Dominican sancocho

Ingredients

• Beef on the bone600 g
• Pork500 g
• Chicken600 g
• Cassava500 g
• Yautía or taro400 g
• Sweet potato400 g
• Green plantain2
• Corn cobs2
• Onions2
• Bell peppers2
• Coriander40 g
• Garlic8 clove
• Dried oregano1 tbsp
• Limes3
• Vegetable oil60 ml
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Marinate all the meats in lime juice, crushed garlic, oregano, salt and pepper for an hour.

   20 min

2. 2

   Brown the meats in batches in a large pot.

   20 min

3. 3

   Add the onion and pepper, cover with three litres of water and simmer an hour.

   65 min

4. 4

   Add the cassava and yautía in large pieces and cook twenty minutes.

   22 min

5. 5

   Add the sweet potato, plantain and corn and cook twenty minutes more.

   22 min

6. 6

   Mash a couple of pieces of cassava in the pot so the soup thickens.

   5 min

7. 7

   Stir in the coriander, check the salt and serve with white rice and avocado.

   8 min

About the dish

The full version, sancocho de siete carnes, uses seven meats. A household version manages with three, but the principle holds: each meat gives the broth something the others cannot.

The roots go in by density and cooking time: cassava and yautía first, sweet potato and plantain later. Some of them break down and thicken the soup — their starch is the thickener.

Sancocho is cooked for an occasion: a birthday, a rainstorm, a relative home from abroad. A pot for fewer than ten people is considered odd in the Dominican Republic.

Worth knowing

• — Strip the woody core from the cassava; it never softens and ruins a spoonful.
• — Marinating the meat with lime is not optional: the Dominican habit of washing meat in acid before cooking has a flavour purpose too.
• — The soup should be thick enough that a spoon nearly stands. A thin sancocho reads as underdone in the Dominican Republic.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

680 kcal

Protein

46 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

68 g

More from Dominican Republic

• Mangú — Mashed boiled green plantain with pickled onion, egg, fried cheese and salami.
• Pollo guisado — Chicken braised in caramelised sugar with vegetables, the Dominican weekday lunch.
• Sweet cream of beans — A sweet dessert cream of red beans with coconut milk, sweet potato and biscuits.