🇪🇸 Spain · especially Castile
CocidoSpanish chickpea stew
The Spanish pot of chickpeas (or beans), cured pork, beef or hen and vegetables, boiled together, whose broth is served first as a noodle soup, followed by the legumes and vegetables and then the meats.
Origin and history
The cocido descends from the medieval Castilian olla, the pot boiled with legumes, vegetables and whatever meat the house had,. In Spain it became the national pot, made in nearly every region under local names; the Royal Spanish Academy defines the puchero as the dish of meat, bacon, chickpeas and vegetables boiled together, and the broth, legumes and meats have been eaten as separate courses for generations.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings (soup course and the pot that follows)
- Total time
- 3 h 30 min
- Hands-on
- 45 min
Ingredients
- 300 g1 1/2 cups dried chickpeas (garbanzos), soaked overnight in warm water with a pinch of salt; a mesh bag keeps them together
- 400 g14 oz beef shank or brisket (morcillo, falda), in one piece
- 2 chicken or hen thighs, bone in; a quarter of a boiling hen is the traditional choice
- 1 ham bone, plus a beef marrow bone if you can
- 100 g3 1/2 oz tocino (salt pork belly), in one piece
- 2 chorizo for cooking
- 2 morcilla (Spanish blood sausage)
- 3 carrots, peeled
- 600 g1 1/3 lb potatoes, peeled, left whole or halved
- 1/2 green cabbage or Savoy cabbage (repollo), cut in wedges
- 1 onion, peeled
- 100 g3 1/2 oz fideos (fine vermicelli noodles), for the soup
- 3.5 l3 3/4 qt cold water
- salt and olive oil
Method
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1. Put the beef, the ham bone, the tocino and the chicken in a tall pot, cover with the cold water and bring slowly to a boil.
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2. Skim the grey foam that rises for the first 10 minutes, until the broth is clear.
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3. Add the drained chickpeas in their mesh bag and the whole onion, lower the heat so the pot barely bubbles, and cook partly covered for 1 hour.
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4. Add the carrots, the chorizo and the morcilla and cook for another 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the chickpeas are tender when pressed and the beef is soft. Top up with hot water if the level drops below the meat.
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5. In a second pot, boil the cabbage wedges in some of the broth (or in salted water) for 20 minutes; add the potatoes for the last 15 to 20 minutes, until a knife slips in easily.
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6. Strain about 1.5 litres of the broth into a clean pot, taste and salt it, bring it to a boil, and cook the fideos for 3 to 4 minutes, until tender.
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7. Serve the first course: the broth with the noodles, piping hot.
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8. Serve the second course: the chickpeas with the cabbage, potatoes and carrots, dressed with a drizzle of olive oil.
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9. Serve the third course: the meats, sliced and arranged on a platter with the chorizo, morcilla and tocino, with the chickpeas' leftover broth at the table.
Notes
- The pot is eaten in courses (vuelcos): first the broth as a noodle soup, then the legumes and vegetables, then the meats. The cocido is a soup page here because the broth is served first as its own course; the plate of meats and chickpeas alone would be a stew.
- Names vary: puchero (Andalusia, the Canary Islands), olla, cocido. The parent recipe here is the plain everyday pot of Castile; the cocido madrileño adds the ham bone, trotter and spine bones, vegetables cooked apart and the tomato sauce, and the cocido maragato of León reverses the order of service.
- Beans replace the chickpeas in some regions (the Asturian fabada is a separate dish), and many households add leek, turnip or a stuffed meatball (pelota or relleno).
- Cooks often use a pressure cooker today, which cuts the cooking time to about 1 hour.
- Leftovers are the second meal: the chickpeas and meat fried as ropa vieja, or the broth kept for the next soup.
Adapted from Cocido madrileño, Spain.info (Spanish tourist board), La verdadera receta del cocido madrileño, The Objective, and Puchero, Diccionario de la lengua española, Real Academia Española.
Variants
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Cocido madrileño
Madrid chickpea stew
Madrid
The cocido of Madrid: chickpeas, beef, hen, ham bone, tocino, chorizo and morcilla with cabbage, potato and carrot, served in three vuelcos: the fideo soup, then the chickpeas and vegetables, then the meats.
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Cocido maragato
León chickpea stew
Maragatería, León (Astorga, Castrillo de los Polvazares)
The cocido of the Maragatería in León, famous for reversing the usual order: the meats come first, then the chickpeas with cabbage and potato, and the soup last.
At the festivals
Served at 3 festivals in Spain.
Earlier editions
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January 26, 2025
🇪🇸 Fene, Spain
III Festa do Caldo
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January 28, 2023
🇪🇸 Barreiros, Spain
II Festa do Caldo
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January 14, 2023
🇪🇸 O Barco de Valdeorras, Spain
I Festa do Caldo Ilustrado