Lobio is a traditional dish of Caucasian cuisine, a thick, porridge-like bean stew. A similar dish is prepared in South America. Most often, red bean lobio is prepared, but you can use white or chilli beans, as well as lentils or beans. This dish is very easy to prepare, but it takes a lot of time to cook. If you do not have enough time, you can make lobio from canned beans (from a jar). Caucasian dishes are usually quite spicy, if this is not suitable for you, you can reduce the amount of pepper or replace red pepper with black. Each lobio bean recipe presented here has features that are characteristic of different regions of the Caucasus.
Georgian Red Bean Lobio
Lobio is not the name of the dish; the word “lobio” from Georgian is translated simply as “bean”. This dish is prepared very simply. He will need red beans (approx. 800g), 3 bunches of green cilantro, a bunch of basil, a bunch of parsley and green onions, one large onion, one red hot pepper, four cloves of garlic, adjika and salt. Rinse the beans, add water and cook until tender (about 2 hours). 15 minutes before the end of cooking add chopped herbs, onions and seasonings. Mash the finished lobio into porridge.
Abkhazian Red Bean Lobio
In Abkhazia, lobio is a dish of national cuisine. More precisely, it’s not Lobio at all, in Abkhazian this dish (and the beans themselves) is called “Akud”. It is the main daily dish, it is served with mamalyga (this is very thick corn porridge, the name is Moldavian, and in the Abkhaz language it is called “abysta”) or with bread. Abkhazians traditionally eat with their hands, in lobio dunk pieces of bread or mamalyga. But if you order this dish in a cafe, you will still be served a spoon. They even bake cakes with lobio as a filling. Red beans are soaked overnight in cold water. In the morning, the water is drained, the beans are poured with fresh water so that it is slightly higher than the beans, and boiled on low heat for at least an hour, while the water should almost evaporate. Add fried onions, adjika (Abkhazian, but can be replaced with finely chopped red pepper with sunnel hops), tomato paste (a little, a small jar in a pan), salt and it would be nice to have fresh, finely chopped cilantro. Boil a little more and mix, rub with a whisk to crush most of the beans (if the beans are still tough, then you need to cook further). Serve, garnished with greens and onion rings.
On the same basis, you can cook a festive dish - red bean lobio with walnut. To do this, walnut kernels (about a half-kilogram glass of dry beans) need to be scrolled through a meat grinder. Cook lobio as in the previous recipe. Add ground nuts and a little pomegranate juice together with onions and tomatoes. For decoration, this dish can be sprinkled with pomegranate seeds.
Megrelian Red Bean Lobio
In Megrelia they love and know how to cook an unusual lobio from beans - fried. It is called in the Mingrelian language “Lebia Harkali”, which literally translates as “beans - pebbles”. This is because, unlike previous recipes in this dish, the beans do not knead into porridge and look like pebbles. Boil beans in more water than usual and do not digest. Fry onions (best in ghee). Boiled beans, after draining the water, put in a pan to the onion. Fry for about 10 minutes. Add adjika, salt, crushed garlic and fresh herbs. You can serve this dish with stew or smoked meat.
If you wish, you can cook this dish a little differently - with eggs. To do this, slightly fried boiled beans with onions. Add all the spices and seasonings and cover with beaten eggs mixed with finely chopped herbs. Keep on low heat until eggs are ready.
I hope you enjoy the proposed recipes and discover Caucasian cuisine.