A CATALAN CHRISTMAS FEAST

 

A Catalan Christmas feast--soup followed by platters of several kinds of meat and sausage, vegetables and chickpeas.

Escudella--rich broth with giant pasta shells.

Fiesta means “feast,” the opposite of “fasting.” And Christmas is the grandest feast of the year, when families might regale themselves with sumptuous meals with meat. In Catalonia, the family Christmas Day feast is usually escudella I carn d’olla.

Escudella is a rich broth with the concentrated flavors of several kinds of meat. Embellished with giant pasta shells, the soup is served as the first course. The boiled meats, along with chickpeas and vegetables are served as the second course. It is, of course, the Catalan rendition of Spain’s national cocido, or boiled dinner. 

This year’s pandemic restrictions limit family gatherings to 10 people, rather than a customary 20 or more! The escudella, cooked in an enormous stockpot, is the perfect meal for the occasion.  Once all the ingredients have been gathered, the pot needs minimal tending.

About the ingredients:

Beef shank and ribs and stewing hen for the soup pot.

The beef, stewing hen and porky bits give the soup substance and extraordinary depth of flavor. The beef shank needs long, slow cooking to become tender. Allow 2 to 2 ½ hours. Once having contributed its essence to the broth, the boiled beef is pretty tasteless! The ham and pork bones and aromatic vegetables—celery, leek and turnip---add flavor. Discard the bones after cooking.

Chickpeas, put to soak the night before, need two or more hours to cook. Cooking them in a net bag or wrapped in cheesecloth makes it easy to remove them from the pot. Put the chickpeas in the pot once the water is hot. If you’re using gallina, stewing hen or boiling fowl, it can cook the full 2 ½ hours. If you’re using ordinary chicken, don’t put it in the pot until meat and chickpeas are partially cooked, after 1 hour. 

Beef bone, espinazo and ham; ear and trotter behind.

The pig’s trotter and ear add consistency and flavor to the soup, but can be omitted, if preferred. If using, after cooking, cut the cooked ear into pieces to serve. Remove bones from the trotter and cut into pieces. (I ended up leaving the trotter out, as my soup pot wasn’t big enough for all the ingredients.) Pig’s ear has a cartilage “stiffener,” with a layer of skin/meat around it. The cartilage is edible, but crunchy. 

Chickpeas and vegetables for the pot.

Use large carrots and potatoes, so they don’t disintegrate with long cooking. Cut them into halves or quarters before serving.  Like the chickpeas, the cabbage and carrots can be put into cheesecloth parcels or net bags to facilitate lifting them out of the stockpot.

Butifarra, white and black, are Catalan cooked sausages. Add them to the pot towards the end of the total cooking time. (French boudin blanc or any blood sausage can be substituted for the Catalan versions.) 

The Catalan cocido, in all its glory, includes pilotas, football-shaped meatballs. Mix them while the soup is cooking and add to the pot about 20 minutes before it’s done. Serve the meatballs on the platter with the other meats.

Galets, pasta shells.

Once everything is cooked—about two and a half hours—you’re going to strain some of the broth into another pot and cook pasta in it. For ordinary Sunday escudella, fideo soup noodles or rice might be cooked in the broth. But for Christmas, galets, jumbo pasta shells, are traditional. Sometimes they are stuffed with the meatball mixture, then poached, or, for a very fancy alternative, foie gras. (I’m going to use what’s left of the package to make a gratin of pasta shells stuffed with spinach and mushrooms.)

Day after--serve the soup and pasta with bits of leftover meat, chicken and vegetables.

Traditionally, leftovers from the great pot are used to make canelones (cannellonis) for Boxing Day (St. Esteve, San Esteban, Dec. 26). That recipe is here..I simply served bowls of that fragrant broth with everything—chickpeas, meat and vegetables. I served the boiled beef another day with a sharp salsa verde of parsley, garlic, capers, olive oil and a splash of vinegar. 

