Rita Moreno’s Pica Dillo
Rita says this is an old Cuban recipe and it’s her favorite to serve at a big dinner party. It’s basically a one-dish meal and it always gets rave reviews. She warns that all of the measurements are to taste, not exact. She says “Keep tasting!” while cooking and DO NOT USE SALT (the ingredients are salty enough)
– start with 1lb or 1 1/2 lbs of a combo of ground sirloin and pork
– Chop two bell peppers (Rita likes confetti-style, meaning combining green, red and yellow peppers)
– Use 1/2 a can of drained, chopped tomatoes (reserve the juice for use later)
– 1 large onion, chopped as finely as possible
Brown all those ingredients together in frying pan using high-end olive oil, the greener the better. Rita uses a pastry blender to unlump the ground beef than tends to clump. Then add:
– 3/4’s of a cup of sliced green olives (she combines two types: half stuffed with pimentos, half with jalepenos)
– 2 tablespoons capers
– 2 tablespoons raisins
– 2 tablespoons cilantro (or more if you’d like. She says, “Keep adding, until you’re happy!”)
– add cumin
– add liberal amounts of crushed garlic
– sprinkle oregano over it (to taste)
– Now add some of that reserved juice from the chopped tomatoes (you want the mixture wet but not soupy).
– Make a pot of white rice.
– Serve Pica dillo over it
*For an extra special meal, Rita makes Chorizo Rice (add chopped chorizo, removed from it’s casing and sauteed, to the white rice) and sweet fried plantains. Delicioso!!
SOUNDSSSSSSSSS TASTYYYYYYYY!!!!
What?? Rita is from Puerto Rico (as am I)! What’s up the the Cuban recipe??? I am disappointed>>>>
Three places to get great recipes:
1. Betty Crocker cookbooks.
2. The Food Channel.
3. Alisyn’s Fox and Friends Blog.
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Another delicious recipe-
From a famous celebrity.
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Mary Elizabeth Rumsey
Three by M.E./Rhymes of the Times
Porter, Texas
Happy Tuesday to Alisyn!
Hey Alisyn! Your shoe is untied……. lol
Alisyn that sounds like stuffed peppers drop the raisins, cilantro, and the rice its allmost the same, just a different combination, but Im sure it tast good.
Sal
Hey Alisyn , it’s picadillo, not pica dillo. We mexicans make it too! We make it different,and it’s gooood too. I love to see the show in the morning, I wake up to it everyday. Hope to hear from you. Say hi to everybody there,from a friend from the San Antonio, Tx area. Love you all show!!!!!! Tony
Geez! Here I thought “Pica dillo” was something else entirely! Or, is that a “peccadillo”—help me, Alyson, please. If you cannot, please ask Brian to explain.—–Jim
“Picadillo” (not Pica Dillo) is a Cuban recipe, and the original recipe calls for browning the ground beef (only beef, no pork), then draining the fat (I press meat over a colander). Set aside. Sautee onions, then add garlic, keep sauteeing. Add green pepper (only green), then add tomatoes.I use extra virgin olive oil (color doesn’t matter to me, just the classification).When all is sauteed, bring back the meat. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add raisings, juice of the tomatoes left in can, cooking wine (red preferable, but white will do)and one sweet roasted red pepper, cut in strips. Reserve some strips for garnish. Cook until meat is done. During the last 10 minutes, add the sliced olives. In Cuba, only olives stuffed with red peppers were used, because hot spices were not used there as much as in other parts of Latin America. The olives are added at the last minute because if cooked too long, the quality of the taste decreases. I particularly add them during the last 5 minutes. Those who do not like olives, can substitute canned small green peas (drained) instead. Serve in shalow serving plate. Garnish with drained canned small green peas (early peas) and reserved strips of red rosted pepper. The word picadillo means cut up in small pieces, in this case ground meat.
Great to see Rita Moreno on FnF!! Of course I’m 34 so my first impression of her work was with Morgan Freeman on the PBS show The Electric Company LoL….but loved her in West Side Story later on……:D