The Caribbean · Volume 12, The Sofrito, the Libreta and the Ninety Miles to Miami
Arroz a la santacruceña
Santa Cruz del Sur, Camagüey
Illustration
- Researched
- Researched from 106 sources in the brief
Arroz a la santacruceña is a seafood rice from Santa Cruz del Sur, the fishing town 80 kilometres south of Camagüey city. Shrimp, rings of lobster tail cut through the shell, crab meat and fish are marinated in lime, sautéed, cooked five minutes in a sauce called salsa sureña, then turned through rice that is already cooked, with fish stock, for five minutes more.
It has a birth date. The province's Culinary Association says it was made in 1978 at the Veril Azul, a state catering unit, by cooks with white rice left over from the shifts and a strong supply of seafood, and that it has since represented Santa Cruz and Camagüey at national competitions. The quantities are the Association's, from Yudeini Pérez Mauriño's unpublished book, and no second source gives the dish. Island clock. The book names salsa sureña and nowhere says what it is, so the dish is given as the tradition tells it, without the sauce.
As tradition built it
A Santa Cruz del Sur rice, from cooked rice.
Ingredients
The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.
- 435g fish fillet, in 3cm squares
- 870g lobster tails, cut through the shell in 1cm rings, vein removed
- 435g shrimp, peeled and cleaned
- 15g salt
- 87g oil
- 70g lime juice
- 0.5g ground pepper
- 15g parsley
- 145g crab meat, masa de jaiba
- salsa sureña, which the book names and does not define
- 5g pimentón dulce
- 1450g cooked white rice
- 320g fish stock
- 120g vino seco, Cuban dry cooking wine
Method
- Marinate the fish, the lobster tails and the shrimp in the salt, the oil, the lime juice, the ground pepper and the parsley.
- Sauté the shrimp, then the lobster, then the fish, and last the crab meat.
- Add the salsa sureña and cook 5 minutes.
- Add the cooked white rice and turn it well, then add the fish stock and taste for salt.
- Cook 5 minutes more and perfume it with the vino seco.
Notes
The book lists 5g of pimentón dulce and does not say where it goes; it is most likely the colour of the missing sauce.
What a modern chef changes
The shells made into the stock, and the rice fried before it is wetted
Rung 01, 04
Method
- Make the fish stock from the shrimp shells and lobster heads, so the stock that wets the rice tastes of the shellfish in it.
- Make a sauce you can name. Lacking salsa sureña, a sofrito built in order with the pimentón bloomed in the oil at the end gives the colour the book's pimentón suggests. Rung 01. Say on the plate that it is yours.
- Use day-old rice, as the Veril Azul did, and fry it in the pan before the stock goes in, so each grain is coated and takes the stock without breaking. Rung 04 in reverse: the grain is cooked, so it drinks only the surface.
- Take the lobster out after the sauté and return it for the last minute, so it is not cooked three times.