Catalan Holiday Soup with Meats and Vegetables

Escudella i Carn d’Olla

You’ll need your largest stock pot (minimum 6 quart-capacity, preferably much larger) plus a smaller soup pot in which to cook the broth with pasta. Have ready a strainer. Ladle the soup into a tureen to serve at the table.  Place all the meats and sausages on one platter; the vegetables and chickpeas on a second platter.  

Serves 6.

Day before cooking the soup

1 ½ cups (10 ounces) dry chickpeas

For the soup pot

3 ounces ham bone

2 ounces salted espinazo (spine bone)

1 pig’s foot, split (optional)

1 pig’s ear (optional)

¼ stewing hen or chicken (preferably leg), about 20 ounces

20 ounces boneless beef shank or shin

8 ounces boneless beef rib 

12-20 cups water (3-5 quarts)

1 tablespoon salt

1 stalk celery

1 white turnip, split

1 leek

3 large carrots 

2 large potatoes (18-20 ounces)

¼ medium cabbage (16 ounces)

6-8 ounces white butifarra sausage

6-8 ounces black butifarra sausage

Ground veal and pork, pork fat for meatballs. 

For the pilotas (meatballs)

1 slice stale bread, crusts removed

Milk

1 egg, beaten

½ teaspoon salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Grating of nutmeg

6 ounces ground pork

6 ounces ground veal

1 ounce chopped fresh pork fat (belly or fatback)

2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

2 tablespoons pine nuts

Flour, for dusting meatballs

To finish the soup

3-5 galets (jumbo shell pasta) per person 

Olive oil

Chopped parsley to garnish

1. Day before. Place the chickpeas in a bowl and cover them with warm water. Allow the chickpeas to soak at least 8 hours. Before cooking, drain the chickpeas. If available, place them in a cloth bag so they’re easy to remove from the pot. (Leave a handful of chickpeas loose to make it possible to fish them out to test for doneness.) Set the chickpeas aside until the water in the soup pot is hot.

2. Blanch the salted pork bone and ham bone in boiling water, 2 minutes. Drain and leave them to soak in cold water while preparing the other ingredients.

3. Wash the pig’s ear and trotter, if using, under running water. Parboil them in salted water to cover with 2 tablespoons of vinegar for 5 minutes.  Drain and reserve them.

4. Place the blanched and drained pork bone, ham bone, ear and trotter in a large soup pot. Place the quarter-chicken, beef shank and rib meat on top. Add water so the pot is about ¾ full (at least 12 cups). Add salt. Put on high heat. Begin skimming off froth that rises to the surface.

5. Once the water is hot, add the drained chickpeas. Continue skimming the pot as it comes to a boil. Tuck the celery, turnip halves and leek in among the meats. 

Once the pot is boiling and all the froth has been skimmed off, reduce the heat so the soup bubbles gently. Partially cover the pot. Cook for 1 hour, skimming occasionally.

6. While the soup is cooking, prepare the meatball mixture. Break the bread into small pieces and soak it in milk to cover until softened. Squeeze out and discard the milk. Add the beaten egg to the bread and mash it until fairly smooth. Stir in the salt, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the two kinds of ground meat and diced pork fat and mix well with a fork. Add the parsley and pine nuts. Shape the mixture into 6 football-shaped meatballs. Dust them lightly with flour.

Keep adding water to keep pot filled.

7. After the soup has cooked 1 hour, add the carrots and whole potatoes. (If using regular chicken, instead of stewing hen, add it at this time.) Add additional water, as needed, so the pot is nearly full. Bring to a boil and skim again. Cook 30 minutes.

8. Cut the cabbage in two wedges and cut away some of the core. Add cabbage to the pot. Prick the two kinds of butifarra sausages with a knife point and add to the pot. Cook 15 minutes.

9. Add the meatballs to the pot and cook 15 minutes. 

10. Use a skimmer or slotted spoon to remove meat, poultry, bones, trotter, chickpeas, vegetables, sausages and meatballs to platters. 

