Mojo Criollo


 
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It's my understanding, as I recently had a good in depth discussion with Gary Wiviott, is that Mojo's are very similar to our BBQ sauces in the states. Most regions have different variations of Mojo's.
Mickey is correct in that the true Mojo that he is familiar with is made from the sour orange and garlic.
Badia brand adds oil to their marinade, while Goya is similar to a brine, with the added salt and water.
The ingredients alone, make it tough for most of us to duplicate, since they are not readily available all year round.

Jim
 
I have tried a few different types, none which have any oil in them. I like to add some olive oil. Is a great marinade. Works well for injecting turkeys too.
 
This is a very interesting topic. Here are two versions of Mojo that I was able to find. Hope they're helpful.
Rita

Mojo Criollo
(Creole Garlic Sauce)
From Mary Urrutia Randelman, "Memories of a Cuban Kitchen"

Makes 1 cup. Mojo criollo is not for the faint hearted-it is a truly potent garlic sauce, although most of the variations served at American-Cuban restaurants are only poor imitations. Mojo is served with Mariquitas de Yuca (Yuca Shavings, see previous recipe), with most pork and chicken dishes, and with root vegetables. It is traditionally made with lard, but I prefer to substitute pure olive oil. This sauce can be made in advance and reheated as needed.

6-8 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 medium-size onion, very thinly sliced
1/2 cup sour (Seville) orange juice,
or 1/4 cup sweet orange juice
and 1/8 cup each fresh lime and lemon juice
1/2 cup pure Spanish olive oil

1. Using a mortar and pestle or a food processor, crush the garlic with the salt to form a thick paste.

2. In a mixing bowl, combine the garlic paste, onion, and juice, and let the mixture sit at room temperature for 30 minutes or longer.

3. Minutes before you are ready to serve the mojo, heat the oil over medium-high heat in a medium-size pan until it is very hot, add the garlic mixture (do this quickly because it will splatter), stir, and serve immediately.
To reheat, simmer over low heat until heated through, 6 to 8 minutes. The sauce keeps several weeks refrigerated.

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Mojo
(Cuban Garlic-Citrus Sauce)
From Steven Raichlen, "Miami Spice"

Makes 1 cup. Mojo is to Cuban cuisine what vinaigrette is to French. Commercial brands of this tart, tangy, garlicky sauce are available in Hispanic markets and many supermarkets, but the sauce is quick and easy to prepare at home.
Like vinaigrette, mojo contains an oil (olive oil), an acid (sour orange juice or lime juice), and an aromatic flavoring (fresh garlic). The difference is that mojo is cooked, while vinaigrette is raw. Mojo lends itself well to improvisation; you can make wonderful fruit mojos, substituting pineapple juice, passion fruit juice, and other fruit juices for the lime juice in the basic recipe.
Mojo--pronounced Mo-ho--is Cuba's national table sauce. To be strictly authentic, you'd use the acid juice of the sour orange (naranja agria), a fruit that looks like a green bumpy orange but that tastes more like a lime. Sour oranges can be found at Hispanic markets. Fresh lime juice makes an acceptable substitute. Serve mojo on Cuban sandwiches, boiled yuca, grilled seafood, and meats, and just about anything else.

1/3 cup olive oil
6-8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced or minced
2/3 cup fresh sour orange juice or lime juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1. Heat the olive oil in a deep saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant and lightly toasted but not brown, about 30 seconds.

2. Add the sour orange juice, cumin, and salt and pepper. Stand back: The sauce may sputter. Bring the sauce to a rolling boil. Correct the seasonings, adding salt and pepper to taste.

3. Cool before serving. Mojo tastes best when served within a couple of hours of making, but it will keep for several days, covered, in the refrigerator.
 
here is another that's a little different

Johnny Earles, owner-chef at the award-winning Criolla's in Grayton Beach

Mojo Criollo
One cup olive oil
1/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup key lime juice
8 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1/2 of a habanero chile, seeded and minced. Substitute 1 large jalapeno if timid
1 teaspoon ground ancho chile powder (optional)
1.5 tablespoons Kosher salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
Mix all ingredients together in a blender.

Jim
 
Whoa, Jim, yours sounds even better.....it's kicked up a notch! /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
Rita
 
I don't get to make it very often, so when I do I always have to ask one of my elder family members for the recipe. Maybe I wrote it down somewhere . . . .

