Cocido Madrileño

Madrid Chickpea and Meat Stew in Three Courses

One pot produces a three-course lunch. First the broth, with fine noodles cooked in it. Then the chickpeas and vegetables. Then the meats. Madrid calls the courses vuelcos, after the way the pot is tipped out in turn, and treats the whole thing as a winter ritual.

The Spanish recipe read simmers soaked chickpeas with beef shin, bacon, chicken and several kinds of bone for about two and a half hours. It cooks the chorizo, morcilla and cabbage in a separate pan so that their fat and colour do not cloud the broth, and serves the three courses in order.

Ingredients

For the pot

  • 300 g dried chickpeas, soaked in cold water for 12 hours
  • 400 g beef shin, in one piece
  • 200 g unsmoked streaky bacon, in one piece
  • 2 chicken thighs, bone in
  • 2 beef marrow bones
  • 1 small ham bone (optional)
  • 3 medium potatoes, peeled
  • 2 carrots, peeled
  • Fine sea salt

Cooked separately

  • 2 cooking chorizo sausages
  • 1 morcilla or 150 g black pudding in its skin
  • 1/2 Savoy or white cabbage, cut into wedges

For the soup

  • 150 g fine vermicelli (fideos)

Method

  1. Start the meats Put the beef, bacon and bones in the stockpot with 4 litres of cold water. Bring slowly to the boil and skim off the foam for 5 minutes.
  2. Add the chickpeas Drain the chickpeas and add them, in a muslin bag if you have one, which makes them easier to lift out. Simmer gently, partly covered, for 1 hour 30 minutes.
  3. Add chicken and vegetables Add the chicken, carrots and whole potatoes and simmer for 45 minutes more, until the chickpeas are soft and the chicken is cooked through with clear juices (75°C in the thickest part). Season with salt only now.
  4. Cook the sausages and cabbage Meanwhile, simmer the chorizo, morcilla and cabbage in a separate pan with a few ladles of the broth for 25 to 30 minutes.
  5. First course Strain off about 1.5 litres of broth into a clean pan, bring to the boil and cook the noodles in it for 3 to 4 minutes. Serve as soup.
  6. Second and third courses Serve the chickpeas with the potatoes, carrots and cabbage, then the meats and sausages, sliced, on a warm platter. Many families put both on the table together.

Food safety

Chicken must be cooked through with clear juices (75°C in the thickest part). Cool leftover broth quickly and refrigerate within 2 hours.

Add chickpeas to water that is already warm, and salt at the end; both help the skins to stay tender.

Leftover meats are traditionally chopped and fried the next day as ropa vieja, although no recipe for it was read.

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