11.Strain 8-10 cups of the soup into a smaller pot. Taste for salt. Bring to a boil and cook the pasta shells according to package instructions (16-18 minutes).

12. Cut beef into chunks. Cut chicken off the bones and discard bones. Cut sausages into pieces. Discard ham and pork bones. Use scissors to cut pig’s ear into 6-8 pieces. Remove bones from trotter and cut the rest into pieces. Arrange all the meats on one platter and spoon a little of the broth over them. Cut the potatoes into quarters, the carrots in half. Place them on another platter with the drained chickpeas, cabbage, turnip and leek. Drizzle a little oil over the vegetables.

Serve the soup and pasta garnished with a sprinkling of parsley. Follow the soup with the platters of meats, vegetables and chickpeas.

Bon Nadal!! That’s Català-speak for Merry Christmas or Feliz Navidad in castellano Spanish. 

More recipes for regional Spanish cocidos:

Madrid Style Boiled Dinner.

Sephardic Meal-in-a-Pot, Toledo Style.

Everyday Soup Pot, Andalusian Style.

Canary Islands Vegetable Pot.

FROM CATALUÑA, WITH LOVE

I received a lovely gift from my friend Charlotte, who’s just returned from a week in Barcelona. Knowing my interest in all things gastronomic, she selected several Catalan cheeses and sausages to bring me. So, coincidentally, I am featuring the food of Cataluña for the second week in a row. But, no politics this time!

Clockwise from top left: Garrotxa goat's milk cheese; Formatge Neu, bull blanc, a type of butifarra sausage, butifarra de huevo, a pork and egg sausage, and, in the center, mató, a soft, creamy cheese. Hazelnuts also come from Cataluña.

There are three cheeses, Garrotxa, a goat’s milk cheese; Formatge Neu, a soft cow’s milk cheese, and mató, a creamy fresh cheese, and two types of sausage, botifarra d’ou or butifarra de huevo, and bull blanc. Both are cooked pork sausages that can be consumed without additional cooking, though they are best grilled. (A must alongside fire-roasted calçots, green onions.)  The bull blanc differs from regular white butifarra in that it is stuffed in a larger casing, while the one with eggs has a yellowish color.

Catalan sausages can be found in shops everywhere in Spain. However, the cheeses are not so widely distributed. Artisanal cheese making in Cataluña had almost disappeared until the early 1980s, when back-to-the-farm "hippies" began experimenting with traditional methods. Both the Garrotxa and Neu date from that renaissance. Garrotxa (a town north of Barcelona in Girona province) is firm, creamy, nutty (hazelnut) with a slight tang. Ripened for two months, the cheese forms a grey mold on the rind. The cheese is delicious on its own, with wine, diced into salad, grilled, melted. The Neu is soft, somewhat like Brie, and has a white mold rind. The mató is like solid whipped cream. An unsalted fresh cheese, it is usually served as dessert.

Here are some of the dishes I made using these ingredients.

Coca--a flatbread with toppings. This one has sautéed onions and three kinds of mushrooms and sliced bull blanc, a version of butifarra sausage.

Salad with black-eyed peas, green beans and diced Garrotxa cheese.

Spiced pears in cava with mató fresh cheese and hazelnuts.

Catalan Flatbread with Mushrooms and Butifarra Sausage
Coca de Recapte amb Botifarra

Make it a meal or call it a snack, flatbread with mushroom and sausage topping is sure to be a hit.

Unlike pizza, coca doesn't have melted cheese on it. Serve it hot out of the oven or room temperature.

The coca (plural is coques in Catalan or cocas in Spanish) is sort of a cross between pizza and focaccia. Made from bread dough, the coca is usually served room temperature, rather than hot from the oven. Barcelona bake shops sell it in huge slabs or in tiny, individual coques. Unlike pizza, coca rarely has cheese. The toppings can be a simple as a few strips of red pepper and olives or as replete as the coca de recapte, provisioned with “everything in the cupboard”. Sliced butifarra sausage is a traditional addition.

