Creamy Chicken Soup — The Sofrito Is Already Waiting

Three more weeks until Mami arrives. I have the apartment, the furniture, the kitchen stocked, the grab bars, the cream walls. I have a schedule for her first week — Tuesday she arrives, Wednesday she rests, Thursday she comes for dinner, Friday I take her to the doctor because eighty-one-year-olds who have survived a hurricane need to see a doctor immediately. Saturday is her first Sunday dinner. Wait, Saturday is not Sunday. Sunday is her first Sunday dinner. I will not rush Sunday for anyone, not even Mami.

At the hospital, I had a conversation with my supervisor about succession planning. She said, Carmen, you have been here twenty years. Have you thought about what happens when you retire? I said, I am fifty-two years old. I am not retiring. She said, Not now. Eventually. I said, Eventually is not now. Now is now, and now I need to order forty cases of chicken breast and six cases of aji dulce from the specialty produce vendor, and if eventually wants to discuss retirement it can make an appointment. She laughed. I was not entirely joking. Retirement is a word I cannot process right now because processing retirement would mean imagining a life where I do not feed fifteen hundred people a day, and that life does not exist in my imagination. My imagination stops at the kitchen door.

Eduardo and I went furniture shopping for Mami apartment. We bought a recliner — a comfortable one, the kind that tilts back and has a lever on the side and costs more than my first month rent in Hartford in 1988. Mami deserves a recliner. Mami has been sitting in hard chairs and kitchen stools for eighty-one years, and her first piece of furniture in her Hartford apartment is going to be soft and gentle because the woman has earned softness. She has earned gentle. She has earned every inch of tilt-back that recliner provides.

Made a big batch of sofrito and divided it between my freezer and Mami freezer because when she arrives, the sofrito needs to be waiting. Sofrito waiting in the freezer is the Puerto Rican equivalent of a welcome mat. It says: this is your kitchen. This is your foundation. You belong here. The food is ready. You are home.

Called Mami. I said, Your recliner is waiting. She said, What color? I said, Blue. She said, I wanted green. I said, Mami, you never told me you wanted green. She said, I should not have to tell you, Carmen. You should know. I should know. She is right. Daughters should know. I exchanged the recliner for a green one the next day. Some things are worth the trip to the furniture store. A mother comfort is worth everything.

The sofrito is already in both freezers — mine and the one in Mami’s apartment — and that means the first meal is already halfway done. When she arrives, tired from the flight and eighty-one years of hard chairs, this is the soup I will make: built on that frozen sofrito base, thick and golden and exactly the kind of thing you eat when someone loves you enough to have the kitchen ready before you even land. I have made this soup a hundred times, but this batch will be the one that matters most.

Creamy Chicken Soup with Sofrito

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 tablespoons sofrito (homemade or frozen, thawed)
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup whole milk or evaporated milk
• 2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced
• 2 medium carrots, sliced into rounds
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• Salt to taste
• Fresh cilantro, chopped, for garnish

Instructions

1. Build the sofrito base. Heat olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the sofrito and cook, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes until fragrant and the oil turns a deep orange-red.
2. Sauté the aromatics. Add the diced onion and cook for 4 to 5 minutes until softened. Stir in the garlic, cumin, oregano, smoked paprika, and black pepper and cook for 1 minute more.
3. Brown the chicken. Add the chicken pieces in a single layer. Cook undisturbed for 3 minutes, then stir and cook another 2 minutes until lightly golden on the outside. The chicken does not need to be cooked through at this stage.
4. Dust with flour. Sprinkle the flour over the chicken and vegetable mixture and stir well to coat. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes to eliminate the raw flour taste.
5. Add broth and vegetables. Pour in the chicken broth and stir to combine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom. Add the potatoes and carrots. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a steady simmer. Cook for 18 to 20 minutes until potatoes and carrots are fork-tender.
6. Finish with milk and corn. Reduce heat to low. Stir in the milk and frozen corn. Simmer gently — do not boil — for 5 minutes until the soup thickens to a creamy consistency and the corn is heated through. Taste and adjust salt as needed.
7. Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh chopped cilantro. Serve with crusty bread or white rice alongside.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 32g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 26g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 420mg