Overall Rating:

3 out of 5

Good, but needs ingredient clarification, May 20, 2009
By vintagefl

"I made this for guests and they loved it. I changed a few things and had to guess at several other things because the recipe wasn't clear.

I recommend using Argentinian chorizo, which you can get at most Latin markets in the frozen section. Take it out of the skins and cook it in small pieces.

There's a TON of meat called for in this recipe, which I found to be complete overkill, especially if you're going to eat it with more meat as the recipe writer suggests. I substituted chicken for the beef and it worked fine. I used less than a pound, plus I used a lot less bacon. You can also use liquid smoke instead of the bacon. The recipe didn't specify whether to cook the bacon first, I cooked mine until it was almost done before adding it. To me, the chorizo and the chicken were plenty of "meat" in the dish, along with the bacon, primarily for flavoring. Beans have plenty of protein so you don't really need all that much meat in this soup/stew.

Recipe calls for "2 cans" navy beans, but didn't indicate size of can. I used five regular sized cans.

I used smoked paprika instead of plain. I also threw in about 3/4 tsp of hot red pepper flakes...use more or less to taste, but it's just as easy to make the "sauce" spicier and leave the soup less spicy.

I add a 3" piece of kombu to the pot while cooking. It makes the beans more digestible and takes away most of the gas. Get dried kombu at a health food market or asian grocery.

I used an immersion blender at the end to puree some of the beans. I like a thicker soup.

The "sauce" is essential but I'd not call it a sauce, it's more like a condiment. Recipe specifies red pepper, but is that red bell pepper, or a spicy red pepper? I ended up using both. I grow tobago peppers and used a few of those plus one large red bell pepper.

I served it over a scoop of long grain brown rice/wild rice mix and put some habanero hot sauce on the table for optional "kick."

Was very delicious but the recipe really needs some tweaking to be good."

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