Fabada — Asturian Ham And Beans

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

These are recipes from "Cooking in Spain" by Janet Mendel. I was told
in the English Bookstore that this book was a big seller to English
speaking visitors to Spain. I bought 5 of them myself.  "This is
Spain's most famous bean dish, wonderfully flavoured, robust  food from
the northern regions. The fabes are big, fat white beans  which cook up
soft without disintegrating. Where unavailable,  substitute the bigger
dried lima beans or butter beans, or any large  white bean. The
morcilla and chorizo should be, if possible, from  Asturias, where they
are oak-smoked. Lacon is cured pork hand. If not  available, use ham.
Salt beef, salt-cured pig trotters and hard  longaniza sausage are also
used.  The day before; put the beans to soak in plenty of water. Put
the  lacon or ham to soak overnight in hot water. blanch the salt pork
in  boiling water for five minutes.  The following day: wash the
sausages to eliminate excess smokiness.  Drain the beans and put in an
earthenware cassarole or large cooking  pot and add water to a depth of
two fingers. On a hot fire, bring to  the boil and skim off the froth.
Toast the saffron in a frying pan,  crush it in a mortar and dissolve
in a little water and add to the  beans. Add the lacon, ham and salt
pork to the cassarole, pushing  them to the bottom of the beans. Cover
and cook five minutes and skim  again. Now add teh chorizo and
morcilla, boil five minutes and skim.  Add bay leaf, cover and cook
very slowly, two or three hours. Add  cold water occasionally just to
keep teh beans barely covered so they  don't dry out and split. Do not
stire, but shake teh casserole from  time to time. When beans are quite
tender, let them sit for 20  minutes to blend and mellow the flavours.
If too much liquid remains,  puree some of the cooked beans in the
blender and add them to the  casserole to thicken the sauce. Serves 4"
Note: I always bring beans to a boil, drain the water and cover with
fresh water in a bean recipe. Posted to EAT-L Digest 09 Mar 97 by  Jean
Jones <bruja@DPLUS.NET> on Mar 10, 1997

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