Kitchen Secrets with Our Cuban Chef – Sopa de Pollo Cubana

Sopa de pollo cubana is a whole dinner in one bowl. Chicken simmered on the bone until the broth turns gold, calabaza that softens at the edges and thickens everything around it, corn cut into rounds, potato, carrot, and a handful of fine noodles dropped in at the very end.

It is not a delicate soup. The broth carries cumin, oregano and garlic, and it takes its colour from annatto rather than saffron. The calabaza does the work a roux would do somewhere else: two or three pieces break down as they cook, and the liquid goes from thin to spoon-coating without any flour at all.

Plan on about two hours, most of it the pot sitting on low heat asking nothing of you. It needs you at two points: keeping the broth at a bare simmer, and holding the noodles back until the end.

How a Spanish noodle ended up in a Caribbean pot

The fideos are the giveaway. Thin wheat noodles have been made in Spain since the Middle Ages, part of what al-Andalus left behind in Iberian kitchens, and they crossed the Atlantic with Spanish cooking, as rice and chickpeas did. In Cuba they landed in the everyday pot of caldo de pollo and stayed there. Plenty of families use broken angel hair or small elbows instead, and nobody argues about it for long.

The other half of the bowl is older than the noodle. Maize and squash were grown across the Caribbean long before Spanish ships arrived. Calabaza, the dense orange-fleshed pumpkin sold in Latin markets, behaves nothing like the watery pumpkin sold for carving: it holds its shape for ten minutes, then starts giving itself up to the broth. Corn cut crosswise into rounds, cob and all, comes off the same shelf, and the cob seasons the liquid as it cooks. The same pair turns up in ajiaco criollo, the big-pot version of this idea.

Colour is the last piece. Spanish cooks reached for saffron; in Cuba annatto did the same job for a fraction of the price, usually as bijol, the yellow colouring powder sold in small jars and shaken into rice and soup alike. The soup also has a job beyond dinner. It is the first thing many Cuban households cook when somebody is unwell, made thinner then, with more broth and fewer noodles. La sopita. The rest of the time it is breakfast, lunch or supper.

Ingredients

  • 1 whole chicken, about 3 lb (1.4 kg), cut into 8 pieces, most of the skin removed
  • 3 litres (about 12 cups) cold water
  • 1 large white onion, half left whole, half finely diced
  • 1 green bell pepper, half left whole, half finely diced
  • 6 garlic cloves, 2 crushed and 4 finely chopped
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 teaspoons salt, plus more to finish
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1/2 teaspoon bijol, or 1/4 teaspoon ground annatto
  • 60 ml (1/4 cup) dry white cooking wine (vino seco)
  • 450 g (1 lb) calabaza, peeled and cut into 2.5 cm (1 inch) chunks
  • 2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 2.5 cm (1 inch) chunks
  • 2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1 cm coins
  • 2 ears of corn, cut crosswise into 2.5 cm (1 inch) rounds
  • 115 g (4 oz) fideos, or angel hair broken into short lengths
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 limes, cut into wedges
  • A small handful of cilantro, roughly chopped

How to make sopa de pollo cubana

  1. Rinse the chicken pieces and put them in a large pot with the cold water, the halved onion, the halved pepper, the 2 crushed garlic cloves, the bay leaves and 2 teaspoons of salt. Bring it up over medium heat, which takes 15 to 20 minutes, and skim the grey foam off the surface as it forms. Do not let it reach a rolling boil.
  2. Lower the heat until the surface barely moves, with bubbles breaking one at a time, and simmer partly covered for 45 to 55 minutes, until the meat pulls away from the drumstick bone with no resistance. Lift the chicken out onto a tray and leave it to cool for 10 minutes.
  3. Strain the broth through a sieve into a bowl and discard the onion, pepper, garlic and bay. Skim the fat from the top with a spoon, leaving a thin gloss behind. Return the broth to the pot; you want about 10 cups, so top it up with water if it has reduced past that.
  4. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and cook the diced onion and pepper for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring, until soft and just beginning to colour at the edges. Add the chopped garlic for 45 seconds, then the cumin, oregano and bijol for 30 seconds more, until the pan smells toasted rather than raw.
  5. Pour the vino seco into the pan, scrape the base clean with a wooden spoon and let it bubble for a minute. Scrape the whole sofrito into the broth and bring it back to a gentle simmer.
  6. Add the calabaza, potato, carrot and corn rounds. Simmer uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes, until a knife slides into the calabaza without pressure and two or three pieces have started to fall apart, which is what thickens the broth.
  7. While the vegetables cook, pull the chicken off the bones in bite-sized pieces and discard the skin and bones. Return the meat to the pot and let it warm through for 2 minutes.
  8. Stir in the fideos and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring twice so they do not settle and stick to the base. Taste for salt now rather than earlier, since the noodles change it. Take the pot off the heat, rest it for 5 minutes, then grind over black pepper and serve with lime wedges and cilantro at the table.

Chef’s notes

  • A hard boil ruins the broth. Once it rolls, the fat emulsifies into the liquid and the soup turns cloudy and greasy, and the breast meat goes stringy. If the surface starts churning, pull the pot half off the burner.
  • Cut the calabaza at an inch. Smaller and it disappears completely; larger and the middle is still firm when the noodles are done. An inch gives you both, pieces that hold and pieces that dissolve into the broth.
  • The noodles keep drinking after the heat is off. A pot left overnight comes back closer to a stew. That is not a failure. Loosen it with a cup of water or broth as you reheat. If you know there will be leftovers, cook the fideos separately and add them to each bowl.
  • Lime goes in the bowl, never in the pot. Acid simmered into the broth flattens out and dulls the cumin. Squeezed over the top at the table it does the opposite.

What to put beside the bowl

Most people want bread with it: a length of Cuban bread, pressed flat or not, to drag through what is left at the bottom. Some spoon white rice straight into the bowl, which is normal in Cuban houses and turns a first course into the whole meal. If you are feeding people who arrived hungry, a plate of croquetas on the table while the pot finishes buys you fifteen minutes.

Serve it hotter than you think it needs to be, because the calabaza holds heat and the surface can be misleading. Ladle from the bottom so every bowl gets chicken, a corn round and a piece or two of squash instead of just noodles. Keep the lime wedges within reach. If you would rather not run the pot at home, chicken noodle soup is on our menu and you can order it for pickup with the rest of your food.

Come compare it with ours

Make it once at home and you will taste what your kitchen does differently: more cumin, less annatto, noodles left a minute longer than they should be. Then come see how we run it. We are at 5555 S 78th St in Tampa, open from 5am on weekdays, with the full menu available for online ordering and pickup, and catering trays if you are feeding a crowd. Call (813) 450-2176 if you want a large order of soup held for a particular time.

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