican cuisine, sofrito is used in a variety of dishes such as rice dishes, sauces, soups, among other typically Puerto Rican dishes. The two main ingredients that give Puerto Rican sofrito its characteristic flavor are recao (culantro) and ají dulce, but red and green cubanelle peppers, red bell peppers, pimientos, orégano brujo, yellow onions, garlic, tomato sauce, and cilantro are also added.

Traditionally red peppers are roasted until black and some of the skin is removed before they are added to the sofrito. Sofrito is made in large batches and blended until it resembles a smoothie, bottled and stored in a refrigerated or frozen for use later.

Not surprisingly, My version of sofrito for carne guisada calls for the traditional herb known as culantro – it is similar to cilantro, but with a different and stronger flavor profile that is akin to a mix of cilantro and parsley. You should be able to find it in any Latin or Asian market.

Culantro is widely used in seasoning, marinating and garnishing in the Caribbean (particularly in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad and Tobago), as well as El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica, Guyana, Suriname, Ecuador, Colombia and in Brazil’s and Peru’s Amazon regions. It is sometimes used as a substitute for coriander leaves, but has a stronger taste.

Tomato sauce is a part of sofrito but is added only when cooking is in progress and not blended into the batch. Sofrito is sautéed in lard, oil or annatto oil until most of liquid has evaporated. A mix of pimento-stuffed olives and capers called alcaparrado is usually added along with bay leaves, cumin, and adobo.

Most versions of carne guisada call for cheap chuck meat – which admittedly DOES work very well in this recipe, becoming meltingly tender after 2 hours of cooking – but I prefer to mix it up with a far more luxurious cut of beef – the ribeye! The combination of textures and flavors is simply sublime!

One pepper I do call for in My carne guisada (optionally, but recommended) is a unique addition that makes the recipe truly worthy of the flavor complexity that is a true hallmark of all TFD creations. This is the uncommon cachucha pepper – it adds a level of mild heat and smoky fruitiness that complements the stew perfectly, IMHO!

Ají cachuchaají – also known as ají dulce, quechucha, ajicito, or ají gustoso – is any of a variety of sweet perennial peppers found in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is most widely known in Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Venezuela, where it refers to a specific native variety of Capsicum chinense that is related to the habanero but with a much milder, smoky flavor.

In South American Spanish ají means ‘chili pepper‘ and dulce means ‘sweet’, so the name translates to ‘sweet chili pepper. Cachucha is a Latin American word for ‘cap’, so ají cachucha means ‘cap chili pepper’ and refers to its cap-like shape. Gustoso means ‘tasty’, so ají gustoso translates to ‘tasty chili pepper’. Ajicito is the diminutive of ají and translates to ‘little chili pepper’.

In Puerto Rico where it is called ají dulce or ajicito, it is grown commercially and used for sauces, such as recaíto, sofrito, and mojito isleño, other fish or meat sauces, as well as stews, rice, and other local dishes. It is hard to find outside of Latin markets, but mercifully is available on Amazon (!) from a small grower via this link. It MAKES My carne guisada recipe!

In place of salt, I strongly prefer to use Knorr Aromat seasoning in its place, as it adds a massive dose of umami with its saltiness – you can easily pick up a shaker of it from Amazon here. I also recommend adding a goodly hit of Puerto Rican hot sauce – and no version is finer than My own, the recipe may be found here.

My Citizens, Puerto Rican carne guisada is a fusion of comfort food and lively Latin flavors – I hope you see fit to add this to your cooking rotation at earliest convenience some cold Winter night!

Battle on – The Generalissimo

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