Anyway, both of Rita's versions sound more authentic to me. The hot pepper addition in Jim Minion's version is something new to me, as very few Cuban dishes are spicy. Come to think of it, that's ironic considering the habanero pepper is named after the capital of Cuba! /infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

I do remember that what I've made is very simple, meaning very few ingredients. I'm thinking garlic, sour orange juice, salt, and oil. I forget if there is anything else, like cumin or oregano, but I'm thinking not. I definitely don't remember black pepper. So based on that, I think Rita's first recipe is more what I'm used to. The things that stick out most in my mind is crushing lots of garlic in a mortar, and straining lots of seeds out of the juice.

I never realized there were different types of mojo until I saw Jim Morrissey's and Mr. Squeaky's posts. That's very interesting.

One great thing about mojo is that it does it all. You can marinate with it, baste with it, and then pour it on top as a sauce. Be careful with this last one, you don't need much!

If I do get a hold of those sour oranges, I think I'll try a comparison test with the orange/lime version. It sounds like it would work fine, and would be much easier to make here in Alabama.

--Mick
 
That's interesting concerning lard, being an authentic ingredient. I have not seen that before, but it makes sense. No question about using that recipe as a marinade, since it contains oil, and acids. By incorporating the lard instead of oil, I don't see why it could not be used as a paste.
Getting back a little bit to the Goya brand. I have used it numerous times as a pork loin marinade. Let it sit for 48 hours and then smoke roast on the WSM. Remove a 140?(tops), let rest and then slice.
What would make it even better,(if that's possible) is using Mickey's suggestion of pouring the Mojo over the top of the sliced pork. I'm starting to salivate, just thinking about that!!
Now that I still have a fresh pork picnic in the freezer, it will definitely be injected with the Mojo that Rita posted.
One of my favorites is using left-over smoke roasted pork loin, and making Cuban Sandwiches.
I have a James Beard recipe for Cuban Bread, that makes a great crunchy outside and moist inside. I'll post that later, in the recipe section.
My god this is making me hungry!!

Jim
 
Just as I was looking form my James Beard Cuban Bread recipe on my HD, I came across this item that was saved. I hope it brings back some childhood memories, for Mickey.

Cuban Cuisine

A standard Havana wisecrack credits the Cuban revolution's three great triumphs --health, education and culture - as having been achieved at the expense of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Without a doubt, the combination of food shortages and state-run restaurants have produced some remarkably undistinguished cooking over the last forty years, especially for tourists condemned to dining in hotel buffets and even in the some of the more famous traditional watering holes, now owned by the government. But the legalization of the dollar and the opening of privately owned restaurants known as paladares (literally, "palates" from a Brazilian television series in which the heroine opens a restaurant called Paladar) have sparked a renaissance of authentic criollo cuisine, traditional Cuban home cooking. Here's what to look for.

Despite a traditional agricultural economy in which food crops have been neglected in favor of export sugar cane cash crops, Cubans have inventively combined Spanish, African and Caribbean traditions and ingredients into a unique and characteristic cuisine. Chicken, pork, lobster, fish and, to a lesser degree, beef and lamb are the meat staples; black beans, rice, yucca (cassava), malanga (sweet potato), boniato (yam) and pl?tanos (plantains) are the leading legumes and starches.

Cuban cooking ennobles lowly ingredients. The plantain, for example, el pl?tano, often confused with the banana, has a thousand and one lives in a Cuban kitchen. Cut diagonally and fried when ripe; when green, sliced in thin wafers and fried or chopped in thicker wedges, pounded and refried as tostones or pl?tanos a pu?etazos (punched plantains). You can boil them green or mature, mash them with a fork, dress them with olive oil and crisped pork rinds for fu f?; or fill mashed plantains with picadillo (ground meat) and melted cheese for a pastel de platano, plantain pudding, tropical shepherd's pie.

Salsa criolla (onion, tomato, pepper, garlic, salt and oil) and mojo (garlic, tomato and pepper)...are the main sauces.

Cuba's menus are as playful and picturesque linguistically as they are in ingredients. Moros y Cristianos (literally "Moors and Christians", blacks and whites) is a combination of frijoles negros y arroz blanco, black beans and rice). Ropa vieja (literally, "old clothes") is shredded beef, also called aporreado de res (bashed beef), recooked in a criollo sauce. Pl?tanos a pu?etazos (punched plantains) are thick slices of plantains, partly cooked, taken out and whacked flat with a fist before returning to the pan to finish browning. Mariquitas are thinner slices (lascas) of plantain, fried and salted.

