Spanish food: Cocido Madrileño

From the very center of the Iberian Peninsula, from the "heart of the beast", from the hole of the Donut, capital of the Empire it arrived to the sunny Netherlands 90% of the ingredients to make one of the most delicious meals you can have, a "Cocido Madrileño" (with capital letters). I have been thinking for awhile but I cannot really translate it, let's call it "Chickpeas from Madrid".

And this, my friends, is why we were sent to the Earth

This meal consist on three dishes that are more or less prepared at the same time, it consist on a soup, boiled chickpeas with cabbage and a bunch of different kind of meats -also boiled-. This is a meal you can enjoy any time of the year, winter, summer, spring or fall it doesn't matter. There is people that say "in summer is too hot to eat a cocido", I say "WRONG!! Losers! Cocido can be ate the whole year! Cocido MUST be eaten every now and then".

I will not explain fully the receipt because there are better places where it is already explained, but more in general. You need small chickpeas, Pedrosillano is a very good option, cabbage, paprika powder -from La Vera, of course-, virgin olive oil (always virgin, normal olive oil sucks tons, don't think it is really healthy also) and soup pasta. For the meat: Morcilla -Spanish blood sausage-, cooking chorizo, pork fat, a big piece of raw bacon, a piece of cow meat -the one for boiling, I don't know the name, shoulder for example?-, some cow bones for the soup and chicken legs.

First the soup, it has pasta inside even if you don't see it

Basically you have to boil the chickpeas with the cow meat and bones, the bacon, and the fat for around four hours, after three hours you have to add the chicken and let it cook all together for one more hour. When everything is cooked you put all the solids apart and let the water, which will have all the flavor of everything, in the pan, warm it hard and add the soup pasta to it, let it for some minutes (5 or 10) and your soup is ready. During these three hours, apart from drinking wine and/or beer you also have to boil the cabbage, once it is boiled you put olive oil in a pan and roast a bit of garlic, then you add the paprika powder and the cabbage, this is to be mixed in the dish with the chickpeas. The morcilla and chorizo have to be boiled in a different pan as they are very greasy and they can give a very strong taste to the soup.

After the soup, the chickpeas with cabbage, oh man, this is sooooo good!!

And the last and better thing of it... is to eat it!! First you eat the soup, then in the same dish the chickpeas with the cabbage and after that the meat! If you drink a good red wine with it is just orgasmic!

And last but not least, the meat!!

It was cooked mainly by a friend from Madrid who brought all the ingredients from there and my girlfriend. I was just looking around, drinking beer and doing the washing up, trying not to annoy them too much. We ate it with some friends and I must say that it was a great Saturday. To be repeated for sure!