Traditional Cuban Recipe: Cuban Mojo (Cuban Marinade)
"There are many variations of mojo. It is the signature marinade of Cuba and it finds its way into many varied dishes. After searching through many recipes and cookbooks; I found this in on www.icuban.com and in "Three Guys from Miami Cook Cuban" by: three brothers-in-law, Glenn Lindgren, Raul Musibay and Jorge Castillo. Many mojos do not include oil; with or without oil the key element is "sour" orange, an almost bitter orange that grows throughout Cuba and now it flourishes in most Miami backyards. In a pinch use: 2 parts orange juice to 1 part lemon juice and 1 part lime juice. The key to a good mojo is in the proportions; garlic, salt, whole black peppercorns and sour orange juice are it's main ingredients.Update: 04/14/08 add a teaspoon of cumin (if you so desire) there are many recipes that call for it but we don't use it here! I have been using this mojo since I left my mother's house, as we always used it in Cuba and Haiti.:)"
- Ready In:
- 50mins
- Ingredients:
- 7
- Serves:
-
50-60
ingredients
- 3 heads garlic
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon black peppercorns (whole)
- 1 1⁄2 cups orange juice, sour orange (or 1 cup orange juice & 1/2 cup lemon juice & 1/2 cup lime juice)
- 1 cup minced onion
- 2 teaspoons oregano
- 1 cup Spanish olive oil
directions
- Mash garlic, salt and peppercorns, using a mortar and pestle or use food processor.
- Stir in juice.
- Allow to sit for at least 30 minutes or longer at room temperature.
- *If making it without the oil - stop at this point and this makes a perfect marinade for seasoning, chicken, fish, pork &/or beef.
- Continue with preparing the mojo with oil - after you have stirred in juice add onion & oregano.
- Allow to sit for at least 30 minutes or longer at room temperature.
- In a saucepan heat olive oil to medium hot & then remove from heat.
- Whisk oil in garlic-juice mixture, until well blended.
- Stores for at least a week in the refrigerator.
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Reviews
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Good stuff. Tasted yummy! -
EXCLENTE! on slow pork or grilled chicken -
We use this recipe often. It is very good on flat iron steak. We have found that if we use fresh lemon and lime juice instead of the bottled we did not get good results--the meat turned grey. This does not happen with the bottled juice. We have also used this as a dipping sauce for cuban sandwiches. Yum! Icuban also has a pineapple avacado salad that will knock your socks off.
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My review is of my altered version of this recipe. I used only one head of garlic and I did the orange/lime/lemon juice combo to create sour orange. I have a lot of Cuban in-laws and am familiar with the Cuban food in Miami. I liked the end result but my husband summed it up when he said the house smelled better than the chicken tasted. The sour orange was a little over-powering and next time I will reduce the lemon and lime juices as well as the garlic. I will make this again and am looking for a good black bean recipe to go with it. Thanks. -
good...but the oregano needs to be subsituted for Cumin. Being a Latina, we don't use oregano for traditional foods.
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Tweaks
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We use this recipe often. It is very good on flat iron steak. We have found that if we use fresh lemon and lime juice instead of the bottled we did not get good results--the meat turned grey. This does not happen with the bottled juice. We have also used this as a dipping sauce for cuban sandwiches. Yum! Icuban also has a pineapple avacado salad that will knock your socks off.
