National Dishes of the World

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Ropa vieja
Photo: TGrey89, CC0, Wikimedia Commons

main dish

Ropa vieja

Beef pulled into shreds and stewed in a tomato sauce with peppers, onion, garlic and cumin, served with rice and beans.

Eaten in: Cuba

Prep
25 min
Cooking
2 h 30 min
Total
2 h 55 min
Servings
6

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About the dish

Ropa vieja, literally “old clothes”, is a Cuban beef stew whose long, pulled strands of meat are said to look like tattered cloth. The dish has Spanish roots, but in Cuba it became one of the pillars of home cooking. A piece of lean beef, usually flank or skirt, is simmered until tender, torn by hand into thin shreds and stewed in a sofrito of onion, garlic and peppers with tomatoes, cumin, oregano, bay leaf and a splash of white wine. The finished dish is fragrant, faintly sweet and juicy. It is served with white rice, black beans or moros y cristianos and fried ripe plantains (maduros).

Main ingredients

  • beef flank or skirt
  • tomatoes
  • sweet peppers
  • onion
  • garlic
  • cumin
  • oregano

Cuba: Often called Cuba's national dish.

More: Wikipedia (en)

Recipe

Ropa vieja

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/ropa-vieja

Ingredients

6 servings

6 servings

Method

  1. Cover the beef with water, add the bay leaves and a teaspoon of salt and simmer, covered, for 1.5–2 hours until the meat starts to fall apart.

  2. Lift out the beef, let it cool slightly and pull it into thin shreds with your fingers or two forks. Keep 250 ml of the cooking liquid.

  3. Slice the onion and peppers into strips and chop the garlic. Fry them in the olive oil in a wide pot for 8 minutes until soft.

  4. Add the tomato purée, cumin and oregano and fry for a minute, then pour in the wine and let it bubble for 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and the reserved liquid.

  5. Add the shredded beef and the olives, stir and simmer uncovered for 20–30 minutes until the sauce thickens and clings to the meat.

  6. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with white rice, black beans and fried plantains.

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