Regional highlights
La bandera dominicana
Dominican Republic's daily everyman lunch — "the Dominican flag": white rice (the white stripe), red kidney beans (habichuelas, the red), stewed chicken or beef (pollo or carne guisada, the meat) and a side of green salad and fried green plantains (tostones). Hits all four base foods of the cuisine on one plate. Eaten at midday at every comedor (small lunch restaurant), every working-class lunch counter, and every household across the country. The flagship of Dominican cooking.
Mangú con los tres golpes
The Dominican breakfast — boiled green plantain mashed with butter, olive oil and onion (mangú), topped with three savoury "blows": fried Dominican salami (salami dominicano), fried Dominican cheese (queso frito), and a fried egg. Dense, savoury, deeply filling; the signature start to a Dominican workday. The mashed plantain underneath is the Caribbean cousin of fufu, with West African roots.
Sancocho
The Dominican national soup — a thick, rich stew of meat (or in the celebratory version sancocho de siete carnes, seven meats including chicken, beef, pork, goat, ribs, ham hock and Dominican longaniza) with yuca, plantain, yam, ñame, sweet potato, corn cob, taro and a generous pour of sazón. Slow-cooked for hours until the broth turns dark and unctuous. Eaten at Sunday family lunches, Christmas tables, and after-rain Saturdays. Served with white rice on the side and a slice of avocado on top.
Mofongo dominicano
Mashed fried green plantain pounded with garlic, olive oil, salt and chicharrón (fried pork cracklings) into a dense, garlicky dome, often served in a small wooden bowl alongside a meat or seafood gravy. The Dominican version is slightly looser and sometimes finished with Dominican longaniza sausage. The Puerto Rican neighbour is the better-known mofongo, but the Dominican version has its own character.
Tostones
Twice-fried green plantain rounds — slices fried gently first, then flattened (smashed) with a tostonera press and fried again until crisp on the outside and tender inside. Salted and served with mayo-ketchup or wasakaka (Dominican garlic-and-lime hot sauce). The Dominican everyday side, served with la bandera, with grilled fish, and as a beer snack.
Casabe
Dominican Republic's flat cassava bread — a direct survival from Taíno (Indigenous) cuisine, dating to before European contact. Yuca (cassava) is grated, the toxic juice pressed out, and the dry flour baked on a hot griddle into thin, crisp, slightly sweet rounds. Eaten as a side to fish soup, broken into stews, or topped with avocado and salt. Sold by weight at every market and grocery store.
Pasteles en hoja
Dominican Christmas tamales — green plantain and yautía (taro) grated together into a smooth dough, wrapped around a spiced pork or chicken filling with capers, raisins and olives, packaged in banana leaves and tied with kitchen string, then boiled for hours. Made by the bag-load in family kitchens for Christmas Eve and shared through the festive period. The plantain-based dough distinguishes them from the corn-based tamales of mainland Latin America.
Habichuelas con dulce
"Sweet beans" — a uniquely Dominican Easter dessert of red kidney beans cooked with coconut milk, evaporated milk, sweet potato, sugar, cinnamon, cloves and raisins, served chilled with a few sweet biscuits floating on top. Sounds odd, tastes wonderful — sweet, creamy, fragrant with spice, the beans almost dissolved into the cream. Made for Lent and Easter; many Dominican families consider this the symbol of the season.
Yaniqueque
Crisp, golden flat fried bread — flour, water, salt and a touch of butter rolled thin and fried in oil until shatteringly crisp on the outside. Sold at beach kiosks (the name comes from "johnny cake" via Caribbean English) and at street stalls, eaten as a snack with a sprinkle of salt or alongside fried fish and cold beer. Especially popular at Boca Chica and Juan Dolio beaches.
Chimichurri (chimi)
Dominican Republic's burger — a thick beef patty with chopped cabbage, onion, tomato and a sweet-spicy mayonnaise sauce in a soft pan de agua roll. Sold at street trucks (chimicheras) parked on the streets of Santo Domingo and Santiago after dark. Rich, messy, slightly sweet, the indispensable late-night Dominican street food. Nothing to do with the Argentinian chimichurri sauce — the name has a different origin.
Pescado frito con tostones
Whole small fish (snapper, mojarra, mackerel) seasoned with sazón, dredged lightly and fried until the skin shatters and the flesh stays moist. Served with tostones, white rice and a small salad. The default Dominican beach lunch, sold at every coastal village's small fish stalls and palapa restaurants. Eaten with the fingers; the fish sauce on the side is wasakaka.
Tres leches
"Three milks" cake — a sponge cake soaked with a mixture of evaporated milk, condensed milk and heavy cream until impossibly moist, topped with whipped cream and sometimes a layer of cinnamon. The pan-Latin American dessert lives strongly on Dominican Republic; many bakeries claim variations on the original. Eaten chilled, dripping wet, deeply sweet.