Arroz congr? is white rice con gris or "with grey", frijoles negros dormidos (literally "put to sleep", black beans cooked and allowed to stand until the following day) or, as in the more Caribbean, less Spanish, eastern end of the island, Congr? oriental is rice and red kidney beans.

At the Mercado Agropecuario, (mercado campesino or farmers' market) at the poetically named corner of ?nimas y Soledad (Souls and Solitude) in Centro Habana, you can find plantains, boniato, aj? cach?, peppers, squash, tomatoes, garlic, frijoles, malanga, mamey, guayaba, corn, corn flour. The market is no overflowing cornucopia, but the essentials are there: viandas (tubers), vegetables and fruit. Prices reflect areas of scarcity: a head of garlic costs ten times more than an onion; a pound of malanga is half as expensive as a pound of frijoles negros.

AMOR, named for a Cuban pop singer, is on the third floor of a early 20th-century townhouse. The elevator alone is worth the visit, a virtual museum piece that lets you out into a lavish setting from an earlier era: candelabras, music from the first half of the century, giant sofas, heavy silverware. The menu offers an anthology of cocina criolla: chicharritas de platano (mariquitas); tostones or platanos a punetazos; congri; yuca con mojo; chicharrones de puerco; masas de cerdo (morsels of pork) in mojo criollo -- a sauce of garlic, pepper, tomato, onion -- the "mojo" concept, like the famous "mojito" of mint, sugar, rum and soda...from the verb mojar, "to moisten, to wet"...as in "to wet one's whistle.

LA GUARIDA is another excellent paladar in an equally intriguing setting, up an ancient masterpiece of a stairway in an early 20th-century Centro Habana apartment building. Picturesque enough to be used for filming sequences of "Fresa y Chocolate", the 1995 Oscar-nominee Cuban film, this cozy spot serves a full range of Cuban specialties: aporreado de res, langosta mariposa (butterflied lobster), all accompanied by freezing Cristal, Cuba's light lager beer.

Yet another paladar, LA ULTIMA INSTANCIA at Calle D #557 (between 23rd and 25th streets) is a tiny treehouse-like hideaway in a side driveway with a jungly spiral staircase twisting up through a powerful bougainvillea into an equally vegetated dining room and kitchen. Along with the inevitable but always good frijoles negros con arroz there is ropa vieja made with lamb and cordero estofado con vegetales, a lamb stew made with malanga, boniato, carrots, onions, garlic and turnips.

Food conversations turn quickly to the vicissitudes of supply and resupply, a constant Cuban theme : 100 heads of garlic for 100 pesos, an opportunity ($5); friends in from the country with a payload of frijoles negros tiernos (tender black beans), an event to tell about, albeit in whispers - black market black beans. Res (beef) and pernil (ham) are dollar store items, until recently off limits to Cubans, now just cripplingly expensive. Meanwhile, in the hall outside the kitchen, four dozen well cleaned potatoes are carefully arranged, well ventilated and gleaming, awaiting their respective moments of glory.

La Caldosa is a universal favorite, the all-purpose-Cuba-in-a-pot soup or stew of chicken, onions, garlic, oregano, plantain, squash, yam, carrots, potatoes, malanga, butter, ham...all left to simmer slowly. Pre-revolutionary desserts include specialties such as guayaba con queso or queso con timba, from timber, or the wooden boxes cheese was once shipped in, or mermelada de mango con queso... a salt-sweet-tart combination.

Chicken is a great Cuban staple, nowhere better prepared than at Havana's renowned Aljibe restaurant, the capital's top spot (outside of the Paladares) for criollo cooking. Pollo al Aljibe at the eponymous restaurant is roast chicken in a sauce made from chicken skin and bitter oranges.

Cubans are normally entitled to two chickens a year on their ration cards, one at Christmas and another on the 26th of July (commemorating the attack on the Moncada Barracks and Castro's Movimiento 26 de Julio.) Pollo al bloqueo (chicken ? la blockade) was a popular chicken recipe during the Special Period, after Soviet support and trade ceased and Castro declared a national emergency belt-tightening regime.

