2023 Tour de France - Stage 1: Bilbao.
The 2023 Tour de France kicked off, a few hours ago, in Bilbao, Spain. Yes, you’re going to get a little taste of Spain even before next month’s culinary ridealong of the Vuelta! I was pretty excited to finally get to cook some items from the autonomous Basque Country. It is similar to French Basque cuisine, but these first three stage-specific dishes will definitely let you know that you are in Spain, as opposed to France.
My niece-in-law (…is that a thing?) spent last semester abroad in Bilbao and gave me the low down on some of their cuisine a couple of weeks ago. She said one of the most-delicious items she had was beans. About an hour east of Bilbao is Tolosa, a town they will be cycling through tomorrow, which is home to one of the most famous and sought-after bean varietals and, coincidentally, best bean dishes of Spain: Alubias de Tolosa. This is right up my alley since it embraces slow-cooking of both pork and beans. I ordered some morcilla and said beans from La Tienda, a Spanish specialty shop which is located only a couple hours away from my house in Williamsburg, VA. Everything in this dish was extremely delicious and was like a big warm hug.
Alubias de Tolosa
1 lb dried Tolosa beans (or kidney/black beans)
1 lb pork ribs, portioned
½ lb pork belly
1 leek, trimmed and cleaned, white and light green part only
Carrot
2 onions
1 cup white wine
1 qt chicken stock
⅓ cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled
½ lb morcilla
½ lb chorizo
½ head of napa cabbage, sliced ¼”
Pickled chili peppers
Place the beans in a bowl and cover with plenty of water. Let sit overnight.
The next day, place the ribs and pork belly into a large pot and set over medium-high heat. Prepare the leek, rough chop the carrot and 1 onion and add those vegetables to the pot. Pour in the wine and chicken stock, along with a pinch of salt, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, turn the heat to low, cover and cook for 3 hours.
After 45 minutes, in a separate dutch oven, combine the drained beans, diced remaining onion, olive oil and garlic, along with 6 cups of water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil for 5 minutes, removing any foam from the top, then lower the heat to maintain a steady, but slow simmer. Cook for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
Once the pork has been cooking for 2.5 hours, Place a medium-sized pot of salted water on another burner and bring to a boil. In the last 15 minutes of the pork cooking time, add in the whole sausages to the pork pot and place the sliced cabbage in the medium pot of boiling water. Cook both for 15 minutes.
Once the sausages and cabbage have cooked, using tongs, remove the sausages to a cutting board, along with the pork belly and ribs, reserving the liquid in the pot.
Drain the cabbage, season lightly with salt and pepper, and reserve.
Heat up a skillet over medium-high heat, slice up the sausage and chop the pork belly and rib meat. Place in the skillet, lightly seasoning the pork belly and ribs with a little salt, and cook until browned, about 5 minutes total.
Meanwhile, place about 6 ladlefuls of the pork stock into the bean pot, along with a couple heavy pinches of flaky sea salt, and continue to cook until the beans are soft and plump and the cooking liquid is nice and thick. Taste for any seasoning needs at the very end.
To serve, dish out the beans into a large serving bowl. Place the meat around the platter, along with small mounds of the cabbage, filling the gaps with pickled chili peppers. ______________________________ Copyright 2023, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.
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