African Carne Gizado

Here's a little history from Cape Verdeon food, in Africa. I found this on Africa guide.com website.

Cape Verde's dry, tropical island environment and its role in Portugal's 15th-century colonizations have shaped its cooking traditions. Enslaved Africans brought knowledge of growing and cooking tropical crops. The Portuguese brought livestock. They used Cape Verde for feeding the crews of their sailing ships and as an experimental station for growing foods from the Americas, such as corn, hot peppers, pumpkins, and cassava. They also transplanted sugar,bananas, mango's, papayas, and other tropical crops from Asia. National food preferences, reflected in ritual foods, include an affection for dried corn, either whole kernels (hominy/samp) or ground to various degrees of fineness. The national dish, catchupa, is a stew of hominy and beans with fish or meat. It means home to Cape Verdeans everywhere. Xerem, dried corn pounded in mortar to the fineness of rice, is the staple of feasts. And kuskus, ground finer still and steamed in a distinctive ceramic pot called a binde, is a special treat served hot with butter and milk (kuskus ku leite) or molasses (kuskus ku mel). Cape Verdean Americans maintain most of these national tastes.

---

MEAT & POULTRY

CARNE GIZADO
(STEWED MEAT & VEGETABLES)

3-4 lbs. cubed meat, pork or beef
4-5 white potatoes
3 lbs. mandioca root
3 medium white yams
3 green bananas

Trim off excess fat, season and marinate meat overnight with salt, garlic, vinegar, bay leaf, and pepper.

Peel and cut up potatoes, yams, mandioca, and green bananas. In a pot, cook meat with marinade and 3 onions with 1/2 cup cooking oil on low heat until medium done. Add all vegetables to meat and cover with water. Cook on low until vegetables cook. Season with salt, garlic, bay leaf, paprika, and pepper.
I used:
2 pounds cubed beef - marinated in 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar, 2 bay leaf's, 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic, 1 teaspoon salt and black pepper; overnight in a sealed container.

2 white potatoes, peeled and diced
2 mandioca root (yucca root), peeled and diced
2 yams (couldn't find the white, so I used sweet potatoes), peeled and diced
3 green bananas, peeled and diced
2 onions, peeled and diced

I have to say, this has been so interesting, cooking different foods around the world. This southern girl from Arkansas is branching out of her comfort zone, and I'm loving the different scrumptious flavors they use. I'll admit, at first I didn't like this, but after it sat in the refrigerator a couple of days the flavors mixed and it became pretty good. I did add 1 teaspoon of white pepper, 1 tablespoon of paprika, and sprinkled mine with Parmesan cheese. You know cheese makes everything taste better. I wonder if I did something wrong. Maybe I should of used white vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar.

I've never been a big stew person, maybe I should be; I would loose weight. ha!

Be Sweet and Stay Sweet!