Day 1: Take a chicken, skin it, boil it, make soup from the stock...adding viandas: potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, yuca, boniato, tamale, maybe some pasta, corn or rice. Day 2 : golden brown the actual pieces and parts of the chicken and serve it in a salsa criolla ade of tomato, red pepper, onion, aji. Day 3: take the chicken skin and sautee it until it's crackly hard - chicharr?n de pollo, serve with white rice. Day 4:: crack the chicken bones and suck out the marrow.

Cuba also has regional cuisines. Baracoa, for example, on the eastern tip of the island, closer to Haiti than to Havana, has tamales made not of boiled corn as in the rest of the island but of mashed plantains, stuffed with spicy pork, wrapped in a banana leaf and roasted over coals.

Santiago de Cuba and the eastern end of the island are more Caribbean than Spanish or Afro-Spanish. Baracoan cuisine uses more spices than central or western Cuba, along with local specialties such as coconut and chocolate. Food is typically cooked in coconut oil and lechita (coconut milk) and the whole town of Baracoa becomes musky when the evening cookery begins.

Local Baracoan dishes include bac?n, a plantain tortilla filled with spicy pork, and tet?, a small, orange fish caught in the river estuaries between August and December. Rice is yellow not from saffron but from annatto seeds, also used to color butter; "Indian bananas" are boiled in their salmon-colored skins and dressed with garlic and lime juice. Cucurucho is a sweet made of coconut, sweet orange, papaya and honey.

Mothers' Day in Trinidad, the lovely colonial city on Cuba's southern coast is a day devoted not only to mothers but to women in general and to outrageous flirtation, perhaps even ahead of baseball the Cuban national sport and pastime. Expansive "FELICIDADES!!" are lavished on every woman of remotely child-bearing age or presumed vocation. Pargo are running in the Gulf of Mexico and they have arrived just in time for Mothers' Day. Men with ten-to-twelve pound pargo (red snapper) on large platters emerge from restaurants all over town, roasted by sons in big restaurant ovens and carried home for a feast of "pargo a la criolla": 1-Marinate pargo in lemon, onion, garlic and a touch of salt; 2-Place in earthenware vessel with a small amount of butter spread over the bottom: 3-Cook for three minutes on slow heat, turning quickly several times; 4-Cover casserole and allow pargo to steam/cook/simmer until done. Serve to mother, spouse or other fertility goddess with an exuberant and irresistible "FELICIDADES!!"

Cuban music is laced with food imagery: If music be the food of love, (or vice versa) play on. Even the sound of a Cuban kitchen - chopping plantains, punching tostones-- is often redolent of guaguanc?, Afro-Cuban music rich in percussion originally played on boxes and anything at hand. Cuba's torrential musical offering frequently features mouth-watering lyrics, from the island's first great 1930s international hit , "The Peanut Vendor" to "El b?rbaro del ritmo" ("the rhythm animal") Beny Mor?'s song about the marranito (little pig) he lovingly teases about becoming jam?n (ham) and chicharr?n (pork crisp.

Cuban romance is all about the palate: a babe (male or female) is a pan (bread) or a pollo (chicken) and an irresistible one is "pa' com?rselo" (good enough to eat). Piropos (flowery compliments) are relentlessly culinary: "Wow! If you cook the way you walk, I'd scrape the pot"; or "Oof, you're so brown you're crunchy"; or (on a sunny day) "Hey where's your umbrella?" - "Say what?" - "Don't bonbons melt in the sun?"

And then there's the endless repertory of Cuba's many aphrodisiacs such as guarap?, sugar cane juice, or the crocodile tail served in the Zapata wetlands...
 
In case anyone is interested, and can not find sour oranges in their locale, Goya also produces Bitter Orange, which comes in a bottle similar in size to the Mojo Criollo bottle, and also a Tropical Lemon.
I hate to beat a subject to death, but once again, I urge all folks to give this type of marinade a shot, sometime during the cooking season.

Jim
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jim Morrissey:
[qb]
<snip>
I hate to beat a subject to death, but once again, I urge all folks to give this type of marinade a shot, sometime during the cooking season.

Jim[/qb] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Jim,

I quite agree, commercial Mojo Criollo is a quick and easy way to infuse flavor and insure juiciness in meat and homemade versions really allow one to be creative. I am looking forward to trying the MC recipes posted in this very interesting thread.

