The power of cilantro

It’s amazing what cilantro can do.  For some, a few leaves of cilantro can be the final touch on an award winning bowl of guacamole, while for others, it can be like swallowing a bar of soap.  Having grown up eating food heavily influenced by Latin American culture, I was eating cilantro in my mashed potato and pea mush while other children were eating spaghetti-o’s and mashed banana.  I grew up with cilantro, and therefore it has become an integral part of my food, making appearances in many of my dishes, providing what I thought was a deep, aromatic flavor to my black beans, guacamole and rice dishes.  What I didn’t know until recently, was that to some people, cilantro tastes like the equivalent of having your mouth washed out with soap.  For at least a year, I cooked heavily with cilantro until my boyfriend admitted to me that he thought cilantro tasted like soap!  Even the New York Times weighed in on this matter.

Cilantro leaves come from the coriander plant, and is also known as Chinese parsley (cilantro being the Spanish name for the plant).  Cilantro is used in food from around the world including Indian, Latin American, Mexican, Asian and Mediterranean, and the coriander seeds are even used in some beers — talk about a useful plant!  In addition to its flavor, coriander has been used in folk medicine for anxiety, insomnia and digestion.  It’s even been suggested that it may be useful for diabetics and can help to lower cholesterol.  Now, this may all be an old wives tale, but I’ll add a few more sprigs to my next meal, just in case!

In the spirit of good, healthy food, I cooked a typical Peruvian dish over the weekend in which cilantro was the star.  This little plant was, I believe, the secret ingredient to my Arroz con Pollo, which wowed my guests (unless they were just being polite!).  Rice dishes feature heavily in Peruvian cuisine, and as I mentioned, this may well come from the Asian inspired cuisine found in this country.  I chose a rice dish, Arroz con Pato (rice with duck) from my gorgeous Peruvian cookbook, seduced by the intense green cilantro rice shown in the picture.  The rice, mixed with peppers, onion, peas and of course, cilantro, promised not to disappoint, and I knew I had to give it a go.  I chose to substitute the duck with chicken, as I have yet to perfect my duck cooking abilities.  That will be saved for another day.  Intriguingly, the recipe called for 4 bunches of cilantro.  Yes that’s right -4.  Assuming that the American “bunch” was probably much larger than the Peruvian “bunch”, I opted for 2, and got to cooking.  Now, I’ll let you in on a little secret: I pureed my cilantro with chicken broth and used it as the liquid to cook my rice, along with some of the broth from the simmering chicken on the stove top.  This savory mix was enough to render my rice a deep green, and provide it flavor I never knew existed.  Without giving away the whole recipe (which I am sure the author of my cookbook would appreciate), my cilantro rice included the following: onions, red peppers, cilantro puree — to this, the rice was added, and then cooked in the “green broth” left over from the cilantro/chicken broth puree.  The slow cooked chicken was added to the rice at the last minute before serving, and what emerge was part paella, part risotto and pure Peruvian.  I even got word from my Aunt that Arroz con Pato is most definitely a plato tipico!!  Luckily my guests were in the cilantro loving club!!   This is one recipe that I will most definitely make again, and I am proud to say that I am firmly in the cilantro loving club myself.  But for those of you who don’t like Arroz con Soap, I’ll search for an alternative secret ingredient.  Just give me some warning!

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