Cooking Dominican Style Spaguettis

AlterEgo

Administrator
Staff member
Jan 9, 2009
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South Coast
What kind sauce did you make? I've been horrified to see Dominicans water down ketchup for spaghetti.
 
Sep 4, 2012
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Pasta de Tomate, sofrito with onions, garlic, peppers, vinegar and olives, added evaporated milk to the sauce at the end.
 

jstarebel

Silver
Oct 4, 2013
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The one thing my wife cooks that is absolutely horrible is spaghetti. sauce is tomato Dominican style and uses onion, peppers, and green olives. Usually with chicken. ICK.. Refuses to use hamburger. I disliked it so much that I cooked her chicken pasta Alfredo and was lucky enough that she liked it. Of course she now adds cilantro and the green olives to her version, but it's actually very good, and I no longer have to eat Dominican style spaghetti. It's the worst.
 

dv8

Gold
Sep 27, 2006
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half a cup of oil, half a cup of sopita, half a cup of tomato paste. voila. ready to spit.
 

Cdn_Gringo

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Apr 29, 2014
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Pasta in and of itself has no taste of its own so is wholly dependent on the sauce and other ingredients for flavor. Sauces (in general) are not a strong point in Dominican cooking. I do not know if this is the result of limited spices being readily available in a Dominican kitchen or a lack of knowledge on how sauces can and should be prepared and used. A recipe calling for a sauce based on a tomato reduction is a recipe for disaster in this country. A decent veloute is completely foreign here. Apart from a heart stopping amount of salt, seasoning is not well understood. Ask many Dominicans to start with a roux, and they look at you like you are speaking English.

In my opinion, the majority of Dominican dishes are pragmatic creations based on ingredients with little or no thought given to flavor enhancement in both preparation technique and sauce utilization. Tomato sauce is not spaghetti sauce regardless of what it says on the can.

Dominicans do make some flavorful soups and stews with a well prepared Sancocho being one example. I am of the opinion that Sancocho was stumbled upon by accident and the long simmering times just happened to work out rather than being a deliberately concocted dish. With the tempering of the desire to throw handfuls of salt at a recipe and the understanding of how to prepare a decent sauce, Dominican cooking could improve by leaps and bounds.