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
<p>Hello all, thank you for visiting My Page but forgive me for it is a work in progress! :) As I am sure you have noticed I changed my Chef Name to Manami which means love & beauty. ;) Just thought I should get with the program - my geisha & my icon! :) Don't fret, I won't change it again! <br /><br />I am 70 years young and I live in a nursing home, which is out of this world, I am treated like a princess and the world is my oyster! I have a private room and during the season I do taxes for most of the staff, as well as my personal clients that have been following me since I left the business world about 25 years ago. I was rear-ended by a van and it turned my whole world upside down. Why dwell on that? <br /><br />I am an American Jew (from NYC) who moved to Havana, Cuba when I was 2 1/2 years old, lived there until a few days after Castro took over and vamoosed it out of that country as fast as my legs would carry me! I was on a forced hiatus from the UofM, due to illness. <br /><br />From there my sister, mother and I went to NYC to work and my father went to Haiti in Port-Au-Prince, where he and my uncle had purchased some tiny cocoa plantations & a chocolate factory - for the choccolate liquer - to make baking chocolate (the real bitter stuff). We joined my father about 2 months later where I spent 2 of the most carefree & wonderful years of my life! It is the stuff that movies are made of! (A la Grace Kelly - even my clothes were like hers)> </p>
<p>I then continued my studies in upstate NY and hated it because it was too, too cold!:( Went back to NYC to work and see what I wanted to do with my life - I was all of 20 years old and had to drop out of school because of illness and then because of the weather! Yuck - so I got a job in a Textile Buying Office as a receptionist and soon I found myself buying trimmings! Loved it and was very happy with the work I was doing. <br /><br />However, I got an offer from two young guys who had a factory in Cleveland, Ohio, where they made Maternity Clothes and they wanted me to be in charge of the shipping dept, keep inventory and in my spare time - help with the designing!! I couldn't pass it up - the offer sounded so great and the salary was twice what I was making in the NYC. So I went to Cleveland, got married, had both my children and got a divorce 15 years later. <br /><br />Then my children and I moved to South Florida and have been here since 1978, I can't count that far back :) <br /><br />Learned how to do taxes with H&R Block and worked simultaneously as a Supervisor in 2 offices for them for 15 years. Then after the accident everything went spiralling downwards until I could no longer walk alone even with a walker - so the next step was a wheelchair. Stayed at home with a lot of help (nurses, PT therapists) fixed the bathroom so I could bathe myself and fixed the kitchen so I could help warm-up meals (was taught how to cook in rehab) and so forth and so on. <br /><br />However, the fire department had other plans for me, I called them too often to pick me up off the floor - how embarassing! So they gave me a choice - either a home or they would have to call HRS! :( (very sad) <br /><br />It was there, in my home where I was robbed! <img title=Cry src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-cry.gif border=0 alt=Cry /> All my cookbooks (all my Julia Childs Cookbooks, my Settlement Cookbook which had been my mothers - published in 1939 - with all her notes) my mother's cookbooks from Cuba & Haiti, all my handwritten recipes. They also took all my Delft collection, some antiques that I had in the kitchen like my rolling pin, a beautiful old & used wooden bowl, a charcoal-iron that was brought north when my parents left Haiti, it was hand-painted & was gorgeous, as well as all the other things that are too numerous to mention! <br /><br />That proved to be the last straw & from there it was an ALF,<img title=Yell src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-yell.gif border=0 alt=Yell /> which was horrible, and then on to another home where the administrator of that home became the administrator here and voila, here I am. <img title=Smile src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-smile.gif border=0 alt=Smile /></p>
<p>I have a beautiful large private room with a private bath, furnished to my liking: eclectic! <img title=Wink src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif border=0 alt=Wink /> My room is large enough to house my office and all the other odds and ends with which I like to surround myself.<br /><br />During tax season, mostly, my room is always full (of course I love it that way)! I have a blanket my daughter bought for me in New Mexico and that is on my bed. You guessed it - that is where everbody sits or on my great grandfather's arm chair which is in great shape. <img title=Smile src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-smile.gif border=0 alt=Smile /> Update 01/11/2008 that time is here again :) Have started doing taxes already and not just regular taxes but corporations, partnerships and 1040X - ammended returns! Whoopee! I love the feeling I get when this time comes around and I get into gear!!! I love it! :) <br /><br />The head chef, the kitchen supervisor & the dietician enjoy the recipes from Zaar; the ones that I post, as well as, the others. We are in the process of changing the menu right now - so we have been doing a lot of figuring. The administrator is so cute because every once in a while she asks for a recipe and then she gives me a pack of paper so I can print them. <img title=Wink src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif border=0 alt=Wink /><br /><br />I am president of the resident council and most of the family members come to me to take care of their grievances - this way I do my part - and the staff can take care of the larger problems! It has been working for 10 years - why change if it ain't broke?<img title=Wink src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif border=0 alt=Wink /></p>
<p>Well, it's time to say hasta luego folks. <img title=Laughing src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-laughing.gif border=0 alt=Laughing /><br /><br /></p>
