Spanish chorizo and chickpea stew

Hobbychef
4 days ago
9 min read

This chorizo and chickpea stew (potaje) from the north of Spain full of vegetable goodness. In addition to the core ingredients, it includes shallots, sweet peppers, tomatoes, broad beans and a plethora of leafy green herbs. Filling, certainly , but with breezy spring herbal and lemon notes.

Elevated flavours

I came across this dish in a small eatery in a mountain village while creating travel content about northern Spain's Los Picos de Europa, the majestic mountain range (and national park) that straddles the regions of Cantabria and Asturias, one of Spain's most beautiful landscapes that defies every cliché about what Spain "looks like".

Effectively an alpine biome where you might expect Heidi to pop up at any moment or Julie Andrews to burst into song in a mountain meadow, the dishes I savoured here were a wonderful combination of all those green and hearty flavours you expect at high altitudes, but also ingredients more commonly associated with the Spain where the rain stays mainly off the plain and the sun defines the flavours of red food: tomatoes; peppers; wine.

While it seems contradictory when you're in this landscape, of course it makes complete sense geographically. As in various other places, perhaps most notably in Italy, these irrefutably alpine ecosystems are a mere few hours away from the sea and sun-drenched slopes and plains where very different food ingredients are nurtured. And, the paths of exchange and cross-fertilisation are relatively easy.

I encountered this dish in a welcoming comedor, a homely eatery housed at the back of a pit-stop tavern mostly serving truckers and farmers transporting their wares through sinuous mountain routes that also served as the on-site dining room for the visitor chalets in which we would be staying for a couple of nights.

My eyes immediately spotted this dish on the menu; potaje de garbanzos y chorizo. Like many other travellers to Spain, I was already familiar with other delicious stews based on chickpeas, such as the famous Andalusian stew of chickpeas and spinach. And, in behaviour learned from my father, the minute I had tasted it and knew it was good, I laid on the charm to try and wheedle the recipe out of the chef.

This was made a lot easier by the fact (given that the matriarch who ran the kitchen didn't speak any language other than Spanish with a heavy accent I could not claim to understand) that her daughter-in-law who assisted in the kitchen was English. She originally hailed from Sussex and had fallen in love with the owner's son, the local cop, while on an immersive Spanish course in the region. She'd eventually married him and decamped to Spain some 6 years previously. She was a martial arts instructor, helped out in the restaurant, and was an eager translator who couldn't wait to spill the beans faster than you can add them to this potaje. We were there in the late spring, surrounded by green, which was fully reflected in the seasonal flavours. But, I was told by our keen English translator that it is actually eaten all year round with slightly different seasonal ingredients.

Since then, I have found it a great dish in any season and also a great way to get kids to eat extra veggies without them even noticing. In the winter, you can substitute the the red wine with whisky. I kid you not. The Spanish and whisky have a long history thanks to the Scottish regiments fighting Napoleon in Spain, some of which joined forces with the Spanish guerilla fighters, hiding up in mountains when not attacking the French and Franco-Spanish forces. I'm not getting into that here, just trust me...

In my recipe, I'm using the term "bacon lardons". When I learned the recipe the term bandied about was "tocino". This is used almost interchangeably with "panceta" in Spanish-language writing about cooking which creates confusion. What I could glean from the gist of the conversation is that it should be fatty, unsmoked lardons.

This quantity serves two to three diners as a main course (because it is definitely filling) and is pretty easy to scale up. Increase the solid ingredients proportionally and the liquid ingredients by 25% for each two additional diners.

Although this definitely isn't a quick dish, it is very easy to cook.

There aren't any side dishes here except your bread of choice served with a tapenade or extra virgin olive oil. It is definitely a one-pot dish.

The tapenade I am making is not the traditional olive tapenade, made with either green or black olives, often served alongside this dish, but my contribution to the form. I knocked it up many years ago as something for a summer picnic and later found it works perfectly with this potaje, especially in the warmer months, with its lemon and green pea flavours.

3 top tips to get this recipe right:

Leafy green herbs are key to this dish. Don't substitute with dried alternatives in the warmer months since they have entirely different flavour intensity. However, you can use the dried versions in winter (especially if using whisky) but use only about 1tspn of each

If you can't get your hands on small sweet peppers, red, yellow and/or orange bell peppers work equally well, as long as you don't slice them too thinly. This is a "sizeist" dish. It's about big pieces. Similarly, if you don't have access to large mushrooms, use whole smaller mushrooms. In both cases, you don't want them to shrivel to barely nothing in the final dish as it cooks slowly for a relatively long time

The reason that the additional pimentón is optional comes down to your chorizo, which shouldnot be too thick. If you're using a chorizo contains a fair amount of it that will seep into the dish during cooking, as I am, adding additional is overkill and will ruin the flavour of the overall dish with too much spicy pepper. This potaje should be piquant, but not overly spicy. I suggest tasting it halfway through the cooking process and making the judgement call at that point