Use two or more varieties of mushrooms for the topping of this coca, wild ones if they are available. Some give off a lot of moisture, so take longer cooking than ordinary white mushrooms. I used white mushrooms, portobellos and oyster.

Bull blanc is a cooked pork sausage.

Any type of butifarra sausage works. I used the bull blanc.

Use any ready-to-bake pizza dough, home-made or store-bought. (A recipe for coca dough is here.)

Dough for 1 pizza
3 tablespoons olive oil + more for drizzling on top
1 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup chopped red bell pepper
3 cloves garlic, chopped
5 cups sliced mushrooms (about 1 pound)
Salt and pepper
Sprigs of thyme
6 ounces butifarra sausage, sliced

Roll or press out dough to make a rough rectangle (about 14 X 9 inches). Place on a lightly oiled sheet pan.

Preheat oven to 400ºF (200ºC).

Heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the onion slowly until it begins to brown, about 10 minutes. Add the red pepper, garlic and mushrooms and sauté until mushrooms are cooked, 10 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and thyme.

Spread the onion-mushroom mixture on top of the pizza dough. Tuck the slices of sausage into the topping.

Bake until the edges of the dough are browned, 20 to 25 minutes.

Serve hot or room temperature.

Bean, Black-Eyed Pea and Garrotxa Cheese Salad
Amanida de Mongets i Formatage Garrotxa

If possible, use a Catalan Arbequina variety olive oil to dress this salad.

Serves 4

Garrotxa--smooth, mild goat cheese.

½ cup cooked and drained black-eyed peas
1 cup cooked green beans, cut in short lengths
¼ cup chopped radish
¼ cup chopped celery
¼ cup chopped scallions
6 ounces Garroxta cheese, diced (1 1/3 cups)
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons chopped parsley or carrot tops
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon Sherry vinegar
Salad greens such as cress or rucola
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts

In a bowl combine the black-eyed peas, beans, radish, celery, scallions and cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Add parsley, oil, and vinegar.

Serve the salad with salad greens. Top with pine nuts.

Honey with Fresh Cheese
Mel i Mató

Classic way to serve mató fresh cheese--with honey and walnuts.

Place a dollop of mató fresh cheese on a plate, bowl or in a glass. Top with a spoonful of honey. Add walnuts.

Pears in Cava with Fresh Cheese
Peres amb Cava i Mató

Pears spiced with cinnamon and cardomom are cooked in cava (sparkling wine).

Cava is sparkling wine made by the traditional Champenoise method. Cataluña is not the only region where cava is produced, but it is the most extensive. The Catalan grape varieties, Macabeo, Parellada and Xarel•lo, give this bubbly a lovely flowery scent that combines nicely with sweet spices and fruit.

These poached pears can be made with “flat” cava, as the bubbles will cook away in any case. If you use a semi-seco cava, you will not need to add additional sugar. Use white wine if cava is not available. Cook pears until they are soft, but not falling apart, anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes.

Serves 4.

2-3 large firm-ripe pears (1 ¾ pounds)
Lemon juice
2-3 cups cava
Strip of orange zest
2-inch cinnamon stick
4 cardamom pods
2 tablespoons sugar
Mató fresh cheese
Toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

Peel and core the pears. Cut them in quarters or sixths, depending on their size. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice.

Place the cava in a pan with the zest, cinnamon, cardamom and sugar. Bring to a boil, then let the syrup bubble 5 minutes. Add the pears and cook until they can be easily pierced with a skewer.

Remove the pears with a slotted spoon. Cook the remaining syrup 5 minutes more. Let it cool before pouring over the pears.

Serve the pears with the mató fresh cheese and sprinkled with hazelnuts.

More about Catalan foods:

Barcelona Alimentaria.

Sausage-Potato Cakes (Trinxat)

Catalan Flatbreads with Two Toppings (Coques).

THE SOUL OF SPAIN? SAUSAGES!

