It is time to comply with a reader’s request for a navy bean soup recipe. Not only is the response long overdue but it is also particularly apt. If buying protein food for the family and meeting the mortgage payments seem incompatible these days, try dried beans.
Limas headed Newsweek magazine’s list of protein cheapies a few weeks ago. A cup of cooked dried beans will provide as much protein as two hot dogs, a thick pork chop, or a good-sized chicken leg. And except for the chicken leg, the calorie commitment is about the same.
Cookbooks are not heavy on navy bean soup recipes. Usually a “use navy beans, marrow beans or lima beans in the following lentil soup recipe” and they’re done with it. Then they proceed to that elegant relative, the black bean soup, for which several variations will be suggested. Here is my version of navy bean soup, rich, hearty and easy.
Special Navy Bean Soup
1 cup dried navy beans
2 oz. salt pork in small dice
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3 cups boiling water
1/3 cup each chopped celery, carrot, and onion
3 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 tsp. salt (or to taste)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/4 tsp. dry mustard
Pinch of cumin
1 Tbsp. bourbon
3 Tbsp. heavy cream (optional)
Soak beans several hours or overnight. Place salt pork in a soup kettle over medium heat and when it begins to melt, add small onion, chopped, and cook until onion is soft and transparent. Add garlic and stir for a minute or two. Do not allow garlic to brown.
Drain beans and add them to the kettle along with the boiling water. Cover and simmer one hour. Add chopped vegetables, cloves, and bay leaf and continue simmering another half hour. Using a large strainer, drain the contents of the kettle into a large bowl. Discard bay leaf and cloves. Mash beans and other vegetables through the strainer into the bowl.
Scald the milk in the soup kettle. Stir in bean mixture from bowl. Add all remaining ingredients except cream. Reheat and carefully adjust seasonings. Stir in cream, if desired, and serve. Makes five cups.
This bean soup brought to mind another. About nine years ago, a nameless restaurant in an alley in Istanbul served us a superb meal, which was ordered, due to the extreme language barrier, by pointing to the plates of other diners. Our first course was a rich bean soup, golden in color and presented with a wedge of lemon in it. I feel I have reproduced its memory, if not the exact Turkish recipe.
Istanbul Bean Soup
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup dried large lima beans
1 quart well-flavored chicken stock (homemade or canned)
1/2 tsp. salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1 Tbsp. plain yogurt
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 lemon cut into four wedges
4 sprigs of dill
In soup kettle, heat olive oil and sauté onion in it until golden. Add limas (presoaked if necessary) and stock. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, about two hours or until beans are soft. Remove beans to a bowl with a slotted spoon and roughly mash them so that there are still some large pieces of bean.
Return beans to liquid in pot and stir. Add salt, pepper, yogurt and lemon juice. Reheat. Taste for seasoning. Serve in soup plates (not cups or deep bowls). Garnish each serving with a wedge of lemon and a sprig of fresh dill. Serves four.
