Moro-A Dominican Staple

I´m finally going to post about a food that I have eaten here in the DR at least every three days, Moro. It truly is a staple that people eat in their homes, in fast food places, and sit down restaurants. Basically, Moro is a dish with rice and beans, and depending on what else is available, sometimes other vegetables.

To begin, place some oil in a pot, heat, add bouillion cube and break up in the oil. Add carrots, chopped garlic cloves, aji peppers (a mild green pepper), 1 T garlic paste. Saute. Then, add the beans of your choice. Sometimes Wil soaks beans and puts them in. Most often, he adds a regular sized can of black or red beans. But my favorite moro was when he made it with gandules verde (translated as green pigeon peas, but they don´t taste like green peas) in coconut milk.

Wil then added 4 green olives, some olive juice, 1 T soy sauce, another 1 T of chopped aji pepper, 2 T tomato paste, 1 t salt (at least) and two cans of water. Bring to a boil.

Add about 4 cups of rice, washed. Stir the pot.

Cover for about 5 minutes. Scrape bottom to prevent sticking. Continue to monitor every few minutes and scrape the bottom. Once the rice has absorbed most of the water (as in the picture two below), cover the rice with, wait for it, a store plastic bag. Wet the bag with water and then push the bag down around the rice in the pot. Leave this for 20 minutes or so.

The pictures in this recipe have several different Moros in them. Below you see one that was made with black beans. A favorite thing here in the DR is called concon, it´s the rice that has stuck to the bottom of the pan. Yes, eventually they do want the rice to stick and kind of burn in the bottom of the pot. I´ve eaten every shade of concon, from a light brown to pretty black and crunchy.

You can see the concon in the right edge of the pot above.

Here is a close up of the concon. It really is a crunchy treat!

Moro is the staple item that is served with almost everything. It is often served with meat. Most of you know that I am quite a carnivore, but my favorite dish here is verenjena (eggplant).

Peel the eggplants and slice them lengthwise. Wash the slices in salt water. When Wil was doing this one day I asked him why sometimes there are seeds and sometimes not in the eggplant. He said, "People say the little seeds can make you sick. I don´t think so. My family washes them with salt. I don´t do it but I´m gonna do it now just because.¨

After you wash the slices, dredge them through a wash of two eggs with 1 t salt. Fry the slices in hot oil. Drain on paper towel. See photo above. Set the fried slices aside. I usually can´t stand to set them all aside as they are so good just out of the hot oil.

Prepare the sauce for the verenjena with oil in a skillet. Add 3 T chopped aji peppers, 1/2 cube bouillion, 1 t garlic paste, 3 T tomato paste,1 t vinegar, and 1 fresh tomato chopped into pan. Once these ingredients are sauteed, add 1 c water or so. Cook down the sauce a bit.

I should say at this point that though it seems like the same main ingredients are in most of the dishes that Wil cooks, all of the food doesn´t taste the same. They do use quite a bit of oil and salt here though. So some of the food is greasier than some may like.

Add in the fried eggplant slices. Let the slices heat in the sauce.

Serve the verejena over a nice bed of moro. As in any culture there are foods that are served together and some that are not. Wil pointed out that verenjena is not usually served with beef.

Delicious!