According to this new cookbook, the soul of Spain is not found in its literature, poetry or music, not in flamenco, nor bullfighting, certainly not in the Church. The soul of Spain is its sausage! Charcutería, the art and skill of curing meat, is the soul of Spain, claims Jeffrey Weiss, chef and author of CHARCUTERÍA--THE SOUL OF SPAIN (Surrey Books-Agate; 2014).

Jeff discovered the Spanish soul a few years ago when he won a scholarship from the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX) to spend a year in Spain getting to know Spanish products while working in the kitchens of top restaurants. One of Jeff’s most memorable experiences from that year was participating in a typical matanza, or hog butchering, in Extremadura. Inspired by traditional ham and sausage production, since returning to the US, he’s been pursuing Spanish sausage-making, which he declares is too little-known in America. The book grew out of that dedication. Jeff currently is chef at Jeninni Kitchen + Wine Bar in Pacific Grove, CA., where he serves Spanish-inflected snacks, charcuterie, small plates, entrees, sides and desserts. 

A sabia (expert sausage maker), tying off links. (Photo by Nathan Rawlinson.)

In the book, Jeff gets the sausage and dick jokes out of the way quickly. To hear him tell it, the sabias, the women who know how just how much salt and pimentón to add to the grind, are cracking wise about how small his sausage is, whether it needs massaging. When he gets down to the matanza at hand—an intense, draining and days long affair, he says, with sharp implements, the capacity to witness death and a good amount of blood required—there is no joking here, but much respect for the people and the animals involved.

Each chapter describes a curing process and its uses with recipes incorporating the cured foods. So, for example, under Salmueras y Salazones (brines and salt cures) are steps to produce your own panceta (pancetta or pork belly) or whole ham. Right down to the quantity of salt and the time to cure and air-dry them. Here, too, is absolutely everything about how the famed Ibérico ham is produced—from the pigs to the dehesa where they fatten on acorns to the slaughter and curing.  

The chapter on Embutidos (literally, anything stuffed in a casing, thus “sausages”) surveys just about all the regional variations. Some of these, writes Jeff, are vastly different and wholly unique compared to what you will find anywhere else in the world.

Butifarra, chistorra, botillo, bull, morcilla, patatera, fuet and, of course, chorizo are demystified. While you may never intend to make your own sausages, the recipes for cooking with them are fabulous—chorizo al infierno, flamed with orujo brandy; Barcelona canelones, with a filling that includes sausage, liver, chicken and veal; garbanzos with butifarra negra that includes raisins, sweet wine, spinach and mint; Nacho Manzano’s Asturian fabada; carcamusa, a pork “chili;” cocido madrileño, a grand one-pot feast, and Tolosa black beans with sausages.

This book should have been released in the fall or winter, season of hog butchering, when fatty, porky dishes are especially appealing. Nevertheless, the book surprises with its selection of non-meat recipes, included because they use many of the same techniques that are used in curing meat.

For example, in the chapter on Salmueras y Salazones (brines and salt cures) are recipes for salt cod in three classic Basque sauces, pil pil, verde and vizcaina; Catalan salads with salt fish, such as xató and esqueixada, and asparagus topped with mojama (air-dried tuna) and a perfect fried egg—“sexy, runny, crispy.” In the Adobo chapter is a take on cazón en adobo (marinated, fried shark), using chickpea flour. (I’ll be trying that one.) And, in Escabeche, recipes for mushroom or mussel escabeche alongside a classic partridge escabeche that Jeff learned to make at Restaurante Adolfo in Toledo, one of the restaurants where he interned during that year in Spain.

There are also chapters on Conservas y Confits, Pâtés y Terrinas (with a recipe for Arzak’s sensational pastel de cabracho, a fish terrine); Guarniciones y Salsas (including recipes for sweet-pickled garlic and for Almagro pickled eggplant), and Postres y Licores (including wonderful perunillas, cookies made with lard, a by-product of the matanza).

