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Recipe · Mallorcan

Sopas Mallorquinas

Prep
20 min
Cook
45 min
Total
1 h 5 min
Serves
4 servings

Sopas mallorquinas is one of the great dishes of cuina d’aprofitament — the cooking of using what’s already there. The name is misleading: this is not a soup. The “sopas” are the bread. Dried pan moreno, sliced thin, laid in the bottom of the dish, with the season’s vegetables and their broth poured over so the bread drinks it up and becomes the meal.

It’s a winter dish by origin — cabbage, chard, spinach, broad beans, cauliflower, artichokes, whatever the kitchen garden gives between November and March. But like every honest leftover recipe, it adapts: spring brings peas and tender broad beans, summer makes it lighter, autumn brings mushrooms.

Plant-based by origin and by necessity. The flavour comes from the broth, the raw oil at the end and the quality of the dark bread. No dried bread, no sopas. Fresh white bread, no sopas either.

Ingredients

  • 250 g dried Mallorcan pan moreno (dark country bread) — thinly sliced
  • 1 medium curly Mallorcan cabbage
  • 250 g chard
  • 1 bunch spinach
  • 200 g shelled fresh broad beans — out of season, frozen
  • 200 g cauliflower, broken into small florets
  • 4 globe artichokes, quartered
  • 2 leeks
  • 1 onion
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 2 ripe ramellet tomatoes
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1 long green pepper (Italian-style)
  • 1 tsp sweet smoked paprika (Pimentón de la Vera)
  • 1 sprig thyme
  • 1 sprig rosemary
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1.5 litres vegetable stock
  • extra-virgin olive oil
  • salt

Method

  1. 1

    Sofregit

    Heat a good slug of oil in a wide pot. Sweat the chopped onion and leeks over a low flame until soft. Add the chopped garlic and the peppers, cut into strips. Cook for ten minutes.

  2. 2

    Tomato and spices

    Stir in the grated tomatoes and the paprika. Cook for five minutes until concentrated. Add the thyme, rosemary and bay.

  3. 3

    Cook the firmer vegetables

    Add the cauliflower, artichokes and broad beans. Cover with the stock and bring to the boil. Drop the heat and simmer for twenty minutes.

  4. 4

    Tender vegetables

    Add the cabbage, chard and spinach, all roughly chopped. Continue to cook for ten more minutes until the vegetables are tender but still holding their shape. Season.

  5. 5

    Build the sopas

    Lay thin slices of the dried bread into the bottom of four individual earthenware bowls. Cover with the hot vegetables and a generous ladle of the broth. The bread drinks the liquid and softens — that's the dish.

  6. 6

    Rest and serve

    Rest for three minutes so the bread soaks through. Serve with a thread of raw extra-virgin olive oil over the top.

Cook's notes

The name is misleading: Mallorcan "sopas" are not a soup at all — they are the bread. Dried pan moreno (the bread left over from the week), cut thin and laid in the bottom of the dish, the vegetables and their broth poured over, and the bread drinks the liquid until it becomes the dish. The drier the bread, the better. The vegetables change with the season: winter brings cauliflower, cabbage, chard; spring brings broad beans, artichokes, peas; autumn brings mushrooms. The only fixed elements are the dark bread and the raw olive oil at the end.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories
320 kcal
Protein
12 g
Fat
10 g
Carbs
44 g

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Rather we cooked it for you?

We serve Sopas Mallorquinas at Restaurant Es Muntant, in Establiments. Table waiting, wood-fire on.

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