Daisy Martinez - Daisy Cooks!: Latin Flavors That Will Rock Your World

Copyright 2005 Daisy Martinez

Photographs copyright 2005 Buff Strickland

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 1500 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

Hardcover edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-0160-6

eBook edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-0612-0

First eBook Edition

Original hardcover edition printed in the United States of America.

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Daisys Holiday Cooking

Daisy Morning, Noon, and Night

This book is dedicated to the memory of my late brother, Joseph R. Martinez

If I could hold a star for every time youve made me smile, I would hold the entire evening sky in the palm of my hand.

Anonymous

I admit it: I am obsessed with food. I think nothing of driving clear across Brooklyn for the best bagels in a twenty-mile radius, and Ive walked from one side of a foreign city to the other in the middle of winter because I heard about a restaurant that serves fantabulous garlic soup. I have never met a dumplingChinese, Japanese, American, or otherthat I didnt love. When a friend celebrates a birthday or marks a special occasion, I dont spend hours in the mall, I spend days in the kitchen, happily hoppin, poppin, and choppin!

Of all the food I dream about, cook, sample, order in, or read about, none makes me as passionate as the food I grew up with. My mother and father were both born in Puerto Rico, and the food of that island is closest to my heart because it speaks to me in the same language my mother first taught me to say I love you. But I have become friends with (and that means cooked with) people from all over Latin America. There are common threads that run through the areas regional cooking and things that make each countrys food somewhat different. It is all good.

The palette of Latino food is as varied as the color of its people. We come in every color but share a common past. For most Latino Americans that past is made up of a beautiful blend of Spanish, African, and indigenous peoples. From my grandfather (with white-blond hair and blue eyes) to my grandmothers Tia Leo (who had coppery dark skin with hair as black as ink), the diversity within the same family paints a beautiful mosaic that only today is the world starting to recognize.

Our food has the same common roots and the same diversity. Latino Americans are the fastest growing minority group in the United States, and our numbers are predicted to increase by 35 percent within the next few years. Still, the rest of America has only scratched the surface of our regional cuisines. (Much the same thing has happened with other cuisines in this country. French cooking once meant coq au vin or pt before Americans began traveling to France and French chefs started arriving on our shores in droves.) Today, almost anyone can tell you what paella or chorizo is, but words such as yautia, malanga, and morcilla are still bound to draw blank expressions. But the days when Spanish food meant tacos and refried beans are numbered.

I wrote this book largely to share these wonderful dishes with you but also in part to clear up any confusion that some of you, such as my childhood friend Rosanne, may have. After running into Roe recently, I invited her to my home for dinner so we could catch up on each others lives. When I asked what she would like to eat, she was quick to reply, Spanish food! I made a beautiful meal of Spanish dishes for her that I was sure would knock her socks off: stuffed mussels (mejillones rellenos), chicken braised with figs (pollo con higos), and saffron rice. She looked at me, puzzled, and said, I thought we were having Spanish food. You know, rice and beans and pork chops, like your mom used to make!

Much of the allure for people discovering Latin cuisine is in what Latinos consider soul foodthe simple, satisfying dishes that my friend remembered my mother cooking all those years ago. This book is loaded with those treasuresand not just from Puerto Rico and Spain but from Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Central and South America. Every country has its beloved family dishes, and it is my distinct pleasure to bring some of them to you and to show you the diversity in the cuisines of all these countries.

I see evidence of a growing fascination with Latin cuisine everywhere. Its no longer necessary for me to travel to the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side of Manhattan or the larger market on 125th Street in el Barrio, as I did when I was a young girl. Like Latino culture and music, Latin food has exploded into the mainstream. You can walk into any modern supermarket and find many of the foods of my childhood. I believe you will have no problem locating the ingredients you need to cook the recipes in this book, but I offer substitutions whenever possible, just in case. Shopping via the Internet is also a possibility (see Sources).

I have spent my adult life sharing the happiness that food brings me with my friends, one barbecue, dinner party, picnic, or buffet at a time. Having an opportunity to share that excitement with many people through this book and the television show that accompanies it is beyond my wildest dreams.

There is everyday food here, and plenty of it. And I mean that literallyfood you can prepare and enjoy every day. Take a look at the first few recipes in this book. They include a sofritoa vegetable puree that brings life to much of my cookingolive oil seasoned with annatto seeds, and the best damn yellow rice you will ever have. The first two take less than ten minutes (that includes washing out the food processor after you make the sofrito), and the rice takes thirty minutes, for twenty of which you can be reading or buffing your nails. I will tell you in all honesty that the simple act of making sofrito will change the way you cook forever: it will rock your world. With the exception of a few recipes, such as Root Vegetable and Meat Tamales (), most of the dishes are ready in under an hour, and usually much less. If you can season, cook, and dress pork chops and serve them alongside fragrant yellow rice in less than thirty minutes, I cant imagine why youd eat anything from a cardboard carton. Once you realize that you can masterand I mean mastermaking rice, chicken simmered with plump figs, empanadas stuffed with savory pork filling, and juicy roast pork with crackling-crisp skin will not be far behind.

There are also some recipes for special occasions or for those who are as passionate about good food as I am. These may require a little more time or an extra trip to the market for an unusual ingredient or two, but they are worth the effort.

A word of warning: To this day I have to differentiate between a Daisy serving and a regular serving. My Mami and Abuela would always say the same thing: You should always cook enough so that if someone rings the doorbell while you are eating, you wont have to hide your plates under the table. Instead, pull up a chair for them and make them feel at home. I guess thats the reason Ill never know how to cook for two!