Costa Rica Food Recipes
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Click to enlargeCosta Rica recipes in general are based in great tasty and less spicy ingredients than in some other Latin American locations. Meals are usually based on vegetables, beef (sopa de carne), rice, beans (gallo pinto) corn (home made tortillas), fish (ceviche) or chicken. A recipe from Costa Rica is usually not hard to make and will certainly provide enough vitamins and proteins in just one meal. This is because most of the Costa Rican dishes come from the time men had to go and work in the “Fincas” all day long so women made dishes that were healthy and would keep their men with full stomachs for long hours until they went back home in the evening. Typical Costa Rica recipes are: Corn bizcochos, made out of corn flour, home made bread, mondongo soup (this one is an acquire taste, be careful,) plantain with melted white cheese, chicken with rice and black soup (black been soup). The picadillos are usually something delicious and very easy to make: “chayote” picadillo, potato picadillo and even “arracache” picadillo are usual dishes in Costa Rican homes; it basically diced vegetable of your choice mixed with grounded beef in a little bid of red sauce with local spices.
Costa Rica recipes for desserts are quite a few but extremely delicious: “chancleta” (baked chayote with condensed milk and raisins); Tres leches, Arroz con leche (rice pudding), queque seco and baked plantains with honey are regulars in most homes. As you can see even desserts have vegetables on them! Also there are pastries like prestiños (a sweet tortilla bathed in maple honey, chiverre patties or cheese sticks. Some might say Costa Rican food is simple, yet you cannot argue that once you taste it, love it. We encourage you try to make one of these fabulous dishes yourself; remember you must always use “salsa lizano” in the process. As for fruits, Ticos eat them and use them depending on the season: cantaloupe, watermelon, pineapple, papaya, strawberries, bananas or mangos are usually ingredients for tasty jams, pies or fruit salad with ice cream and jello.
In Costa Rica, food recipes usually have a secret ingredient that you must get while in Costa Rica or buy it at a much more expensive price on the web: Salsa Lizano. This is a traditional sauce made out lots of local spices, garlic, onion and cilantro that Costa Ricans use in every meal, not including desserts of course. This sauce gives to each meal that Costa Rican flavor that is delicious. Ticos put it on everything from simple scramble eggs to very complex casseroles; you just can’t have a Costa Rica food resipe without this salsa on it. A great sweet and salty dish are plantain and beans patties: you make the dough with the smash plantain when it is dark yellow and soft and form the patties by putting mashed beans inside and fried them, a very tasty dish. Gallos de salchichon are always part of any barbeque: fried sausage on a tortilla garnished with “pico de gallo” (cocks beak: dice tomatoes with onions, cilantro and salt) along with the chicharrones (fried pork skin) with cabbage salad and the already mentioned pico de gallo.
