Taste Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
A Caribbean island and US territory whose cocina criolla runs on sofrito, plantain, pork and rice coloured orange with annatto.
Puerto Rican cooking starts with sofrito, a green blend of onion, pepper, garlic, culantro and coriander, and adobo, the garlic and oregano rub on every piece of meat. Plantain is pounded into mofongo, fried into tostones, layered into pastelón and grated into pasteles at Christmas. Rice is cooked with pigeon peas and left to form a crust. Pork is roasted whole on the lechón route in Guavate or as pernil in the home oven. Fritters, from alcapurrias to bacalaítos, are sold on the beach. Desserts are coconut and cinnamon: tembleque, arroz con dulce, flan.
5 recipes · 1 cuisine
All dishes 5
- 50 min
Mofongo
Fried green plantain pounded in a mortar with garlic and pork crackling, shaped into a dome and served with broth or stewed meat.
Medium
- 1 hr
Arroz con gandules
Puerto Rico's rice with pigeon peas, sofrito, olives and annatto-tinted oil, cooked in one pot with a crust on the bottom.
Easy
- 17 hr 50 min
Pernil
Pernil al horno
Puerto Rican slow-roasted pork shoulder, marinated overnight in garlic, oregano and vinegar, with skin blistered into cuerito.
Easy
- 1 hr 35 min
Pastelón
Pastelón de plátano maduro
Puerto Rican sweet plantain lasagne: layers of fried ripe plantain, seasoned beef picadillo and cheese, set with beaten egg.
Medium
- 4 hr 20 min
Tembleque
Puerto Rican coconut pudding set with cornstarch until it wobbles, dusted with cinnamon. Four ingredients and a saucepan.
Very easy
Regional cuisines
Think you know Puerto Rico food?
5 quiz dishes. Optional — Passport stamps still come from cooking.
Take the Puerto Rico food quizFood history
Taíno, Spanish and West African cooking fused on the island over four centuries of sugar and coffee. Annatto, cassava and the barbacoa are Taíno; rice, pork, olives, capers and the sofrito method are Spanish; plantain, pigeon peas and pounding are African. American rule from 1898 added tinned goods, Spam and, later, fast food, without displacing the criolla kitchen. Mid-century cookbooks codified the dishes, and the diaspora in New York made them American.
Common ingredients
Techniques
- sofrito base
- adobo marinating
- pounding in a pilón
- slow roasting pork
- absorption rice with pegao
- setting coconut puddings