At last the temperatures are starting to drop a little. Don’t you just feel like a hearty spoon dish? This chickpea stew (cocido de garbanzos) is an easy recipe to make at home and perfect for warming up. It is a timeless Spanish classic, and this is the version our head chef, Juan Moreno, learnt from his elders. The quantities serve about 4 people. We recommend pairing it with a good red wine with some oak ageing.
Ingredients for the chickpea stew
- 300 g chickpeas
- 1 ham hock
- 80 g morcilla (Spanish black pudding)
- 80 g chorizo
- 1 onion
- 4 cloves
- 3 potatoes
- 100 g lean pork belly
- 80 g pumpkin
- 1 carrot
- 1 turnip
- 80 g green beans
- Water, as needed
- Salt, as needed
Soak the chickpeas the day before, ideally in water that is low in lime.
When they have soaked, bring a pot of water to the boil. Add the drained chickpeas, the ham hock, the onion studded with the cloves, the pork belly and the black pudding. If the black pudding is soft, cook it for just 10 minutes and set it aside.
Meanwhile, clean and chop all the vegetables and the potatoes. After about 2½ hours on the heat, if the chickpeas are tender, add the vegetables and, 15 minutes later, the potatoes. Cook for another 20 minutes.
To finish, take the pork belly and the ham hock out of the pot, cut them into pieces and return them to the pot together with the chopped black pudding and chorizo.
Depending on the season you can use other vegetables, such as runner beans, dried green beans or fennel. That is how it was done in the old days when an ingredient of the usual recipe was missing.
Which other spoon dishes do you like to cook at home, or would you like to order in a restaurant? We would love to know. Leave us a comment.
