Picadillo

Thank you Kevin, for recommending this one!



Olive oil for frying
1 large onion, diced
1 large green bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced 2 pounds ground beef or ground round
3 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. oregano
1/2 cup green olives chopped (optional) or 1/4 cup capers (optional)
1/3 cup raisins (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté onion, green pepper, and garlic in a large frying pan. Fry about 5 minutes, until the onions are softened, then add the ground beef. Mash ingredients into the frying meat.

Add the tomatoes, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, and oregano and cover. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Add olives and raisins and simmer 5 minutes longer. Salt and pepper to taste.

Kevin, who’s been reading the blog recommended this food, as well as this recipe from icuban.com . It’s a Cuban recipe, and on the web site they say that you could serve it with rice and beans if you’d like. I was going to do that, but I forgot to soak the beans the night before.

I will tell you this, and Kevin told me too, it says that the olives and raisins are optional, but they are NOT! They are very important. I tasted it before and after adding them. Before, well, let’s just say I thought I was going to have to have words with Kevin, but then I tasted it after and oh my god! So good! (I won’t doubt you again). I also added a little of the brine from the olives (again, a tip from Kevin), and I increased the spice, but then I usually do, especially when it comes to cinnamon and clove.

This was really good on it’s own, or with some rice, or would be wonderful as a filling. Kevin used it as a pie filling with some brown sugar on top of the crust. I also saw one book that recommended it as a filling for batter dipped, fried green bell peppers. I bet it would be wonderful for all of those things, I only had a tiny bit left over, and I just ate it for breakfast. Weird breakfast I know, but still tasty.

The spices, even increased, were subtle, and the sweet/salty of the raisins and olives really made it special. My older son mostly just picked out and ate all of the raisins and olives, but my younger son ate it all in great big handfuls. Thumbs up from all around. Really good use for ground beef!