Starting With Sofríto

Interested in giving your food a little more international flair? You have to start somewhere, and sometimes the beginning’s the easiest place. The French sometimes build their recipes around mirepoix, a mixture of diced carrots, celery and onion sautéed in butter and often the base of stews, soups and other dishes. Meanwhile, Asian cuisine often takes off when the chef stirfries aromatics (which usually include ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes and scallions) in sesame oil before adding vegetables and meat to the mix.

Some Spanish and Puerto Rican dishes are based around sofríto, a mixture of vegetables and herbs blended together and added to stews, soups and meat entrées. Sofrito (sometimes spelled soffríto, and also a term in Italian cooking that usually refers to a mirepoix-like mixture of celery, green peppers, carrots and herbs) is a pretty malleable recipe, with different generations passing down their own versions to their children. Derived from the Spanish word "sofreir," meaning "to fry lightly," before sofríto is cooked, it’s often referred to as recaíto.

Recipes I’ve seen include everything from culantro (kind of a stronger-tasting cilantro and sometimes referred to as long coriander—but good luck finding it at Trader Joe’s) to pimentos to sweet peppers. To make red sofríto , tomato is added. Some versions of sofríto call for annatto seeds sautéed in pork fat, or smoked ham sautéed in achiote oil. Yikes.

For now, let’s stick to the basics. Here’s what you’ll need to make a simple sofríto (or recaíto, if you don’t end up adding it to a cooked dish).

A little over a cup chopped cilantro (must be fresh, as DCFüd readers have advised)
½ cup onion, or approximately that much, chopped
½ cup green pepper, chopped
As much garlic as you prefer; I’d say around 4 cloves
Salt, pepper, hot sauce and cumin, to taste
Some water (no more than a quarter cup), for mixing purposes

Once you’ve got your ingredients, all you need to do is throw them in a blender or food processor, and puree them. Add to stews, soups, chicken, etc.

Too much work? Some local grocery stores sell pre-bottled sofríto. Doing a survey of some Silver Spring and Rockville-accessible locations (non-Suburbanites, you’re on your own), I found both recaíto and a red sofríto ($1.75) in the Goya section of Giant Eagle in Rockville on 355 and the Safeway on Fenton Street in downtown Silver Spring.