Dominican Republic

Hi all! 50 lashes to me for not searching 7 pages on this forum for this topic. I'm helping my daughter with a school project on the Dominican Republic. Part of this project consists of making a dish from this country to take to school for sharing. Can anyone help?

It's a beautiful country, with lovely people. The cuisine is not spicy hot at all. You can do a google search for the recipes for the following (sorry, just know that I loved eating these dishes in Santo Domingo, and in Dominican restaurants in New York).

1) Mofongo-a delicious dish of mashed plantains (I think they are peeled and boiled like potatoes beforehand), with pork cracklings (optional) and covered in red onions fried until soft in olive oil.

2) Sancocho- a tasty chicken soup, containing yucca.

3) fried yucca (a starchy tuber- fried up like thick steak fries- I find it has a subtly sweet taste like yams, which I believe it is "related" to botanically).

4) And, of course, arroz con habichuelas (rice and pigeon peas) a traditional accompaniment to just about any dish.

Sorry about the lack of recipes, but again, they are pretty simple in concept, and I am sure the internet would yield simple recipes for each one.

Good luck!

My experience with sancocho is that it's much more than chicken and yucca. I've always seen it with sausage, and frequently with pieces of fresh pork, and it's verrrrrrry hearty.

I did my "googling" and looks as though we'll give the arroz con habichuelas a try. Most of the recipes have lenghty ingredient lists. Since we're feeding a class of 15-16 year olds I opted for the shortest recipe. You should have seen my daughter's face this a.m. when I explained plaintains and yucca. She asked if I(we, mind you her most difficult dish is shells and cheese))could just make chicken and yellow rice.....

Just a comment - I teach at one of the City Universities in NYC and probably the largest group of students at this point are from "DR". A bit more than from Puerto Rico, and I think even more than African-Americans. The students have a lot of pride in their culture and a real presence on campus. Now for the yucca!

I was in the Dominican Republic several years ago. I stayed at a casino in Santa Domingo.

I ate a a great Spanish restaurant and the food was great but what impressed me the most was two police on the outside with machine guns. It was a little intimidating to say the least.

We played a round of golf at a mediocre course. Our caddys were poor bare footed guys that spoke little English. We made the turn and had way too many beers. It was the last hole and was a dog leg to the left. Since I was the last person to hit and a little tipsy, I let the poor shoeless guy with no shoes hit the ball. The other three guys barely made the turn. The shoeless guy not only made the turn with the dog leg, he made it go left and made the lip of the green on a par four. Never evaluate the quality of a golfer by his dress!!!

We drove the kid home. He was not more than 25 years old. We tipped him well as he appeared he needed it.

While we were there, we visited the site of Christopher Columbus. I was amazed to discover that he had never set foot in North America. Even though he was given credit for the discovery of America.

Paul E. Smith
knoxville, TN