Shopping list

for the Spanish chorizo and chickpea stew

Approx. 150g chorizo; a kind with a small-to-medium diameter, sliced
400g chickpeas; cooked (tinned or dried, soaked and cooked)
Approx. 100g unsmoked bacon lardons
5 echalion shallots (or other shallots); peeled
6 or 7 small sweet peppers; halved vertically and deseeded
300g large mushrooms; washed and cut into thick slices
¾ of a cup of broad beans; fresh or frozen
3 tbspns fresh garlic; finely cubed
300ml vegetable stock
4 to 5 tbspns virgin olive oil
300ml red wine
A large clutch of fresh thyme; roughly chopped
A clutch of fresh sage leaves; roughly chopped
4 or 5 fresh bay leaves
A large clutch of fresh parsley leaves; roughly chopped
A clutch of fresh rosemary sprigs
The juice and pulp of 2 fresh lemons
(up to) 1tspn pimentón; optional, see above
salt and pepper to taste

for the black olive, lemon and pea tapenade

350g pitted black olives
1 fresh unwaxed lemon; washed
½ cup garden peas; steamed and cooled
4 cloves of garlic; peeled
Virgin olive oil to taste (e.g. 6 tbspns)
salt and pepper to taste

Cooking method

the Spanish chorizo and chickpea stew

Heat the oil on a medium heat in a large, deep frying pan or pot with a lid. When hot, add the lardons. Sauté and, after a minute or so, add the shallots. Stir frequently, ensuring the shallots are fully sealed
When the lardons fully brown, add the sweet peppers and garlic, stirring frequently to prevent the garlic burning. If it starts to stick, add dabs of wine
When the peppers are sealed (but not soft), add the juice and pulp of one lemon and stir in. Add a little more wine if needed to prevent sticking. Cook off for about 2mins
Add the mushrooms and stir, coating them in the juices. Once slightly softened, add half of the remaining wine and partially cook off. Add a few sprigs of rosemary, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 5mins. NB: the mushrooms should add moisture to the pan, but if they show signs of sticking, add a dab of the stock
In an oven-proof dish with a lid (e.g. Dutch oven or cocotte) lay out the drained, cooked chickpeas and the slices of chorizo. Add the chopped tomatoes and fold in. Add the ingredients from the frying pan and all of its juices. Gently pour in the vegetable stock and season with salt and pepper. Cover and cook in a pre-heated oven at 200°C for 40mins without disturbing
Remove, uncover and stir. Add the fresh sage leaves, thyme and additional rosemary to the top of the dish. Re-cover and and return to the oven, cooking for an additional 30mins, reducing the heat to 180°C
Remove and uncover. Add the remaining wine and broad beans and stir in. Re-cover, return to the oven, cooking for an additional 30mins, further reducing the heat to 160°C
Remove and uncover. Add the chopped parsley and the juice and pulp of the second lemon. Re-cover and and return to the oven, reducing the heat to 120°C and cooking for an additional 30mins or so
If the liquid in the dish has not yet sufficiently reduced, re-cover and return to the oven until it has or, if in a rush, cook with the lid removed until it does. Don't be tempted to thicken it with flour or cornflour
Plate and serve with a simple side of rustic bread, served with tapenade and/or extra virgin olive oil

the black olive, lemon and pea tapenade

Add the garlic cloves and olives to a mini-chopper and chop to your desired consistency. NB, this should not be an actual paste
With a zester or grater, add the zest of the lemon to the mini chopper and chop; then add the peas and juice of the lemon and chop again
Decant to a suitable dish, add the olive oil and gently fold in, seasoning as you go. Allow to settle before serving. NB: don't pour the oil into the mini chopper and chop since this is more likely to result in a paste than a textured tapenade
This will make more tapenade than you need for the meal. However, as long as you add enough oil, it can be safely stored, covered, in the fridge for more than a week and used in salads or with bread as it is here

Alternatives

This dish is easily converted for vegans and vegetarians. Use large pieces of celeriac, potatoes, butternut squash, sweet potatoes or pumpkin (skin on) added at the stage the chorizo is above. Or, large cubes of aubergine (added at the same stage as the broad beans above) if you prefer a smokier flavour. I often cook these vegan versions in warmer months because they produce an overall lighter dish in combination with the green herbs and lemon. Overall, the cooking time will be shorter and I usually start the cooking at a lower temperature e.g. 180°C

Similar to above, my favourite pescatarian version involves adding anchovies (the "tougher" tinned or bottled kind, not the delicate marinated type) or chunks of octopus at the same point as adding the broad beans.

Carnivores? Well, it already has enough meat in there. But, if that's not enough, apparently it's common to make with a mix of bacon, chorizo and chicken. Bite-sized chicken pieces are included when browning the bacon in the pan, then added into the oven dish with the rest of the pan-cooked ingredients.

Pairings

Most often when I have this dish, much like the first time I enjoyed it, I pair it with one of those "old reliable" reds from Rioja or Ribera del Duero which are both an obvious and sensible direction for this dish. However, if I am lucky enough to be able spot a red from Galicia's Ribeira Sacra region, it will always be my first choice, though these have become rather difficult to find in the UK in recent years. One that works particularly well is Coca i Fitó Tolo do Xisto 2020.

However, in the warmer months it works very well with the right chilled rosé—or more particularly rosado—as long as it's muscular enough to take on the heavier flavours in the dish too. Hence, I say "rosado" because the very qualities often associated with them that many rosé lovers don't like, work well here. Two oak-aged rosados that won't break the bank that balance fruity freshness with undertows of wood that stand up to the chorizo, bacon and garlic are Bodegas Margon - Pricum Rosado Barrica 2019 and Juan Gil Pedrera Rosado from Murcia.

Something else I have also discovered I like with this dish, especially with this particular riff on a tapenade, is Seville-style sherry sangria. I know that some Spanish foodies disapprove even more of mixing regional specialities than metaphors, but I think it is a great drink with this dish in the summer. Always made with white sherry, fruit, juice and water, and served very chilled, this Andalusian speciality is works perfectly with this dish from the North.