Hearty Spanish stews

NOW the unusually warm weather for this time of year has turned slightly colder, it’s an ideal time for stews and soups.

Nothing is easier to make, easier to eat, quicker to improved on and better to reheat than stew and soup. A pound of meat, a piece of chicken, a ham bone, sausages, plus chickpeas, potatoes, cabbage and seasonal vegetables – will allow you to make an excellent Spanish ‘cocido’ or ‘puchero’.

‘Pucheros’ are good for you;the vegetables are nutricious and retain their healthy properties, meat and pulses provide a protein source, while potatoes, pasta or rice provide the carbohydrates. With these delicious stews that warm body and soul, you could easily feed yourself all day long. The only thing to watch out for are the sausage, otherwise, you don't have to worry about your health or your figure.

Puchero

In the old days, inhabitants of the Valencia’s coastal areas used to eat soupy rice with little meat almost daily, so a hearty stew like a puchero was reserved for special holidays like Christmas day.

Serves four. : 1/2 pork trotter (patas de cerdo), 250g beef (ternera), 250g soup chicken or free-range chicken (gallina or pollo de corral), 2 white sausages (blanquets), 1 ham bone (hueso de jamón), 250g dried chickpeas (garbanzos), 3 to 4 stalks of cardoons (cardos or in Valencian pencas), 1 stalk of celery (apio), 1 large carrot (zanahoria), 1 large potato (patata), 1 parsnip (chirivía), saffron in threads (azafrán en hebras)

Soak the chickpeas the night before in lukewarm water with a little salt.

Wash the stalks of the cardoon artichoke, which is a known as a ‘penca’ here, thoroughly in salted water and peel off the outer skin as if it were a rhubarb.

Place meat, bones and the sausages in a large pot with sufficient water. When it comes to the boil, skim, and then add the drained chickpeas. Add a little salt, add the rinsed vegetables and saffron threads, put the lid on and let the stew simmer on very low heat.

If you start cooking at 10.00 it will be ready to eat by 14.00 at the latest.

'Pelotas' (meatballs) for the puchero

Ingredients: about 300g of minced meat, half pork, half beef (carne picada mezclada, magro and ternera), a few white cabbage or savoy cabbage leaves (col), 1 tbsp of pine nuts (piñones), parsley (perejil), 1 to 2 eggs (huevos), white bread from the day before, vermicelli (fideos finos), lemon (limón).

Blanch the cabbage leaves in boiling water. Soak the bread in about two ladles of the broth. Mix the minced meat with egg, pine nuts, chopped parsley and squeezed bread, season with salt and pepper (some also use cinnamon or lemon zest). Wrap the minced meat in cabbage leaves, tie them up and put them into the pot.

Add the potatoes to the original puchero about half an hour before the end of the cooking time.

Remove meat and vegetables from the broth, as this now used to cook the vermicelli, and it’s served first by itself accompanied by a few drops of lemon. The meat, sausages, vegetables, chickpeas and potatoes are served together on a central platter; the cabbage wrapped meatballs are also served separately. Everybody helps themselves. Some like to mix their meatballs into the broth, while others eat them separately with the rest of the meat and veg.

Sweet potatoes, the so-called batatas or boniatos, can also be used in a puchero.

Noodle stew with prawns Serves 4 : 400g fresh cod (bacalao), 100g prawns, 250g egg noodles (pasta), 250g green beans (judías verdes), 300g savoy cabbage (berza or col rizada), 300g broccoli (brécol), 100g celery (apio), 1 carrot (zanahoria), 200g cherry tomatoes, 1 clove of garlic (diente de ajo), 1/8l white wine (vino blanco), 1/2l vegetable stock (caldo vegetal), 0.4l fish stock (caldo de pescado), 1 tbsp butter (mantequilla), 1 tbsp olive oil (aceite de oliva), 2 sprigs thyme (tomillo), lemon (limón), salt, pepper

Cook the pasta, rinse with cold water so that it does not become soggy. Clean the cod, sprinkle with lemon juice and cut into chunks. Remove the cooked prawns from shells, remove their thread,

Rinse and prepare the vegetables. Slice the beans into strips, slice the carrots. Cut savoy cabbage and broccoli into pieces, cut celery into pieces.

