Sopa Paraguaya

Paraguay's solid soup: a dense baked bread of corn flour, fresh cheese, onion and milk, cut into squares and eaten with the hands

Origin: Asunción & Paraguay

From the journey of Corn.

Sopa paraguaya is a cornbread, and Paraguayans enjoy pointing out that it is the only solid soup in the world. It is made from corn flour, a great deal of soft fresh cheese, onions softened in fat, eggs, and milk, baked in a tray until set and golden, and cut into thick squares that are eaten in the hand alongside grilled meat. The name is explained by a story too neat to be taken literally. President Carlos Antonio López, who governed from 1844 to 1862, is said to have been fond of a milk-and-egg soup, and his cook, a woman remembered as a machú, is said to have added too much corn flour one day and, rather than start again, put the pan in the ashes to bake; the president liked the result and named it. The tale is universally told in Paraguay and is not documented anywhere contemporary, so it belongs with the country's other founding anecdotes rather than with its history. What is real is that Paraguay's kitchen is built on maize and cassava in a way that its neighbours' are not, and that the Guaraní word so'o and the Spanish sopa have both been proposed as the root. The cheese is the second half of the recipe and cannot be an aged one. Paraguayan queso Paraguay is a fresh, soft, salty, slightly squeaky curd cheese that melts into the batter without going stringy or oily. Feta, or a fresh farmer's cheese with a little salt, is the nearest thing available elsewhere; a hard cheese gives a greasy tray. The onion goes in cooked and in quantity, which is what stops the whole thing from being merely sweet. It is fried slowly in fat, sometimes with the milk poured over to steep, and its sweetness runs right through the crumb.

Ingredients

Base

  • 3 onions, finely chopped
  • 120 g lard or 120ml oil
  • 400 ml whole milk
  • 2 tsp salt

Batter

  • 400 g fine corn flour (harina de maíz)
  • 500 g fresh salty white cheese, crumbled
  • 6 eggs, separated
  • 1 tsp baking powder

To bake

  • 2 tbsp lard, for the tin

Method

  1. Cook the onions in the lard over a low heat for twenty minutes, until completely soft and sweet without browning.
  2. Pour the milk over the hot onions, add the salt, and leave the pan off the heat to steep and cool for fifteen minutes.
  3. Steeping the onions in the milk carries their sweetness through the whole crumb rather than leaving it in pockets.
  4. Beat the egg whites to soft peaks in a clean bowl.
  5. Mix the corn flour with the baking powder, then stir in the crumbled cheese, the egg yolks, and the cooled onion and milk mixture.
  6. It should be a thick, spoonable batter. Add a little more milk if it is stiff, because corn flour absorbs a great deal and the tray will bake dry.
  7. Fold in the beaten whites in two additions, keeping as much air as you can.
  8. Grease a deep 30cm by 20cm tin generously with lard and heat it in the oven for five minutes.
  9. Pour the batter into the hot tin; it should sizzle at the edges, which is what gives the crust.
  10. Bake at 190°C for forty-five to fifty minutes, until deep golden, set through, and beginning to come away from the sides.
  11. Test with a skewer: it should come out clean but the crumb should still be moist, since sopa paraguaya is not meant to be dry.
  12. Cool for fifteen minutes in the tin, then cut into thick squares and serve warm, in the hand, with grilled meat or a stew.

Notes

A fresh, soft, salty cheese is essential; a hard or aged cheese separates and leaves the tray oily. Fine corn flour, not cornmeal and not masa harina, gives the correct tender crumb. Cook the onions slowly and steep them in the milk. Beat the whites separately and fold them in, which is what keeps it from being heavy. Grease and preheat the tin. It is eaten warm rather than hot and keeps for two days; the related chipa guasú uses fresh corn kernels instead of flour and is a looser, wetter dish.

The Gastrographer

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