Fanesca

Ingredients

• Salt cod — soaked for a day700 g
• Milk1.5 l
• Pumpkin500 g
• Courgette400 g
• Corn kernels200 g
• White beans150 g
• Lupini beans150 g
• Lentils150 g
• Peas150 g
• Broad beans150 g
• Rice100 g
• Peanuts100 g
• Onions2
• Cream250 ml
• Fresh cheese200 g
• Eggs — boiled, to serve5
• Achiote1 tbsp
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Soak the cod for a day with four changes of water and poach it in milk for twenty minutes.

   30 min

2. 2

   Boil the beans, lupini, broad beans, lentils and peas separately until soft.

   80 min

3. 3

   Grind the peanuts with milk to a smooth mass; it is the soup's thickener.

   10 min

4. 4

   Fry the onion in annatto oil, add the pumpkin and courgette and stew twenty minutes.

   25 min

5. 5

   Blend the pumpkin and courgette and return them to the pot with the cod's milk.

   12 min

6. 6

   Stir in all the cooked pulses, the rice, corn and peanut mass and cook thirty minutes.

   35 min

7. 7

   Add the cream, cheese and pieces of cod, and serve with halved eggs and fried plantain.

   15 min

About the dish

Twelve grains and pulses stand for the twelve apostles, and the cod for Christ. The number is not approximate: Ecuadorian families count it.

Each kind is boiled separately until done and only then combined. Lupini, beans, corn and lentils run on different clocks and never both come right together.

The salt cod is soaked for a day with four changes of water. Under-soaked it makes the soup inedibly salty, and after that no further salt is needed.

Worth knowing

• — Do not throw away the milk the cod poached in. The whole soup is built on it, and without it fanesca loses its salt and its depth at once.
• — Stir often through the last thirty minutes. The soup is thick, and anything that settles catches instantly.
• — Fanesca is made once a year, for Holy Week. It is long work for the whole family, and enough is made for two days.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

680 kcal

Protein

42 g

Fat

28 g

Carbs

68 g

More from Ecuador

• Encebollado — A tuna soup with cassava and pickled onion. Ecuadorians eat it for breakfast and treat it as a hangover cure.
• Llapingachos — Potato cakes with cheese inside, fried in achiote oil and served with a peanut sauce.
• Ecuadorian ceviche — Prawns in a tomato and lime broth, served cold with popcorn and plantain crisps.