Dominican La Bandera
The beans start with water, salt, a little green pepper and red onion, a couple sakes of Adobo seasoning (really just garlic powder, oregano, salt and a little turmeric).
Angel's family cooks the rice a special way to get a crusty bottom called concon, a delicacy. My Puerto Rican friend did this, too. The gist (I have a feeling this will take me a while to get just right) is to cook the rice (salt and a little oil, too) with the lid off, stirring occasionally, until much of the water evaporates. Angel said he puts the lid on only when the spoon stands upright in the rice. Then he covers the opening with tinfoil and a lid, cooks it on low for ten minutes, then flips most of the rice over, leaving grains stuck to the bottom of the pan, covers the pan again, and cooks for another 10 minutes. Then you serve the fluffy rice in one dish, and the wondefully crunchy concon (cone CONE), in a separate dish.
Oh, and they rinsed the rice first - three times covering it with water and straining. In this next photo, his daughter is adding the rice to the salted, oil-ed water.
Angel and his daughter cooking la bandera.
Here's the concon.
When the bean water boils, you add tomato sauce and the beans, and cook for thirty minutes. You serve the beans with the flavored cooking water like a sauce. Delicious!
Here's Angel, frying the plantains. Click at right to see the video of how he does it - so easy!
La bandera (the flag) includes rice, beans, and meat. Here's Angel's son and girlfriend, contributing the kabobs, which Angel described as an American-Dominican thing.
Here is the whole meal together. It's so wonderful to have all these different flavors and textures on the table. Love it! I think tostones are better than French fries. My kids weighed in, "
Almost."
