Cuba
Photo: TGrey89, CC0, croppedRopa vieja
/ˈropa ˈβjexa/ROH-pah vee-EH-hah
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- Taste
- Savory
- Made with
- BeefVegetables
History
Ropa vieja means "old clothes", and the beef in it looks the part: flank steak cooked until tender, shredded into strands and simmered in a sauce of tomato, onion, peppers, garlic, cumin and white wine. The dish came from the Canary Islands and Spain, where it was a way to use leftover meat from stews, and in Cuba it became one of the national dishes. A folk tale says a poor man cooked his own clothes and they turned into a stew. It is served with white rice, black beans and fried plantain. Beef became scarce in Cuba after 1959, but the dish remains a symbol of Cuban cooking.
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