Why settle for a pork ’n beans from a can that are ready to eat in five minutes when you can spend close to three hours making your own?
The Matador Of My Heart and I have a favorite Spanish restaurant, I won’t tell you which one, and they serve this. It is to Asturias, an autonomous region of northern Spain, as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet are/were to America. It’s not difficult, it’s just time consuming. Plus you need access to the meat you’ll be using, but you’ll see. I’m writing this as we are under a hurricane watch and it’s semi-tropical outside, but I made this last winter when we were in somewhat of a pandemic lockdown, and that restaurant was closed, and it. is. incredible. This makes a lot, about 4 servings, and it’s very filling, but it makes excellent leftovers.
This is going to be kind of a non-traditional layout so read through thoroughly.
1. 1 lb. fava beans, approx. I used Goya, even though I knew I should boycott Goya, but Biden had won the election, so I thought the Trump era was well and truly over. HA HA! You can also use cannelini beans, if that’s easier. Put them in a bowl and soak them overnight.
2. The next day, drain them really well and put them in a large pot. To the pot add a small amount of pimentón, which is a smoked paprika, a tsp. let’s say. Throw in one small onion, peeled but whole, and one head of garlic, again peeled but not minced or anything. Add a little ground saffron if you have any. The saffron seems to be intrinsic to the dish.
3. This is the tough part. You may need a butcher. Add 1/2 lb. bacon, preferably smoked, but not sliced. So a hunk of it. Ham hocks would also be good. Add about 1/2 lb. of blood sausage links, not sliced. This goes by many, many names. In Asturias they would use something called morcilla. At my butcher they have “boudin noir,” which is the French term. It is all blood sausage but the fillings vary slightly.
[Author’s note: When I made this last year I had full use of my now-Tingling Leg but my Covid paranoia was running high, so I dispatched Forager-in-Chief to the butcher for me, with explicit instructions. The butcher actually called me while F-i-C was in front of him and asked, “What exactly is it that you want?” “I’m making a Spanish stew called Fabada Asturiana—“ & etc. This butcher normally doesn’t welcome telephone chats but F-i-C flummoxed him, I guess.]
4. Pour enough water into the pot to cover all of this and then some, maybe another 2 inches, and bring to a boil. Then, reduce the heat and let it simmer for a good while, for me it was about 1 1/2 hours, until the fava beans have softened. Don’t touch any of it, use the time to take The Faithful Hound for a constitutional (it was snowing last winter when I made this), dry yourselves off, and open a hearty red wine or your carnivore-ish beverage of choice. With the time remaining (I had about 30 minutes to go) you push the bacon and the blood sausage under the liquid a few times.
5. Now add 1/2 lb. of chorizo links or some kind of spicy sausage. I wish my local butcher’s prices weren’t so high. You could probably sub in supermarket Italian sausage, but not the sweet kind. Simmer some more, about 1/2 hour, maybe more. At this point you want the meat to be submerged and really cooking, so push them down. Oppress them. If the liquid is cooking off too much add a little more cold water, but this will extend the simmering time. By this point the beans should be melt-in-mouth but not mush. The water will reduce and you want that to be the liquid for your stew so don’t make it too watery.
6. Remove the onion and the garlic. Their job is done. Turn off the heat but leave the pot where it is. Remove the bacon, blood sausage, and chorizo and slice into edible chunks. Get out your biggest soup bowls and ladle out the beans in their liquid, then top with some of each of the three meats. In a small bowl, scavenge a little of each of the three meats, put in a small bowl, add cold water, drain, and add to the Ravenous Hound’s kibble so he can have his own Fabada Asturiana.
7. If you have leftovers, combine and refrigerate. I had enough to make two more meals two days later and if anything it was even better.
Well that looks delicious and perfect for fall/winter!
It gets very chilly and damp up in Asturias, and there’s sometimes snow. It’s on Spain’s north coast, on the Bay of Biscay. The Costa del Sol it is not. East of Asturias is the Basque Country and the Pyrenees. I should dig out a Basque recipe and post that.
That looks great. I wish I had an easy source of favas — cannelini are good but they just aren’t the same. But then I don’t have easy access to blood sausage either….
You might. I think the term is so off-putting in English that it goes under different names.
If you’re curious about this, you could ask a supermarket butcher about it. They might say, “Oh yeah, that’s what the [corporate name] [adjective] sausage is.” Or the butcher might be able to suggest a substitute. The blood sausage is just in there for variety, I think, so for all I know you could throw in some Jimmy Dean breakfast sausages.
Speaking of, if you’ve ever had an Irish breakfast it usually includes “black pudding,” which is a blood sausage. There’s a Polish version but I can’t remember its name.
Why I know so much about blood sausage I don’t know.
I’ve heard lima are a decent fava substitute. I don’t really care for either, so they seem pretty similar to me haha.
I’ve noticed recently that Spanish cooking relies heavily on saffron. Must be the influence of the Moops. I’ve never cooked with it, so that might be one of my winter projects. Thanks for posting this.
It could have been the Moops. One of the reasons why saffron is so expensive is that it takes many, many plants, which have to be hand-harvested, to get the teensy bit of saffron out of them. One of the reasons it’s so commonly used is that during the Middle Ages it was considered to be some kind of miracle cure, which only upped the demand.
There’s a town in the UK called Saffron Walden, near Cambridge, that got its name because someone was smart enough to start growing it there centuries ago.
We have a little cabin in the woods in Vermont, and we actually recently realized we have neighbors that are a saffron farm. They invited us to join them to come check out the operation sometime, but we didn’t make it over there during their big harvest recently. Saw pictures though, it’s pretty absurd the amount of saffron from the amount of flowers.
I’ve grown saffron in pots — it’s a nice fall blooming crocus. Unfortunately, squirrels dug up all of the bulbs after the first year, so I got only one harvest.
I bet that makes the house smell nice when you’re cooking, too.
Oh it does. Another of its many virtues.
Fun (or not-so-fun) fact: King Felipe of Spain, Queen Letizia, and their brood are title holders of Asturias. I’m assuming they’re relatively stink-free of his father’s scandals, but like almost every modern royal family, they’re also awash in corruption.