Red Bean Soup

⏳ Time

1 hour + 12 hours

🥕 Ingredients

🍽️ Servings

Description

Lobio in Georgian cuisine can be served hot or cold, made with green or red beans. In Kakheti, where this recipe originates, it is served like a soup, with a generous amount of herbs and garlic. The finishing touch is a couple of drops of golden Kakhetian oil. While we may not find oil with such a rich roasted seed aroma, in its absence, you can use unrefined cold-pressed sunflower oil from the Kuban region, which is available at our local markets.

Ingredients

White Beans - 10.6 oz
Walnuts - 3.5 oz
Onion - 2 heads
Garlic - 6 cloves
Cilantro - 5 sprigs
Parsley - 5 sprigs
Red Wine Vinegar - 0 fl oz
Vegetable Oil - 0 fl oz
Pomegranate Seeds - to taste
Salt - to taste
Ground Black Pepper - to taste
Unrefined Sunflower Oil - 1 fl oz

Step by Step guide

Step 1

Soak the beans overnight. In the morning, drain the water and rinse the beans. Bring 1.5 liters of water to a boil in a pot, add the beans, and cook for about an hour. The beans should become tender but not mushy.

Step 2

Crush the nuts in a mortar until there are still some pieces left.

Step 3

Finely chop the onion and garlic, and sauté them in vegetable oil until golden brown.

Step 4

Set aside one-third of the beans. Mash the remaining beans in the pot with water using a potato masher or blend them with an immersion blender until smooth. Add the reserved beans and mash them as well, but leave some pieces intact for texture.

Step 5

Add the nuts, onion, and garlic to the pot, season with salt and pepper, and cook the soup for another 5–7 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent the mixture from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Step 6

Add the herbs and wine vinegar, let it simmer for 5 minutes, then remove from heat. Before serving, sprinkle with pomegranate seeds and drizzle with sunflower oil.