LOVE LEGUMES

On a chilly Saturday afternoon (snow dusts the nearby mountaintops!), nothing is quite so comforting as a pot of beans simmering on the stove. 

Pinto beans cook with ham bone, carrots and potatoes.

Legumes—dried beans, peas and lentils—are a mainstay of Spanish cooking. In village homes, stews, soups and potages made with legumes might be served several times a week, year-round.

Legumes are an excellent source of dietary fiber and protein and are very low fat. However, in Spanish dishes, they are frequently combined with small quantities of fatty meats and sausages, which add much flavor. But beans and chickpeas also show up for Lenten meals, cooked with salt cod or completely vegetarian.

Dried beans (alubia, habichuela, judía, bolo, lingote, fabe, fesol, fríjol, fréjol, frisuelo, pocha, mongete) come in many colors and sizes. The most common is a large white kidney bean, somewhat similar to a cannellini bean. The judión or fabe is an even bigger white bean, prized for cooking the Asturian bean dish, fabada. In Valencia, dried lima beans or butter beans, called garrofón, are an essential ingredient in authentic paella. They may be white or white tipped in brown. The speckled Tolosa red bean, which has a wonderful creamy consistency, is much used in Basque dishes.

Dried beans are usually soaked 8 hours before cooking. Hard water toughens legumes in cooking. If you have very hard water, try soaking and cooking them in bottled or filtered water. They will cook tender much quicker. My well water is extremely hard, so I add a pinch of baking soda (bicarbonate) to both the soaking water and cooking water.

Beans are somewhat less gas-producing if you drain off the soaking water and put them to cook in fresh water. Cooking them long and slow is the best method.

Put the beans to cook in cold water. Cooking time varies with the variety--anywhere from one to three hours. (A pressure cooker is fine for cooking legumes because it shortens the cooking time.) Spanish housewives say you should asustar the beans--give them a "scare" while they cook—when they are partially cooked, add a half-cup of cold water to “shock” them. Always keep beans barely covered with liquid so their skins don’t split.

If I’m cooking beans, I cook twice the amount as called for in the recipe, removing half of them when partially cooked to store in the freezer for another day. They are a good starting point for a pot of chili

Today I'm cooking pinto beans with a ham bone and a few vegetables. La Mancha style, these are served with a garlicky ajiaceite sauce.

Spoon creamy garlic sauce over the beans. Add pickled peppers and onions.

Pinto Beans with Garlic Sauce
Bolos con Ajiaceite

This is a recipe from La Mancha (central Spain), where pinto beans are favored. It can be prepared with any dried beans.

Ham bone for flavor.

A chunk of serrano ham bone adds a huge amount of flavor to the beans. (Pictured is a whole ham hock, which is sawed into four or five pieces.) However, the cooked meat is stringy and not very palatable. So I add a piece of fresh pork, pancetta, smoked pork or sausages to the beans along with the bone. To make a vegetarian version, simply eliminate the meat and add olive oil and a teaspoon of smoked pimentón (paprika).

This garlic sauce, known elsewhere in Spain as alioli, adds a sumptuous touch to ordinary beans. Spoon some of the sauce over the cooked beans and let each person stir the sauce in. The sauce is also delicious as a dressing with cooked vegetables.

Serve the beans with pickled onions and guindillas, mild green chiles, on the side.

Serves 4-6.

1 pound pinto beans (2 ¼ cups), soaked in water to cover for 8 hours
1 pound meaty ham bone or pork hock
½ onion
1 stalk celery, sliced
2 bay leaves
Sprig of thyme
2 ½ teaspoons salt
2 carrots, sliced
2 medium potatoes, quartered
1 egg
2 cloves garlic
½ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
Pickled onions and peppers, to serve

Drain the beans and place them in a soup pot with 6 cups of water. Bring the beans to a boil and skim off all the foam that rises to the surface.

