Passport & Plate - Rondon
Costa Rica | Friday, March 6, 2015 | 5 photos
Ingredients
§ INGREDIENTS
turmeric root (two pinky-sized pieces)
garlic (whole bulb)
ginger root (three finger-sized pieces)
2 onions, diced
1-2 Scotch Bonnet peppers, (chiles panameños)
thyme (two to three sprigs)
1 cassava/yucca
1 ñampi/taro
1 ripe plantain
1 green plantain
1 red bell pepper
2 fresh coconuts, grated for milk (equivalent to 4 cans)
1 kilo Grouper meat
1 Grouper head
Lobster or other shellfish (optional)
salt & pepper to taste
How to prepare this recipe§ PROCESS
Crack and open the coconuts. Grate the coconut meat and soak in water (2:1 ratio water to coconut). Squeeze and stir several times until water becomes milky, then strain. Finish it off by heating it in a shallow pan to reduce and thicken its consistency for cooking. This is homemade coconut milk. If you refrigerate the milk overnight, the coconut cream will separate and rise to the top. This can be used for other coconut-based recipes and has a richer, stronger flavor.
Bring the coconut milk to a boil and add the turmeric, garlic, ginger, onion, and fish head split in two. Lower heat to a simmer and allow flavors to marry. If the heat is too high, it will begin to froth—simply lower the heat. The broth should take on a yellowish hue from the turmeric.
Add chili peppers to your desired spiciness. Add root vegetables and thyme. Some roots take longer to cook than others—namely cassava due to its fibrous flesh—so make sure to factor this into your cooking. Simmer till they are all fork-tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add your seafood last since it cooks quickly and there’s nothing sadder than ruining lobster by overcooking it.
The story behind this recipeJunior shows me his garden. Not so much a designated space as sporadic patches all around his seasoned outdoor kitchen. Here is turmeric, there ginger, over there are onion bulbs under papaya and coconut palms. Rondon, I knew, was a special dish born out of resourcefulness and a melding of cuisines in contact. A dish that mirrors the Caribbean’s cultural adaptability and bold, robust flavors. Plus, I’m a sucker for anything coconut and spicy—this is why I ask Junior to teach me.
“My mama taught me how to make real rondon,” Junior says. “But I started cooking it with friends. We climbed coconut palms, dug for roots, sometimes we had fish. We built fires on the beach and just threw it all in a pot.” His story captures the essence of rondon—it is whatever you can run down. The only constant in the recipe is change.
I peel root vegetables while Junior grates brown coconuts with a homemade tool made of a tall piece of bent tin punctured with a thousand tiny holes. He soaks the shavings in water, massages them and strains the milk into a shallow cast iron pan atop a wood fire to reduce. In goes turmeric, garlic, ginger, onion and a grouper head split in half. The rondon base bubbles around the edges and takes on a yellowish hue. Junior tosses in two Scotch Bonnet peppers. “I like it spicy,” he says with a grin.
He adds thyme, yucca, green plantain and sweet potato, but waits till the very end to add lobster and grouper meat. “You know how I know it ready?” he asks. I shake my head. “It smell ready,” he said. A lesson from his mother on patience and discipline. His neighbors clearly learned this lesson, too. They wander in, drawn by the aroma. A Vietnam veteran and a neighborhood boy pop in, timid yet curious. The rondon invites this eclectic group just like its amorphous list of ingredients. Nobody talks, everyone is smiling. It is sweet and smoky with a slight singe at the finish. The young boy breaks the silence by verbalizing everyone’s thoughts, “Hello, flavor!”
