Fabada Asturiana is a Spanish bean stew from the Asturias region that includes white kidney beans, pork, blood sausage, and spices such as garlic, paprika, and saffron. Its origins date back to the 1800s or possibly even earlier.
Fabada Asturiana is a common type of Spanish bean stew from the Asturias region and features various meat products, beans and other ingredients. Many of these ingredients are internationally perceived as “Spanish classics” but the Asturian community, like other Spanish autonomous communities, has its own food culture. Asturias is located in the northwestern region of Spain, close to Galicia, the Spanish province in the northwestern and northern corner of the nation of Portugal.
One of the main ingredients of Fabada Asturiana is white kidney beans or butter beans. These large beans are called fables or fabes de la Granja in Spanish. They are part of many popular dishes of Spanish cuisine.
Fabada Asturiana almost always includes some sort of primary meat product, which is usually pork. Pork shoulder or pork belly can go on the plate, as can a salted pork called jamon serrano which is a popular Spanish ham product. Bacon can also be used in some versions of this dish.
In addition to the aforementioned meats, Fabada Asturiana also features other meat products that are classic elements of Spanish cuisine. One of them is morcilla, or blood sausage. This pork-based sausage contains blood with various spices and other elements to provide texture. Spanish sausage called chorizo can also be added.
Along with the beans and meat, those who make Fabada Asturiana often include various spices and flavoring elements. One of the main ones is garlic, which is very useful in Spanish and Italian cuisine, as well as other European cuisines. Some recipes for the dish call for up to four cloves of chopped garlic for flavor.
Cooks can also put spices such as pepper, paprika or salt in the Fabada Asturiana. Spanish cooks will very often use local varieties of paprika. Bay leaves can also be used. Another Spanish spice called saffron is also often part of this dish.
Food historians can trace Fabada Asturiana recipes back to the 1800s, but some think the origins of this dish go back even further. One theory is that Asturians prepared this dish as early as the 1400s, or earlier, when Muslims ruled much of Spain. The idea is that eating this or other dishes including pork was a form of subversion against the invaders.
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