Dominicans are spontaneous and happy people who do not need much of an excuse to party. Where there are two or more Dominicans, a party may break out at any moment; some occasions, however, call for more lavish and elaborate celebrations.
A baptism is an occasion for family and close friends to meet and celebrate with the parents the joy of the arrival of their new child. The religious celebration is followed by a brunch, attended by the closest friends and family members. Typically some picaderas (hors d’oeuvre) are served.
The next big occasion will come when a girl celebrates her 15th birthday. Her friends, dressed in beautiful gowns, will attend the celebration of the girl’s symbolical passage into adulthood. Picaderas, soft drinks for the teenagers and beer and cocktails for the grown-ups will be served. Sometime in the night there will be a buffet comprised mostly of typical Dominican dishes. The night ends with a piece of the monumental cake that has been the center of attention all night long.
Nothing, however, will top the regal exuberance of a Dominican wedding. On this occasion, to which guests will wear their best clothes, the bride will outshine them all. Dressed like a princess from a fairy tale, she will be the center of attention, her only competition being the biggest, fanciest cake the madrinacould afford. There will be picaderas, drinks and a buffet, and the party will probably end in the early hours of the next morning. It is not rare to see the bride and groom leave when the party has ended. Dominicans would not let their wedding night get in the way of a good party.
But heck, we don’t need an excuse! It need not be somebody’s birthday, baptism or wedding, all we need is a sancocho, or asopao, some frías, Merengue and we’ll call it a party.
This is the star of the Dominican cuisine, no doubt about it, a profoundly cherished dish that is the ultimate Dominican comfort food.
Ingredients
- 2 lbs beef for stews (flank, chuck or round)
- 1 lb of goat meat
- 1 lb. pork sausage (longaniza)
- 1 lb pork for stews (pork belly or chump end)
- 1 1/2 lb chicken
- 2 lbs of pork ribs
- 1 lb of bones from a smoked ham
- 4 limes cut in halves
- 1 tablespoon of mashed garlic
- 4 tablespoons of oil
- 1/2 lb of cassava cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1/2 lb of yam (ñame) cut into 1-inch pieces
- 2 celery stalks
- 1/2 lb of malanga (yautia) cut into 1-inch pieces
- 3 unripe plantains, 2 cut into 1-inch pieces
- 2 cubes of beef stock (optional)
- 2 corn cobs cut into 1-inch slices (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon of powdered oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon of coriander/cilantro
- 2 teaspoons of vinegar
- 2 teaspoons of hot sauce or agrio de naranja
Instructions
- Cut the meat into small pieces.
- Scrub the meat with the lime (except the pork sausage).
- Place the beef in a large bowl and add the celery, coriander, oregano, garlic, vinegar, and salt. Rub meat to cover with the spices. Marinate for at least half an hour.
- In a large pot heat the oil over medium heat, add the beef and stir (be careful with hot oil splattering). Cover and and simmer for 10 minutes. Add a few tablespoons of water if the meat sticks to the pot.
- Add the pork and simmer for 15 minutes, adjust water when necessary. Add the rest of the meat to the pot (except for the chicken) and simmer for another 15 minutes, adding tablespoons of water as needed to prevent it from burning.
- Add the chicken and simmer for another 10 minutes.
- Add 1/2 gallon of water to the pot and bring to a boil. Add the yam, malanga and the two plantains that you had previously cut. Simmer for 15 minutes.
- Add all remaining ingredients and adjust water when necessary. Stir regularly to avoid excessive sticking. Simmer until the last ingredients you added are tender. Grate, or scrape with the knife the remaining plantain to make it into a pulp, add to the pot. Simmer for another 10 minutes.
- Adjust salt to taste. Serve hot with white rice.
Important Notes
This is, without doubt, Dominican's most cherished culinary treasure. It is a dish that is usually prepared for special occasions. Its preparation is long and it contains many ingredients. However, the time it takes to prepare is the time best enjoyed with friends, while drinking a little rum or a cold beer.
The traditional sancocho is made with beef only (usually flank, or similarly inexpensive cut), however the Sancocho de Siete Carnes (seven-meat Stew) is the deluxe version. You can skip the other meats if you want.
The trick to this dish is adding the meat from the longest-cooking to the shortest-cooking, please pay attention to the order in which meat is added into the cooking pot
Updated October5, 2011
Aunt Clara's Kitchen is a collection of traditional Dominican recipes, recipes inspired by Dominican flavors, as well as the chronicles of the Aunties' adventures in the kitchen and outside.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, I am reading this recipe and the Spanish version as well and the Spanish version does have *10 Bollitos de harina (boiled flour rolls) (optional) and the English version is missing 2 ajíes verdes grandes cortandos en cubos. Also which cut of Beef would you recommend, because all the ones that come to mind with bone in are ribs, tail and leg. Also which cut of pork. I think those are the only questions for now. Thanks.
Hi Letty, I have updated the recipe and added the information you requested.
Thank you
thanks
There is NOTHING like a Dominican sancocho!! You serve it with a side of white rice (w/concon, of course), tostones verdes and avocado (the large ones, not those tiny ones). Wow, what a feast! Then, you finish off the meal with a good cup of Dominican coffee and a little piece of dulce de cajuil (candied cashews). Of course, you better do some exercise before you eat this delectable meal because you will be putting on the pounds unless you only have the dulce once in a while. We Dominican do love our food, don’t we?
With all due respect, ñame is NOT yams. Yams are sweet potatoes and I never saw them sold in the islands. The recipe calls for ñame which is a root much like yuca and yautia (malanga). It is white in the inside and tends to turn purplish when cut and left in the open. The skin is very much like yuca (casava). The dumplings which are found mostly in the Puerto Rican Sancocho are not made of flour. They are made by grating very green Johnson bananas and plantains. They are mixed together with salt, pepper, garlic some asafran or achiote to give it a bit of color. The mixture is spooned and dropped into the sancocho when all the roots are cooked so they don’t disintegrate. The Cuban Ajiaco (sancocho) uses very lean pork meat or beef. The Puerto Rican Sancocho normally takes ox tail as the meat of choice. Cuban and Puerto Rican Sancocho (Ajiaco) calls for chayote (vegetable pear, mirliton) which is a prickly pear shaped fruit which is cooked like a vegetable and grows on vines. It is difficult to find even in the islands and was mostly found in home gardens. I had sancocho in Puerto Rico which also contained bread fruit (Pana). All those variations are great. I haven’t tried a sancocho I don’t like. Then again my wife has never made it.
Thanks for the tip (although we are not the only ones using that translation, we found many sources for this: ‘Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires[22] sweet potatoes labeled with the term “yam” to be accompanied by the term “sweet potato.”‘). Apparently the word yam is used for different type of roots, not surprisingly. But yam is the correct translation.
Thanks for talking about the differences about the different sanchochos, very interesting.
BTW, chayotes (tayotas in the DR) are very common here. I can’t think of a time I didn’t see them in the supermarket. There are a few recipes here with tayotas.