I’D like to keep offering to your family recipes that are economical, nutritious, delicious and perfect for the cold days. As you know, I love eating with a spoon and pulses are a very important part of Spanish traditional food.
Thanks to my cooking classes here in Orange, I’ve realised that many people are afraid of cooking with dry pulses. That’s why today I’m going to share with you one of the most traditional recipes you can find in the Iberian Peninsula: judias con chorizo or beans with chorizo.
Beans are an amazing source of protein, fibre, iron and heaps of antioxidants essential for diet. Especially the dry ones! I know we always talk about the lack of time to cook slow food at home, but trust me when I tell you that your pocket and tastebuds will feel the difference.
Here are three basic things to understand about dry beans:
First – You need to soak them overnight (super important).
Second – If you want to end up with a perfect-looking bean at the end (instead of skins falling off them, broken beans, etc.) you’ll need to learn the Spanish technique to ‘scare the beans’. It’s a literal translation for a very simple process of adjusting the temperature of the boiling cooking liquid by adding a little bit of cold water and must be done three times.
Third – You don’t need to spend a lot of time chopping your vegetables finely because your sauce at the end will be made by blending the cooked vegetables with some of the liquid. This is a smart way to create a rich and thick sauce without having to add any starch.
Ingredients:
400g large dry beans
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 onion, chopped in half
1 carrot chopped in half
1 tin crushed tomato
200g fresh chorizo (whole)
10g smoked paprika
Splash extra virgin olive oil
2 Bay leaves
Salt
Water
Optional – fresh thyme to serve as garnish.
Method:
1. Soak the beans the night before so they are hydrated. The next morning drain the beans and wash them well under the tap. Place them in a pot and add enough cold water to cover them.
2. Bring it to the boil, you’ll see the beans release foam and impurities that we need to remove. In order to do this, pass the beans through a strainer and rinse them well under the tap. Return the beans to the pot with the vegetables peeled and roughly chopped. Add the whole chorizos, smoked paprika, oil, and bay leaves.
3. Cover the whole thing with cold water again. Bring it to a boil. As it starts boiling add a glass of cold water – this step is called scaring the beans, it’s a Spanish technique that keeps the skin of the beans intact, so they are whole and look perfect at the end of the cooking process. Repeat that process twice more.
4. Once the beans have been ‘scared’ three times, cover the pot and cook them on low heat for an hour-and-a-half to two hours (remember the older the beans are, the more time they need to cook). Check the texture of the beans. Are they soft and ready? Perfect. Are they not? Give them another 30 minutes.
5. Remove the vegetables and chorizo from the pot. Put the chorizo aside on a plate.
6. Blend all the veggies together with a little bit of the cooking liquid, making a puree. Return this sauce to the pot with the beans and stir gently until everything combines.
7. IMPORTANT! Taste now and adjust the seasoning (Don’t do it before this time or the beans may not cook evenly).
8. To serve, slice the chorizo and serve everything while it’s piping hot. Add a bit of fresh thyme on top if you like.