Recipe for Asturian Pork and Butter Bean Stew
Serves 8-10.
It’s a good idea to make this dish the day before eating it.
500g (1lb 2oz) dried butter beans, soaked overnight in cold water
About 500g (1lb 2oz) raw ham or gammon hock
1 raw pork hock or a trotter (available in Cork Market or specialist pork butchers)
500g (1lb 2oz) streaky bacon in one piece, smoked or not
200g (7oz) Spanish tocino (salted pork belly fat), Italian lardo salato, the fat trimmings from Serrano or Parma ham, or really fat bacon
700g (1lb 9oz) fresh belly pork, in slices, or veal shin in pieces (as would be cut for osso bucco)
4 bay leaves
A few sprigs of thyme
1 or 2 dried chillies
300g (11oz) morcilla (Spanish blood sausage)
400g (14oz) good-quality cooking chorizo
10 large cloves garlic, peeled
2 onions, sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Put the drained beans and the hocks in a large pot, cover with cold water and boil for 15 minutes. Drain, then return to the pan and cover with hot water.
Add the bacon, tocino, belly pork and herbs and cook for 1 hour at a steady simmer. Add the remaining ingredients and cook for another hour or until the beans are tender.
Make sure that the stew is always just covered with water.
Remove the hocks and pick off the meat, then return it to the pot. Cut the bacon and chorizo into chunky pieces - the morcilla will have broken up. Check the seasoning but it is unlikely that salt will be needed. You could stir in a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley. This stew is good to eat with bread.