Regards

Smoking in Chicago,
Gary
 
Here is an article from Fine Cooking on Mojo that includes 3 recipes:

MOJOS
Tropical Sauces and Marinades for Grilled or Smoked Food
Make a mojo - an easy sauce bursting with the flavors of the Caribbean
By Norman Van Aken, from Fine Cooking Magazine # 28 (August/September 1998)

NOTE: In the same issue is an excellent article by Paul Kirk on KC barbecued ribs and another by Steve Johnson on brochettes - altogether a great summer issue with lots of other interesting ideas. The table of contents for this issue is at:

http://www.taunton.com/fc/admin/toc/28.htm

Back issues ($5.95 each) can be ordered from (this is not a solicitation): http://www.taunton.com/fc/admin/backissues.htm
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THE WELL-TRAVELED MOJO

"According to my friend Maricel Presilla, a food historian who grew up in Cuba and is writing a book on the cooking traditions of Latin America, mojo (from the Spanish mojar, "to moisten") originated in Spain and came to the New World with the Spanish invad-ers, who carried it all over Latin America. Mojo then made its way to the Spanish Caribbean, including Cuba and the Dominican Re-public.
"Typically, a mojo was a boldly seasoned vinaigrette-type sauce that was heated to infuse its flavors. With the generous flavors of garlic, chiles, and herbs, and the tenderizing effect of an oil-and acid-based medium (the acid was often vinegar or citrus juice), mojo was traditionally used to moisten, marinate, and flavor dry foods like starchy tubers or well-cooked meats.
"As mojo traveled through the New World, it changed to suit the ingredients of different regions. For example, Cubans infused mojo with the juice of a sour orange to create their ubiquitous sauce, mojo criollo (criollo means hand-made but implies "made with love"), which is drizzled on roast pig and other barbecued meats.
"Mojo picked up tropical chiles and fruits in the Caribbean, as well as the spices of different immigrant groups. By the time I en-countered mojo in Key West, it wasn't just one mojo, but a big family of mojos. - Norman Van Aken, the executive chef of Nor-man's in Miami, is the author of "Norman's New World Cuisine" (Random House, 1997).

- - -

When I moved to Key West in the early VV 1970s, I discovered a lively sauce called a mojo that jazzed up everything from French fries to grilled fish. A little bit like a warm vinaigrette, but with bold flavors such as fragrant garlic, hot chiles, and the juices of tropical fruits, mojo (pronounced MOE-HOE) was an exciting sauce for a young chef like me. Not only did I love the fresh flavors, but I liked the fact that mojo was a "multicultural sauce" (see the note in the Mojo Oriental recipe). I'd been looking for a way expand my cook-ing style and get away from the dominance of French sauces. I was happy to find in mojos a family of fresh-tasting sauces that got its distinctive personality from the ingredients of the New World.
Since my early days in Key West, I've made a lot of mojo. Over the years, in my restaurant and at home, I've created my own mojo variations that I think pair especially well with grilled food. My mojos are always boldly seasoned (I'm fond of the hot complexity of haba?ero chiles, for example) but balanced as well. I think mojos taste best when they're freshly made, slightly warm, and have had a chance to mingle with the juices of meat or vegetables that have just finished cooking. At the same time, I think mo-jos are too overwhelming for raw food or delicate lettuces, so try not to think of them as regular vinaigrettes. And while I love to make mojos for warm-weather grilling, they work just as well in winter, paired with a roast chicken or a saut?ed fish fillet.
I've included recipes here for three of my favorite mojos for grilled food. I love the way tropical fruits and hot chiles work together, so I created a luscious mango and haba?ero mojo-a simple pur?e that doesn't mask the flavor of fresh, grilled seafood tuna, grou-per, or shrimp.
One of my family's favorite mojos is my "Mo J." We make a lot of this garlicky~ cumin-scented mojo, use half of it to marinate flank steak Or chicken, and re~ serve the other half to drizzle on as a sauce when the meat comes off the grill. This mojo is made much the way a traditional mojo was: hot oil is poured over fresh garlic and spices, both to cook the edge off the garlic and to infuse the oil with all the flavors of the mojo.
And the third mojo recipe has Asian influences, including ingredients like fresh ginger and soy sauce, inspired by the Chinese immigrants who contributed their flavors and ingredients to the New World when they came to Cuba in the mid-1900s to work as la-borers in the sugar and railway industries. I like to pair this mojo with grilled shiitakes and somen noodles.
My mojos all vary slightly in technique, but they're not hard to make. The Mango Haba?ero Mojo comes together easily in a blender. When I can, I make my "Mo J" in a molcajete (a big stone mortar; it's pronounced mohl-kah-HAY-tay) as a traditional mojo might have been made, but I also use a food processor just as successfully. In my Mojo Oriental, I add the finely chopped aromatics to the liquid ingredients before the whole mixture is heated. All three of these can be made and refrigerated ahead (the "Mo J" and Mojo Oriental will keep well for several days; the Mango Haba?ero Mojo is best used the day it's made). Once you make these reci-pes with the food I've suggested, try making a mojo to serve with steamed vegetables or roasted chicken, or your own favorite food from the grill.
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"MO J" MARINATED & GRILLED FLANK STEAK

