Sopón de Garbanzos (Sopón de garbanzos con patas de cerdo)
Overview
Sopón de garbanzos con patas de cerdo is a thick Puerto Rican soup of chickpeas and pig's trotters. The trotters are soaked, blanched and simmered for hours until soft and gelatinous. Soaked chickpeas are added with chunks of calabaza, the Caribbean pumpkin, slices of chorizo, a little cured ham and salt pork, and a fresh sofrito of green pepper, sweet ají dulce peppers, onion, garlic, culantro and culantrillo. Later come potatoes, wedges of cabbage and a little tomato sauce. The soup cooks slowly until the pumpkin melts and thickens it, leaving a hearty, golden sopón that is almost a meal in itself, served with white rice or bread.
History
The soup brings together the main threads of Puerto Rican cooking: chickpeas, chorizo and ham from Spain, pumpkin, a plant native to the Americas, and the island's own sofrito of culantro and ají dulce. Sopones, thick soups, are a large family of dishes on the island, and this one appears in classic Puerto Rican cookbooks. It is a weekend and family dish, cooked in big pots that take most of a day.
Main ingredients
Chickpeas, pig's trotters, pumpkin, chorizo, cabbage, culantro. The soup is built on thick chickpea and pumpkin broth and is usually served hot. Diet: contains meat; usually gluten-free.
Explore: Chickpea soups · Tripe and offal soups · Cabbage soups · Pumpkin and squash soups · More soups from Puerto Rico
Recipe
Method
- 1
Simmer the trotters in 2.5 l water for 1½ hours and skim off the fat.
- 2
Add the chickpeas, pumpkin, chorizo, ham, salt pork and the chopped seasonings.
- 3
Simmer for 1½ hours, then mash the pumpkin into the broth.
- 4
Add the potatoes, cabbage and tomato sauce and cook for another hour.
- 5
Cook uncovered until thick, discard any loose bones and serve.
- ✓
Serve. About 5h 30m from start to bowl.
Sources
Description, history and recipe written by SoupWiki and checked against the sources above. Calories and times are rough estimates.
