Name: Spanish Bean Soup (Cocido)
Yield: Makes 12 Main-Course Servings
Cuisine: Spain
Ingredients: 1 pound sausage such as chorizo, saucisson a l’ail, cotechino, kielbasa, botifarra, or Italian sausage (without fennel); 1-½ cups dried chick-peas, soaked overnight; 1 head of Savoy cabbage, quartered; 2 turnips, peeled and cut into wedges; 2 pounds beef brisket; 1 calf’s or pig’s foot, split, blanched for 5 minutes in boiling water; 1 pound prosciutto end or 2½-pound ham hocks; 2 pounds veal shoulder, tied with string; 1 pound blood sausage, morcilla or boudin noir; 4 carrots, cut into 1-inch lengths; 1 bouquet garni; 5 leeks, including 1 inch of the green, cut in half lengthwise, well rinsed, tied in a bundle with string

Preparation info

Makes
12
Main-Course Servings

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Splendid Soups

By James Peterson

Published 2000

About

Spanish cooks make an amazing variety of hearty bean and sausage soups. The first recipe I read for one of these elaborate Spanish soups was in a French cookbook from the 17th century that described dishes served at the court of Louis XIV. The dish, an oille, was an elaborate mixture of simmered meats and vegetables. According to Alexandre Dumas’s Encyclopedia of Cuisine, written in 1873, the now forgotten oille was a close relative to the Spanish ol