Sancocho (Chicken and root soup) (Puerto Rican)

To be honest, this Puerto Rican traditional soup isn't that exotic to us, given the fact that except for the sweet potato it's almost exactly like a good old Romanian chicken soup that everyone in our country ate often. And except the fact that the soup pasta we use is more like broken vermicelli than the longer and thicker spaghetti used here. But the fact that it tasted common to us does not mean it wasn't delicious. We realized how similar to our childhood soup this was the moment we saw the recipe; and it was even more of a reason to make it. We still labeled it as Puerto Rican because we followed the recipe exactly and because our "world kitchen" gallery strives to collect as many ethnic dishes as possible, but all in all it tasted like home to us :). Enjoy.

Recipe source: Saveur.

Last year: another kind of bun in the oven (and taking a break from cooking due to morning sickness).




Ingredients (serves 4-6):

• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 medium onion
• 3 garlic cloves
• 3 medium carrots
• 3-4 potatoes
• 1 tomato
• 1 large sweet potato
• a few sprigs of fresh cilantro
• 1-2 tablespoons dried cilantro
• a large slice of celery root
• 2 liters chicken stock
• 200 g chicken
• a few dry spaghetti (30-40 g)
• salt and pepper to taste

Chop up the onion and garlic and put them with the oil in the soup pot. Fry them a little, then add the finely chopped or pureed tomato:

After you fry them some more (about 3-4 minutes), add the chicken, cut into pieces:

Stir once in a while. After the chicken is (mostly) cooked, at least on the outside, add the stock:

Start chopping up the peeled root vegetables and the greens:

Add them too to the pot and boil for 10 minutes. Add the spaghetti:

Boil for 5-7 more minutes (or according to the spaghetti package instructions). Check the seasoning, add more cilantro, salt or pepper to your taste. Transfer to soup bowls and serve warm. Dig in! :)