Costa Rican Picadillo Recipes

AUTHENTIC MEXICAN PICADILLO

Steps:

• Bring 6 whole tomatoes to a boil in a small pot. Transfer to a blender. Add 3/4 cup water, onion halves, and whole garlic clove. Blend until smooth.
• Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chopped onion and serrano pepper. Cook until onion is transparent. Add minced garlic; cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add chopped tomato and cook for 1 minute more. Add ground beef; cook until browned, about 8 minutes.
• Pour canned tomato sauce into the beef mixture. Cook for 2 minutes. Mix in potatoes and carrots. Cook for 2 minutes; add the blended tomatoes, jalapeno, chicken bouillon, cumin, and bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper. Mix well, reduce heat, and simmer until most of the liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

CLASSIC CUBAN-STYLE PICADILLO

Steps:

• Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat; cook and stir garlic, onion, and green bell pepper in the hot oil until softened, 5 to 7 minutes.
• Crumble ground beef into the skillet; cook and stir until browned completely, 7 to 10 minutes.
• Stir olives, raisins, capers, tomato sauce, sazon seasoning, cumin, sugar, and salt through the ground beef mixture.
• Cover the skillet, reduce heat to low, and cook until the mixture is heated through, 5 to 10 minutes.

SPANISH PICADILLO CON ARROZ

Steps:

• In a pot with a lid, heat 1 tbsp olive oil over medium heat. Add 1 clove garlic minced, and sauté for 1 minute. Do not brown.
• Add rice to pan and stir well to combine. Stir constantly until all is coated and hot, about 2 minutes.
• Add water to rice mixture and bring to a boil. Cover with lid, lower heat to low, and simmer mixture for 20 minutes.
• Turn off heat, and let set for 5minutes.
• Meanwhile, in a large fry pan, heat 3 tbsp olive oil, over medium heat.
• Add onion, green pepper and 3 cloves minced garlic. Sauté about 5 minutes until onion turns transparent.
• Add ground beef and brown well, breaking up large pieces. Stir frequently.
• Add canned tomatoes, tomato paste, cumin, and oregano. Stir well to combine.
• Cover. Reduce heat to low and simmer mixture for 20 minutes.
• Add olives, salt and pepper and simmer mixture covered for 5 minutes.
• If mixture is watery, just remove cover and simmer for 5 minutes longer.
• Serve immediately over the hot cooked white rice.

CUBAN STYLE PICADILLO

Steps:

• Cook ground chuck in skillet on med-high heat and drain most of the fat (I always leave some in for flavor) Add mojo criollo (if desired), oregano, red cooking wine, tomato sauce,olives, brown sugar and raisons.
• Put the lid on and simmer for 30-45 minutes.
• In separate pan heat olive oil at med-high and add potatoes, onion, red pepper, and garlic (do not add garlic until potatoes are almost done) and cook until potatoes are fully cooked Add them to the pan and re-cover lid.
• Make rice as directed on package.
• Wait about 10 minutes before rice is ready to make the frozen sweet plantains. I cook them long enough so they are fairly dark, then place them on paper towels to drain the canola oil. Serve picadillo over white rice and sweet plantains on the side.