Arròs
English
EnglishEspañolCatalà / Valenciàไทย

Recipe · 3 min read

Arroz a la Cubana (Canarias)

Arroz con Huevo y Plátano

Seco · dry Cooked in Cassola CanariasComunidad de Madrid

⚠️ Source-confidence note: arroz a la cubana is eaten all over Spain, especially in Madrid casas de comidas and in Canarias. Directo al Paladar describes it as typical of Canarias, served with fried egg, banana, chips and tomato sauce. Its "Cuban" origin is often attributed to returning emigrants (indianos), but that attribution is not documented in the sources I found. Treat the regional variations as reconstructed.

01Geographic & Texture Profile

  • Primary Geographic Zone: The Canary Islands (household staple), Madrid and Castile (menú del día classic).
  • Liquid & Texture Profile: Seco (dry). White rice moulded and plated.
  • Traditional Cooking Vessel & Fuel: A covered pot plus a frying pan, on a gas stove.

02Historical & Cultural Context

A plate of white rice, tomato sauce, fried egg and fried plantain or banana (in Canarias, the local plátano de Canarias), sometimes with papas fritas or a sausage. The name points to the Caribbean world of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when many Canarians and Asturians emigrated to Cuba, and the plate is still close to Cuban home cooking. In Canarias the local banana makes it feel native. In Madrid it became a cheap, filling menú del día standard.

Culinary science: contrast is everything: the starchy rice, the acidity of the tomato sauce, the fat of the runny yolk and the caramelised sugar of the fried banana. The rice is cooked by absorption with a garlic clove and bay leaf and pressed into a mould.

03Local Town-by-Town Variations (Crucial — reconstructed)

  • Canarias: Plátano de Canarias fried in oil. Sometimes papas fritas. Homemade tomato sauce.
  • Madrid: Banana optional. Often with a sausage (salchicha) or picadillo.
  • Cuban/Caribbean root: Fried ripe plantain, sometimes with picadillo.

04The Master Recipe (4-Person Batch Blueprint)

Variant represented: Canarian.

The Flavor Base (El Fondo)

Ingredient Quantity
Tomato sauce: olive oil 40 ml, onion 1, garlic 2, crushed tomato 600 g, sugar pinch ≈ 500 ml
Garlic clove + bay leaf (for rice) 1 + 1

Assembly Ratios

Element Quantity
Long-grain rice 320 g
Water 640 ml (2:1)
Eggs 4
Plátanos de Canarias 4
Olive oil for frying 200 ml

Step-by-Step Cooking Blueprint

  1. Sauce: Sweat the onion (10 min), add the garlic, tomato and sugar, and simmer 20 min. Blend.
  2. Rice: Fry the garlic clove in a little oil, add the rice (1 min), then the boiling water, bay and salt. Cover and cook on minimum for 15 min. Rest 5 min.
  3. Fry: Fry the bananas, halved lengthwise, until caramelised. Fry the eggs, basting with oil, so the yolks stay runny.
  4. Assembly: Mould the rice, then plate it with sauce, egg and banana.

Home-style & country rices: Everyday and cortijo rices of the Canaries and Andalusia: rice 'con cosas', whatever the house had.