MIXING MOGULS
Incubator develops culinary talents
ANA MATOS believes the city’s best recipe for sofrito — the seasoning mix she uses to flavor everything from beans to steak to shrimp — is the one she prepares in her own Bronx kitchen.
So, the Dominican chef is planning to package her fresh, all-natural mixture as “Ana del Campo” sofrito and sell it by the pound to restaurant kitchens and shoppers at bodegas and supermarkets.
“The recipe is perfected,” she said. “We’re ready to roll out in May. I think we’re going to have a big impact.”
Matos, 40, is one of the newest members of HBK Incubates, a business development program run by the Harlem nonprofit bakery Hot Bread Kitchen.
The program — one of several business incubators supported by the city’s Economic Development Corp. — helps entrepreneurs get started by renting commercial kitchen space at below market rates and offering classes and other support.
They also have workshops once a month on topics like logo design.
The incubator, which opened inside the East Harlem marketplace La Marqueta in January 2011, accepts new members three times a year. The next application deadline is next month.
“Interview day is fun because we get to taste all of their foods," said Hot Bread Kitchen founder and executive director Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez.
But tasty goods aren’t the only measure of success, she said.
“It’s not about just having a good product — it’s about having things in place to be an entrepreneur,” Waldman said.
Having a type-a personality is also pretty important, she added.
Right now, nine of HBK’S 24 members are immigrant entrepreneurs, said Sandra Vu, who runs the incubator program.
Budding businesses include a chocolate-maker, a few catering businesses, a gourmet Mexican popsicle-maker and an aromatic cocktail bitter company called “Hella Bitter.”
The three prep rooms and four equipment stations at HBK are inspected by the Health Department, so startups can legally make the leap from a home kitchen to bigger production.
One room is temperature-controlled for confectioners.
“It’s a nice culinary community here,” Vu said.
As she talked, Matos was hard at work mixing up a batch of her sofrito to give out as samples, adding fresh cilantro to a big stainless steel industrial blender.
Her husband, Jose Medina, also donned a hair net to help out. “I’m Ana’s assistant,” he said. Matos added in bright bell peppers, garlic and onions — and poured in juice from sour oranges and limes.
“She’s been making it from her home,” Vu said.
“Now, they’re just on the verge of exploding.”