Porra de Antequera

Recipe from La Cocina Malagueña by Fernando Rueda, translated into English by Charles Edwards..

Porra de Antequera

This is a type of cold, thick soup, typical of villages in the Antequera region, that gets its name from the tool with which it is made, the pestle (porra) and mortar; it can also be made by hand, grinded or crushed.

It is also called porra fría or crúa to differentiate it from the hot soup that contains the same ingredients, but is eaten hot, accompanied by black pudding or bacon, typically in winter.

Porra is a fresh and very nutritious dish that has deep roots in all these small towns (Antequera), creating a neighbourly rivalry over who first invented it and over all the particularities, changing its name, at times, but being the same dish whether in Alfarnate where they call it catana, or in some Seville towns where they call it ardoria (Carmona, Osuna). Porra, salmorejo, ardoria and catana differentiate themselves by their names, in the way they are made, the type of meat that is added to the soup (if any) and where you eat it. They are all the same thing, come from the same family and a not very distant relative of ´ajocolorao´, with a clear Moorish history in the ingredients used: garlic, breadcrumbs, oil, vinegar, salt and water, crushed in the pestle and mortar until it turns into one thick mass to which, after the conquest of the Americas, had tomato added to it, showing just how we got to what we know today.

This recipe is "The real McCoy", prepared by Arte de Cozina in Antequera.

Ingredients

For four people:

- ½ kg of day-old village bread
- 1 kg of red, ripe tomatoes
- ½ green pepper
- ¼ red pepper
- 1 or 2 garlic cloves (to taste)
- ¼ litre of olive oil
- Salt
- Vinegar

Cooking Instructions

Crush the peeled garlic cloves in a pestle and mortar with some salt, then finely chop the pepper, skin the tomatoes and chop them too to allow them to work, and finally, the bread. Mix it all together into one big mass, start to stir in olive oil little by little and, without stopping the mixing, add the vinegar (to taste); season it and continue stirring until you get a fine doughy texture.

These days you can do it all in one go in a blender, quicker and easier, but, of course, adding the olive oil only when the ingredients are mixed.

Serve garnished with chopped hard-boiled eggs and Serrano ham, although it can come accompanied by other traditional ingredents, such as fried potatoes, tuna or flakes of cod.