Soup Thursday - Black Bean Soup

For this weeks Thursday Soup I wanted to do something with beans and something vegetarian. I found a pretty good-sounding recipe for a black bean soup that had salt pork in it. Since the piece of pork was to be discarded before the soup was served I figured that all the pork was really doing was adding some salt and probably smokiness to the soup. So for my version I used a dried chipolte pepper to add the smokiness.

Black Bean Soup
adapted from Kitchen Sense by Mitchell Davis

1 cup dried turtle beans or black beans
1 dried chipolte pepper
1 tb olive oil
1 white onion chopped
2 garlic cloves chopped
1 green pepper seeded and chopped
1/2 jalapeno chile seeded and chopped
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp dried mustard
juice of 1 lime
salt
chopped cilantro

Rinse the beans well and soak them, covered by 4 inches of water, overnight.

Drain the beans and rinse them again. Place the beans ,the chipolte and 6 cups of fresh water into a large pot. Cover and simmer for 1 hour until the beans are tender.

After about 40 minutes of cooking heat the oil in a skillet and cook the onion, garlic, green pepper, and jalapeno until softened. Add the cumin, oregano and mustard and stir for a minute. Pour in 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid and squeeze in the lime juice. Simmer for 5 minutes, then pour into the pot of beans. Cook covered for 30 minutes more. (if too much liquid has evaporated, add another cup of water.)

Take the pot off the stove and remove the chipolte pepper. Puree with an immersion blender (or use a blender or processor). Return to the pot and season with salt if needed.

Serve with chopped cilantro sprinkled on top.

Serves 4-6.

PS - here's the roundup from last week.