Sopas de Ajo Riojanas

Sopas de ajo Riojanas are La Rioja's garlic soup, and they are not the plainer Castilian bowl with only garlic, bread, pimentón, and egg. Here the soup gets its body from leek, tomato, pimiento choricero, and fresh chorizo, so the broth turns red and round before the bread ever goes in. This is cocina de cuchara, spoon food, made from the larder, but it still asks you to pay attention.

The method that decides it is the slow base. Cook the leek and garlic gently in the chorizo fat until they soften and smell sweet, then cook the tomato down until it loses its raw water. That is where the broth gets depth. If you rush it, you get garlic water with bread floating in it, and nobody needs that.

If you are far from La Rioja, use jarred carne de pimiento choricero, the scraped pulp sold in small jars, before you reach for anything else. If you cannot find it, use a dried ñora soaked and scraped, plus a small spoon of sweet pimentón; the flavour will be a little softer and less earthy, but the soup will still stand up straight. Use fresh cooking chorizo if you can, not the hard dry slices meant for a board.

Add the bread only after the broth has simmered, and let it swell without beating it to paste. Poach the eggs right in the soup if you want the full bowl. Siempre sale, si lo sigues. In the Margin beside mine I wrote only this: do not burn the garlic.