Bruinebonen Soep aka Red Bean Soup

I had a few grams of pork meat stayed in my freezer – and I was running out of ideas of what to do with them. Then I remember my mother often cooked red bean soup with meat, which I love so much, and plus several cans of kidney beans left by our ex-housemate in the kitchen – I think the red bean soup will be a great idea for today.

I learned that red bean soup in Indonesia was originally inspired by the Netherlands colonial. And now I’m myself living in the Netherlands, I want to make the original version of the Bruinebonen Soep that had been so famous in my own country. There are various recipes and techniques can be found in the internet, and since I’ve never eaten the soup made by locals here, so I had to choose which one I thought is the closest to the original one. And I couldn’t make up my mind.

But since I noticed that mostly the soup here is thick and made by puree, so I decided to make my own version, combining those recipes I read last night before we went to bed.

Ingredients:

400 gram of pork meat – it is said that I should use bacon or meat with more fats, but I just used whatever I had in hand. Cut in small cubes and boil in 500 ml of water.

3 medium size carrots – 1 was cut as big chunks and I boil with the meat, then I made them to be puree using blender. Slice 2 other carrots.

6 or 7 cloves garlic, 1 big onion – instead of slicing/cutting them, I just used my blender to grind them.

3 pieces of cloves

3 pieces of cardamoms

A medium chunk of cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon of nutmeg powder – or to taste

Some sprinkler of chili powder – I used cayenne pepper, that’s what I had anyway

Dash of salt, white pepper and sugar

3 tomatoes, 2 made to be puree using blender, 1 cut in small cubes.

2 cans of kidney bean – I’m not a big fan of canned food, but that’s what I had and since the stores are closed on Sundays so as the parents told us, ‘you gotta live with whatever you have with you’ :P

2 green onions, slice.

How to:

Cut and clean the meat, boil them in 500 ml of water. Slice big one of the carrots and boil it for a while, then make it a puree using blender. Do this while you do the other preparations, so your meat has some time to tender itself.

With different wok, stir-fry garlic and onions using some amount of butter or margarine (I used margarine here). Pour in the meat and the stock into your wok (make sure you work with a big one). Add some water if you like.

Add in the spices and the tomato puree. Add the sliced carrots and the tomato cubes. I blendered little amount of the kidney bean too to make the soup thicker.

Add in the kidney bean – minus the canned water.

Taste the stock, and add in spices up to your taste. I’m not a so responsible recipe writer as I never really measured my ingredients and spices, but trust yourself honey, and your cooking will even be better than mine J.

Wait until the ingredients blend in the soup and the meat become tender, and near the end, add in the green onions. I waited about more than half hour then I laid myself in bed and writing down this recipe before I got too lazy to do it.

I believe the Dutch serve this soup with hard-crust bread, but this either is not available at home so I think we’ll eat the soup with rice. We’re Indonesian anyway ;D

Oh ya, please don’t be intimidated with the amount of the spices and the many steps. My mother’s red bean soup was much simpler than this, but no one can beat the wonderful taste of her soup. I said no one. Not even the most expensive restaurant. So, remember, we gotta live with anything we have instead of those things we don’t have ;)