It gives me goose bumps every time I remember the long lines that formed in front of José Enrique’s restaurant in San Juan every afternoon at 5 o’clock in the weeks after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. Drawing on the amazing skills of José himself and his team, we were able to make sancocho, the humble meat-and-vegetable stew that has long been a staple of the island. The first day we served maybe a hundred people. Then the next day, a few hundred. By the end of the week people were lining up for hours to have a bowl of this beautiful stew.
I had been shopping at a big food distributor, just looking for anything to buy that would feed a lot of people. They had bags of chopped vegetables for sancocho that were perfect for us—no prep, ready to go. The owners said it would take weeks to go through their supply of sancocho vegetables; it took us two days.
Sancocho is a hearty dish, especially when it’s 95˚F out. But I have always been told that hot food in hot weather cools people down. (Just ask anyone in Southeast Asia.) More than cooling those people down, though, it filled them up—their bellies and their souls in a moment of great need. Anyone who was in line got a bowl. José Enrique and I would be behind a little wall between the street and restaurant, passing them out as quickly as we could ladle them. We’d serve all those people one by one—poor and rich alike.
We served sancocho to more than 10,000 people in those early days after Maria. We had an incredible team of cooks—Wilo, Manolo, Mario, Enrique, and so many others—who came together and cooked as if their lives depended on it, because other people’s lives did depend on it. It was a devastating time for millions of people, but it says all you need to know about the people of Puerto Rico that I remember those first few weeks as the most important I’ve ever spent as a cook.
SERVES 6 TO 8
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 large sweet onion, such as Maui or Vidalia, coarsely chopped
4 scallions, sliced into ¼-inch pieces
3 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
6 plum tomatoes, blanched and peeled, halved, seeded, and diced, or one 28-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
1 tablespoon finely ground achiote or sweet paprika
2 green or half-ripe (closer to yellow) plantains, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 yucca (1 pound each), peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces (see Note)
2 ears corn, shucked, silks removed, and cut into thirds
4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1 pound boneless pork shoulder, cut into 1½-inch pieces
1½ tablespoons kosher salt, or to taste
2 cups chopped culantro (a type of coriander popular in Latin cooking) or cilantro
4 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
TO SERVE
4 cups cooked rice (or Really Good Garlic Rice)
4 Hass avocados, halved, pitted, peeled, and each half cut lengthwise in half
Small cilantro sprigs
2 limes, quartered
Hot sauce, preferably Salsa Pique Puertorriqueña
Heat the olive oil in a large enameled cast-iron casserole over medium-high heat. Add the onion and scallions and cook until softened and golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes have broken down, the liquid is reduced, and the tomatoes are beginning to stick to the bottom of the casserole.
Stir in the achiote and cook for a minute or two, then add the plantains, yucca, corn, chicken, pork, and salt. Stir in 1 cup of the culantro. Add enough water to cover, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes, until the meat is tender and cooked through.
Transfer the chicken and pork to a plate and set aside. Add the potatoes to the casserole and cook until tender, about 20 minutes.
While the potatoes cook, remove the chicken meat from the bones. Chop the meat into small pieces or shred it with your fingers.
Return the chicken and pork to the sancocho and stir in the remaining 1 cup culantro. Cook the stew for 3 minutes more, giving it a good stir so everything is nice and blended together. Season with salt.
Serve the stew hot, with the rice, avocados, cilantro, lime slices, and hot sauce alongside.
NOTE: Yucca is usually sold coated with wax. Use a sturdy vegetable peeler to remove the skin. Then cut each yucca crosswise into thirds. Quarter each piece, then cut out the woody center if there is one.