Braises & Stews — Cocido & Fabada

Spanish Cookery

Chapter 8 · Braises & Stews: Cocido & Fabada

Two legume stews, two genuinely different techniques. One skips this course's own aromatic base entirely; the other returns to it directly, alongside a real, cooked-in use of Chapter 3's pimentón.

Cocido Madrileño: A Simple Simmer, No Sofrito At All

Cocido madrileño is built from chickpeas, beef, chicken, chorizo, morcilla, and pork belly, along with cabbage, carrots, and potatoes — but it starts nothing like Chapter 2's own sofrito. Meats, bones, and chickpeas go straight into cold water, brought slowly to a boil so any impurities can rise to the surface as foam and be skimmed off, then simmered gently for three hours or more until everything is tender. No onion, garlic, or tomato is cooked down first at all.

A genuine exception in this course Almost every dish so far in this Subject starts with some kind of aromatic base cooked in fat. Cocido is a real, deliberate exception — its own flavour comes entirely from the meats, bones, and long simmering time, not from anything sautéed first.

Tres Vuelcos: One Pot, Three Courses

Traditionally, cocido is served in three separate courses from the same single pot — los tres vuelcos, "the three turns":

First: the broth Strained from the pot and often cooked with thin noodles, served as its own soup course.
Second: the chickpeas and vegetables Chickpeas, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes, served together as the next course.
Third: the meats Beef, chorizo, morcilla, and pork belly, served last as the richest, final course.

One real, historically suggested explanation for this three-course structure ties it to Sephardic Jewish slow-cooking traditions — a single pot prepared ahead and eaten in stages, said to help avoid kitchen work on the Sabbath. It's a suggested historical link, not a settled fact, but a genuinely interesting one behind an otherwise unusual way to serve a single stew.

Fabada Asturiana: Where Sofrito Returns

Fabada, from Asturias in northern Spain, uses fabes — large, specific white beans, soaked overnight before cooking — with lacón (cured pork shoulder), morcilla, chorizo, and panceta. Unlike cocido, fabada genuinely does start with a real sofrito: onion cooked gently in olive oil until soft, then pimentón stirred in briefly before the whole mixture goes into the pot with the beans.

Two real callbacks in one pot That sofrito-plus-pimentón step is Chapter 2's own technique put to direct use, and the pimentón itself is handled exactly the way Chapter 3 teaches — added briefly to hot oil, then diluted quickly once it joins the beans and their cooking liquid, rather than left to scorch. Saffron is often added later in the cook, though many fabada recipes add it directly to the simmering pot rather than pre-blooming it in warm liquid the way Chapter 3's own technique describes — a simpler, if less controlled, real alternative.

Unlike cocido, fabada is served as a single, unified dish — beans and meats together in one bowl, not split across separate courses.

	Cocido Madrileño	Fabada Asturiana
Legume	Chickpeas	Fabes (large white beans), soaked overnight
Aromatic base	None — a simple simmer	A real sofrito, with pimentón stirred in
Served as	Three separate courses (tres vuelcos)	One combined dish

Kitchen Practice

Kitchen Practice 1

Make a simplified cocido — chickpeas and a mix of meats simmered gently in cold water, skimmed of foam, and cooked for several hours — then serve the strained broth on its own as a first course, exactly as tres vuelcos describes.

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Kitchen Practice 2

Make a fabada, building a real sofrito with onion and pimentón first, stirring it into soaked beans and cured meats, and serving the finished dish as one combined bowl.

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Kitchen Practice 3

Serve your full cocido as all three vuelcos — broth, then chickpeas and vegetables, then meats, as three genuinely separate courses — and notice how the same pot tastes different depending on which course it's eaten as.

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Quick Reference — Cocido & Fabada

Cocido madrileño: chickpeas and meats simmered from cold water with no sofrito at all, 3+ hours
Served as tres vuelcos — broth first, then chickpeas and vegetables, then meats — possibly linked to Sephardic Jewish slow-cooking tradition
Fabada asturiana: fabes (soaked overnight), lacón, morcilla, chorizo, and panceta, genuinely built on a real sofrito with pimentón
Fabada is served as one unified dish, not split into courses like cocido

Next — Chapter 9: Sauces — Alioli & Romesco
A traditionally egg-free pounded garlic-oil emulsion, and a nut-and-roasted-pepper sauce thickened by neither roux nor emulsification.