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Recipes with cracked wheat

3 recipes that use cracked wheat, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Cuchuco de trigo, takes 125 minutes. It is most often cooked with coriander, cumin and garlic.

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Shámbar

Mondays in Trujillo mean shámbar: market stalls and huariques across the city put out pots of this thick, smoky soup of cracked wheat, chickpeas, broad beans, peas and canary beans, cooked with smoked ham hock, pork ribs and pork skin, then stirred through with a fried paste of ají panca and garlic and a handful of mint. It is earthy, porky and rib-sticking, and each bowl gets a scoop of crunchy cancha just before eating. Soak the beans and the wheat overnight. People often cook everything together from the start, and the peas turn to mush before the chickpeas soften; cook the hardest pulses first. Chef's tip: toast the wheat in a dry pan before soaking it; it gives the soup a nutty depth the locals look for.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Cuchuco de trigo

Up on the cold Boyacá plateau, around Tunja and Duitama, cuchuco de trigo is the soup that roadside restaurants ladle out at midday to farm workers and truck drivers. It is made with pork ribs (espinazo or costilla de cerdo), simmered until the meat slips off the bone, then thickened with cracked wheat, broad beans, peas, cabbage and two kinds of potato. The result is closer to a porridge-soup than a broth: nutty from the wheat, porky, a little smoky from the cumin and achiote, with the small yellow potatoes melting into the liquid. Serve it in deep bowls with avocado slices, a spoon of ají and a piece of arepa. The usual mistake is adding the wheat too early and walking away: it settles and catches on the bottom of the pot, so it needs stirring from the base every few minutes. Chef's tip: rinse the cracked wheat until the water runs nearly clear; washing off the loose flour keeps the soup creamy rather than gluey. For a meat-free pot, leave out the ribs, use vegetable stock and double the broad beans.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Haleem

Haleem is cooked in vast pots across Pakistan in the month of Muharram and during Ramadan, when neighbours queue with bowls in Karachi, Lahore and Hyderabad. Cracked wheat, barley and several lentils cook for hours with beef until everything is beaten into one thick, stretchy, deeply savoury porridge. Each bowl is finished with crisp fried onions, ginger, green chilli, mint and lemon, so everyone builds their own. It takes time but freezes well, so make a big pot. Chef's tip: beat the haleem hard with a wooden spoon or a hand blender on short pulses; you want long meaty threads, not a smooth purée.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Goes well with cracked wheat