Serves 4-6. Toss a few red onions on the grill to serve with this dish; a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers rounds out the meal nicely. My family loves this versatile mojo on chicken as well as on flank steak.

FOR THE MOJO
12 cloves garlic (or 4 Tablespoons minced garlic)
2 haba?eros or other spicy chiles, cored, seeded, and minced (wear rubber gloves)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
4 teaspoons whole cumin seeds, toasted
1 cup olive oil
1/4 cup sour orange juice (or 1/3 cup fresh lime juice plus 1/3 cup fresh orange juice)
1 1/2 Tablespoons sherry vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

FOR THE STEAK
1 1/2 pounds flank steak
1 or 2 large Bermuda onions, thickly sliced and brushed with olive oil (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

TO MAKE THE MOLE-Mash the raw garlic, chiles, salt, and cumin together in a mortar and pestle until fairly smooth. (Alterna-tively, use a food processor, pulsing until the ingredients are finely chopped but not pur?ed.) Scrape the mixture into a bowl and set aside.

HEAT THE OLIVE OIL until fairly hot but not smoking, and pour it over the garlic-chile mixture (the oil should sizzle when it hits the cool ingredients), stir, and let stand 10 minutes This will cook the garlic slightly. Whisk in the sour orange juice and vinegar. Sea-son with salt and pepper and set aside to cool completely.

PUT THE STEAK IN A ZIP-TOP BAG or a shallow bowl and pour in 1 cup of the cooled mojo. Seal and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight, turning occasionally. Refrigerate the remaining 1 cup of mojo.

TO COOK AND SERVE-Light a charcoal or gas grill. When the grill is very hot, remove the steak from the marinade (discard the marinade), pat dry, and season with salt and pepper; cook 5 to 7 minutes on one side and 3 to 4 minutes on the other for medium rare. Remove from the grill and let rest for 5 minutes (If you like, grill the Bermuda onions as well-you can put them on at the same time as the flank steak; grill 6 to 7 minutes per side.) Meanwhile, warm the reserved mojo over low heat. Slice the flank steak very thinly on the bias and serve with the reserved mojo and the grilled onions.
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GRILLED TUNA STEAKS WITH MANGO HABA?ERO MOJO

Serves 4. Sweet and spicy Mango Haba?ero Mojo is the perfect foil for a smoky grilled tuna fillet. The floral note of the haba?eros is a tremendous partner to the mango, but if you can't find them, substitute another spicy chile. This mojo is also delicious with grilled shrimp or pork. "Power up the blender,"' advises Norman Van Aken, to quickly turn sweet, juicy mango and spicy haba?ero chiles into a delicious mole.

FOR THE TUNA AND MARINADE:
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup dry sherry
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt; more for seasoning
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 tuna steaks, 6 oz. each

FOR THE MOJO:
1 ripe, juicy mango, peeled and pitted
1/4 cup Chardonnay or other dry white wine
Juice of 1/2 orange (about 1/4 cup)
1/2-3/4 teaspoon minced haba?ero, Scotch bonnet, or other hot chile (seeds removed)

Sprigs of cilantro for garnish

TO MAKE THE MARINADE-in a large shallow dish, mix the parsley, cilantro, garlic, sherry, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Add the tuna and toss to thoroughly coat, pressing the herbs all over the steaks. Let sit for 30 minutes

TO MAKE THE MOJO-In a blender, combine the mango, Chardonnay, and orange juice. Stir in the haba?ero and set aside. (This mojo is served at room temperature or very slightly warmed-don't boil it).

