seeking sofrito input

[kpurvis]

My apologies. I try to avoid the sin of asking for help researching a food article. But I've been digging, researching and testing on this one for several days and simply find myself more confused.

For an article on Latin American cuisines, I'm including recipes for several useful sauces that are specific to their cultures. Mojo criollo, pebre and chimichurri have been no problem.

But sofrito recipes seem to be across the board. Of course, home cooking sauces are always specific to the cook -- everybody's momma does it differently -- but in this case, the variations are so wide, I want to make sure I'm making the right choice.

I've found sofritos that start with a cooked base, sofritos that are green and sofritos that are red. The bottled version from Goya is tomato-based and tastes more like a pasta sauce.

For tasting, I finally settled on Daisy Martinez' version, discussed in more detail on the Food & Media site. In the discussion on that site, I see no criticism of it as inauthentic. But unlike most of the other recipes I've found, it is raw, with no cooked base. It is most definitely green, with no reddish coloring from annato. There are tomatoes and red bell pepper in it, but it has no tomato flavor.

Any feedback? Is that sofrito specific only to her, or does it fall into a camp that anyone from Puerto Rico would recognize as an acceptable sofrito?

[chefdaiz]

First of all, Kathleen, thank you very much for the compliment. The sofrito recipe is quite traditional, and not peculiar to me. Although, as you mentioned, sofrito is something that everyone's momma makes differently (in Cuba ham or bacon are added), but this recipe would be recognized as a sofrito.

Also, I wouldn't classify "sofrito" as a sauce, but rather, as a base for any number of dishes, and technically, it is not raw, because you do have to saute it before using it. I hope you find this helpful.

[kpurvis]

Thanks, Daisy. Do you usually saute sofrito in achiote oil?

[Rachel Perlow]

A lot of the recipes in her book start that way, by taking 1/2 a cup of sofrito and frying it in the achiote oil before moving on to the rest of the ingredients. The sofrito and the achiote oil are both listed as part of 10 essential base recipes. She recommends making a large batch of the sofrito and freezing it in 1/2 cup portions, instead of having to make it for every recipe. But it isn't cooked until you begin the final recipe, not before freezing.

[chefdaiz]

Thanks, Daisy. Do you usually saute sofrito in achiote oil?

←

If I am making yellow rice or a recipe that requires "color" I saute it in achiote oil. Otherwise olive oil is just fine.

[rooftop1000]

Isn't Sofrito just the Spanish/Hispanic version of Mirepoix or Trinity?

tracey

[kpurvis]

Thanks, Rachel and Daisy. I've been playing with the sofrito all weekend and I'm hooked. Yellow rice is a once-a-week staple in my house, usually served with black beans and chicken breasts soaked in mojo and baked. Yellow rice with sofrito sauteed in a little olive oil first is so good, I'm never going back.

I had a dinner party Saturday night with Cook Illustrated's version of Cuban roast pork, yellow rice with sofrito, black beans and a watercress, orange and heart of palm salad. Our friend from Venezuela did the honors with the fried plantains. Several of us are from South Florida, and we agreed that we were very, very happy.

[Jason Perlow]

Oh yeah. The yellow sofrito rice is like crack. Can't have it any other way afterwards. Definitely try it with the Achiote Oil too, it adds something interesting.

Edited August 7, 2006 by Jason Perlow (log)

[Shalmanese]

How is mexican sofrito related to the italian soffrito and why are the recipes so wildly different?

Edited August 7, 2006 by Shalmanese (log)

[Jason Perlow]

There's a sofrito (or some form of it) for every latin american country. The Mexican version is made with Tomatillos. Sofrito is particularly prevalent in the caribbean Spanish-speaking countries (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic). They vary somewhat from country to country and from family to family. Different stuff gets thrown in (types of peppers, different spices, different herbs) or are omitted depending where you eat it and who makes it.

Italian Soffrito is slightly different in its formulation, but its the same concept of using a processed mixture of aromatic vegetables and herbs, cooked in fat to produce the same kind of results for flavoring other dishes.

Edited August 7, 2006 by Jason Perlow (log)

[pedro]

Not that I value "authenticity" in cooking that much, but it seems that the recipe in its origin for sofrito only had onion as its main ingredient. Which makes sense, since it goes back in Spain and particularly in Catalonia to pre-Columbian days. On that, you can add tomatoes or red peppers, for instance, to have different nuances of sofrito.

And the best definition on how it is cooked is the one given by Pere Bahí, chef and owner of La Xicra in Palafrugell, in his book El que menjava Josep Pla (What Josep Pla ate): you have too alternatively bring the onion to boil and frying many times, adding water and waiting to its evaporation, until you get a dark brown color in the onions.

