Sofrito

My finacee often pines for her mother's Dominican cooking, and says my arroz y frijoles, while good, often lacks a certain something. That something is sofrito. Also, olives.


The olives I leave out because I usually completely forget the jar in the back of the fridge, or I eat them all before they reach the pot. Sofrito is passed up because I had never heard the word before I met Oriana, and had no idea what it was or how to use it. 


Note: I knew mirepoix. I knew the Italians, being horrible snobs, called it soffritto, and also cooked it in olive oil instead of butter because they want to keep their food as un-French as possible. Listen, Italy, pretty soon all of your good wines are going to be made in California, and we've all gotten over prosciutto, so cool it.


Anyway...

Two large hot house tomatoes
Two medium sized onions (I used vidalia, but I think you're supposed to use yellow)
Two green bell peppers
One red bell pepper
One head of garlic
A ton of cilantro, like, as much as you can get

Chop all of these ingredients. Place them in the food processor, as illustrated above. Grind until it forms a salsa/paste. Store in a glass jar.

Makes about 2 quarts. This recipe has a lot of spice without a lot of heat. For an extra kick throw in green chilies.

I think next time around I'll make a Hot&Sweet version, which might go like this

One pint of cherry tomatoes
Two sweet onions
Three red bell peppers
Three or four chipotle or cayenne peppers
One bunch of cilantro

Oh man, that would be so good with chicken enchiladas....


Tonight we had our friend Tania over for dinner. Tania is from Puerto Rico, so this was a big Caribbean/Latin event. Oriana made tostones, and we had rice and chicken and black beans covered in a giant helping of sofrito. Delicious!