Caucasus & Central Asian · Main
Lobio
- Easy
- 2 h
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with an earthy, grounding base, toasted, nutty warmth throughout, on a rich, rounded finish.
Ingredients
- 400g dark red kidney beans, soaked overnight
- 1 onion; 3 garlic cloves
- 100g walnuts, ground, Georgia's cream
- 1 tsp blue fenugreek (utskho suneli) + 1 tsp coriander + hint of marigold (or khmeli suneli blend)
- Cilantro storm, pomegranate seeds; mchadi (corn cakes) or crusty bread; pickles alongside
The skills inside
Keeping the cooking liquidSoaking dried goods back to life
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · nuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Simmer beans until fully soft, 1.5 h; drain, keeping a cup of the liquor. 300 min
- Fry onion; pound garlic with salt; grind walnuts with the spices.
- Crush half the beans roughly in the pot; leave half whole; fold in onion, walnut paste, garlic, and liquor to a thick rumble.
- Rest 20 min off heat; cilantro and pomegranate over. Serve warm or room temperature in clay if you have it. 20 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Keeping the cooking liquid 60 recipes
- It was actually kept: the liquid went into a container rather than down the drain, and the volume saved is enough to be worth using.
- It is clean: strained of solids and grit, and not clouded with the debris of whatever broke up in it.
- It tastes of what it cooked and tastes concentrated rather than washed out, and it is not so salty or so bitter that the only honest use is the bin.
- It was cooled quickly and stored cold, not left standing warm on the stove to be dealt with later.
- Used, it does the job the dish gives it (carrying flavour into a sauce, loosening the dish, or setting when chilled) rather than merely adding water back.
Where it goes wrong The pot was left to cool slowly on the stove and only strained the next day, so it soured overnight: what should have been the best ingredient in the dish goes in the bin, and the recipe gets water instead.
Soaking dried goods back to life 69 recipes
- Fully submerged with room to swell: the level is well above everything at the start and still above it at the end.
- Given the full time, and judged by what is in the bowl rather than by the hours on the clock.
- Tested at the CENTRE of the largest piece, cut or pressed. Anything with a hard dry core will still have one after cooking, because the outside softens first and stops the water getting further in.
- The soaking water was dealt with on purpose: kept because it holds flavour, or thrown away because it holds what should not be eaten, but never simply left undecided.
- Drained before it is used, so the dish does not silently gain all the water that came with it.
Where it goes wrong Too little water, or too little time. The pieces swell until they are packed tight against each other and the ones in the middle never fully take up water; they will not soften later in the dish either, so the finished plate has hard pieces scattered through it.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Grüner Veltliner
- Also Right
- Vermentino or dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus & herbs
The vegetable whisperers: peppery, high-acid whites that flatter greens, roots, and grains without bullying them.
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