[kpurvis]

In researching the recipes we're running with this story, I was struck once again by the way the same ingredients show up in so many different ways. Every cuisine has a basic sauce/marinade/condiment/cooking base (call it what you will) that uses the same ingredients, and yet you end up with different flavor profiles.

Mojo criollo, sofrito, pebre, chimichurri -- all have ingredients in common (onions, garlic, herbs, oil), all have variations, and yet one bite and you know which country's influence is at work.

Not a very original observation, I'm afraid. But the best I can do while chopping through big piles of cilantro.

[Jason Perlow]

But the best I can do while chopping through big piles of cilantro

Hopefully you've also got access to Recao (Culantro) and also Ajices Dulce, which really make a difference in the Puerto Rican version. I've found that Cubanelle peppers taste very similar to Ajices Dulce though. Dominican versions use hot peppers like Habaneros too.

Edited August 7, 2006 by Jason Perlow (log)

[Jason Perlow]

BTW, the thread where we discuss more of this stuff in depth, particularly as it pertains to Daisy's TV program, is here:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=82052

[phaelon56]

There are two sofrito recipes at Rican Recipes - the recipe web site of Carmen Santos de Curran - the "Rican Emeril"

The first sofrito recipe she lists is nearly identical to the one made by one of my former girlfriends - a Puerto Rican native who grew up in NYC but learned to cook from her mother and grandmother. It includes both Recao (aka "long coriander") and Ajies Dulces. The "gringorican" sofrito recipe on her site does not include those ingredients.

The sofrito my GF made actually had only recao and no regular broadleaf cilantro. There is a distinct difference in flavor between the two. At the time (about eight years ago) we had a small neighborhood Spanish market that carried those items close to year round. The recao was sometimes in tough shape after being transported to Syracuse from NYC and had to be pruned to get rid of spotty parts on the leaves. The ajie dulces kept well and the green ones tended to be much less spicy that those that had turned reddish yellow or orange.

We kept enough of the mixture if the fridge as could be used in a week and froze the balance. It was never cooked. I've tried some frozen supermaket sofrito and it wasn't nearly as good as the homemade.

It's definitely worth the effor to seek out those two extra ingredients for a tasty sofrito - and by the way - never any tomatoes in the variation I'm familiar with.

[Jason Perlow]

It's definitely worth the effor to seek out those two extra ingredients for a tasty sofrito - and by the way - never any tomatoes in the variation I'm familiar with.

Recaito is a variation on Sofrito which has no tomatoes and is what you are referring to. Many Sofrito recipes call for tomatoes, however.

http://www.daisycooks.com/pages/recipes_detail.cfm?ID=5

Edited August 8, 2006 by Jason Perlow (log)

[kpurvis]

For those who are interested, the package I was working on ran today in The Charlotte Observer. It will be posted for a week at www.charlotte.com/living, or you can find a slide show at www.charlotte.com (click on multimedia). It's also available in Spanish. It includes Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

[Jason Perlow]

Great article and photos, Kathleen!

[Jason Perlow]

Flank Steak is one of my favorite cuts of meat, because it’s not very expensive and its incredibly beefy tasting. Its also a cut you can marinate the living hell out of, with phenomenal results.

I took a nice big flank steak I bought from Kocher’s Meats (I went back there on Saturday) and liberally dosed both sides with Goya Adobo with Cumin, and then marinated it in a combination of lime juice, recaito, finely chopped shallots (didn’t have any garlic but it ended up working really nice), chopped hot bird chile peppers, freshly cracked black pepper and some olive oil for 24 hours. Yes, I know that sounds like an awful lot of time for a marinade, but boy, let me tell you, did it pay off — the meat was infused with the most incredible latino flavor, and came off nice and tender after cooking to medium-rare on the Weber.

Rachel, inspired by the recent eGullet Society Heartland Gathering, made Zucchini Roulades, but instead of using Sundried Tomato in the goat cheese stuffing, she used sofrito, which immediately gave this side dish some serious Latino street creds. So I guess its actually Zucchini Relleno a la Raquel.

The finished dish. “Bistec Boriqua” plated with grilled mushroom caps that I basted with the leftover steak marinade, tomato and onion salad, Zucchini Rellenos, and Daisy Martinez’s yellow rice.

[Anna N]

. . .

The finished dish. “Bistec Boriqua” plated with grilled mushroom caps that I basted with the leftover steak marinade, tomato and onion salad, Zucchini Rellenos, and Daisy Martinez’s yellow rice.

←

That looks incredibly tasty, Jason.

[kpurvis]

Great article and photos, Kathleen!

←

Thanks, Jason. Two photo interns, Brandon Smith and Carrie Leonard, took that assignment and ran with it. And we're graced with an excellent page designer, Christine Kwon, who came up with the idea of a "Brady Bunch" montage of faces and foods that was effective on the printed page.