Sancocho

If you're looking for pure comfort in a bowl, you'll find it in sancocho, a Latin-American meat stew brimming with root vegetables and scented with cilantro. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and when we moved to the mainland, my mother would serve us heaps of it whenever we felt homesick. It never failed to bring us back to our little island. It will do the same for any Boricua in your life.

Like many Caribbean dishes, this stew had very humble beginnings. It was cobbled together from whatever scraps enslaved workers could get their hands on and was made heartier with the root vegetables that were the mainstay of their diets. Today, it's a revered dish that symbolizes the Puerto Rican spirit: to create something from nothing and give it new life.

The Puerto Rican Pantry

When It Comes to Sancocho, the Possibilities Are Endless

Sancocho works with almost any protein that can handle a longer cook time. There are dozens of variations throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, made with combinations of beef, goat, pork, chicken, and fish. This version is my mother's, who is Colombian, but grew up in Puerto Rico.

In the lean times of my childhood, she used chicken drumsticks (as is traditional in Colombian sancocho) instead of the more expensive cuts of beef used in Puerto Rican versions of this stew. We didn't have access to many of our island ingredients in Houston in the '80s. She would substitute sweet potatoes for the Caribbean pumpkin and cilantro for the recao (also called culantro) that grows like a weed all over Puerto Rico.

If you can't source calabaza, substitute with kabocha squash, butternut squash, or sweet potatoes. Try taro or malanga if you can't find yuca and green plantain. If you can't source any of these, just sub with equal parts of Yukon gold potatoes.

The substitutions didn't matter, though, as she always started with a solid foundation of sofrito, the pungent flavor base of many Puerto Rican dishes. She followed that with a generous sprinkling of adobo and sazón, spice blends that gave the broth a deep earthiness and everything in the stew a golden hue. Though it takes about an hour and a half of simmering on the stove to make sancocho, it's well worth the wait. The sum is much greater than its parts.

Tips for Making a Perfect Bowl of Sancocho

To add loads of flavor, don't skip searing the chicken in the same pot you'll use to make the sancocho. Do it in small batches so you don't crowd the pot and steam the meat. The fond (yes, the burnt-looking bits) that develops on the bottom of the pot and the browning on the chicken add rich umami to the stew.

When it comes to temperature, low and slow is the way. Simmer the stew, don't boil it, which can leave you with tough meat with chunks of fat and collagen that haven't had time to break down. It will also break the veggies down too quickly, leaving the broth muddy and the vegetables—which you should cut in similar sizes so they cook evenly—with no texture. If you're using cuts of meat that take longer to tenderize, add the vegetables in the last 45 minutes of cooking time so they don't overcook and fall apart.

On the other side of that equation, don't leave the stew on the stove for too long. Overcooking can leave the meat stringy and dry and will pulverize your vegetables. Cover the pot to prevent the broth from evaporating, leaving the lid slightly cracked to prevent a boilover. If the broth runs low, simply add more or use water to top up the pot.