I’ve been doing a little research that has lead me to work my way backwards from standard recipes and fixtures in traditional cooking styles.  This has lead me to simplify my ideas a little bit so I can have a nice start while I build new recipes for this blog. So let’s take a little trip.

I grew up in a home where food was cooked daily from scratch. My mom made many traditional Puerto Rican dishes and my dad could open a can and season food to give a new twist to things like Ramen.  It was pretty much the opposite ends of the spectrum but it was a lot better than them heating up frozen dinners every night like most of my friends experienced at their homes (Hungryman Dinners, oh so hungry, man).

One staple in Puerto Rican food is Sofrito. It’s a combination of a few ingredients.  You can go to any Puerto Rican’s house or restaurant and everyone will make sofrito different every time. Hell, even I make it different than my mom does (CLICK FOR MY SOFRITO RECIPE).

The base for my sofrito is Tomato, Bell Pepper, Onion, Garlic, Cilantro, and Oregano. With these six ingredients you can build a great sofrito sauce for yourself. It’s one of those things that my mom passed on to me and I made it my own. There are times where I will hold back a few ingredients depending on what I’m cooking or if I don’t have access to an ingredient (I’m looking at you, saffron). You can also add recao or aji dulce to go a little more authentic, like I said you can always add or take away but keep the base the same.

Soffritto is a Italy’s style of base ingredients for their food, click for WIKI.  Carrots, Celery, Onion, and a little olive oil make this base very easy to work with.  I made a marinara inspired sauce with Soffritto and it made a huge impact on how I will continue to cook Italian food.

Mirepoix is the French style of base ingredients for their food, click for WIKI.  Onions, Celery, and Carotts in a 2:1:1 ratio.  I haven’t really hit my stride with French cooking yet on this blog so I don’t have an example.  From my experience the aromatics created by the combination of these ingredients will enhance your senses as you cook and eat.

As I read more about the different styles of cooking I will add more bases so you can have a good resource for your next culinary creation.

Thanks for stopping by,

Eric

I’m not a very good writer. Back to cooking!