Cuban Picadillo and Mexican Rice

A few years ago, my husband and I went to a culinary school in Manhattan to take a class for Cuban dishes. One of our friends gave this as a gift. (Here is the post of the Cuban Surf and Turf class)

In that class, we learned many dishes but one of our favorite dish was Picadillo. We made this dish many times after the class and every time we make it, we think about the cooking class we took together. I think this is a great gift for a couple or friends or family who love cooking.

Anyways, because of the Hurricane Sandy, we lost most of our stuff and the recipe for all the cuban dish we learned that day was one of the things we lost.

So, I looked some picadillo recipe online and found a one I might like and tried.
It was great and I love it! I found the recipe in All Recipes website. (Click here for the recipe I used)

I used the Le Creuset which I bought at the end of last year. It is wonderful. The recipe is for big portion but I was having friends over and stuff so this worked out perfect this time.

Picadillo is a tomato based ground beef dish with olives, capers and spices like cinnamon and cloves. This one also has some vinegar in it which I really like. I didn't like olive before but ever since I start making this dish, I started to like olives in some dishes. I still don't love it just like that but I think it is great in small amount with some other ingredients.

Also, even though the recipe didn't call for it but we added lots of cilantro at the end. I think this made it even better for us since we love cilantro.

We made this also on Thanksgiving last year at our friends house and everyone loved it. Our friend wanted to learn how to make this since he had a potluck party in his work. So we made it together again and he brought it to the office. It was a great success!

My son like this dish also.

For rice, we made Mexican rice which has onion, tomato sauce and some spices like cumin. I also used some chicken stock which I made the other day.

Picadillo is becoming one of our signature dish to make. We normally make Tostones when we make picadillo but I think tostones is quite a lot of work so I didn't make it this time. But Tostones is also a great dish to make. I love hot crispy Tostones!!

Well, we are very thankful for the friends who gave this gift to us!!!

If you want to try something different and if you like olive, caper and tangy flavor, you should try this Picadillo.