Lobio from red beans, Caucasian cuisine

Lobio is a traditional dish of Caucasian cuisine, a thick, mushy bean stew. A similar dish is prepared in South America. Most often, a lobio is made from red beans, but you can use either white or pod, as well as lentils or beans. This dish is very simple to prepare, but it takes quite a while to cook. If you do not have enough time, you can cook lobio from canned beans (from a can). Dishes of Caucasian cuisine are usually quite sharp, if that does not suit you, you can reduce the amount of pepper or replace the red pepper with black. Each lobio recipe presented here has characteristics that are characteristic of different regions of the Caucasus.

Lobio from red bean in Georgian

Lobio is not the name of a dish, the word "lobio" from the Georgian language is translated simply as "bean". This dish is prepared very simply. It will need red beans (about 800 grams), 3 bundles of green coriander, a bunch of basil, a bunch of parsley and green onions, one large onion, one red hot pepper, four cloves of garlic, adzhika and salt. Beans are washed, poured with water and cook until ready (about 2 hours). For 15 minutes before the end of cooking, add chopped greens, onions and seasonings. Ready lobio to mash.

Lobio from red bean in Abkhazian

In Abkhazia, lobio is a dish of national cuisine. More precisely not lobio, in Abkhazian this dish (and the bean itself) is called "akud". It is the main everyday dish, served with hominy (this is very thick corn porridge, the name is Moldovan, and in Abkhazian language is called "abyista") or with bread. Abkhazians are traditionally eaten by hand, lobio dies pieces of bread or hominy. But if you order this dish in a cafe, you will still be served a spoon. With lobio, they even bake pies as fillings. Red beans are soaked in cold water for the night. In the morning, the water is drained, the beans are poured with fresh water to be just above the beans, and cook for a little fire for at least an hour, while the water should almost evaporate. Add the fried onions, adjika (Abkhaz, but you can substitute finely chopped red pepper with hops-suneli), tomato paste (a little, a small jar on the pan), salt and a fresh, finely chopped cilantro. Still slightly boil and mix-rub the whorl to crush most of the beans (if the beans are still stiff, then you need to cook further). Serve, decorated with greens and onion rings.

On the same basis, you can prepare a festive dish - lobio from red beans with walnuts. For this, the walnut kernel (roughly a glass for half a kilogram of dry beans) needs to be scrolled through a meat grinder. Cook lobio as in the previous recipe. Together with onions and tomatoes, add ground nuts and a little pomegranate juice, to decorate this dish you can sprinkle with pomegranate seeds.

Lobio from red bean in Megrelian style

In Megrelia they love and are able to cook an unusual lobio from beans - fried. It is called in the Megrelian language "Lebia Kharkalia", which literally translates as "kidney beans". This is because, unlike the previous recipes in this dish, the beans do not mash into porridge and look like pebbles. Boil the beans in more water than usual, and do not digest. Fry the onion (best on melted butter). Cooked beans, after draining the water, put in a frying pan to the onions. Fry for about 10 minutes. Add Adzhika, salt, crushed garlic and fresh herbs. You can serve this dish with stew or smoked meat.

If desired, you can prepare this dish a little differently - with eggs. For this, boil the beans with frying onions. Add all the spices and seasonings and pour the beaten eggs, mixed with finely chopped greens. Keep on low heat until eggs are ready.

I hope that you will like the proposed recipes and you will discover the Caucasian cuisine.