The professional cook or dedicated amateur will appreciate this book’s precision. The book describes the difference between European and American butchering, how a pig is broken down into parts. There are classifications—fresh, semi-cured, cooked and dry-cured sausages. Here are detailed instructions about types of knots for tying off sausages, equipment and the “secrets and science of charcutería “ (precise measurements and exact temperatures make a difference), with the curing salts needed for safe processing and where to get them.

But, Charcutería—The Soul of Spain has much to love for a home cook like me who may never attempt to make sausage from scratch.

The book has a forward by well-known chef José Andrés. Jeff worked for José early in his cheffing career and José helped him get the ICEX scholarship that got him to Spain. The fabulous evocative photos by Nathan Rawlinson shot on location in Spain capture authenic scenes of matanzas, kitchens, cooks, Ibérico pigs. 

Jeff will be cooking for an event at the James Beard House, New York, on 27 June. See the information about that dinner here .

Butifarra, a Catalan sausage.

I chose a recipe from Charcutería—The Soul of Spain for Trinxat, sausage-cabbage-potato cakes, that is satisfying, but light enough for warm weather. It calls for butifarra, a Catalan sausage, that is also good grilled over charcoal. (Yes, you can buy butifarra in the US.)

“This Catalan dish,” writes Jeff, “is part of a long line of European cabbage and potato mash-ups, including comfort-food favorites like the English bubble and squeak, Swiss rösti, Irish colcannon—the list goes on.

“These recipes have common ground. They’re an easy way to use up leftovers, particularly back in the days when refrigeration was scarce and food was never wasted. This Trinxat recipe is especially porky and delicious with the inclusion of butifarra.

“Also, I say, go big or go home—take the time to fry the cabbage cakes in foaming butter, like a real fine-dining cook. Worry about the calories another day.”

Rendered ibérico lard.

Uh-oh. Sorry, Jeff. I wussed out here. No butter has crossed my threshold in several years. So, instead of a “fine-dining cook,” I am a down-home olive oil and lard type. I bought a hunk of Ibérico pork fat (I live in Spain, so that was easy to source) and rendered it down to make lard to use in the Sofrito. I did take Jeff’s suggestion for serving the cakes with an acidic salad, of oranges and spring onions.

TRINXAT
Sausage-Cabbage-Potato Cakes

(Recipe excerpted from CHARCUTERÍA--THE SOUL OF SPAIN.)

Sausage-cabbage-potato cakes with orange salad.

Note: This dish is pretty heavy, so it goes well with an acidic salad to cut its richness. Otherwise, definitely serve it as they do in the mountains, with a garlicky alioli for dipping.

4 entrée servings

½ cup Basic Sofrito (recipe below)
1 head napa or savoy cabbage, cored and cut into medium dice
1.1  pounds medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut into medium dice.
Water, to cover
Kosher salt, to taste
½ cup + 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, as needed
2  Butifarra Blanca or Negra sausages, removed from the casing and crumbled
White pepper, to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste
All-purpose flour, as needed
Unsalted butter, as needed

In a large saucepan, prepare the Basic Sofrito, using manteca as the fat and including the garlic, bay leaf and panceta options from the recipe. Remove from the heat, transfer the sofrito to a mixing bowl and set aside. Wipe out the pan.

In the same saucepan, cover the cabbage and potatoes with cold water. Season with salt until the water tastes like the ocean, and bring the water to a rolling boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 20 minutes, until the potatoes are just tender. Drain but reserve the veggies in the pot.

Return the saucepan to medium heat and stir the veggies until you see that all of the residual water has evaporated. Once the mixture is dry, remove from the heat. Transfer the vegetables to a large mixing bowl.

Make cakes and place on a tray.

Using a potato masher, mash the cabbage and potatoes and set aside to cool to room temperature (the more steam that is released, the less moisture will remain).

In a sauté pan over medium-high heat, warm the ½ cup of oil until rippling but not smoking. Add the sausages and sear, breaking them up with a spoon, for 8 to 10 minutes, until thoroughly cooked. Stir and add the reserved sofrito. Sauté for 8 to 10 minutes, or until simmering.

