Salta-Style Bread and Cheese Soup (Sopa Salteña)

History

This is a layered bread soup built like a panade: very thin slices of cold day-old bread are toasted on the grill and stacked in a porcelain-enameled pan, each bread layer covered with slivers of fresh cheese or grated Gruyère and slices of fried chorizo, and each moistened with two kitchen-spoonfuls of broth seasoned with a sauce of finely minced onion, a ground garlic clove, and pepper. Once the pan is full it is topped with grated cheese and more chorizo, covered, and cooked slowly over low heat; a moment before serving, one egg per diner is broken over the top and left to set, and the dish comes to the table in its own pan set on a tray, its rim garnished with parsley. It was contributed by Casiana Castro de Uriburo of Salta, in northwestern Argentina, and stands first among the soups in the 1890 collection.

'Salteña' means simply 'in the style of Salta.' The province's cooking is, in the encyclopedic record, "the one most influenced by Native Americans... closely linked to the Andean-Incan tradition," leaning on "potatoes and corn or wheat... quinoa... peppers, squash, tomatoes" and on regional stews and casseroles. This particular dish, though, draws on the Spanish colonial layer of that kitchen rather than its Andean core: wheat bread, cheese (here even an imported Alpine Gruyère), cured chorizo, and eggs are all part of the European contribution to the region's table. In that sense it belongs to the broad Hispanic family of bread 'sopas' — dishes in which stale bread, not a grain or legume, is the body of the soup. One reader of the recipe notes it "is not exactly a soup as it seems more to be a bread stew or bread pudding with poached eggs," and warns that the bread "becomes puffy after adding the broth (thrice the original size) so bread has to be sliced very thin" — an observation the layering method in the original supports.

Beyond the recipe itself the documentary trail is thin. The dish is not the sort of named regional specialty that the reference works track, so its history here rests mainly on the primary text: who first set down this exact layered preparation, and how far back in Salta it reaches, is not something the encyclopedic sources settle, and the contribution itself is undated within an 1890 book. The contributor's surname places her among Salta's Uriburu circle, but no source consulted supports a claim about her standing, so none is made. What can be said plainly is what the recipe says: a Salta cook's bread, cheese, chorizo, broth and eggs, layered and baked into a soup that eats more like a pudding.

Ingredients

• cold day-old bread, cut in very thin slices
• fresh cheese, or grated Gruyère
• chorizo, fried and sliced
• broth
• onions, very finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, ground
• pepper
• eggs
• parsley sprigs

Instructions

1. Cut very thin slices of cold day-old bread and toast them on the grill.
2. Layer the toasted bread in a porcelain-enameled pan; over each bread layer add slivered fresh cheese (or grated Gruyère) and slices of fried chorizo.
3. Over each layer pour two kitchen-spoonfuls of broth seasoned with a sauce of finely chopped onions, a ground garlic clove, and pepper.
4. When the pan is full, top it with a layer of grated cheese and fried chorizo slices.
5. Cover with the lid and cook over low heat.
6. Just before serving, break one egg per diner over the top and let them set.
7. Serve in the same pan set on a tray, its rim garnished with parsley sprigs.