Baby lima bean soup w/chipotle pepper

This soup falls under the category of “Soups made several times the past 2 weeks”.  What makes it for me is the great natural pairing of  the creamy “sweet”  baby lima beans with the smoky spicy flavor of the chipotle pepper.   I keep the ingredients for this soup to a minimum to let the two main components shine.   I didn’t know this,  but lima beans are native to Peru.   I always associated lima beans with southern U.S. cooking so I never made the connection of the name to the country of origin.   They are nowhere to be seen in Tex-Mex cuisine and I couldn’t tell you how pervasive they are in Mexico.  What’s confusing are the various names it is called in Spanish.   I’ve come across a couple of Mexican soup recipes using “habas”,  which they translate into “favas”.  Yet a bag of “Baby Lima Beans” I bought  also had “Habas Pequenas” in the title.  Fava beans I’m familiar with are a different shape,  have a much “meatier” flavor to them,  and sometimes require removing the skin.  Among other names,  lima beans are known as Judias Blancas,  frijol blanco,  and frijol de media luna.

 

1 # dry baby lima beans

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium size carrot peeled

1 medium size celery stalk

1/2 medium size yellow onion

3 cloves garlic

8 cups vegetable stock or water (or a combination of both)

1 bay leaf

1/8 heaping teaspoon dried thyme

1 tsp. salt

1 to 3 seeded chipotle peppers in adobo (to taste)

 

 

 

Wash and sort through the beans.   Dice the carrot,  celery,  and onion into medium dice pieces.  Mince the garlic cloves.  Get your soup pot hot over medium high heat and add the olive oil.   Saute the vegetables for a minute or so to sweat.  Add the vegetable stock and/or water along with the baby lima beans.  Bring to a boil,  lower to a good simmer and cover the pot.   Cook until done.  This will take at least 2 hours but check from time to time to see how they are coming along.  They should be just tender.  Add more stock if necessary during the cooking.

When the beans are done,  remove the bay leaf.  With a hand immersion blender,  puree the beans until the soup is smooth.  A food processer will also work.  Add the 1 or 2 seeded chipotle pepper with some of the adobo sauce and puree.  You may choose to remove some of the beans during the pureeing and return them to the puree to give some texture to the finished soup.  Adjust with stock  if necessary to reach your desired thickness.  You may also wish to blend in more of the chipotle pepper.  Season with more salt to taste.

Notes: Because I didn’t give the beans an overnight soak, or a quick soak,  they took a while to cook. Just be sure to adjust your cooking time if you soak the beans.

For more smoky flavor, I remove the seeds of the chipotle so that I can add more of the chiles.  If you are unfamiliar with chipotle peppers en adobo, you can find them canned in many supermarkets nowadays.  The above photo shows the chipotle pepper along with a fresh jalapeno pepper,  its raw counterpart.

Using all vegetable stock gave the soup a richer taste, while using water allowed for the flavor of the beans to come out more.  I also liked using 4 cups of each.  Flavoring with vegetable bouillon is another option.

 

This bowl was garnished with fried tortilla strips,  epazote,  and pan roasted and ground dry chipotle pepper.  The added dry chipotle gave a little more heat but also a more intense smoky flavor.  The gorditas (at left) made a great accompaniment.  Of course,  gorditas are normally stuffed with various ingredients but these simple plain ones went just fine with the soup. Stay tuned for an upcoming recipe.

 

 

 

 

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