Lobio (bean soup) recipe

The introduction

“Lobio is a God’s dish” _ they say in Georgia. “Lobio” means “beans” in Georgian and the dish is called that, too. So, to tell you more about it, it is a bean soup, if you will. And it’s really delicious. Well, I love it very much and I usually prepare it often. And it’s really healthy and nutritious at the same time and it has many useful vitamins and the beans have proteins, if you don’t know you will know that from now on!

So, beans are really good for your health and there are lots of recipes that you can use to prepare beans in different ways, and maybe I will tell you about another recipe, too, that I use pretty often, too, and it’s also really delicious and my family loves it and it’s not that hard to prepare, I can tell!

But, for now, we are going to prepare Lobio!

The ingredients are not much, and you won’t really have to choose the right beansfor the dish or something like that, because whichever beans you decide to cook it will still be alright as there is not much of a difference. Well, for some people there really is a difference, but if you prepare it right, it can be almost as delicious as the delicious beans are!

They say black beans are the best for proteins and vitamins. Well, I have not prepared black beans and I can’t tell you how they taste, but I bet they taste good, so if you happen to bump into some black beans, buy them and prepare them! Otherwise, you can use whichever beans you can buy. I usually buy some red beans, or red and white ones, they are really delicious, too.

Ingredients:

• Beans
• Fresh coriander 50 grams
• Thyme
• Yellow flower
• Coriander
• Salt to taste
• Red pepper, medium
• Bay leaves, 2

Preparation process

If you soak the beans for a night it will be very good, as when you cook them, they will need less time than the usual. But I don’t really know when I cook them, so I usually don’t have them soaked in the water and, therefore, my beans need some hours of cooking! So, remember, that it is better if you soak them in the water for some time at least!

When you put the beans in a saucepan and add some water just to cover the beans and when the water boils, you should spill that water and add anotherto the beans, but this time you should fill the saucepan with the water and let the beans cook! It can take some time, so just be patient and everything will be fine. You can taste the beans and see if they are ready or not. When the water boils, you can add some bay leaves to the beans and a red pepper. I usually season it with some salt after some time.

When you decide that the beans are ready, you can turn the gas down or even turn it off and prepare some onions for the dish.

You just have to take the onions, chop them and put them into an oiled pan and cook them for a while until they get brownish. Then you can add more oil and you can even add some spices like coriander, thyme and season it with some salt and then take those beans out of water and add them to the pan and cook them with those onions for a while. This way the beans get more great flavor and they become more delicious. When the cooking is done, you can put the beans back into the water and that’s almost it!

You will just have to add some salt (if it needs more) and add some spices, too, if you want, such as thyme and coriander and yellow flower. And the last but not the least is the fresh chopped corianderthat gives the dish an unique taste, so don’t you dare forgetting it!

Now, you can either add some butter to the dish, or leave it as it is, because it already has some oil from cooking the onions and the beans and that's pretty much enough for it, but some butter can make its taste better!

There is another thing, too. You can cook the beans with some ham and the flavour will be amazing and the taste will be heavenly!

Or you can even add some tomato paste at the end and then the dish will be more different, but really tasty, too, I can say.

So, as you can see, there are lots of options for the bean soup, but the main dish is that of the ingredients that I've written above and I usually prepare Lobio just like that.

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