Chupe de Habas - Soup of Beans

Chupe, basically meaning soup or stew is a dish that is common across South America but it is most common in the countries of Bolivia, Chile and Peru. Since Chupe is a somewhat generic term used to describe soup or stew you can find it with just about anything in it from meat to veggies to a whole fish, or tripe. But almost always at least here in Peru, there is a potato present in each soup. In the city of Arequipa it is tradition to have a different soup offered each day of the week and Fridays they have a meatless soup. The meatless soup stems from the religious traditions of the country of Peru. 

Different Chupe's are made for certain holidays too, like on Good Friday a soup will be made that doesn't have red meat in it, but instead fish. On Sundays or the mornings after special festival days they will prepare Adobo de Chancho, which is a pork stew served over rice. In Peru, there is various kinds of Chupe among them are: Chupe de Habas (bean soup), Chupe de Olluco (root soup), Chupe de Zapallo (squash soup).

~~Fun Fact: Olluco is a root that looks much like a potato and is commonly found in the Peruvian Andes, it was an important staple food item for the Incas. And they come in many shapes and sizes. ~~

Photo from Peru Delights.

The soup that I made was meatless, it called for only one type of beans but I, however, added white beans, and a bit of quinoa. I served the soup over a small pile of rice and topped it with queso fresco. I thought that it turned out really great but I'm a huge fan of bean soups. But everyone else thought that it was pretty good. I made this one night that we had one of my husbands bosses over for dinner, and he too enjoyed it.

We always eat some type of bread with soup too and this time, Zechariah (my son) picked out Petitpan, he told me "Mom this is my favorite bread, we need it with this soup." It turned out that it worked really well with the soup too. I wish I had gotten a picture but basically it's just a tiny dinner roll much like French petit pains topped with sesame seeds.

If you'd like to try and make it at home you can find the recipe below, and it was very very easy to make.

What You Need:

• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 tbsp. minced garlic
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 tbsp. tomato sauce
• 1 tbsp. of red pepper paste
• 8 cups vegetable stock
• 1 cup lima beans
• 1 cup peas
• 1 cup of white beans
• 3/4 cup of corn/choclo (tender)
• 4 potatos peeled and cut into fourths
• Oregano to taste salt.

Serve with:

• Queso fresco (cubed)
• Rice
• Fried Egg

How To Make It:

- In a large pot saute the onion in the oil until it turns clear, add the tomato sauce and red pepper paste, continue frying for five minutes then add the garlic.

- Add the broth and peas, corn, potatoes, beans, let simmer. 

- When the ingredients are cooked and ready to serve pour it over a small amount of rice in the bottom of a bowl, top with an egg if you'd like, and finally add a few small squares of queso fresco and chopped oregano to the top. Also, don't forget to make sure each person gets a potato wedge in their bowl!