Add the ham bone, onion, celery, bay leaves, and thyme. Bring again to a boil, reduce the heat, cover, and simmer the beans 1 hour.

Add 1 cup cold water to the beans and bring them again to a boil. Add 2 teaspoons salt and the sliced carrots. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook beans until tender, about 1 hour more.

Add the potatoes to the beans. Cover and cook until they are very tender, 30 minutes.

Skim out 2 chunks of potatoes. Keep beans warm on a low heat.

Place egg and garlic in a blender and blend until smooth. Add the 2 chunks of potatoes and blend. Blend in the oil to make a thick sauce. Blend in remaining ½ teaspoon salt and the vinegar.

Place the beans in a large serving bowl. Separate the meat from the ham bone and add to the beans. Spoon some of the garlic sauce over the beans. Serve remaining sauce separately. Serve pickled onions and peppers on the side.

More recipes for beans, chickpeas and lentils:

Fabada

Black beans and rice.

Rabbit with beans and pasta.

Soup with beans and greens.

Black-eyed peas.

Red beans.

Chickpeas and vegetables.

Chickpeas and spinach (vegetarian).

Lenten chickpeas with cod.

Fennel soup with chickpeas and wheat.

Canary Island soup with chickpeas and corn.

Don Quixote's vegetarian lentils.

Lentils with chorizo.

FABADA--MAYBE THE BEST BEANS IN THE WORLD

Fabada--maybe the best bean dish in the world.

Just when I thought spring was around the corner, a cold front moving across southern Spain dumped snow on the nearby mountains and left me again huddling by the fire. Perfect weather to cook up a pot of beans, which keeps the kitchen windows steamed up and fills the house with its aroma.

I like all kinds of beans, but possibly my favorite bean dish is fabada asturiana, beans and sausages cooked in the style of Asturias. Asturias, in the chill northern Cantabrian coast, is noted for its cheeses (such as blue Cabrales), its fabulous seafood and this singular bean dish. Fabada is so popular that it turns up all over Spain. Sort of as Boston baked beans are not limited to Boston.

Fabes beans.

The proper beans for fabada are Asturian-grown fabes. These are extra-large white kidney beans that cook up creamy and tender. (They can be ordered in the US from http://www.tienda.com/) If these are not available, however, I suggest substituting butter beans or cannellini beans.

Asturian smoked morcilla.

Fabada may be one of the few dishes in Spanish cuisine that contains no olive oil. Panceta, ham bone and two kinds of sausages provide the flavor package. Asturias, with its damp maritime climate, produces chorizo and morcilla (blood sausage) that are, unusually in Spanish charcuteria, smoke-cured. If these traditional sausages are not available, use regular cooking chorizo and morcilla, but add a spoonful of pimentón de la Vera (smoked paprika) to the beans as they cook.

For an insider's view of Asturias, the sausages and fabada, have a look at this site http://www.whereisasturias.com/?p=6602, with a video clip, produced by Jeffrey Weiss, whose book, CHARCUTERIA--THE SOUL OF SPAIN--comes out in the fall.

 The beans need to be soaked for 12 hours (or overnight) before cooking. I have extremely hard water, so I use a pinch of baking soda in the water or else bottled water with low mineral content to correct the hardness. Otherwise, the beans never get really tender. Drain the soaked beans and put them to cook in fresh water.

Fabada is best cooked in a cazuela, a wide earthenware casserole, but any shallow pan will work. Add water to a depth of two fingers above the beans. Keep the beans barely covered with liquid so that the skins don’t split.

Savory beans with sausages.

Fabada Asturiana
Asturian Beans and Sausages

Serves 4 to 6.

Soaking swells the beans (left).

1 pound dried large white beans, soaked 12 hours
8 ounces lean bacon or panceta, in one piece
Ham bone or a chunk of cured ham
8 ounces chorizo sausage (preferably smoked Asturian)
8 ounces morcilla sausage (preferably smoked Asturian)
2 bay leaves
Pinch of crushed saffron
Salt and pepper

Drain the beans and put them in a cazuela. Blanch the bacon in boiling water for 2 minutes and drain. Add it to the beans. Add water to cover. Bring to a boil and skim off the froth.

