La Bandera Dominicana

the Dominican flag on a plate: white rice, stewed red beans and braised meat side by side, with salad and fried plantain

Origin: Santo Domingo & the Dominican Republic

From the journey of Rice.

La bandera dominicana is what the Dominican Republic eats for lunch, and the name means the Dominican flag. The reading offered is that the white rice, red beans, and meat stand for the colours of the standard, and it is the sort of explanation that is true enough to be worth repeating and impossible to date. What is beyond dispute is that this is the midday meal of the country, eaten by nearly everyone, nearly every day, at around one o'clock. Rice is the base and the Dominican Republic eats a great deal of it, well over a hundred kilograms per head each year. It arrived with the Spanish, who had learnt to grow it in al-Andalus, and its cultivation on Hispaniola was developed substantially by enslaved West Africans who came from rice-growing societies along the Upper Guinea coast. It is cooked plain and dry, without fat or seasoning beyond salt, because everything beside it is heavily seasoned. The crust at the bottom of the rice pot has its own name and its own following. Concón forms when the rice is left over the heat after the water has gone, and it is scraped up in sheets and fought over; the same phenomenon has a name in every rice-eating culture, from Persian tahdig to Korean nurungji, and Dominicans regard theirs as the best. The beans are habichuelas guisadas, red beans stewed with sofrito, a little squash mashed in for body, and often a spoonful of sugar. The meat is whatever is at hand, most often pollo guisado, chicken braised in a sofrito darkened with burnt sugar. Beside the three go a green salad and fried ripe plantain, and the plate is complete.

Ingredients

Rice

  • 500 g long-grain rice, rinsed
  • 750 ml water
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 1.5 tsp salt

Chicken

  • 1.2 kg chicken thighs and drumsticks
  • 2 limes, juiced, for washing
  • 2 tsp dried oregano
  • 6 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • 3 tbsp oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 green pepper, chopped
  • 2 tbsp tomato purée
  • 400 ml water

Beans

  • 500 g cooked red kidney beans with their liquor
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 red pepper, chopped
  • 200 g pumpkin or squash, diced
  • 1 handful culantro or coriander
  • 1 tsp dried oregano
  • 2 tbsp oil

To serve

  • 2 ripe plantains, sliced, to serve
  • 1 green salad, to serve

Method

  1. Wash the chicken in cold water with the lime juice, rinse, and season it with the oregano, garlic, and salt. Leave for twenty minutes.
  2. Heat the 3 tbsp of oil in a heavy pot, add the brown sugar, and let it melt and darken to a deep amber.
  3. This burnt sugar is what colours a Dominican braise and there is no substitute for it. Take it to amber and no further, because a second past that it is bitter.
  4. Add the chicken to the caramel and turn it until every piece is coated and browned, then add the onion, green pepper, and tomato purée.
  5. Pour in the water, cover, and simmer for forty minutes until tender and the sauce has thickened.
  6. For the beans, soften the onion and red pepper in the oil for eight minutes, add the oregano, then the beans with their liquor and the diced pumpkin.
  7. Simmer for twenty-five minutes, then mash the pumpkin into the pot.
  8. The mashed squash is the thickener and gives the beans their body; Dominican habichuelas are saucy rather than soupy and should pour slowly.
  9. For the rice, heat the 2 tbsp of oil in a heavy pot, add the rinsed rice and salt, and turn it in the oil for a minute.
  10. Add the water, bring to a boil, and cook uncovered until the surface is pocked with holes and the water has gone.
  11. Stir once from the bottom, cover tightly, and cook on the lowest heat for twenty minutes without lifting the lid; leave it a few minutes longer if you want concón.
  12. Serve rice, beans, and chicken side by side on each plate, never mixed, with fried ripe plantain and a green salad.

Notes

The three components sit side by side and are mixed by the eater. Burnt sugar for the chicken, mashed squash for the beans, and plain rice with no fat beyond the initial spoonful. Leave the rice pot on the heat a little longer for concón, which is the point of cooking it in a heavy pot. Culantro is the correct herb and coriander stands in. Everything except the rice is better the next day, and the rice is not, which is why Dominican households cook it fresh at midday.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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