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sancocho

Dominican Sancocho

Course Main Dish, Stew, World Recipes
Cuisine Caribbean, Spice It Your Way!
Servings 8

Ingredients
  

Marinate and cook the meat

  • Choice of Beef or Pork See notes below
  • Juice of two limes
  • 1 tbsp Chopped parsley
  • 1 tsp Oregano, dried, or 1 tbsp fresh chopped
  • 1 tbsp Cilantro, chopped
  • 1 clove Garlic ,crushed
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 Large onion, chopped
  • 1 Stalk Celery, sliced
  • 1 medium Carrots, sliced

Add Liquid

  • 4 cubes Beef boilllon, or 1 quart beef stock
  • 2 stalks Celery, sliced
  • 2 large Carrots, sliced
  • 1 8 oz can Tomato Sauce
  • 1 tbsp Adobo seasoning
  • 1 qt Water, 2 quarts if using bouillon You want enough liquid to cover by one inch at least. Depending on how much meat you are using, this could be more.

Quicker Cooking Vegetables

  • 6 Potatoes, peeled and quartered
  • 1 cup 1 1/2-inch cut fresh green beans
  • 1 can Small white beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1/2 Head cabbage, chopped
  • 1 Green banana, peeled and sliced into 3/4-inch pieces
  • 1 Yellow plantain, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 Large chayote squash - peeled and sliced lengthwise
  • 1 Small Chopped peeled butternut squash
  • 2 Ears fresh corn, sliced into 1 inch pieces
  • 1 Chopped green bell pepper]
  • 1 lb Cassava (yucca) peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces

Instructions
 

Marinate the Meat

  • Add the vegetables and herbs to a blender or food processor and blend until finely chopped. Don't make it a puree if you want to skip the marination step and just use it as a sofrito. This step is totally optional, but it adds great depth to the dish. You don't need to do this for sausages or chicken. Place the beef, and pork in a large bowl and coat meat with the chopped seasoning. Marinate for at least an hour.

Brown Meat

  • Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium-low heat; Add meat; cook and stir until browned on all sides, 5 to 7 minutes. Don't crowd the pan, you may have to do this in batches depending on how much meat you are putting in your stew. When all the meat is browned, add onion, garlic, celery and salt. Cook and stir until onion is browned and tender. Add in the sofrito if using instead of marinating the meat towards the end of your last batch of meat to bring out the flavors.
  • Add in marinade ingredients if you chose not to marinate your meat before hand. Add tomato sauce and beef bouillon. Add water to cover meat mixture by one inch. Bring to a boil, turn heat down to low, cover, and simmer 1-2 hours until meat is tender when pierced with a fork. The time will depend on how big your pieces of meat are cut.
  • You can start adding in the heartier vege's after about an hour of cooking. Start with the potatoes, yucca, bell peppers, green beans, yellow plantain and pumpkin. After about a half hour, add in remaining vege's, cabbage, corn, green banana, white beans and chayote squash. Cook until all the vegetables are tender and stew has formed a rich broth, 2 to 3 hours. Add more water or salt if needed. If you would like a thicker broth, remove a few pieces of the carrot and squash, for example, and mash them. Add back into the broth and simmer until incorporated and thickened.

Serve

  • Serve hot with white rice (arroz blanco), avocado, and hot sauce on the side.

Notes

Meats for Sancocho:
1 lb beef for stew- chuck, or round, cut into chunks
1 lb goat meat [0.45 kg] cut into small pieces
1 lb pork for stew pork belly, or  shoulder, cut into small pieces
1 lb chicken legs and thighs, cut into small pieces
1 lb pork ribs, cut into small pieces
1 lb meaty bones from a smoked ham, no need to marinate, just add to stock in beginning.
1 lb pork sausage Linguica, or Chorizo is good, but spicy hot Italian sausage or smoked sausage will work too. thickly sliced
The list of vegetables is pretty long, use as many as you like, it will be delicious no matter how many you use. You really can't go wrong.
If you like it thicker, add the white beans in at the beginning so they'll break down and naturally thicken the broth. The plantain and banana will also help to thicken it. You can finely chop half of the plantain to aid in thickening also.
This dish is popular all over the Caribbean. Each island has their own version. The Puerto Rican version adds in tomato sauce and green olives. The Cuban's use lime juice at the end with a little hot pepper sauce. The use of various types of meat all together make this one Dominican. They are all delicious and reflect the common origins of the Caribbean islands.
Keyword Dominican stew