Add the piece of ham, chorizo, morcilla and bay leaves. Bring to a boil and skim again. Add saffron, dissolved in a little liquid.

Cover and cook until beans are tender, 1 to 2 hours, adding cold water as necessary so beans are always covered with liquid. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Don’t stir the beans, but shake the casserole from time to time. Let the fabada rest 15 minutes before serving. Use scissors to cut the bacon, ham and sausages into bite-sized pieces.

©Janet Mendel

HASTA LA VISTA, BEANS

I  first posted this green bean story early in November, before I had figured out how to format a blog. Readers told me they were seeing code mixed into the text. So, I will try posting it again. By now, the garden beans are finished and I’m delving into my cache in the freezer.

I’ve been eating lots of green beans from my garden. Southern Spain has a year-round growing season, so this is the second planting. The first, harvested in early summer, were wide, flat romano beans. The second crop, just finishing, are skinny haricot beans.

Last week when my son, Ben, and grandson, Leo, were visiting, I got them to help me pick the last of the beans. My six-foot tall son easily reached the ones at the top of the poles that had eluded my stretch. I sent the five-year-old scooting between the rows to pick those hiding at the very bottom. Then, off to the kitchen to cook a heap of beans.

Earlier in bean season, I rarely did anything more complicated than blanch the beans and dress them with extra virgin olive oil. I love green beans fresh from the garden so much that I enjoyed them in solitary splendor rather than as a side dish. Although, heaped beside grilled fresh tuna and sliced tomatoes, an Andalusian take on niçoise salad, they were outstanding.

But these end-of-season beans needed a little more cooking. Some were even mature enough to shell, discarding the leathery pods. I turned to my all-time favorite Spanish vegetable recipe—verduras salteadas con jamón, vegetables sautéed with serrano ham. This is a great way to prepare almost any vegetable, alone or in  combination. Besides green beans, asparagus, fava beans, artichokes, chard, broccoli and  peas are great choices. So, this is a recipe for all seasons.

American friends who visit me in Spain often complain that Spanish meals, at least in restaurants, are short on vegetables. Markets are heaped with fresh produce, but vegetables, other than potatoes, don’t turn up on the dinner plate as a side with an order of meat, poultry or fish. However, menus often list vegetable dishes along with salads, as starters. This one is a traditional favorite.

I serve these sautéed beans as a starter or, with the addition of quartered hard-cooked egg, as a main dish for lunch or a light supper. The diced serrano ham (vegetables, yes, but not vegetarian) serves as seasoning. You could use (unsmoked) pancetta if serrano ham is not available. The beans need to be par-boiled before sautéeing—a short minute for tender, baby beans or as long as five minutes for older ones.

So, it’s hasta la vista, beans. A great finale. But, I’ll be seeing them again soon, as I’ve packed enough in the freezer to last me through the winter. While frozen ones don’t have the lovely texture of fresh beans, they will be just perfect in this sauté recipe.

Green Bean and Ham Sauté    
Habichuelas Salteadas con Jamón

Serves 1 as a main dish; 2 as a starter; 4 as a side.

1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, sliced crosswise
¼ cup diced serrano ham (1 oz)
2 cups cut-up, par-boiled green beans
2 tablespoons chopped red pepper
crushed red chile flakes (optional)
salt and pepper
chopped parsley
hard-cooked egg (optional)


Heat the oil in an earthenware cazuela or skillet. Add the garlic and ham and sauté until the garlic begins to turn golden. Stir in the beans, red pepper, chile, if using, and salt and pepper. Sauté on a medium heat 5 minutes.

To serve, sprinkle with chopped parsley and garnish with quartered egg, if desired.