Asopao de Pollo

📜 Origin & History

Asopao de Pollo (Spanish: Chicken Asopao; English: Puerto Rican Chicken Rice Stew) is the most popular everyday Puerto Rican dish: a creamy rice stew made with braised chicken (Pollo; Gallus gallus domesticus), short-grain rice (Arroz), sofrito (recaito made from recao/culantro, ají dulce, garlic, and onions), tomato sauce (Salsa de tomate), olives (Aceitunas), and capers (Alcaparras). Asopao de Pollo is the ultimate Puerto Rican comfort food: it is served during illness, as a Sunday lunch (Almuerzo dominical), and at celebrations. Sofrito is the soul of asopao: the herbal paste made from recao (Eryngium foetidum; culantro) and ají dulce (sweet Caribbean chilis) is the characteristic flavor of Puerto Rican cuisine. Olives and capers (Alcaparrado; mixed olives-capers mixture) are typical of Puerto Rican-Spanish colonial cuisine: Spanish immigrants brought these Mediterranean ingredients to the island. Puerto Rico (population: approx. 3.2 million; area: 9,104 km²) is an unincorporated U.S. territory in the Caribbean: the island lies between the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea, east of the Dominican Republic. In Germany, sofrito (pre-packaged in Latin American stores) and all other ingredients are available.