Sauté the beans, carrot, savoy cabbage, broccoli, celery one after the other in the oilbutter mixture, add the finely chopped garlic clove and sauté as well. Pour in the wine, fish stock and vegetable stock, add the herb sprigs and simmer until the vegetables are al dente (still firm).

Shortly before the end of the cooking time, add the cherry tomatoes, fish and prawns. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Finally, stir in the pasta and heat through.

Chicken soup

their black

Makes 2 litres: 1 ready-to-cook chicken of approx. 1.2 kg or equivalent chicken pieces (pollo), 3 peeled carrots (zanahorias), 2 onions (cebollas) peeled and cut in half crosswise, 1 well-washed leek (puerro, with the outer leaves removed), a peeled head of garlic cut in half horizontally (cabeza de ajo), 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil (aceite de oliva virgen extra), 1 tablespoon of black peppercorns (pimienta negra en grano), 1 bay leaf

(laurel), thyme (tomillo), parsley stems

(perejil), salt.

Boil four litres of water in a put then add all the ingredients, except the salt. When it comes to the boil, skim it to keep the broth as clear as possible.

Reduce the heat to minimum and simmer for about two hours. Season to taste with salt, remove the pot from the heat and strain the broth.

To make soup, cook vegetables, potatoes, noodles or chickpeas and add the meat.

Lentil soup

Measure out one glass of small "Pardina" lentils, which will be enough for four people. Soak in cold water for about four hours. Drain the water, then put the lentils in a pot, fill with water, add salt, boil for two to three minutes and pour away the liquid again - because it doesn't taste nice.

At the same time, sauté finely chopped bacon, a piece of onion, a piece of carrot, a piece of celery and a piece of leek in butter with a crushed clove of garlic and a sprig of thyme. You can add a dash of balsamic vinegar (vinagre balsamico) and - here's the trick: a tablespoon of sweet mustard. After a short sauté, add water and cook the lentils until they are soft.

Remove a third of the lentils and purée the rest with a hand blender until creamy. Add the lentils again, season with salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar - lentils can tolerate a lot of acid, sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Chickpea & spinach casserole

Serves four: 250g dried chickpeas (garbanzos), a pinch of bicarbonate (usually found next to spices in supermarkets), 1/4 cup quality olive oil (aceite de oliva virgen extra), 6 peeled garlic cloves (ajo), 50 g sliced white bread (pan blanco sin corteza),2 tbsp paprika (pimenton), a few strands of saffron (azafrán), 2 tbsp sherry vinegar (vinagre de Jerez), 1/4 kg washed spinach (espinacas lavadas), salt, white pepper (pimienta blanca).

Soak the chickpeas in a bowl of cold water with a little bicarbonate overnight.

The next day, drain and rinse. Bring the chickpeas to the boil in a large enough pot with 2.5 litres of water. When it comes to the boil, reduce the heat to minimum and simmer the chickpeas until they are soft. This will take around two hours. Add a quarter cup of cold water every ten minutes or so to prevent them from cooking too quickly. At the end, enough liquid should have evaporated to just cover the pulses. Remove from the heat and put to one side.

Heat the oil in a small frying pan over a low to medium heat. Fry the garlic for three minutes. Remove and reserve. Toast the bread in the same pan for one minute on each side and then set aside.

Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool slightly, then add the paprika and saffron to the pan and then immediately add the sherry vinegar so that the paprika does not burn.

In a mortar, pound the garlic and toasted bread to a paste.

Bring the chickpeas to the boil again and add the spinach. Simmer on a low heat for five minutes. Mix the paprika and saffron with the garlic-bread paste and stir into the chickpeas and spinach. Simmer for another five minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve

immediately.