How to make Caldo De Papa (Colombian)

Here is my mom’s recipe for Colombian Caldo De Papa.

If it seems that the steps are going lighting fast, it’s because my mother decided to make this at that speed. My pleas for her to slow down a bit so that I could take pictures of every step of the recipe were completely ignored.

She really doesn’t understand my love for this blog…and my love for step-by-step photos.

You will need:

• Water
• 4-5 peeled potatoes (the regular yellow boiling potatoes)
• 1 whole medium tomato chopped
• 1-2 sprigs of green onion chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic minced.
• Salt to taste.
• ½ cup of milk.
• 2 large eggs
• Crackers (Saltines, Ritz)
• ½ teaspoon of Grapeseed Oil
• Cilantro flakes to taste

Start off by boiling some tap water (or the filtered stuff if you’re fancy like that).

Then cut up all the potatoes into chunks or slices and add them to the boiling water.

It should look like this:

Please note the lack of chicken, beef, fish or vegetable stock. Or even bouillon cubes and spices. Or even MSG. Do not be tempted to add the above…it will cease to be Caldo De Papa.

Chop up the green onion. Please note the cow plate on the cutting board. Please be advised, I do not recommend this method of chopping. You might hurt yourself. Use a cutting board.

Unless you want to be like my mother, who lives on the wild side, as demonstrated below:

Mince two cloves of garlic in a teeny-tiny plastic container. Remember, you don’t want to dirty another plate or use a cutting board.

I love my mother. I do, however, fear her in the kitchen.

I dive to the floor when she turns around with a knife in her hands. I’m surprised she hasn’t stabbed anyone yet.

But I digress…

Take a tomato and slice and dice it.

Then add the green onion and tomato into that little blue plastic container with the garlic.

As you can tell by the slightly blurry photos, this is where she was going at lightning speed.

Add salt to taste. My mother added less than half a teaspoon. Add whatever you like. My mother makes everything low sodium.

Then add a half a teaspoon of grapeseed oil, like so:

And then mix it up and swirl it around.

We use Sadaf Grapeseed Oil…for everything.

Then add a teaspoon of dried cilantro flakes.

Then dump it into the potato water once the potatoes are cooked through…

Then take some Saltines or Ritz Crackers and crumble them into the broth…

On a side note, I’ve seen other cooks add pieces of bread instead of crackers. I guess it’s a personal choice.

Crackers usually go into broth right before it’s served, right? Well, apparently we Colombians put it into the broth while it’s still cooking.
And yes, there’s more…

Add 1/2 a cup of milk. She likes to eyeball it, as she is pouring in and it seemed like half a cup of milk.

You can use regular milk or 2% percent. We use Lactaid because my mom is lactose intolerant. I like mine 1% and lactose-filled.

I’m also sure she’s glad you all know of her digestive issues.

Crack the two eggs and add them to the broth.

Poach ‘em. Let them cook for a bit, until they look like this when mixed up with the potatoes:

This is how it should look like right before serving:

And that’s how you make Colombian Caldo De Papa, according to my mother and almost every relative I have in South America.

Buen Provecho!

Mucho love and laughter,

City Girl to Country Girl