{"id":1343,"date":"2009-06-09T21:02:29","date_gmt":"2009-06-10T05:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/myhalalkitchen.com\/?p=1343"},"modified":"2021-03-07T06:38:38","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T12:38:38","slug":"puerto-rican-rice-doesnt-always-need-goya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myhalalkitchen.com\/puerto-rican-rice-doesnt-always-need-goya\/","title":{"rendered":"Homemade Sofrito and Recaito"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you come from a Puerto Rican family<\/strong>, you understand that Goya<\/strong> products are permanent fixtures in our kitchen cabinets- without them it seems like a part of the family is missing. Why are we so dependent on them? Maybe it’s because Goya is one of the few brands on the market completely catering to an Hispanic consumer market–and we appreciate that.  But depenedence on convenience isn’t always a good thing when it comes to cooking, especially when you’re concerned about high sodium, preservatives or the origin of ingredients.<\/p>\n

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In the past, whenever I attempted a Puerto Rican recipe that said to make the seasoning or sauce bases from scratch, I was pretty confused as to why the products in the Goya bottles looked so different from the homemade versions. I wanted to make the traditional arroz con pollo<\/strong> (rice<\/a> and chicken<\/a>) completely homemade without any preservatives, but after reading a couple Puerto Rican cookbooks or handwritten recipes from family, I realized that ingredients and measurements for seasoning bases like sofrito<\/strong> and recaito<\/strong> were as different from author to author as the amount of Spanish dialects that abound- not too many, but just enough to get slightly lost in translation.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I had some help from mom, my cousin, and from Puerto Rican chef Daisy Martinez<\/strong>. On her show, Daisy Cooks<\/a>, she really sealed the deal by convincing me not only was it easy to make your own sofrito<\/em> and recaito<\/em> base flavorings, but that their uses are so versatile it’d be a shame not to make them yourself.  In fact, sofrito<\/strong> is actually used in Spanish, French and Italain (sofritto)<\/em> cooking- I mistakenly thought it was unique to Puerto Rican cuisine<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Basic Sofrito<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s what I came up with that sort of combined everything the books and the cooks told me. The amounts are a lot more than needed to season one pot of rice<\/a>, but that’s what freezer ice cube trays are best used for. 1-2 cubes is what I use per  2 cups of rice<\/a>. You can use more or lesss, depending on how much you like the flavor. Just be sure to label your freezer trays or containers if you are making both of the seasonings- it’s hard to tell the difference once they’re frozen!  Use in rices<\/a>, soups, to flavor meats<\/a> and even fried or scrambled eggs- absolutely delicous! Feel free to halve, double or even triple the recipes- you won’t mess up anything!<\/em><\/p>\n

Ingredients & Directions<\/strong><\/p>\n