TO COOK THE TUNA-Light a charcoal or gas grill. When the grill is very hot, remove the tuna from the marinade and season it with salt and pepper. Sear the tuna for 3 to 5 minutes on each side for medium rare (or more, depending on the thickness of the tuna). Drizzle some mojo on each plate, set the tuna on the mojo, drizzle on a little more mojo, and garnish with cilantro.
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GRILLED SHIITAKES WITH MOJO ORIENTAL & SOMEN NOODLES

Serves 4 as a light dinner. Mojo Oriental-an intense infusion of spices, soy, honey, ginger, and sesame- brings together a dish of grilled shiitakes and somen noodles. Somen noodles are sold in Asian groceries and many supermarkets. Use capellini if you can't find them.

16 large shiitake caps, cut into quarters (or
32 smaller shiitake caps, cut in half)
1/4 cup whole cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon Szechuan peppercorns (optional)
2 cups homemade or low-salt canned chicken stock
1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar .1/4 cup minced fresh ginger
1/2 haba?ero chile, seeded

FOR THE SOMEN NOODLES:
8 ounces dried somen noodles
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

Minced garlic chives or chives for garnish (optional)
Black and white sesame seeds for garnish (optional)

THREAD THE SHIITAKE CAPS on 8 short wooden skewers. Arrange the skewers in a shallow, nonreactive pan.

TO MAKE THE MOJO, toast the cumin and peppercorns in a dry saucepan over medium-high heat until they're quite aromatic. Grind them in a spice or coffee grinder and return them to the pan. Add the stock, sesame oil, honey, soy sauce, vinegar, ginger, and haba?ero. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. After 5 minutes, remove the haba?ero; continue to simmer the sauce until it's reduced to 1 1/2 cups, about another 10 minutes Remove from the heat and strain the sauce through a fine sieve; let cool slightly. Pour the mojo over the shiitake skewers; let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes to 2 hours.

LIGHT A GRILL OR BROILER. Remove the skewers from the mojo, letting any excess drip back into the pan. Transfer the mojo to a nonreactive saucepan and simmer until reduced to about 1/2 cup. Meanwhile, grill or broil the shiitakes until well-browned, 3 to 6 minutes

BOIL THE SOMEN NOODLES until just al dente (about 1 minute after the water comes back to a boil), drain well, and toss with the sesame oil. Mound the noodles in four shallow bowls, top with the grilled shiitake skewers, and drizzle with the reduced mojo.
___________________________________________________________
Norman Van Aken, the executive chef of Norman's in Miami, is the author of Norman's New World Cuisine (Random House, 1997).
 
Rita,

Which recipe did you use for the homemade mojo when you made the pork loin? The first one you posted (onion, garlic, salt, oil, juice) sounded good to me, so I'm going to try it this weekend.

By the way, a little tip: after you make it, put it into something you can shake, like a half-gallon plastic milk bottle. The ingredients separate quickly, so it's good to shake it right before you pour it on. MMM! I don't know whether you would need to do that for the mango or oriental ones, but it probably wouldn't hurt to give them a little shake.

--Mickey
 
Mickey,

I started out with the first recipe in my 4/30 post, but essentially combined the two. I put everything in a blender to make sure my injector wouldn't clog:

6-8 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 medium-size onion, very thinly sliced
1/4 cup sweet orange juice
1/8 cup fresh lime juice
1/8 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup pure Spanish olive oil
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/3 teaspoon ground black pepper

The advantage of using a blender is that the sauce will stay emulsified for at least a couple of hours. The ground cumin also helps it stay that way. I often add some gound mustard powder to injection liquids to keep them from separating while I'm injecting meats.

My loin roast could have used more mojo than I was able to inject.

I tried injecting from one end of the roast while I slowly pulled the needle out, hoping to reduce the number of punctures, but I got some internal leakage anyway. So then I injected around the sides with shallower punctures on an angle in order to get more mojo into the meat. The hard part is trying to avoid the seam where the two halves of the roast come together because you'll lose a lot of sauce there.

Also, next time I'll bump up the salt a bit. The mojo will taste salty, but the dense meat can use it. I know mine needed a little extra.

Let us know how it works and if you did anything different.

