Fabada asturiana, often simply known as fabada, is a rich Spanish bean stew, originally from and most commonly found in the autonomous community of Principality of Asturias, but widely available throughout the whole of Spain and in Spanish restaurants worldwide. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabada_asturiana

I originally shared this recipe back in January of 2020. Boy that seems like a lifetime ago now, doesn’t it. As I work my way through layers of lists and links on Wikipedia I of course run across the same dish multiple times. Up until now I have generally cooked the dish again, trying out some of my optional ingredients, but haven’t usually made any adjustments to the original post.

This time around there are two factors contributing to my creating a new post about this dish; first, it’s just been long enough that I’d like to call attention to a delicious dish again, and secondly, I’ll actually be making some minor adjustments to the recipe based on my experience cooking it this time.

I decided to try the variation using canned beans instead of the dry ones. My original recipe only called for two cans of beans, but that left me with what felt like a meat soup with a few beans in it, compared to the bean stew that I recall the recipe cooked from scratch being, so I’m increasing the recipe to call for three cans of beans, as well as reducing the water, since dry beans will absorb more of the liquid than canned ones. Of course, using canned beans doesn’t significantly change the cooking time, since I still simmer the meats for an hour and a half to create a flavorful broth before adding the beans, but if or some reason you don’t have dry beans available I’m happy to report that I don’t find a significant flavor difference between canned and dry (granted it’s been 18 months since I originally made this.)

I can also report that this time I did buy the semi-cured chorizo rather than the hard stuff you find in the grocery stores here in the midwest. It’s a lot more fun to eat in this type of dish, with no flavor difference, and I’ll likely order it again for this or other dishes.

Click here for the recipe and original post