I’ve known this day was coming for a while: a black bean soup day.
Along with chile and a few other dishes, it’s one of those meals that I’ve been cooking my entire adult life. I don’t really need cookbooks for it, but I will sometimes look at my entire collection to see which books have a good template or some good variant ideas about how to approach it just to keep me on my toes.
I was a bit surprised this morning to see how few of my books actually have a recipe for black bean soup, especially the more recent ones. Maybe it’s one of those things that seems so old hat that it’s not worth it, or maybe people just don’t make it that much any more, I dunno. Sheila Lukins’ USA Cookbook has a recipe that’s pretty much my template—in fact, I suspect that it’s probably what I used to use back when I first made black bean soup, considering that the Silver Palate authors were effectively my main tutors in my autodidactical journey into cooking. There’s a Melissa Clark recipe that the NYT Cooking app features that’s not a soup, more like a stew, but a good black bean soup often is pretty close to being a stew anyway.
The basics for any black bean soup I make generally include:
A sofrito of onion, garlic, dried chiles, and fresh sweet peppers, maybe with some carrots and celery. Lukins calls for putting some annato seeds in the cooking oil first which I think is a nice idea in terms of the color of the end stew, so I’ll do that.
Ham hocks, red wine and a cilantro bundle to flavor the broth along with the beans, with the hocks being pulled out when the meat is falling off the bone, returning the meat to the soup. A bit of brown sugar too. Fresh chopped tomatoes and sweet peppers near the end.
Pureeing some of the beans in broth about 45 minutes before the soup is ready. Black bean soup should be chunky but with some smooth texture to it as well.
Sour cream, cheese, and spicy sausage as toppings. Clark’s stew recipe has the sour cream mixed with lime juice, which is a good idea.
So that’s what’s ahead for the afternoon, with the Phillies game on in the background.
This sounds so good!