Mom is 97 years old. Sometimes, in the evenings while watching TV, she will tell me a little bit about life as a child in Cuba.
We also watch a lot of the Food Network programs and lately a few new ones on CNN about the various regions of Spain, its food and culture. My Grandfather was born in the Catalonia Region of Spain.
As a teenager my grandfather’s family moved to Cuba. Grandpa went on to own two movie theaters, was a writer and journalist.
My dad, before he passed, used to always talk about growing up in Cuba. He often talked about having to wake up real early and take care of the farm and cattle before getting dressed and walking to school.
I learned that my aunt was an educator before leaving Cuba for the United States. She used to ride her horse every day to teach third grade. I thought that was cool and beat all those stories you hear about having to walk 5 miles in the snow, uphill.
But the best conversations are those with my mom, sharing food ideas and recipes.
Years ago, around Christmas time mom showed me the technique to roast the perfect pork shoulder, cooked just right, so you end up with a crunchy, crispy pork skin. The real chicharron. I still make it every Christmas for mom and my brother and his wife.
She also taught me how to make a very basic yet used in almost everything recipe for sofrito. This is used as the base of nearly every Cuban, Puerto Rican and Caribbean dish, although based on the region, the recipe may vary by minor details, like the type of herbs or spices used.
And in this case, it was more of a sofrito sauce. It is the tangy, sometimes spicy and always delicious tomato based sauce used in recipes like ropa vieja (Cuban style shredded beef stew), carne con papas (Cuban style chunky meats and potatoes), picadillo (ground beef served over rice) and nearly any seafood dish served enchilada style (based with tomato sauce, yet not necessarily spicy).
There are a variety of sofrito recipes, but purist know that it must contain onion, bell peppers, garlic, tomato sauce or paste or both. Those are the base ingredients. From there most recipes differ on herbs and spices depending on whether the sofrito will be used in a meat, poultry or seafood dish or if being used in a soup or stew.
My mom’s basic sofrito recipe:
- One green, red and yellow bell pepper sliced thin
- Half a sweet onion sliced thin and diced
- 3 diced garlic cloves
- One small can of tomato sauce (8 ounce)
- Teaspoon of tomato paste
- Teaspoon of capers
- A few sliced Spanish olives
- Salt and pepper to taste
- ¼ teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon Sazon
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- Olive oil to sauté the veggies
- ¼ cup of white wine if using for seafood or poultry or red wine for meat dishes
Using mom’s recipe as an example, you cook the onions, bell peppers and garlic in a pan with olive oil until the onions become translucent and the peppers tender. Add the tomato sauce, wine, tomato paste, capers, all the spices and sliced olives. Simmer and add salt and pepper to taste.
So, to make the shrimp and mussels dish (enchilada style), once the sofrito is made add one more cup of white wine and let that simmer to cook out the alcohol. Add ½ cup sweet peas (if you want to but not needed. From the can is okay just drain the liquid first). Add one pound of mussels and 1-1.5 pounds of cleaned, peeled, deveined shrimp.
Seafood doesn’t take that long to cook and within minutes it is ready. If you like it spicy add hot sauce and cayenne pepper to taste. If you don’t like mussels, don’t add them in.
These days, mom and I tend to cook these meals together. She has a hard time slicing the veggies nowadays. And we’ve created several dishes using this same sofrito recipe. We’ve also invented new ones taking our favorites from the Food Network and making our own version of it.
Recently we made pulled pork sliders made with that perfect pork recipe she taught me. We used fried plantains in place of the bread. They were great. I’ll need to share that recipe with you soon.
Looking for other treats, drop me an email at PattyL@Brewermediagroup.com