Today, I will talk to you about congrí rice: a dish preferred by many Cubans, mostly seen in parties and other festivities.

Congrí rice, with almost five centuries of existence, is one of the main recipes of the Cuban cuisine. Cubans share this traditional way of cooking rice with black beans with other brotherly nations, such as Haiti, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, Bahamas and other Caribbean islands, having slight differences in terms of spices, as a logical result of the transculturación process (when different cultures are mixed).

Don Fernando Ortiz described this ¨stew” as a possible but not proven African origin; his essay on Afro-Cuban cuisine was published, for the first time, in the Cuban Bimonthly magazine in 1923, and until today the term congrí, though it appears in the encyclopedia, it is not found in the dictionary.

The origin of this word comes from Haiti; where the black beans are called congo; and rice riz, like in French. Congrí comes from Haitian Creole, meaning "congos con arroz".

When preparing this recipe, many do not soak black beans as it there is no need to when they are tender "and originally from the country"; like that one who pours water to the taste and removes broth or adds water, depending on the rice or the amount of liquid available to soften it, which is not completely wrong; since, when the quality of rice differs, the proportion of water or broth required to cook must be husked, and we must not forget that the congri, as moros y Cristianos or the moros (rice and red beans), must be husked and never souped.

Fernando Ortiz and Ramón Martínez do not describe the custom of first sautéing the raw rice with little fat, before mixing it with beans and broth. This seems to be a common practice in many regions of Cuba, mainly in the eastern part; because it decreases the chances that rice, very rich in starch, agglutinates the mixture. But I assure you that it may be applied to both recipes. There is nothing tastier than a big serving of roasted pork, yuca with mojo and a good dish of congri rice ... it makes anyone's mouth water.