Rita
 
Rita,

For my chicken this past Sunday, I used the recipe without the cumin and black pepper. The orange/lemon/lime works out very well. It's close enough to the flavor of sour orange that you can't tell the difference, especially since the garlic is so overpowering. If I had the two side by side, I could probably notice a difference, but I'm not sure one would be better than the other. I'm happy now because I know I can make it even if I can't find sour oranges. /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

I didn't use the blender, because I wasn't going to inject it, just marinade. I like seeing the onions in the sauce. I stuffed some of them under the skin. When the chicken was done, I took some of the skin off and found the onions were still there, holding in the flavor. I don't know if it really helped, but it was fun to see them, almost like I was unwrapping a present.

The only complaint I have about the recipe is that it doesn't make enough. I made double the recipe to marinade the chicken the night before, and another double-recipe for basting. After that, I had none left to pour on top. I guess I should have known that I would need more--my relatives would always make about a gallon of the stuff. Next time, I'll make ten times the recipe!

When we've roasted pork shoulder in the oven, we would baste it often with mojo and the drippings from the pan. At the end we carve the pork on a board, and then we put the pork chunks onto a serving dish and pour the drippings from the roasting pan over the pork. The drippings/mojo mixture settles on the bottom of the dish and soaks the pieces of pork on the bottom. They're delicious!

Maybe you can replicate this effect with the pork loin. Has anyone ever tried catching the drippings and mopping sauce with a foil pan or something like that? I hated seeing the perfectly good mojo wash away into the water pan. Another suggestion is to maybe put the finished meat into a baking dish, pour a generous amount of mojo over the top, and then carve the meat right in the pan. Then the juice from the pork could mix with the mojo on the bottom of the pan, and you could spoon some of it over the top.

What do you think?

--Mick
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Has anyone ever tried catching the drippings and mopping sauce with a foil pan or something like that? I hated seeing the perfectly good mojo wash away into the water pan. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Ahh Mick, you are the man. I'm really glad you found this site, because I love reading your posts.
No reason a V-rack, set on an old sheet pan, with about one inch high sides wouldn't suffice. Set the loin on the v-rack and mop away. Or better yet, add some Mojo to the pan prior to cooking, so those fat drippings don't get burnt onto the pan. Haven't tried it, but see no reason it won't work.
I'm going to do another Mojo Loin this weekend, using Rita's posted marinade, with the onions. Think I'll double the garlic!!

Jim
 
OK Jim, since you'll be adding more garlic, I guess I'll know when you're cooking by just sticking my nose out the window....I figure the "fragrance" will waft right down the East Coast! Be sure to give us a detailed report.

Mickey - You're right about the recipe not making enough mojo. I should have mentioned that.

I think you're right on with your suggestions (chicken AND pork loin) and I'll go that way next time. You're a Natural! I thought about the rack/pan after I'd had the loin on for an hour and figured that it was too late to do anything with it for that cook, but next time that'll be the way I'll go. I'm going to beat that loin into submission! We're all looking for a healthier way to eat......are/aren't we? /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Rita
 
Rita, admirably said:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>We're all looking for a healthier way to eat......are/aren't we? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I think the meat producers have already, determined how I should eat. The real challenge is, trying to undo, their gimmicks.
I have two loins sitting in the Mojo, for a Saturday cook. My hard neck garlic from last fall is long gone, so it's store bought for the time being.
I am going to be stuffing some loins, this fall with fresh pesto, from our basil and garlic. If I can incorporate this into a Mojo loin, it may all be over, but the cryin.
Did you use Vidalia's for your onions?

Jim
 
I used regular yellow onions for mine. Slice them really thin so they're nice and soft when you're done. Vidalias would probably be good, too.

By the way, I had the thought that if you catch all the drippings in a pan, they're going to be smoky. I'm not used to smoked mojo. I wonder what that would taste like . . . Doesn't hurt to try!

--Mick
 
I make the mojo recipe from "Memories of a Cuban Kitchen" quite often. I've made it with sour orange juice and the orange/lime substitute.

It is truly unbelievable on any kind of pork. I use half the recipe for marinating and the other half as a table sauce.
 
Hi Webb,

What cuts of pork do you use with the "Memories" mojo and how long do you marinate? Are you cooking them on the WSM or grilling them?

I get a little anxious with citrus-based marinades, hoping the meat won't get mushy if over-marinated.

I just read something interesting along those lines - add a pinch of baking soda to reduce the acidity. That might make an interesting thread; think I'll start a new one on that subject.

Rita
 
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