You know how I was complaining that I hadn’t been able to cook properly for a while? Well, now I’ve nailed my feet to the Black Belt soil prairies once more.
Walking into the kitchen every morning to wash dishes, feed the cats, sweep, scrub…it’s really a meditation. During these moments I find myself feeling out what might be best to have for the day. Sometimes, like at the beginning of the week, that might be a roast chicken that can be pulled apart for really any application where cooked chicken is called for. On the weekends that might be something out on the grill. Yet the middle of the week is always tough to plan for.
On our end, there’s all these newspapers to handle. Thus, we usually phone it in with a pizza or some kind of takeout. Growing up in a family of Southern Baptists, all our recipes lasted the week whether you wanted them to or not. Everything we made was for a family of six or more. Now, I have to be more judicious with my servings—lest we have taco casserole for a week straight.
Lately, I’ll just leaf through the cookbooks and see if something stands out for me and this past week was just about providential—and I’m not just saying that because this week’s recipe comes from a church cookbook!
Once again, thumbing through Break Bread with the Black Belt, I landed on the beef section of the main dishes. Have we talked about Panama Johnny? Or Johnny Mosetta? John remembers having it when he was growing up and calling it Johnny Maghetti. That has nothing really to do with this dish, other than it was in the same section of this cookbook. Yet, I wouldn’t mind a deep dive into those main courses either.
Down the page from these recipes sat one I’d been curious about for a while: Picadillo. Not to be confused with Piccadilly, which I have many fond memories of from the original University Mall in Tuscaloosa. Don’t go looking for it now—it’s just an empty lot, but I digress.
John reminded me that we made Picadillo once and I had somehow already forgotten it, which was all I needed to rip off the bandaid so I could try this recipe.
This recipe defines this Picadillo as a Cuban variation. Which got me wondering—how many variations does Picadillo have? If you can imagine, it’s a Latin American dish, with variations throughout the mainlands and islands that comprise Latin America.
Essentially, it’s a base of ground beef, onions, garlic, and tomato sauce, with different regional additions. Puerto Rican variations include adobo seasoning and what they call sofrito—which is basically their version of the French mirepoix (sautéed onions, celery, and carrots). The Mexican variants contain peas, potatoes, carrots, even chiles.
What makes this a Cuban variation of Picadillo is the addition of chopped stuffed olives and raisins.
Now, there’s some of you I can already see rolling their eyes or letting out all your exasperated air: raisins? Believe me, they have their place in savory dishes as much as they do the sweet ones.
The trouble is I can’t really figure out why exactly the Cuban variation has olives and raisins, other than they are inexpensive, high-mileage ingredients. What I mean by high-mileage is really shelf stable. John is a huge fan of olive and cream cheese sandwiches. Especially when you just don’t feel like cooking. I put raisins in just about all my morning oatmeal or yogurt. Not to mention, I adore Raisin Bran. Yet, as the youth are wont to say, “You do you.”
Here, then, is this week’s recipe, contributed by Helen McKee of Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Uniontown back in 1990.
Picadillo (Cuban Dish)
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1/8 cup Wesson oil
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 1 green pepper, chopped
- 2 cans tomatoes, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1/4 cup stuffed olives, chopped
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1/8 cup vinegar
- Salt and pepper to taste
Cook ground beef in oil until slightly browned. Add onion, green pepper, and garlic. Cook until tender. Add remaining ingredients and cook slowly, covered, about 40 minutes to an hour, stirring often. Add a little water if it gets dry. Serve on top of rice.
In Cuba, sautéed plantains are served with this dish; here, I serve sliced bananas sautéed in butter.
Now, if you’re wondering where picadillo gets its name from, it’s from the Spanish verb “picar” which means “to chop.” As you can tell by the ingredients, it’s an apt name for this dish.
Honestly, this did not take me a full hour—it barely took 40 minutes. I had the rice done a little bit ahead of time, and I sautéed the bananas right before serving them on top of the plated picadillo. It all shaped up to be an easy, comforting weeknight meal.
Some recipes I’ve seen use red wine vinegar versus plain white vinegar. I can’t imagine this being anything other than a great idea. If you’re not only skeptical about the raisins, but the bananas as well, let me set the record straight.
I used slightly under ripe bananas, simply because they have more structure that can withstand sautéing. It tastes almost like a white sweet potato, if you’ve ever had one of those.
Another tweak to the recipe that I have is the addition of the garlic, or really when to add the garlic. What I do is add the onions and peppers, minus the garlic. Once they’re softened, I have my additional ingredients at the ready and add the garlic to the pan. The moment you start getting aromas off that chopped garlic, add everything else to the pan. This helps keep more of the garlic flavor intact without running the risk of burning it.
Oh, and I used ground turkey instead of ground beef. Call me a health nut, but in this dish, it’s really just a carrier for all these hearty vegetables (and raisins).
Take out what you don’t want, leave the rest, or add some other things. This dish really is a blank canvas and if you try it, you’ll be surprised how familiar it feels.
That’s the highest compliment for a comfort dish to me: that feeling of warmth like being safe from the storm or wrapped in a quilt. You can’t beat that kind of feeling on a Tuesday night.
