Fabada Asturiana

One of my favourite dishes in Spain. In theory, it’s very easy to make, that is if you have 3 hours spare and have remembered to soak the beans overnight. The problem is that unfortunately I wasn’t 100% sure how to cook this before I started. So I will update this post when I get a good recipe and get round to cooking it again. It did taste really good even though I wasn’t totally happy with it.

Ingredients

• big white beans of the farm… or similar (butter beans)
• chorizo
• morcilla (black pudding)
• pancetta
• salt
• saffron
• water
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 large onion sliced into 4

Method

Soak the beans in plenty of water over night. In a large pan, add the beans, cover with water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and add all of the ingredients, including a good teaspoon or two of salt. Put a lid on the pan and simmer for 3 hours.

Take off the heat, leave to cool for 10 minutes and serve. You need to make sure that the beans are covered for the whole duration of the cooking, otherwise they will split. Good luck and as I say, I will update this post when I find out some more information. In the mean time, good luck dear reader.

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Tostas

This was inspired by many trips to La Latina, which I guess you could call the heart of the old Madrid. It is crammed with classic old tapas bars and boasts some of the most famous eateries in the city. One of the things that I tend to order are “Tostas” which are usually toasted bread, with caramelised onions and some kind of meat on top of that. I made ones with pork, morcilla (black pudding or blood sausage) and chorizo topped with red pepper.  Admittedly not my finest hour in terms of presentation, but it tasted really good.

Ingredients

for the onions

• 6 onions
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 bay leaf
• 6 tbsp olive oil

for the topping

• 1 red pepper
• good quality crusty bread
• morcilla (blood sausage or black pudding)
• iberico chorizo
• cinta de lomo (loin of pork)

Method

For the caramelised onions

Chop the onions into thin circles and fry in olive oil for about half an hour on a medium heat. Add the sugar after about five minutes or so, this makes the onions even sweeter and stickier.

for the toppings

Heat the skin of the red pepper over an open flame to scorch the skin. It should go black and then fall off easily, then I cooked them in olive oil over a medium heat for about 10 minutes. The rest of the ingredients were simply fried until cooked. Oh and you need to toast the bread!

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Lentejas (Lentil Stew)

This is a really famous Spanish dish. It literally translates as “lentils” in English, but clearly this is a lot more than just lentils. I’m not sure where the dish comes from, but it is always on the menu at the six million restaurants here in Madrid, by the way that’s about a  ratio of approximately two restaurants per person…

They call these types of dishes “spoon food” for obvious reasons. It is a kind of soupy dish really although apparently traditionally “lentejas” was served not like a soup but with very thick stew like consistency, so I think that means that they would have cooked the lentils for longer.

The lentils used here are dried, but the kind that you actually don’t have to leave soaking over night. Many thanks to Tatiana for the recipe!

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 1 onion (diced)
• 2 leeks (finely chopped)
• 1 green pepper (diced)
• lentils (smallest kind) 1 small coffee cup per person.
• 2 medium sized potatoes (halved)
• 1 carrot (diced)
• 2 tbsp of tomato purée
• 2 cloves of garlic very finely chopped or puréed
• chorizo (optional)
• spicy paprika
• 2 bay leaves
• water
• vegetable stock
• 1 tsp salt
• olive oil

Method

In a large pan fry the onion and the green pepper in some olive oil for about 5 minutes, then add the leeks and fry for a further couple of minutes. Then add the rest of the ingredients and cover with 1/2 water and 1/2 vegetable stock. be quite generous, so that means double the amount of liquid to the rest of the ingredients. Cover with a lid and simer for an hour. About 5 minutes before the lentils are cooked, add the chorizo (halved) and cook for about 5 minutes longer. Serve with crusty bread and red wine.

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