Sopas Cachorreñas Malagueñas

Sopas Cachorreñas are Málaga's Andaluz bread soup, and the sour cachorreña orange is what makes them theirs. Stale bread, potato, salt cod, garlic, pimentón, cumin, olive oil, and that bitter orange. It is cocina de cuchara, spoon food, from a lean larder: sharp, filling, and honest enough to show every shortcut. The orange is the signature, not decoration.

The method that decides it is simple: build the broth with the cod and potato, pound a majao, a garlic and bread paste, with pimentón and cumin, then add the orange juice only after the pot leaves the heat. Boil that juice and the clean sour edge turns flat and harsh. Keep the white pith out too, or it bullies the whole bowl. Do that much and the soup tastes of Málaga instead of any neighbour's bread soup.

If you can't get naranja cachorreña, use a Seville bitter orange in its winter season. Farther away, mix fresh sweet orange with lemon and a strip of orange peel with no pith; it will be softer and less bitter, but it points in the right direction. No hace falta haber pisado España. Buy decent salt cod, use bread with a real crust, and pésalo, no lo adivines. In the Margin beside this one I wrote only: add the orange off the fire. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.