How to Cook Cuban Black Bean Soup
Serves: 8
Preparation time: overnight
Cooking time: 5 hours
Ingredients needed to make Cuban Black Bean Soup:
- 1 lb black beans, dried
- 1 smoked ham hock
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1/3 cup cider vinegar
- ½ cup olive oil
- Sour cream, for serving
- Chopped red pepper, for garnishing
Cooking instructions for Cuban Black Bean Soup:
- Rinse the black beans under running cold water and toss them into a 4 quart stock pot with a lid.
- Fill it up with cold water until the beans remain completely immersed in it and set aside overnight to soak.
- Tip the contents of the pot into a colander to drain out the water and pour fresh cold water into the pot again.
- Throw in the chopped green pepper, garlic and onions, along with the ham hock.
- Drizzle a lashing of olive oil into it and stir them all together to mix well.
- Sprinkle a couple of tsp salt and lots of ground black pepper into the mixture, give it a nice stir and cook it over high heat until it starts boiling.
- Skim off the froth floating on the surface of the soup and lower the heat to low.
- Put the lid on and simmer the soup for about 4-5 hours or until the beans soften and makes the soup creamy and thick
- While the soup simmers, check the doneness of the beans after a couple of hours and pour in a cup of water in case it tends to appear dry.
- As the cooking time approached the end, the soup becomes thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and had a velvety texture.
- Continue simmering the soup until the beans turn mushy and breaks down to thicken the soup even further.
- Whisk in a splash of vinegar and cook further for another 15 minutes without the lid.
- Ladle it into soup bowls and add a dollop of sour cream on top of each serving.
- Sprinkle chopped peppers on top and serve warm alongside sweet fried bananas.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
