A thick, restorative soup of cracked wheat and shelled maize with beans, potato and a piece of pork rib, seasoned with a garlic-and-mint hogao. The traditional country soup of the Boyacá and Cundinamarca highlands.
Cuchuco de trigo is the traditional country soup of the Boyacá and Cundinamarca highlands, the heart of the Bogotá-Cundiboyacense sub-cuisine. Cuchuco is cracked wheat (or sometimes shelled maize, cuchuco de maíz), a preserved grain that keeps through the cold highland year. Cooked with beans, potato, pumpkin and a piece of pork rib, it is a one-pot meal of the Andean smallholding, born of the need to stretch meat across a large family.
Thick, cloudy, deeply savoury, the cracked wheat and maize giving body, the beans soft, the potato falling apart into the broth, a quiet garlic and mint note running through. A bowl is a full meal, restorative and warming against the cold.
The cracked wheat and shelled maize are soaked, then cooked long and slow with pre-cooked beans, so each grain releases its starch and thickens the broth. The potato is added later and is allowed to break down, adding further body. A hogao of garlic and mint (the mint is the regional signature) is fried separately and stirred in near the end, so its aromatics survive the cook.
Variations
A cuchuco de maíz version uses shelled maize instead of wheat. A Santander variant adds chorizo.
On the Palate
Where Cuchuco de Trigo sits in the Colombian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 8
How it's made
6 steps · 25 min
- 15 min
Soak 200g cracked wheat and 200g dried ibias or cranberry beans overnight; drain.
- 216 min
In a pot, cover 500g pork rib with 2.5 litres water, add 1 whole onion and 2 cloves garlic, and simmer 40 minutes, skimming.
- 318 min
Add the soaked wheat, 150g shelled maize, the drained beans and 1 diced ahuyama (pumpkin); simmer 45 minutes.
- 413 min
Add 400g peeled sabanera potato in chunks and 1 tsp cumin; simmer 25 minutes until the potato begins to break.
Watch outLet the potatoes cook until they begin to break down — their starch thickens the broth; pull them too firm and the soup stays thin.
- 53 min
In oil, fry 4 cloves minced garlic and 2 tbsp chopped fresh mint for 1 minute; stir into the soup.
Watch outFry the garlic and mint separately and stir in near the end — cook the mint from the start and its fresh aroma boils away.
- 65 min
Taste for salt, rest 10 minutes, and serve in deep bowls with avocado and white rice.
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