Repe Lojano

As tradition built it

Repe Lojano

Serves 8 . 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 tsp garlic paste
• 1 stalk white onion, diced
• 2 tbsp oil
• 8 cups water
• 3 green plantains, diced
• 125g quesillo or another fresh cheese, crumbled
• 1 cup milk
• to taste salt
• 1 bunch coriander, finely chopped, a generous handful

Method

1. Make a light sofrito of garlic paste and diced white onion in a couple of tablespoons of oil.
2. Add around eight cups of water and bring it to a full, active boil before adding three diced green plantains, since dropping them into already boiling water is what keeps the soup from discolouring.
3. Simmer until the plantain is fully tender, then mash a portion of it back into the pot with the back of a spoon to thicken the soup, leaving the rest in soft pieces for texture.
4. Crumble in around 125 g of quesillo or another fresh cheese and stir in a cup of milk, season with salt, and finish with a generous handful of finely chopped coriander stirred through just before serving.

What a modern chef changes

Plantain two ways, chinois-strained base, cheese foam

Method

1. Cook the plantain in two separate ways rather than one: mash the bulk of it into the soup as the tradition asks, but reserve a portion, slice it thin and dry it in the dehydrator into crisp, pale green chips, added at the table rather than cooked into the pot, so the same fruit appears as both the soup's body and its garnish.
2. Pass the finished soup through a chinois for a silkier base before returning a few whole tender plantain pieces to the smooth liquid, giving the bowl both a refined base and a genuine bite.
3. Make the cheese element as a light foam rather than crumbled curds, siphoned or whisked and passed through a fine sieve, spooned on at the very end so the dairy note arrives fresh and warm rather than folded in and cooked further.