Dominic Los Tres Golpes
“Caribbean people will eat ANYTHING for breakfast” observed a friend from a European country which shall remain nameless, to protect the guilty. He was watching his Dominican wife tuck into a bowl of soup at the breakfast table. It is true that Dominicans do have some breakfast preferences that to foreign eyes sometimes appear a little eccentric…
The most common breakfast in Dominican homes is simply bread dunked into a cup of coffee or cocoa, which is pretty much universal. Heavy breakfasts of all sorts were more common in the past, when people worked in more physically demanding jobs. In the Dominican Republic if you get up early to work in the fields you will probably need a Mangu and Queso Frito to keep you going, but if you work in a bank, coffee and a pan de agua is more like it, and the Mangu breakfast is saved for weekends or special occasions.
For those with more delicate constitutions, the ideal breakfast while in the Dominican Republic could consist of a plate of tropical fruit: papaya, pineapple, melon, banana, passion fruit or whatever is available. Some nutritional experts consider this the best way to start the day. This is usually my preference but I spoil it by washing it down with a hefty cup of strong black coffee, which tends to cancel out the healthy effect.
There are so many delicious dishes you can prepare for breakfast today. If you want something meaty, tasty and flavorful that will impress you and your friends’ palette, then you should consider making Los Tres Golpes. Literally translated as The Three Hits, this delicious dish is a favorite among Dominicans.
Los Tres Golpes is a dish that’s composed of fried eggs, Mangu, sausage and salami. If you have no idea what mangu is, it’s merely mashed plantains. If you want to learn how to make Los Tres Golpes, you should be able to learn how to prepare Mangu. That said, here are the ingredients that you should prepare to make the dish:
Ingredients
1/2 Red Onion that you should already thinly slice
1/2 cup of water
two types olive oil
3 Tablespoons of the best and tastiest red wine vinegar in your pantry
four sweet plantains, medium size
2 tbsps butter, or as much as you’d like
Kosher salt and black pepper
2 tbsp veg. oil
1 ounce of the quality Dominican salami, you cut into thin slices
12-ounce cheese that’s cut into squares
2 tbsps olive oil
eight eggs, large
Preparation
The first step in this recipe is to stir-fry on a light pan in medium fire the sliced onion, vinegar, oil, and water. Do this until you can observe that the water is already boiling. Afterwards, you should lower the heat at its lowest setting, and gently saute the onions for several minutes. Afterwards, season it with salt and pepper before setting it aside.
The next step would be preparing the plantains. To do this, you should cut the plantains into four pieces before setting them aside in salted water over high heat before bringing it into a boil.
Lower the heat not to overcook the plantains. Let it simmer until you can finally easily pierce the plantains with a small knife, which would usually take around 15 minutes since you started cooking it.
The next step here would be to drain the plantains, saving 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Then, blend that water with the butter using a hand mixer, adding the water a little bit to the plantains to reach the consistency desired.
The next thing you should do to prepare this dish is to heat the vegetable oil using a medium skillet. Fry the cheese and the salami slices together until you make both sides looking really golden brown.
When the salami and eggs are done, add the olive oil to the pan and heat it over medium level heat. Crack the next batch of eggs and spoon some of the olive oil over those eggs. Do this until the white edges of the eggs are a little bit golden.
You then should serve these eggs with the scoop of the mangu that you previously prepared. Top it with the cheese, onions, and salami, and you now have the tastiest Dominican dish that you can adjust today.
Tips On How To Make Los Tres Golpes Even Tastier
1. To make this dish the tastiest and most flavorful, you should remember to use the freshest eggs that you can get. You should also not forget to get the fresh raw salami slices from your butcher shop or deli. The tastiest salami can be acquired if you ask the butcher for the fresh salami cut.
2. You should also remember to get the freshest plantains in the market. Don’t get the ones that are too mushy or too hard because it will affect the quality after you mash it.
3. It may also help to get Extra Virgin Olive Oil when you fry the eggs. It can give extra flavorful, and it may make you feel like you’re eating the healthier oils.
4. If you’re vegan or you want this to be dairy free, just go to your Vegan Shop and ask for the best alternatives. It may affect the taste of the dish, but you still get the essence of the flavor but keeping in the right healthy alternative that you need.
5. Instead of frying the dish, you can also decide to bake the plantains. It would still be as flavorful but won’t be as unhealthy as the fried versions. It also gives the plantains the crispy flavor that you want that you can’t achieve evenly when you’re frying them. Baking it provides the plantain with a crispy layer on the outside but retains the soft texture on the inside.
6. You may also want to add whole milk or almond milk or 0 percent fat Greek yogurt into the mix of the plantains to give it a full, rich flavor, but that’s only when you want it to be extra creamy. It may affect the authenticity of the original flavor, but it will still be delicious.
7. You can also use coconut oil for this recipe, and replace table salt with the best premium sea salt that you can get. A little bit of this change would dramatically improve the varied and rich flavor of the dish.
8. If you want to avoid the slightly sour smell of red wine vinegar, you may want to opt it out and change it with honey or any alternative that would make it even less sour. Just make sure that you add a little bit of acidity in the mix to make the dish even tastier. You may also just want to stick with lemon or any slightly acidic citrus fruit to give it this tang.