Quinoa soup

                                                                               Receta en Español

Quinoa is a seed from a weed native to the Andes Mountains of Bolivia, Chile and Peru.
It is a highly nutritious food , it has been eaten for 5000 years by people living in that area.
Incas named this seed 'God's food', it provides more minerals, and vitamins that any other cereal.
This seed is used as an important ingredient in many soups.

The recipe I present today is from 'La Paz' , Bolivia.

Ingredients:

-  1/2 Kg chicken or  beef.
-  100 grams Quinoa.
-  40 grams Green peas.
-  40 grams broad beans.
-  2 carrots.
-  1 potato.
-  Salt and grinded cumin to taste.
-  1 onion.
-  2 cloves of garlic.
-  2 spoons of chooped parsley.

Method:

1- First of all quinoa should be cleaned. Spread it on a dish and remove all the little stones, you can see in the picture what this stones look like (they are grey or black).

The coating of the seed conteins saponins, which are toxic and provide a bitter taste to the quinoa. So that quinoa should be well rinsed before being cooked.
Put quinoa in a strainer and pour wáter over it until you see water is clear, stir it from time to time to help the coating of the seeds go away.

2- Put in a saucepan meat, chopped onion, carrots cut in strips, garlic and salt.
Add water and boil for 40 minutes or until meat is cooked.
I cooked 1 Kg chicken because I used it later for another recipe.

3- Once meat is cooked, add broad beans, green peas and cumin.

Take out the meat and reserve what we are not using for this recipe, cut the rest of the meat into little pieces and add it again to the saucepan.

Now is time to add quinoa to the saucepan.

4- Wash potato , put it in another saucepan with water and salt, boil it until potato is soft when you prick it.

5- Once quinoa is open, add to the saucepan the cooked, peeled and cut in pieces potato .

6- Cook for a few minutes and it is ready!

Sprinkle parsley and serve!.

Comments to the Recipe

Quinoa has a good taste, this makes this a delicious soup, besides it provides a lot of minerals, and vitamins given by the quinoa.

Where you can buy quinoa

Quinoa is easy to find at latin products stores or  at biostores.

Here you have a link to my favourite cooking tools where you can find my spices grinder:  

Favourite cooking tools

                                                                  By Caleb Moore (xrmap flag collection) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons