Our Mexican cooking class featuring meals from the Yucatán began with sopa de lima (lime soup). This uniquely Yucatán dish is made from a special sour lime that only grows in this region.

pour the broth over the chicken, tortilla strips and lime

The sopa de lima prepared in our class was a basic chicken broth to which was added ‘sweated’ onions, green peppers and tomatoes, and a whole lot of ‘lima agria‘ (sour lime) juice. The mixture was strained and kept warm in a kettle.

sweating green peppers, onions and tomatoes

The tortillas were sliced fine and deep fried until golden.

deep fried tortilla strips

They were placed in individual bowls, along with shredded chicken and a slice of lime.

plating the sopa de lima

The chicken/lime broth was poured over everything and roasted habaneros added as a side.

Overall I found this soup a little too sour, unusual for me as I love sour food! Because of the difficulty in obtaining these special limes we ended up using the regular limes available here in Vancouver. I have had trouble with them before; they are quite sour compared to the limes of Mexico. A friend once told me to add some orange juice to sweeten up an almost inedible ceviche, and it worked quite well, although I’m not sure if it would have worked in this situation.

Note that there are many regional variations of this soup such as Sopa Azteca, Sopa Tarasca or Sopa de Tortilla.

Chef Rossana, our Mexican Cooking Class instructor, is on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MiMetate