Istrian Minestrone and Jota (Istarska Maneštra i Jota)

If you like to eat hot dishes with a spoon, try Istrian minestrone and jota, two specialties with different recipes. Once dishes of the poor, but today a pleasure for the palate.

The Istrian minestrone is an easy dish to prepare in which beans play the main role. It consists of cooking all the ingredients in a pot with water to achieve one homogenous thick soup. On the other hand, Istrian jota is a thick minestrone in which the beans are grounded and added back to the pot along with previously cooked sauerkraut.

Ingredients:

• beans
• dry bacon (pancetta)
• prosciutto bone or other dried meat or bones
• tomato paste
• garlic
• celery leaf
• Mediterranean spices
• sauerkraut for jota dish

Recipe for the preparation:

The beans need to be boiled and washed in a pot of water as well as the dried meat/bone. Then the bone is joined with beans in the same pot of warm water to be cooked with salt, pepper, and chopped onion. We add the pancetta, garlic, and other spices and let it cook in a covered pot on low heat for about two hours. For jota, the beans need to be grounded and mixed with previously cooked sauerkraut.