Sopa de ajo prisionera ('Imprisoned' garlic soup)

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Lid removed

Baked

Addition of beaten egg

Cooked in the stock

The paprika and bread have been added

Frying the garlic

Sopa de ajo prisionera - about this recipe

'Imprisoned' garlic soup. This recipe has been reproduced here in English by kind permission of SandeeA.

It is a garlic soup covered with puff pastry and is absolutely delicious!

Servings

2 to 4 depending on appetite and whether you will be having anything else at the same time.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons oil
• 4 Cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
• 6-8 slices of stale bread, although fresh can be used
• 1 level tablespoon paprika
• 1 litre chicken stock (made from an onion, a carrot, and a chicken carcass)
• 100 gr small cubes of ham (shoulder of Iberian ham, preferably)
• Salt to taste
• 1 egg per person
• A little beaten egg
• 1 sheet puff pastry

Method

1. Heat the oil in a pan, add the garlic and allow it to turn golden.
2. Add the ham cubes and sauté them with the garlic.
3. Add the slices of bread to allow them to colour a little.
4. Add the paprika, and immediately afterwards the chicken stock, so that the paprika does not become bitter.
5. Allow the soup to simmer over a gentle heat for half-an-hour.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 200 C/400 F/Gas 6
7. Check for seasoning and add salt if necessary.
8. Take some heat-resistant earthenware soup bowls and pour the soup into them.
9. Break an egg into each bowl.
10. Brush the rims and the outside tops of the bowls with a little beaten egg.
11. Cut circles of puff pastry, about a centimetre or so larger than the top of the bowls, seal around the rim and brush with beaten egg.
12. You can decorate the pastry if you wish.
13. Put the bowls into the oven for 10-15 minutes until the pastry is golden and has formed a dome over the soup.
14. By this time, the eggs should be firm, but with a runny yolk.

Serving suggestions

The most delicious way to eat this is to break the pastry into the soup or cut small pieces away as you eat the soup. If you do not like pastry, just cut the whole thing off, but you will lose the best of the dish.

And enjoy it ... who said that a garlic soup dish cannot be a luxury?

Variations

If you are a vegetarian, leave out the ham and use vegetable stock or garlic broth instead of chicken stock.

I adapted the recipe slightly by using 4 whole bulbs of garlic, no ham, beaten egg instead of a whole one and using Pimentón de la Vera which accounts for the brightness of the colour. And before anyone asks, yes, I did eat the whole lot myself!

--JuliaBalbilla 11:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)