Tropical Flavors in Sub Tropical Town

It is not a well known fact but New York City is considered sub tropical in the summer time and if any of you have ever been here at that time you would most definitely agree. In order to honor the pending tropical heat wave that will soon be upon us I made some ribs and some big fat prawns.

The ribs were slathered in a garlic and ginger with pineapple and vegetable oil emulsion (I put everything in the blender and it got thick like a mayonnaise) then wrapped up the coated ribs in banana leaves and then in foil and cooked until tender and delicious. The prawns were tossed with a little seasoned salt and thrown directly on the grill near the end of the cooking time for the ribs. 

There is something about the banana leaf that both adds flavor and helps tenderize the meat - its awesome because it feels like super secret trick.

Oxtails as a tropical delight? Thats right! I made pasteles.

Pasteles are a big treat around here because they are so labor intensive to make, all the folding and tying and what not, not too mention the effort that goes into making the masa but I was challenged recently to do something with oxtail and I decided to do this tropical delight.



I wont bother you with all the details - instead you can watch this dark and out focus video to see how it all gets done.

Basically I put some oxtails in the pressure cooker.

I made some masa out of squash and yucca and green banana and yukon gold potatoes and folded and wrapped and tied a bunch of mini pasteles and simmered them until perfect.

Then I plated up some tasty mini pasteles with some spicy pineapple salsa a little kiwi lime sauce, yellow tomatoes, red tomatoes, some cucumber and some micro greens - and thats all she wrote.