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Castilian soup with Iberian ham bone · Traditional recipe

Castilian soup with ham bone

Castilian soup is one of those recipes that wasn’t invented, that arrived on its own: yesterday’s stale bread, a clove of garlic, a spoonful of paprika and whatever there was. In Castile, where January’s cold gets into your bones, this soup was supper many nights. The trick that turns it into something serious is the stock: a Iberian ham bone simmering over a gentle heat for an hour changes the dish completely.

Here in Guijuelo, the curing of pieces in a natural cellar at 1,000 metres gives us especially aromatic bones, with well-cured marrow. That intensity is what passes into the water and builds a spoonful soup that warms without weighing you down. An honest spoonful of Castile and León cooking.

Ingredients for 4 people

Step by step

  1. Make the bone stock. Put the ham bone in a pot with 1.5 litres of cold water and, if you like, a bay leaf. Bring to the boil, lower to a very gentle heat and cook for 45–60 minutes. Skim off the whitish foam that rises in the first minutes. The stock should be golden, with a deep cured-ham smell. Strain and set aside. Taste before adding salt: the bone usually gives all the seasoning needed.
  2. Prepare the bread. Cut the stale bread into thin half-centimetre slices, or into dice if you prefer it more rustic. Make sure it’s day-old bread, not fresh (fresh bread falls apart).
  3. Sauté the garlic. In an earthenware or iron pot, heat 4 generous tablespoons of olive oil. Slice the garlic cloves and brown them over medium heat until they take a light toasted colour, without burning (burnt garlic makes the whole soup bitter).
  4. Add the bread to the pot and sauté 2–3 minutes, stirring, so it soaks up the oil and the garlic. The bread has to be toasted, not just boiled.
  5. Remove the pot from the heat and add the paprika. Stir vigorously off the heat for 10–15 seconds. This step is critical: paprika burns in five seconds if you add it with the pot on the heat, and burnt paprika makes the whole soup bitter.
  6. Return to the heat and pour in the hot bone stock. Add the diced Iberian ham. Cook over a gentle heat for 15–20 minutes so the bread hydrates and the soup takes body. Adjust the salt if needed.
  7. Crack the eggs straight onto the hot soup, separated, without beating them. Cover the pot and let them poach in the heat of the stock itself for 3–4 minutes. The white sets and the yolk stays liquid.
  8. If you prefer an oven finish (the classic Sunday version), divide the soup into individual earthenware bowls, crack an egg into each and bake at 200 degrees for 5 minutes until the white sets. It looks more striking and keeps the heat better at the table.

Serve at once, very hot, with an extra piece of bread alongside in case anyone wants to mop the yolk.

Suggested pairing

This soup calls for a Castilian red, simple and frank. A young or oak-aged Ribera del Duero, around 15–16 degrees, goes perfectly. The fruit and freshness of the young one balance the density of the stock and the unctuousness of the yolk. If you prefer something lighter, a Cigales red or a young mencía are a good option. Beer doesn’t quite match this soup: it calls for an unpretentious red wine.

The soul of this recipe is the bone. Any of our acorn-fed pieces gives an excellent stock, but the difference is especially noticeable with the acorn-fed pata negra ham, Guijuelo PDO or the 75% Iberian-breed acorn-fed ham, Guijuelo PDO: the 36-month cure in a natural cellar translates into a bone with more cured marrow and a deeper aroma.

If you buy a whole piece, let us know when ordering so we send you the bone set aside, clean and chopped. It’s one of the most rewarding ways of using up an Iberian piece.

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