Abuela Makes Carne en Salsa: A Guest Post by Willa Goodfellow
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Abuela Makes Carne en Salsa: A Guest Post by Willa Goodfellow
Doña Eda lived her whole life in Playas del Coco, a fishing village of two thousand year-round residents, more in tourist season, on the northwest shore of Costa Rica. Until her mid-80s, she owned and operated Soda Navidad.
A soda is a little restaurant that serves comida típica, the typical cuisine of Costa Rica. Rice and beans are the basic ingredients for pinto, meaning “spotted,” the breakfast mixture of the two. It is often accompanied by egg, sausage, or cheese. The rice and beans sit side by side for casado, “married.” This is the noonday plate, with beef, chicken, or fish.
Soda Navidad sat on the edge of the Pacific. It had a tin roof and a counter lined by tree-stump stools. Its three white walls were festooned year-round with paper banners of red poinsettia and tinsel garlands. A snowman and snowwoman framed the menu posted on the wall, ironically smiling in the tropical heat. The cooks faced ocean waves below a blue sky framed by coconut palm trees. The view may have contributed to Doña Eda’s longevity.
She was known as Abuela, “grandmother,” to half the town, including me. She took this 53-year-old US woman under her wing. She dispensed advice, told troublemakers to leave me alone, and scolded me when she thought I engaged in risky behavior, like walking through the wrong neighborhood or scrambling over volcanic rocks on the north end of the beach.
One day she taught me to make carne en salsa, “beef in sauce.”
I sat at my stool, lingering over my pinto con huevo, while she prepared the pot. I made a list of ingredients. No proportions were given. This is a dish one makes by experience.
Abuela’s quantity fed her customers for a few days. Mine is more modest. It serves six big North Americans. Leftover portions freeze well for later meals with noodles or potatoes.
Cut two pounds of chuck steak into one-inch cubes.
Brown the meat in a heavy pan with—well, Abuela used lard, and I recommend it. But you use the fat of your choice, not butter. The ideal pan is cast iron.
Chop in small pieces, add to the beef, and sauté until just soft:
One carrot
One stalk of celery
One half red pepper
One medium onion
One medium tomato
¼ cup water
Add condiments to taste:
A few dashes of TabascoÆ sauce
A few dashes of Lizano sauce
One chicken bouillon cube
Salt and pepper
Notes about the condiments:
Costa Rican cuisine emphasizes freshness. It is not spicy.
Use enough Tabasco to add depth, not heat, to the flavor palette.
Lizano sauce is made in Costa Rica. It is the same as Worcestershire.
Abuela used chicken bouillon, not beef. I don’t know if that’s because she was adding a subtle flavor, or if she simply didn’t want to keep two kinds of bouillon on hand. Your choice.
At this point, Doña Eda’s son Juan put the large covered cast iron pot over a wood fire under the towering mango tree that shaded the restaurant. There it simmered for several hours, while the vegetables and beef juice melded into a savory sauce.
Carne en salsa is served with rice and beans, red beans on the Caribbean side of the country, black on the Pacific. Unlike the North American habit of meat as the main event, in Costa Rica it is a side dish. Two ounces make a serving.
Complete the plate with tortilla and a salad of chopped cabbage garnished with other sliced vegetables like carrot, jícama, and tomato. More substantial versions of casado add a small slice of mild cheese, picadillo (mixed vegetables with some ground beef), maybe a fried egg and fried plantain. In the tourist zone, you might even get French fries with your casado.
Substitute chicken for beef, and the same recipe makes pollo en salsa.
Years later the taste of carne en salsa brings back Abuela’s smiling eyes, the smell of salt air, and the sound the gentle waves at my favorite spot on the earth, Soda Navidad—where it is Christmas year-round.
Abuela Makes Carne en Salsa: A Guest Post by Willa Goodfellow
