September 22, 2008

Sofrito (3 Comments)

Filed under: In the Kitchen — The Spider Herself @ 9:51 am

It’s the time of year when the garden is full of tomatoes and peppers.

That is, if one had a garden that wasn’t growing weeds.

But, we shan’t let that deter us, that’s what Farmer’s Markets and Farm Stands are for.

OK, where was I? Oh, yes, lots of tomatoes and peppers.

Actually, what I am going to tell you about doesn’t use a lot of tomatoes. So forget that part.

Do you have peppers,cilantro, onions and garlic in abundance?

Then I have the recipe for you!

Sofrito. I learned about Sofrito during one of my less energetic periods when I was watching afternoon cooking shows on PBS. We live in the dark ages with no cable or satellite- just an antennae up in the air catching random, but free, signals so I don’t have the “24 Hour Cooking Channel”. More the pity. What was I talking about again? I keep distracting myself. Oh yes, so I watched a show called “Daisy Cooks” (I will not link to that site because Google has a warning that the site could damage my computer- how odd.) and learned all about Sofrito. Daisy Martinez says it does “everything but make the bed”. I wish is did make beds but it does make adding fresh tasting zing to dishes easy.

So what is it exactly? “Exactly” might be hard to come by. But it is a chopped up mixture of mainly onions, garlic, peppers and cilantro that can be frozen and added to dishes like Spanish rice and beans.

Here is the link to Daisy Martinez’s recipe (this site is ok to go to). Now you will notice she uses things like “culantro” and “ajices dulces”. Yeah, I don’t know what those things are either and will not likely find them in the local stores. Do I let a lack of ingredients listed in a recipe stop me? Ha! Yeah, right. I just plow on ahead. Actually, I did look up some other recipes online and never found a consensus of what should be in there. So I make up my own mixture.

Can I tell you what is in my mixture? Umm, no because I forget from time to time. Actually, I follow Daisy’s basic instructions about onion, garlic and cilantro then I improvise. I use quite a bit of green pepper or red, if I have it. Then, I add what ever kicks my bucket- jalapeño (sans ribs and seeds), banana chili or fresh green chilies. I put it all in my little “food processor”- it fits onto my blender motor and is not very large. I have to do it in batches and then mix it up by hand. This last time I didn’t even have enough cilantro but the other things were trying to turn bad on me so I had to take the matter in hand and made up a batch anyway. I then put 1/2 cup portions into freezer bags, label it (important step!) and throw it in the freezer.

Do you notice how quickly cilantro will turn slimy on you? This is a good way to use up the extra you had to buy when you were making a recipe that called for three sprigs.

Then when I want to make Mexican rice, I grab out a bag- throw it in the skillet and as it thaws, it cooks. This way I can make great tasting Latino dishes without having to keep all sorts of fresh ingredients on hand plus saves money because I can buy the ingredients in season.

Now that you know all about Sofrito (or maybe not- I’m not being too clear here) go forth and make some. It’s great stuff.

But it doesn’t make the bed.

3 Comments »

  1. Here is what I found out about the “mystery” ingredients of Sofrito:

    “Two ingredients in this recipe that you may have to do some extra (and worthwhile) hunting for is the recao and the ajices dulces peppers. Recao is also called culantro, or long coriander, but it’s not the same as cilantro. It’s got a similar flavor, but it’s stronger and more pungent. It really adds punch to the mixture. You might be able to find it in Asian or Latin-American markets. Ajices Dulces are bright red peppers that look kind of like habañeros, but are spicy-sweet. They definitely lend a distinctive taste. If you cannot find either of those things, you don’t have to give up on sofrito entirely. You can just sub more cilantro for the recao, and 1 red bell pepper+1 tsp cayenne for the ajices dulces. It will still taste lovely.”

    I found this at http://thedancingfoodie.blogspot.com/2006/12/latino-food-love-part-i-sofrito.html

    Happy hunting or substitute away!

    Comment by Liesel — September 22, 2008 @ 1:15 pm

  2. I was tired and probably a bit loopy when I wrote that post- not the best condition for being accurate. Thanks for providing this information for anyone who is curious! 🙂 I have read that those two ingredients make the sofrito have a distinctive Puerto Rican taste. Unfortunately, they are not things that I can find here. Sad to say that there are not any specialty stores locally. That’s what I get for living in the middle of no where. But I bet you could find them- and if you ever do try them let me know what you think of the flavors. I’ll continue to keep my eyes open for them here and they may turn up one day.

    I really like the basic idea behind it though- using fresh produce when it’s available and then having it easily available in the winter. It helps with my chronic lack of planning too- I don’t have to plan ahead and buy the ingredients, I can just reach in my freezer and have great tasting food. Always a plus!

    Comment by JustMe — September 23, 2008 @ 10:48 am

  3. Yes, you can improvise to make your own sofrito, be creative. Its very simple to do.

    Comment by Nancy — September 24, 2008 @ 9:51 am

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