A Cuban feast

We have an annual event with another couple to make a fantastic meal for each other. Two years ago the guys made the gals a Lebanese with 9 different dishes, including a painstakingly made Baklava and Lebanese wine. Last year, the gals made the guys a Southern Feast which unfortunately I was so busy making that I didn't take pictures. We had grits and greens and mint juleps and everything. So this year, it was the guys' turn.

By the way, the type of cuisine is kept a secret. This year the my dh upped the suspense by "accidentally" leaving out a Swedish cookbook under some papers so that I could see it. So I thought that we were eating Swedish. Which is understandable since I'm from Swedish stock and so are our friends. But as soon as I walked into our friends' house, I knew that we weren't eating Swedish. Swedes don't use frying oil and cilantro and hot peppers. Turns out that we were going to eat Cuban.

We started with Mojitos, made the way Hemingway liked them and fried plantains.

Our next course was a salad with avocado and fresh pineapple. Very fresh and delicious.

Next we had corn pudding with crabmeat. There were lots of other things in there beside crabmeat and it was very different but delicious. Notice the coconut shell centerpieces on the right.

The main course was grilled red snapper on a bed of relish (more like a salsa with mangoes and papayas) and covered with a shrimp sauce with shrimp. I could have just eaten the shrimp sauce by itself - it was so good.

With the snapper, we had black beans and rice. The recipe called for cinnamon to be added which gave it a different taste from the New Orleans type black beans and rice that I've tasted before.

Another course was stuffed mashed potatoes. Inside these tasty deep fried mashed potato balls, the guys had put a meat stuffing that included golden raisins and capers. The children loved these leftovers.

And the crowning course (and my personal favorite) was the banana flan with coconut rum sauce. Here is the flan after it has been flipped out of its pan. A work of art, isn't it?

And here it is slathered with the rum sauce.

About the only thing missing was Cuban cigars and a picture of Castro!