Got My Mojito Workin'

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Got My Mojito Workin’ (reflection by Kim)



I have found a great conversation starter (with strangers as well as friends) to be: “So how do you make your mojito?” The mojito I am referring to is not the famous mixed drink, but a topping for cooked starchy vegetables, such as potatoes. (The word comes from “mojo”, the Spanish word for broth). I have gained some fame here already for my love of this delicious topping. The mojito is used on yucca, melanga, boñato, squash and guaguí (a small version of the melanga). I have found that Cuban people are quite invested in their style and individual tips for the best mojito. Most people agree on the ingredients, but there is a bit of variation even on those, so I will share a bit of my research.



Most people start by heating oil in a skillet and then adding garlic that has been pressed or mashed with a mortar and pestle. When the garlic has cooked just a bit, add the juice of half of a bitter orange and cut the heat down or off. Then stir in a bit of salt. Taste it and see if it needs more juice from the orange or if the orange is too strong, add a little water. Once it’s ready, pour it over the cooked vegetable and there you have it. Now, some people cook the garlic until it is almost burned and then add the orange juice. Some use lime juice or vinegar. Others say you should only use the juice from the orange. (By the way, all of the juice is fresh squeezed.) Another person heated the oil in the skillet and kept it hot. She mashed the garlic in the mortar bowl and added the orange juice to the garlic. Then she poured the hot oil into the bowl, but she cautioned to put the mortar bowl in the sink in case it bubbled up too much. Some people choose to add finely chopped onions to their mojito, but not for yucca, as yucca is best with just garlic, the juice from the orange, oil and salt.



As Stan and I were discussing the variations on this dish and many others, and how excited people would get at such a simple question, we began to realize that Cuba is a cooking culture, not a restaurant culture. While we have been to some nice restaurants here and had good food, by far the best meals we have had have been home-cooked. There is such pride in each dish, and the love that is put into each one makes for meals that nourish the body as well as the friendships around the table.



It’s also amazing how quickly I have been able to make friends with this simple question about how to make something in the kitchen. I had someone come up to me just a couple of days ago and ask if I remembered him. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. He told me that he was one of the people that I had talked to a few days prior about making the mojito. He prefers to use lard instead of oil as that makes the best mojito. He was eager to continue teaching me why his method is the best. Stan and I also had an experience where we were taking a taxi with complete strangers, a husband and wife, and we spent most of the ride talking recipes. We started with the recipe for mojito and went on to fried rice, chicken with rice, yellow rice, different beans, some basics on yucca, and boñato, such as it’s important to put a small spoonful of sugar in the water when you are boiling it as well as salt, etc. By the end of the trip, they had invited us to their home for dinner when we returned to Matanzas. It felt like we had been friends for years and shared several meals together.



The cooking culture is one that celebrates the following saying, “Recipes are notes from one artist to another.” Cuba is filled with artists in the kitchen making wonderful food every day. They definitely have their mojo working.

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Comments

[Ken Sehested]

I can smell it all the way up here!

[Jerry]

Just wondering
Recon I could find bitter orange here? Would this be good on baked potato? Very interesting. J