Sopa da Pedra (Stone Soup with Beans and Pork)
- Prep
- 20 min
- Total
- 2 h 20 min
- Servings
- 6
- Calories
- 520 kcal
Sopa da pedra is the heartiest soup in Portuguese cooking: red beans, potato and several pork cuts and sausages, slow-cooked and served with lots of cilantro. It’s more a complete meal than a soup. This recipe serves 6 and needs beans soaked the night before.
It comes from Almeirim, in the Ribatejo, and from a legend. A hungry, penniless friar on a pilgrimage knocked at a door and said he would make soup with just a stone. He asked for a pot of water, then some salt, a piece of chouriço, a few potatoes and some beans “to improve it”. In the end he ate the soup and kept the stone for next time. It’s still served with a washed stone in the bottom of the tureen.
Recipe
Sopa da Pedra
Red beans with pork cuts and smoked sausages, slow-cooked with potato and plenty of cilantro. A complete meal in a bowl for cold days.
Ingredients
Method
- 1Soak the beans in cold water overnight.
- 2Scrape the trotter and the ear well to remove any hairs, wash the meats and set aside.
- 3In a large pot, put plenty of cold water, the whole onion, the crushed garlic cloves, the drained beans and the pork (trotter, ear and belly).
- 4Bring to a boil. When it starts to boil, add the chouriço. Simmer over low heat until the meats and beans are tender.
- 5When they're cooked, lift the meats and the chouriço out with a slotted spoon and let them cool a little so you can cut them.
- 6In a separate pan, boil the morcela and the farinheira (so they don't burst in the soup or darken the bean broth too much). Set aside the sliced and chopped meats.
- 7In the broth the beans cooked in (with the beans still in it), add the cubed potatoes and boil until the potatoes are well cooked and the broth thickens a little. If the broth is very thin, take out two ladles of beans and potato, blend them and stir them back in to thicken.
- 8Cut the trotter, ear and belly into small pieces (discarding the bones). Slice the sausages into rounds.
- 9Put all the cut meats back into the pot of beans and potato (except a few sausage slices for decoration). Season with salt, stir carefully and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes.
- 10To serve it properly: put the well-washed, boiled stone in the bottom of the tureen. Pour the soup over it. Sprinkle with a huge amount of chopped cilantro.
Tips
Cook it over low heat: the meats need about two hours to become tender. A pressure cooker halves the time.
Thicken the broth with its own beans: blend two ladles of beans with a little broth and stir them back in.
Taste for salt only at the end, because the meats and sausages are already salty.
It’s even better the next day. Reheat it gently, adding a little water if it has thickened.
