Spain’s one-pot midday meal - cocido means 'boil-up' - can be served as two or even three courses in much the same way as France’s pot-au-feu and Italy’s bollito misto. First the broth, then the pulses and veg, and finally the meat. Regional differences are many and ingredients considered appropriate vary from household to household. One distinguishing feature is that all ingredients go into the pot without preliminary frying, and the cooking medium is water (never stock). Bulk is provided by chickpeas or (more recently) the New World's haricot beans: alubias, pochas, habichuelas et al. Fresh meat - a chunk of shoulder-pork or shin-beef or a joint from a boiling fowl - is included if available.
As prepared by my self-sufficient neighbours in the remote valley in Andalucia where I lived with my young family through the 1970's, certain flavourings were non-negotiable, others optional. Essential flavourings are/were a whole garlic-head singed in an open flame, torn bits of dried red pepper (ñora), chunk of serrano ham-bone (Spain's stock-cube), bayleaf, peppercorns, olive oil (for finishing). Possible inclusions are/were potato, tomato, green celery, soft chorizo, unborn eggs from the inside of a boiling-fowl, tocino (salted pork back-fat), morcilla (black pudding), shredded greens - spinach, chard, foraged leaves, turnip greens - stirred in at the end, just before the finishing enrichment of olive oil.
The valley was watered by the river Guadalmesi - scarcely a river but a fast-moving stream - that ran through a forest of cork-oaks to the narrow stretch of water that divides Europe from Africa, where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic. Olive-trees did not thrive on our damp micro-climate - you could see the cloud over the valley from outer space - so olive-oil had to be bought or bartered. But wheat was grown on the lower slopes (still threshed, milled and baked into bread locally in the 1980's), chickpeas and garlic thrived, as did acorns to feed the semi-wild herds of iberico pigs that roamed the cork-oak forest and provided the valley-dwellers with the raw material of chorizo, slab-bacon and salt-cured wind-dried hams, although these had to be sent up on donkey-back for curing in the dry air of the Ronda mountains.
Pre-soaking in cold water is necessary for chickpeas or beans unless they're this year’s crop (they’ll have a little ‘give’ when squeezed). When cooking, make sure to keep the pot at a gentle simmer with the occasional belch, and don’t add salt till the chickpeas are ready or they’ll never be perfectly soft (this may be an old wive’s tale - who knows?). Add chunked potatoes and shredded greens at the end of cooking, and the juices can be thickened with an extra swirl of olive oil. Magic. Make sure there’s plenty of bread for mopping and enough sharp red wine (nothing grand) to ensure a good digestion. As for the leftovers, the broth makes a fine supper if fortified with soup-pasta, or provides the basis for a batch of croquetas. Save the beans to fry up tomorrow as a hash, refrito, topped with a fried egg and maybe spiked with a sprinkle of chilli (hot pimenton, smoked or not, as you please)
.p.s. beloved paid subscibers (you know who you are!)
will shortly be in receipt of a recipe for cocido-broth croquetas (waste not, want not - why wouldn’t you?).
p.p.s. plenty more recipes and my watercolours in ‘The Flavours of Andalucia’ (Grub Street).
Croquetas coming up shortly for my beloved paid subscribers!
Being an old wife myself, I feel a need to set the record straight. Many other old wives are out there spreading nonsense. It is a fallacy that beans should not be salted until they are soft. Beans can and should be lightly salted at the beginning of the cook. Salt will not prevent them from softening. Any acidic ingredient will, though. Tomatoes or vinegar added before beans are fully cooked will cause them never to soften, no matter how long they are cooked.