How did a hermit-saint who consumed nothing however bread and water come to be related to lusty stews replete with pig’s trotters, ears, tripe and stomach? Such is the commemoration of the day of San Antón Abad (January 17). Many cities, together with Madrid, mark the saint’s day with mass and festivities, typically together with big stew pots of pork and garbanzo stew.
San Antón was often known as the protector of all animals, so, in lots of locales, the priest concludes the mass with blessings for family pets dropped at the shrine by villagers.
San Antón, whose torments by wild beasts have been depicted by artists from Hieronymus Bosch to Salvador Dalí, is commonly proven accompanied by a pig. The pig within the image derives from a legend {that a} wild sow approached the hermit within the desert along with her blind boarlets. The saint cured their blindness and, henceforth, the sow accompanied him, heading off all threats.
The stew, known as Olla de San Antón within the Granada and Almería area, comprises chickpeas and/or beans and/or dried fava beans, wheat berries, wild fennel, and pig’s ears, trotters, ribs, bacon, plus morcilla, blood sausage.
Curiously, a recipe for the same stew, with chickpeas and wheat berries, seems in a thirteenth century cookbook written by an nameless Moorish cook dinner—made with beef as an alternative of pig elements! That recipe has survived to the current day within the Sephardic Moroccan-Jewish recipe for oriza, a stew with chickpeas and wheat cooked with beef.
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| No pig elements on this stew! It’s a Sephardic recipe, just like the San Antón stew, however with beef as an alternative of pork, chickpeas and wheat kernels. |
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| Wheat berries. |
Wheat berries are the entire wheat kernels with out husk. Soak them in a single day earlier than cooking. Even with gradual cooking, they continue to be fairly chewy. Complete-grain rice or pearl barley might be used as an alternative of the wheat.
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| Wild fennel shoots. |
In Granada, it’s customary to choose the primary tender inexperienced shoots of untamed fennel to cook dinner with this stew. As most metropolis people is not going to have that ingredient, use chopped cultivated fennel bulb.
Pork and Wheat Stew with Fennel, Granada Type
Olla de San Antón, Estilo Granadino
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| Pork stomach and blood sausage go into this stew with chickpeas, wheat berries and greens. The genuine model would additionally embody pig trotters and ears! |
If wild fennel shoots usually are not obtainable, use a bulb of cultivated fennel.
1 cup wheat berries
4 ounces pancetta or bacon
1 cup chopped wild fennel stems or fennel bulb
1 carrot, sliced
2 teaspoons salt
8 ounces morcilla de cebolla (blood sausage with onion)
2 cups cooked or canned chickpeas
2-3 potatoes, lower in items
1 thick slice bread
1 tablespoon vinegar
3 cloves garlic
½ teaspoon pimentón (paprika)
Fennel leaves for garnish
Pour 1 cup of boiling water over the wheat berries and allow them to soak for 12 hours.
Drain the wheat and add to a soup pot with the pancetta, fennel, carrot and salt. Add 6 cups of water. Deliver to a boil, skim off froth that rises. Decrease warmth and simmer half-hour.
Add the morcilla, cooked chickpeas, and potatoes. Simmer half-hour extra, skimming off extra fats sometimes.
Place the bread in a bowl and sprinkle it with the vinegar. Let it set till vinegar is absorbed. Place the bread in a mortar or blender with the garlic and pimentón. Ladle in sufficient of the liquid from the soup pot to melt the bread. Mix till easy.
Stir the combination from the blender into the soup and cook dinner one other quarter-hour. Take away the piece of pancetta and the morcilla from the soup. Use kitchen scissors to chop them into items. Return to the soup.
Enable the soup to accept 10 minutes earlier than serving. Garnish with chopped fennel leaves.
Boiled Beef with Wheat Berries
Olla de Trigo con Añojo (Oriza)
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| This Sephardic stew with beef typically has candy potatoes as an alternative of standard potatoes. |
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| Smash cooked garlic on toasts. |
Use stewing beef corresponding to shin, brisket, chuck, cheeks, or breast for this recipe. Each the wheat berries and the chickpeas should be soaked in a single day earlier than cooking.
An entire head of garlic cooked with the meat flavors the broth. After cooking, the softened cloves of garlic will be served unfold on toasted bread with olive oil to accompany the stew.
A internet bag is helpful for cooking the chickpeas, to allow them to simply be faraway from the cookpot. Additionally, you’ll be able to cook dinner double the quantity of chickpeas and avoid wasting for one more use.
1 cup wheat berries (6 ounces)
1 ¼ cups dry chickpeas (8 ounces)
Scorching water
1 pound boneless stewing beef
1 onion
3 cloves
2 carrots
1 candy potato, lower into items
1 entire head of garlic
1 bay leaf
10 peppercorns
1 teaspoon pimentón (paprika)
1 tablespoon salt
Fennel or mint sprigs to garnish
Day earlier than cooking the boiled beef: Put the wheat berries in a small pan with water to cowl. Deliver to a boil and cook dinner gently for 10 minutes. Take away the pan from the warmth. Put a lid on it and wrap the pan in a kitchen towel. Let the wheat soak 12 hours.
Place the chickpeas in a bowl. Add sizzling water to cowl them by 3 inches. Enable the chickpeas to soak 12 hours.
When able to cook dinner: Drain the chickpeas and the wheat. Lower the meat into three or 4 chunks. Place 10 cups of contemporary water in a big soup pot and produce to a boil. Stick the onion with the cloves and add to the pot with the peeled carrots. Slice the highest off the top of garlic and add to the pot. When the water begins to bubble, add the items of beef, the wheat berries and the chickpeas. Because the water involves a boil, skim off the skum that rises to the highest. Add the bay leaf, peppercorns, pimentón, and salt. Decrease the warmth to a mild simmer, cowl the pot, and let it cook dinner 60 minutes.
Style for salt and add extra, if wanted. Add the candy potatoes and cook dinner till meat and chickpeas are very tender, half-hour extra.
Skim out the chunks of beef. Lower them into bite-size items and return to the pot. Skim out the carrots, slice them and return to the pot. Discard the bay leaf. Skim out the top of garlic to serve individually.
Take away the pot from the warmth and permit the contents to settle 5 minutes earlier than serving. Garnish with sprigs of fennel or mint.
Pictured at left, one among a number of pots of Potaje de San Antón as made in my pueblo, Mijas. It comprises chickpeas, tripe and blood sausage, however not wheat berries.