Add the contents of the sauté pan to the bowl containing the veggies. Mix well. Taste and season the mixture with the salt, white pepper and freshly grated nutmeg as needed. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes, or until cool.

Set a baking sheet on the counter. Using a ½-cup measure, scoop out some of the mixture and form it into a ball. Place the ball on a clean work surface. Smash the ball down to form a cake-like shape (like a crab cake). Rest the cake on the baking sheet. Repeat until all of the mixture has been used. Lightly dust the Trinxat cakes with the flour and set aside.

In a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, warm the remaining 3 tablespoons of oil until rippling. Fry the Trinxat cakes in the sauté pan for 8 to 10 minutes, until seared on one side. Flip the cakes, add 2 tablespoons of the butter to the pan and baste with a spoon, “fine-dining style.” Cook for 6 to 8 minutes on the second side, until warmed through. Repeat as needed for the remaining cakes. Serve hot.

BASIC SOFRITO

Sofrito--fried onions, garlic, tomatoes.

Sofrito, one of the keys to Spanish cuisine, is a word that pops up in every language spoken in the country. Whether it’s called a sofrito in Castellano, a sofregit in Catalan, a rustido in Gallego, or sueztitua in Euskadi, it’s going to be some combination of onions, garlic, and tomatoes cooked in fat to varying degrees of jam-like consistency. Stemming from the verb sofreir, which means “to fry lightly,” the sofrito is an exercise in patience and finesse. It’s all about listening, smelling and slowly cooking the aromatics down in hot fat; about knowing when to add the various components and about understanding the depth of flavor you want to achieve.

Note: Sofritos are not just personal recipes. They’re typically tailored to their end purpose, so feel free to add any of the optional ingredients, depending on what goes best with the recipe your Sofrito will play a part in.

FOR THE BASE SOFRITO
Extra virgin olive oil, unsalted butter or melted manteca (pork lard), as needed
5 medium yellow onions, peeled, destemmed and cut into small dice
Kosher salt, as needed
3 plum tomatoes, halved and grated on the medium holes of a grater, liquid reserved
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste


OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS—GROUP 1
3 cloves garlic, grated on a Microplane
2 medium green bell peppers, seeded and cut into small dice
2 medium red bell peppers, seeded and cut into small dice
3 medium piquillo peppers, cut into small dice
1 medium chile pepper, such as Fresno or Anaheim, cut into small dice
2 medium leeks, cleaned and cut into small dice
3 ½ ounces (100 g) Jamón or Panceta Curada


OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS—GROUP 2
1 fresh bay leaf
¼ cup (65 g) tomato paste
1 tablespoon cumin seed, toasted and ground
1 cinnamon stick
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon fennel seed, toasted and ground

TO MAKE THE BASIC SOFRITO:
Cover the bottom of a medium saucepan with ¼ inch of the fat of your choice (basically, you want the entire bottom of the pan covered with a layer of fatty goodness). Place the saucepan over medium-high heat and warm the fat for 4 to 6 minutes, until rippling but not smoking and moving freely in the pan.

Add the onions and any of the optional ingredients from Group 1 to the saucepan. Season liberally with the salt.

Lower the heat to medium and cook the sofrito, stirring occasionally, for 15 to 45 minutes (depending on how far you wish to brown the onions: At 15 minutes, they’re wilted, and at 45, they’re wonderfully browned). Add small amounts of water as needed to keep the browning consistent, or just adjust the heat accordingly.

Once the onions have reached the desired color, add the tomatoes and their liquid and any of the optional ingredients from Group 2. Stir to incorporate.

Cook for 20 to 30 minutes, until all the liquid has evaporated and the mixture has a jam-like consistency. Taste the sofrito and season to taste with the salt and black pepper. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Chill in the refrigerator overnight. Once chilled, the sofrito can be refrigerated for a week or held frozen for up to 4 months.