Boliche is a Cuban dish made with a large cut of beef, traditionally rib eye roast, filled with chorizo and a marinade of sour orange, onions, garlic, wine, and tomato. It can also be made with bacon or ham and bacon filling, and seasonings and vegetables can be added. The roast is marinated for at least three hours and cooked on the stovetop, in the oven, or in a slow cooker.
Boliche is a Cuban dish, a roasted pot traditionally filled with chorizo, a type of sausage, and prepared with a marinade that includes sour orange or other citrus juices. Other dominant flavors include onions, garlic, wine and tomato. Boliche can be made on the stovetop or in an oven, and is also suitable for cooking in a slow cooker.
The usual cut of beef for boliche is a rib eye roast, but almond or rump roast is also a common choice. Regardless of the cut, the roast needs to be large enough that you can cut a pocket to hold the stuffing. The size and shape of the pocket varies according to the nature and amount of padding used.
The basic recipes call for cutting a single slit and inserting chorizo, a spiced sausage used in many types of Spanish and Latin American cuisine. Chorizo can range from a dry Spanish style to a very soft and wet Mexican version. Boliche can be made with any type of chorizo but a medium-moisture sausage, such as that used for Cuban grilling, is probably the most authentic. The chorizo comes packaged in casings that need to be removed before inserting the sausage into the roast.
Some recipes don’t use sausage at all, substituting a bacon or ham and bacon filling. Other versions call for all three types of pork. Seasonings and vegetables can be added to the filling, and some versions are quite elaborate and use all three types of meat, chopped vegetables such as carrot and celery, and extra seasonings. When boliche is made with a more elaborate filling, the pocket is formed by criss-cross cuts that can extend most of the length of the roast.
The seasonings and savory vegetables used for the boliche are typically Cuban: onion, garlic, oregano, tomato sauce or diced tomatoes, green olives with allspice. These can be mixed with citrus juice and wine to make a marinade or simply rubbed on the roast. The most authentic citrus choice is bitter orange, also called sour orange, but mixed orange and lime or lemon juice is used when sour orange is not available.
Most recipes call for marinating the roast for at least three hours. The slot or pocket for the stuffing should be tacked together on the outside of the roast. Some of the marinade can be mixed into fancier versions of the stuffing mix. Boliche is usually cooked in a Dutch oven over low heat or in a slow cooker.
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