Unique, unrepeatable and different, the faba variety of haricot bean is the finest of all the pulses, as rare as it is exquisite. Almost prohibitive in price, delicate in preservation and difficult to find, its exceptional quality makes it a real culinary luxury. It is used to make the famous Asturian dish, the "fabada", a bed of beans upon which rest various kinds of pork products. The mastery of the dish lies in the wise combination of the elements comprising it: the beans, locally grown; streaky bacon from the dewlap, very white, opaque and soft; black pudding in contrast, black, wrinkled, made with blood, onion, salt and lard, dried and smoked over oak chips; chorizo from the loin of pork with no beef mixed in, also smoked and with a pinch of spicy paprika; meat from the hand of pork, firm and succulent; ham of the best quality; and the right water, neither too hard nor too soft.Now, if the ingredients are essential, the proportion is more debatable. First of all, a good fabada does not require copious quantities and abundant ingredients.
Rather the contrary, because excess in the meats, so habitual, is the shortest road to gastronomic disaster. Because, as Grande Covián tells us in the prologue to the Breviary of the fabada, by Taibo: "Abundance of animal fat, I am sorry to have to tell you, can be considered today as the main drawback of the fabada".
A drastic reduction in the more substantial products, principally the bacon, chorizo and ham, the purpose of which is in fact to give flavour and substance to the beans and the wonderful broth, will allow us to include the fabada in a menu without its proverbial weight overwhelming everything else. It is a powerful dish and requires a vigorous companion: a red wine with plenty of body, high alcohol content and intense flavour in which fruits and wild berries predominate.
Published by courtesy of the magazine Mi Vino.
Mi Vino.
