Vigorón

Ingredients

• Cassava1.2 kg
• Pork skin with fat800 g
• Cabbage500 g
• Tomatoes3
• Onion1
• White vinegar100 ml
• Limes3
• Hot chilli1
• Banana leaf — to serve on5
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Shred the cabbage finely and mix it with the tomatoes, onion, vinegar, lime juice and salt.

   20 min

2. 2

   Leave the curtido to pickle at least an hour, stirring it now and then.

   65 min

3. 3

   Cut the pork skin into squares, salt it and leave it twenty minutes.

   22 min

4. 4

   Render the skin in its own fat over a low heat for forty minutes.

   45 min

5. 5

   Raise the heat and fry ten minutes more, until the crackling puffs and turns crisp.

   14 min

6. 6

   Boil the cassava in salted water until tender, having cut out the woody core.

   35 min

7. 7

   Lay the cassava on a banana leaf, the curtido over it and the crackling on top, with the chilli.

   10 min

About the dish

The three layers go down in a fixed order: cassava below, curtido on top, crackling last. A stirred vigorón loses the contrast it is eaten for.

The cabbage pickles at least an hour in vinegar with lime. Freshly shredded cabbage does not work here — the acid is what cuts the fat of the crackling.

It is eaten by hand off the leaf, without a fork. Vigorón comes from the market in Granada, and serving it on banana leaf is its ordinary form rather than a styling.

Worth knowing

• — The crackling fries in two stages. Straight onto a high heat the skin burns outside without rendering or crisping.
• — The cassava is served hot and the curtido cold. The temperature contrast matters here as much as the textural one.
• — Assemble a vigorón at the last moment. Within ten minutes the crackling softens in the cabbage juices and loses its crunch.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

680 kcal

Protein

24 g

Fat

38 g

Carbs

62 g

More from Nicaragua

• Nicaraguan gallo pinto — Rice fried with red beans. The Nicaraguan version: red beans, and no Salsa Lizano.
• Nacatamal — A large tamal of corn dough with pork, rice and potato, boiled in a banana leaf.
• Indio viejo — A thick stew of shredded beef, thickened with corn masa and mint.