kitchen skills
Sharpen Your Knife Skills From dicing onions to tackling tomatoes, hone your skills and use the vegetables in a go-to Spanish sofrito. BY JASON ROSS
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ometimes without even knowing what I am making for dinner, I find myself dicing an onion. It is central to so many dishes that it is the place where dinner begins. With that in mind, let’s run through a little knife skills check-up for dicing a variety of vegetables you probably already have at home, including the onion. Then, use those sharpened knife skills to make Spanish sofrito, which is a flavor base that, like the diced onion, is the first step in so many meals. The next time you are not sure what’s for dinner, just start dicing and see what happens. Make sofrito into your go-to flavor base and use it to make meals all week long. This fragrant tomato-based blend of herbs, spices, and vegetables is used to season countless dishes. Add it to cooked beans with a little broth for more delicious beans. Add chicken and seafood to the rice recipe here and you have the basics of a classic paella, minus the saffron. Any brothy soup would be improved with sofrito. Cook ground beef with sofrito and a little wine and water, and you have the makings of a great meat sauce. Or add roux and you might be inspired to make all types of gumbos. The uses for sofrito are long and plentiful. Who doesn’t like more flavor?
PHOTOGRAPHY TERRY BRENNAN FOOD STYLING LARA MIKLASEVICS
Red Rice Flavored with Sofrito MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS
Here is a recipe for flavorful red rice to show off all your knife skills. Start by making a sofrito base to flavor and color the rice. Then crank up the heat a little for a brown and crusty bite where the rice sticks to the pot. 2 1 2 1 ½ 1½ 2
tablespoons olive oil onion, diced small cloves garlic, smashed and minced rib celery, diced small red pepper diced small teaspoons salt medium tomatoes, diced small
1. Using a medium-sized pot with a tight-fitting lid, heat the oil on medium-low heat, and add the onions, garlic, celery, and red pepper. Sprinkle in the salt and cook for about 10 to 15 minutes stirring occasionally until the vegetables are softened, translucent, and just starting to brown. Look for
½ cup canned crushed tomatoes, with juice 1½ cups long grain white rice 2 cups water ½ tablespoon unsalted butter (optional)
browning around the edges of the pan. 2. Add the tomatoes and cook for another 10 to 15 minutes, scraping up any brown bits stuck to the edges of the pan. Look for a jammy consistency with most of the liquid from the tomatoes cooked out and the edges of the pan starting to brown again.
6 real food fall 2022
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7/7/22 4:58 PM
