Sofrito Recipes

Note: These recipes are submitted by our customers that grow their own Culantro (Recao), and Ajies Dulces. Here in my home, we make sofrito twice a year, when the Culantro and Ajies are at their prime and pour it in Ice Cube trays, freeze it, and store the cubes in Zip Lock bags in the freezer. We have fresh sofrito the whole year ! Although you can use the standard sofrito with just about anything you cook, there are small variations to bring out that "sabor" in our typical culinary creations. For example: For the sofrito used to make arroz con gandules, there is diced "tocino" added to the sofrito which consists of aji dulce, culantro, onions, fresh garlic. and fresh oregano.

Here is my recipe with photos of the whole process.......

All ingredients ready to go in processor-----------------Garlic heads in water to remove skins

Culantro leaves going into food processor -------------------------food processor grinding mix

After the food processor, then you add oil and go into the osterizer for a fine grind and then into the icecube trays

Ready to go in the freezer...

My Basic Sofrito Recipe:

3- large green peppers
5- medium size head of garlic
4- large onions
1- bunch of cilantro
1/2- vegetable oil
Add these items from your own "hortaliza"...
50- recao leaves
20- ajies dulce (small sweet cooking peppers)

Place all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and chop coarsely. Add in the water a small amount at a time.Pour this mixture into icecube trays and freeze. Anytime you are going to cook some asopao, habichuelas, arroz con gandules, or your own carne guizada, just throw in 1-2 cubes of Sofrito. Add this mixture (to taste) to bean dishes, stews, soups, and anything else you want to spice up.

My variation for arroz con gandules is adding chopped "salt pork" (tocino) and jamon de cocinar (smoked ham) (especially the cueros (skins) from the jamón), and covering the whole caldero (pot) with banana leaves. (You can't beat the flavor)

Note: In order to skin the garlic cloves easily, separate all cloves and place in warm water overnight or longer and the skins will come right off.

Contributed by: Jose Puras 3/31/01 - Revised and added pictures on 9/4/2003 cite 2