Recipe: Fabada Asturiana

Recipe | Fabada Asturiana, a Spanish sausage and bean stew

Every culture has comfort food, and one of the most loved and widely enjoyed comfort foods in Spain is Fabada. While it’s typical of northern Spain, it has been adopted across the nation, Imagine coming inside after a chilly autumn hike, curling up by a cozy fire, or staying in on a Saturday night for movies with the family — this is the dish for those moments. In the US, the classic sausages used in Fabada can be hard to find, and are new to many. At Cúrate, we’ve perfected these recipes over the last decade, and they are now available through Cúrate at Home.

• Butifarra | a mild pork sausage flavored predominately with salt and pepper, along with a touch of nutmeg for added depth. This sausage hails from Catalonia, the region surrounding Barcelona. traditional Catalan-style mild sausage
• Chorizo | an iconic, and probably the most recognizable Spanish sausage, made with smoked pimentón lending smoky and rich yet mild flavor.
• Morcilla Casera | Spain’s version of blood sausage

See the full recipe and links to hard-to-find ingredients listed below. Make sure to tag us with your finished dish on Instagram using @curateathome #cookingwithcúrate!

directions:

• Soak the dried beans in 4 quarts of water in a large bowl overnight.
• Heat an 8-quart stockpot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the oil and sear all the sausages in batches until just browned on both sides but not fully cooked through, about 1 minute on each side. Remove to a plate.
• Add the onion and the garlic to the same pot and cook, stirring often, over medium-low heat, until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the pimentón and cook, stirring often, until toasted, about 2 minutes. Pour in the sherry and deglaze the pot, scraping any brown bits from the bottom. Cook until all the sherry evaporates.
• Drain the beans and add to the pot along with the stock, ham hock, and rosemary. Bring to a simmer.
• While the stew is at a low simmer, add the sausages back into the pot, leaving them whole. Poach the sausages until cooked through, about 20 minutes.
• Remove the sausages and continue to cook the stew, covered, until the beans are tender, about 45 minutes. Taste a bean to test for tenderness, and when soft, slice the sausages into large pieces and add them back to the stew.

TIP: A couple of tips: Remember that these are fresh, not cured, sausages, and you want to strive for a good combination of richness and spice when choosing substitutions, such as Italian sausage for butifarra or boudin noir for morcilla. If after cooking, the ham hock is tender and has good flavor, pull the meat and incorporate it into the stew.

All the hard-to-find ingredients are here!