Guest Post from Nora: Spanish bean stew Recipe
Hello Jo fans, I’m Nora from Nora the Kitchen ‘Splorer. After Jo very kindly did a post for me, I’m returning the favour. This is my very first guest post, so I’m just hoping I can keep up with Jo’s high standards.
So, for this post I decided to revisit an old favourite. A few years ago, I lived in Spain, working as a English teacher, trying to teach the present perfect tense to shouty Spanish kids in exchange for very little money. But of course the upside was easy access to delicious Spanish ingredients, such as Serrano ham and chorizo. As I was a feckless youngster, my mum was in the marvellous habit of teaching me easy and tasty meals to keep me going and this was one of them. A really flavoursome, comforting stew that’s really easy to make, as long as you have a little patience.
However, I wasn’t optimistic about recreating the taste of one of my favourite dishes in my British kitchen. Especially as chorizo is a lot more expensive here so I used quite a bit less, and I replaced the big white Spanish fava beans (made famous by Hannibal Lector!) with small white Italian cannellini beans. But actually it had the exact same intense, smokey flavour – and was perfect for a dark and dreary winter evening. So, here’s the recipe:
- 250g white beans, either cannellini or fava, if you can find them
- 1 large onion
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 carrots
- 125g chorizo (more if you’re feeling rich!), chopped into small pieces
- 250ml passata
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 bay leaf
- salt and pepper
- a slug of red wine
Cover the beans with water and soak for at least 5 hours, ideally overnight. Bring them to the boil and simmer until soft, about an hour and a half.
Peel and chop the onion, garlic and carrots. Add to the beans in the saucepan along with the other ingredients. Simmer very gently for about 2 hours. And that’s it!
Serves 2 very generously.