hearty soups IV: porotos granados, Chilean bean and corn stew

 This soup is adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's cookbook Veg: River Cottage Everyday. Again, another great British chef I had not heard of...I saw this book at Synne's and fell in love with the images and simple recipe ideas. I just had to have it, although it doesn't come out in the US edition until May 2013. So we're using grams and liters, and "tinned" beans instead of canned. :) If you have a kitchen scale, metric is easier anyways than measuring cups, and for things like soups the measurements don't need to be exact anyways.

This is a take on the traditional Chilean stew porotos granados, a combination of old-world ingredients that (according to the internet) pre-dates the Spanish, from the Mapuche Indians. I guess it is traditionally made with cranberry beans. See here for how beautiful they are, by "Hungry Sofia." I am dealing with winter and the lack of fresh most things, so I used canned cannellini beans.  Other recipes call for the addition of bell pepper and basil instead of cilantro. But the common ingredients are sqaush/pumpkin, beans, sweet paprika, corn. I followed the lead of a recommendation on Saveur to add a swirl of a garlicy-herb paste into the soup. I found it a bit bland without the addition of lots of salt, pepper and herbs at the end. Then it was nice and fresh tasting - so season well.

porotos granados, Chilean bean and corn stew

2 T oil
1 med onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsps sweet smoked paprika
1 tsp cumin
2 T oregano or marjoram, chopped
400g canned cannellini beans
1 liter veg stock (4 cups)
1 bay leaf
750 g squash, peeled, cubed (about 1 medium squash)
200 g French beans, trimmed
kernels from 2 cobs corn, or 1 1/2 cup frozen corn
salt and pepper

herb-garlic pesto
cilantro, parsley, clove garlic, salt, squeeze of lemon, olive oil

First cook the onions until soft, adding in garlic. Cook another 2 mins, add paprika, cumin, and 1 T (1 tsp if dried) oregano. Add canned ("tinned," love it) beans, and squash, and stock, stir, simmer 10-15 minutes. Add french beans and corn, simmer 5 minutes. Season well: 1 tsp salt and plenty of pepper, stir in oregano and let sit a few minutes. To serve, mix the herb-garlic pesto and stir into the soup. 

Again, the price check for this soup came out to about $8.00 total, if you have spices/oil/stock on hand. Prep time 30 minutes, serves 6 for less than $1.50 a serving.

And this concludes our series of "hearty soups" for Michael. :) Leftovers for at least 12 meals now in the freezer.  He said his favorite was the jamaican jerk chili, but it was nice to have the vegetarian soups, too. This one was the lightest of the four.