Sancocho Dominicano

the Dominican seven-meat stew: plantain, yuca and pumpkin cooked down with beef, pork, chicken and goat until the pot thickens itself

Origin: Santo Domingo & the Dominican Republic

From the journey of Banana.

Sancocho is the Dominican Republic's dish for an occasion, and the full version, sancocho de siete carnes, uses seven meats: beef, pork, chicken, goat, smoked pork, longaniza sausage, and pork ribs, though households vary the list and nobody counts too closely. It takes most of a day, it is made in a pot too large for one meal, and it is understood as the food of a gathering rather than of a household dinner. The starch is what thickens it and the plantain does most of the work. Green plantain goes in in two forms: chunks that stay whole and are eaten, and grated plantain that dissolves entirely and binds the broth. Beside it go yuca, ñame, auyama squash, and sometimes corn, each added at its own moment so that the roots that need longest go in first. The plantain reached the Caribbean from West Africa in the sixteenth century, carried by the Portuguese and Spanish, and became a staple across the whole region within a hundred years. Its use as both an eaten vegetable and a dissolved thickener in one pot is characteristic of the entire Caribbean rim, from Guyana to Belize, and is the clearest single technique the region shares. The order of addition is the whole method. The meats are marinated in sazón and browned first, and the roots go in hardest first at fifteen-minute intervals; done properly, everything arrives at tenderness at the same moment and the broth has thickened to the consistency Dominicans describe as espeso, thick enough to hold a spoon at a slight angle. It is served with white rice on the side and slices of avocado.

Ingredients

Meat

  • 500 g beef chuck, in large cubes
  • 500 g pork shoulder, in large cubes
  • 500 g goat or lamb on the bone
  • 500 g chicken thighs on the bone
  • 300 g smoked pork ribs
  • 250 g longaniza or coarse pork sausage

To prepare

  • 3 limes, juiced, for washing

Marinade

  • 2 tbsp dried oregano
  • 10 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 tbsp ground cumin
  • 2 tbsp salt
  • 1 large bunch culantro or coriander, chopped

To cook

  • 4 tbsp oil

Base

  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 2 green peppers, chopped
  • 1 tbsp tomato purée

Liquid

  • 4 litres water

Roots

  • 3 green plantains, two in chunks and one grated
  • 600 g yuca, peeled and in chunks
  • 500 g ñame or sweet potato, in chunks
  • 500 g pumpkin or squash, in chunks
  • 2 ears of corn, cut into rounds

To serve

  • 2 avocados, sliced, to serve
  • 600 g white rice, cooked, to serve

Method

  1. Wash all the meat in cold water with the lime juice, rubbing it well, then rinse and drain.
  2. Toss the beef, pork, goat, and chicken with the oregano, garlic, cumin, salt, and half the culantro, and leave for at least an hour.
  3. Brown the meats in the oil in a very large pot, in batches, starting with the beef and goat and ending with the chicken.
  4. Return the beef, goat, and pork to the pot with the onions, peppers, and tomato purée, add the water, and simmer for an hour and a half.
  5. Add the smoked ribs and cook for a further thirty minutes.
  6. Now begin the roots, hardest first: yuca and ñame, then fifteen minutes later the plantain chunks and the grated plantain, then fifteen minutes after that the pumpkin and corn.
  7. Stagger the roots by cooking time. Everything in at once gives collapsed pumpkin and undercooked yuca in the same bowl.
  8. The grated plantain is the thickener and dissolves completely; it goes in with the chunks and needs about forty-five minutes.
  9. Add the chicken and the sausage for the last twenty-five minutes.
  10. Stir gently and only occasionally from here, since the roots break up easily once they are tender.
  11. The pot is ready when it is thick enough to hold a spoon at an angle. If it is still thin, mash a few pieces of yuca against the side and stir them in.
  12. Stir in the remaining culantro, rest for fifteen minutes off the heat, and serve in deep bowls with white rice and avocado.

Notes

Wash the meat in lime, which is standard Caribbean practice. Stagger the roots by how long each needs. Grated green plantain is the thickener and is not optional. Stir as little as possible once the roots are in. Seven meats is the celebratory version; three or four make an entirely respectable weekday sancocho. It is better the next day and Dominican households cook a pot sized on that assumption.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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