Black Bean Soup With Salsa And Sour Cream

Recipe Ingredients

		Soup
1 lb	454g / 16oz	Dried black beans or
2		Black beans - (15 oz ea)
8 cups	1896ml	Water
1		Italian parsley - stems removed
1		Cilantro - stems removed
8		Dried red chiles - stemmed, seeded
8		Garlic cloves - chopped
		Zest of 1 Mexican or 1/2 regular lime
		Juice of 3 Mexican or 2 regular limes
2 tablespoons	30ml	Olive oil
2		Onions - finely chopped
		Rum - (optional)
6 cups	1422ml	Turkey stock - more if needed
1/2 cup	118ml	Sour cream
		Salsa
3		Peeled seeded tomatoes - chopped
		Coarse salt
		Freshly-ground black pepper - to taste

Recipe Instructions

For the salsa, stir tomatoes into remaining lime herb paste. Season with sea salt and pepper. Serve as garnish with soup. (Makes about 1 1/2 cups)

Rinse dried beans, then place in large pot with water. Bring to boil over medium heat and cook 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand 4 to 6 hours, until beans are slightly softened.

Spread parsley and cilantro on cutting board and chop roughly. Cut each chili into 8 parts and sprinkle over partly chopped herbs. (Take care not to touch your eyes and to wash your hands immediately after handling the chilies).

Sprinkle garlic over herbs. Grate lime zest over herbs. Once these are in a workable pile, chop with cleaver until you have a fine green spice paste. You should have about 1 cup. Place 1/2 paste in small bowl. Add lime juice. Stir, cover, and set aside somewhere cool. You'll be making salsa with this shortly.

Put olive oil in 8-quart heavy-bottomed pot and heat over medium-high heat until oil reaches smoking point. Quickly reduce heat to low and add onions and spice paste. Stir to coat onions with oil and mixture, making sure nothing is burning, and cover, allowing onions to soften for about 20 minutes. (A sudden herbaceous perfume rises and bystanders come sniffing around.)

Once onions are translucent and sugary, add splash of rum, give it a couple of seconds to cook off, and add black beans. Stir well. Add 6 cups turkey stock or more if needed -- enough that beans are covered by several inches in what looks a suddenly disheartening greasy green water.

Raise heat to medium-high to reach a boil, then reduce to low and simmer 2 hours, uncovered, if using dried beans, and 1 hour if using canned beans. Check occasionally to see beans are not drying out; if so, add more stock.

Once done, puree beans in blender in batches. Soup will be thick enough to serve as a bean paste, or you can add enough stock to thin it to soup consistency. Serve it with plenty of Salsa and sour cream.

This recipe yields 8 to 10 servings.

Each of 10 servings, with salsa and sour cream: 210 calories; 512 mg sodium; 6 mg cholesterol; 7 grams fat; 27 grams carbohydrates; 12 grams protein; 2.28 grams fiber.

Source:
The Los Angeles Times, 11-24-1999

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