Sazon Cubano

Cuban cuisine is largely based on Spanish cuisine with influence from African and other Caribbean cuisines. Some Cuban recipes share spices and techniques with Spanish, African and Taino cooking, with some Caribbean influence in spice and flavor. This results in a blend of the several different cultural influences.

Plantains, which look similar to bananas but are much sweeter when ripe, are a staple of Caribbean dishes. In Cuba, we typically eat green plantains as tostones (which are smashed and fried twice) and the overly ripe plantains (which look almost black when abuela purchases them) as fried sweet plantains. There’s an art to making the perfect platanos maduros, and luckily Cubans have mastered it. You can basically find fried sweet plantains on the side of every Cuban meal.

The recipe for ropa vieja is over 500 years old and originated with the Sephardic Jews in the Iberian peninsula of Spain. Because cooking was not allowed on the Sabbath, the Sephardi would slow-cook a hearty stew the night before.The dish then travelled to the Americas with the Spanish people, where it became a staple dish across the Caribbean and Cuba. And although the recipe has been tweaked over the years, the fundamental base of ropa vieja remains today as it always has.