Changua (Savory Breakfast Soup)

Changua is a nourishing Colombian breakfast soup that’s traditionally made with milk, water and eggs, plus scallions and cilantro that flavor the broth as it simmers. The dish comes from Colombia’s central Andes region — particularly Boyacá and Cundinamarca, including the capital, Bogotá — where it’s a familiar breakfast. At Palenque, a Brooklyn restaurant devoted to Colombian home cooking, changua arrives without embellishment, made either with dairy or, more unexpectedly, with oat milk. The plant-based version doesn’t try to mimic the original so much as reinterpret it: The oat milk brings a mild sweetness and roundness that works well with the scallions and cilantro. Bite-size pieces of toasted pan de bono, a popular Colombian cheese bread typically made with yuca flour, eggs, cheese, butter and sometimes salt or sugar, soften gradually in the broth. If you can’t find cheese bread, any rustic bread will work. A bowl of changua is meant to steady you in the morning, whether you’re easing into the day, recovering from the night before, or lingering somewhere in between. —Martine Thompson