Persia and the Caucasus · Volume 11, The Walnut and the Vine
Lobio
Pan-Georgian
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 4 hours
- Researched
- 8 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Serves 6. About 4 hours, mostly unattended.
Ingredients
- 500 g dried kidney beans, soaked 6 to 7 hours
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 tomato, grated
- to taste utskho suneli, crushed red pepper, salt
- a small knob butter
- a small handful each, to taste fresh mint, garlic, cilantro, basil, spring onion
Method
- Drain the soaked beans, cover with fresh water, simmer gently about 3 hours until tender.
- Combine the onion and tomato with a spice paste of utskho suneli, salt, crushed red pepper and butter.
- Fold the spice paste and the fresh mint, garlic, cilantro, basil and spring onion through the cooked beans.
- Transfer to a clay pot and bake a further 10 to 15 minutes, the step several sources credit with giving restaurant-quality lobio its real depth.
What a modern chef changes
The clay-pot finish treated as the actual technique, not an optional flourish.
Rung 3's principle, applied to a slow braise rather than a fast bake
Method
- Do not skip the clay-pot finishing step to save time. The sourcing behind this chapter is consistent that this stage, not the initial simmer, is what separates a good lobio from an ordinary one.
- Use a well-seasoned cast iron pot or a genuine clay cocotte as the nearest achievable UK equivalent, since neither fully replicates unglazed clay's even heat, but both get closer than a plain saucepan finish.
- Add the fresh herbs at the very end, into the hot pot straight from the oven, so their aroma survives the final heat rather than cooking away during the bake.