Fabada

(One thing I learned from this experience is that you get better 

pictures of your food if you cook for friends with nice cameras)

So here we go, fabada. If you asked me right now what my favourite Spanish meal was I'd probably reply with this -- though it may have something to do with the fact that I've not eaten it in over a year. Fabada Withdrawal Symptom, which currently afflicts me, is a well documented phenomenon. High profile cases include Michu himself, who relied on parental visits to give him a hit when going cold turkey proved too difficult after moving from Asturias to South Wales last summer. Recall that scene from Trainspotting but consider that is is even more agonising.

I first made this dish during the Easter week whilst in Spain when I accompanied a group of scouts with my friend Joseba as their cook for the week. The organisers, fortunately, had already planned the meals that we were to make and had bought the quantities accordingly, so all we had to do was cook it to their instructions. Taste is all I can humbly promise if you follow the instructions I'll provide, though that's more to do with how simple the dish is, like a cassoulet that doesn't take itself seriously, as Luard points out in her book, as opposed to any culinary expertise on my part.

The main ingredient in this dish are white haricot beans (fabes), though the variety best suited for fabada are called fabes de la granja, which have their own qualifying criteria related to size, humidity, and other factors resulting in a shiny, greasy bean. They need to be soaked in water for a few hours / overnight before the cooking process so they're nice and soft, and you should put a ham bone in there for good measure to add flavour.

And now we're onto the meat that decorates your cocido. There are differing names used to refer to it depending on where you are in Spain, whether you call it el compango (Asturias), los sacramentos (The Basque Country), the idea is to get your hands on the best quality meat you can. After all, it's a simple dish with few ingredients so it's definitely worth it. You'll want to get your hands on chorizo, morcilla and tocino (pork belly).

Now what is morcilla? I hear you all ask. It's effectively Spanish black pudding, made with onion and various other ingredients depending on what region you're in. Morcilla de Burgos is made with rice; for example, and Morcilla de León can contain ingredients such as garlic and pine nuts. For a fabada, as you will have guessed by now, we use Morcilla de Asturias which contains pimentón (Spanish paprika) and is smoke cured. All you need now is an onion, a head of garlic and a bottle of wine, and you're ready to go! (To clarify, the wine does not go in the fabada, it's used to feed the cook).

We put the everything except the meat in a big pot and pour in the same water we used to soak the beans in, topping up if need be so that the water covers the beans by two fingers. We then bring to the boil, removing any foam that rises once the water starts boiling. The important step here is to make sure the water temperature doesn’t get too hot, and To that end, we cook it on low for about three hours (or until the beans are soft), making sure to “shock” the fabes (‘asustar los fabes’), by pouring a little cold water into the pan, roughly 2 or 3 times during the cooking process, also doing the same if the fabada dries out too much. To make sure the fabes don’t break, avoid stirring it too much. The compango should be added after about 2 and a half hours, and once it’s finished cooking it should be left for about 15 minutes before serving. If it’s too watery at the end, you can mash up a few of the beans and stir through to thicken it up a little bit.

And there we have it, the basic recipe. As with any traditional dish, though, there’ll be as many different varieties as grandmothers in Asturias. I personally like boiling some carrots and a leek with the stew and then liquidising them at the end to give the dish a bit more thickness, flavour and colour. If you don’t manage to get through it all in one sitting, don’t worry. It tastes even better the next day.

Ingredients:
500 grams white haricot beans
2 chorizo sausages
2 morcillas
250g pork belly
1 onion
1 head of garlic
Water