We’re halfway through winter here and I hadn’t even thought about either The Bread & Soup Project or The L (Locro) Word project. I’ve been making plenty of soups and stews for us to eat at home, but just hadn’t headed back into exploration territory. Time to get cracking!
This, certainly, is one of the furthest afield locros that I’ve found. Other than being a soup, there’s not a whole lot in it that seems connected to the other types of locros I’ve already explored. Then again, who knows what future ventures hold in store?
In simplest terms, and this is a very simple preparation, this is a bean and cabbage soup. Still, it shows up in the Colombian cuisine canon as locro de porotos, or bean locro, so it’s fair game.
First, we’re going to make our aji, an ostensible hot sauce, to accompany the locro. The recommended ones that I found were either an ají de piña or an ají de tamarillo – the tamarillos, or tree tomatoes, have come and gone here, and pineapples are not in season. But, I took some license, since the recipe for the pineapple version has added sugar, I decided to go with canned pineapple and just leave off the extra sugar. Here we’ve got tangerines, pineapple, red onion, leek, rocotos (the closest I was going to get to a Colombian ají dulce here), and cilantro. If you’re using fresh pineapple, add in a spoonful or two of sugar, or at least that’s the tradition.
You want to end up with equal amounts of each, so you may not need to chop or squeeze all of the above – you want it to even out – here, basically, 1/4 cup of each.
Mixed together. Oddly, none of the recipes I found for this ají include salt – I don’t know if it’s just a given, or if they really don’t put any in it. But after tasting it, I added about a half teaspoon, because the flavor just didn’t pop. I set it aside for an hour or so while preparing the locro itself.
As I said, it’s a pretty simple soup. Precook some white beans to the point where they’re almost done – you don’t want to go fully soft, because they’re going to cook another half hour or so with the other ingredients, and you don’t want mush. The rest – green onion, cilantro, cabbage, red onion, achiote (annatto) powder, salt, pepper, and cumin.
Chop up the onion, the cilantro, the green onion, and coarsely chop the cabbage.
The green onion and cilantro are actually a garnish, so just mix them together and set them aside. The soup is getting simpler by the moment. I also retasted the ají de piña, and while Colombian hot sauces do tend to be mild, for us, we like a little more kick, so I added a chopped ají amarillo to the mix. Not traditional, but, so be it.
Saute the chopped onions in a little oil with the achiote powder until soft.
Add the beans and the remaining spices, stir well.
Top off with water, bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add the cabbage, bring back to a simmer, and cook for another 15-20 minutes until the cabbage is soft.
And, that’s really all there is to it. The locro de porotos is done. Adjust the seasoning if need be.
And serve, garnished with a little of the cilantro and green onion, and the ají de piña for people to add to their own tastes.
It is a tasty little bean soup, though just doesn’t have the complexity or oomph of the other locros we’ve tried so far. But, easy and cheap to make, and certainly warming for the winter season. And hey, vegetarian, even vegan!
