Asopao

Asopao is a Caribbean stew dish with many choice of ingredients to prepare. It can be made with chicken, pork, beef, shrimp seafood, vegetables, or any combination of the above.

Asopao is typically flavored with wine, stock, bay leaf and oregano, along with sofrito, olives, capers, and rice being the most important part.  There are many variants of this popular dish.

The chicken version (asopao de pollo) is usually served with plantain dumplings. It's a common holiday dish for Christmas, and during Octavitas and Los Tres Reyes Magos celebrations.[6] Asopao de pollo can also include beer, smocked ham, ham hock, corn on the cob with more smoky seasoning cumin, annatto and coriander seeds.

Asopao de marisco is second popular after asopao de pollo. It includes clams, shrimp, squid, octopus, fish, lobster, crab, scallops, and mussels.

Asopao de gandules replaces rice with pigeon peas. Meat (usually roasted pork, beef or oxtail) and dumplings made from green banana, plantains, root vegetables, squash, annatto, milk, eggs and flour. The dumplings are made into golf size balls and often seasoned with herbs. They are fried before dropped into the soup

Versions of asopao are found in many Caribbean locales, including the Dominican Republic, where the addition of chicharrones de pollo (small bits of fried chicken or chicken skin) is characteristic or coconut milk and shrimp.