Modest and affordable, legumes are a culinary gem with which to make traditional and modern recipes. From lentils to beans, they all add a healthy "kick" to the dish
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Who does not like a good spoon dish? Riding the fight in the front line, that of our pantries, it seems the time to sharpen the ingenuity and put yourself in front of the stoves to, in addition to hanging out, make healthy preparations, with close ingredients and easily accessible, such as legumes .
To speak of legumes is to speak of nutrients, but also of infinite recipes and, above all, of varieties and families, ranging from chickpeas to soybeans or from lentils to fabes. So it is time to dust off the sacks of beans (red, black, pints, caricos, pochas, verdinas ...), lentils (pardinas, Castilian or peeled like the Indians), dried soybeans, chickpeas ... and put them to soak -if they are dry or fresh- or remove them from the pot, if we have opted for this version, just as valid.
Legumes are in the memory of the human being, both in the closest one, with the recipes of our mothers and grandmothers, and in the most distant one, since, together with cereals, they are the oldest food in history and are found among the first plants cultivated by man. It could even be said that the first step towards the birth of agriculture is given by the development of these seeds, with very diverse origins: in the Mediterranean basin of Europe and Africa, peas, lentils, chickpeas and beans were cultivated with great care; white and red beans, present in America since ancient times, were brought to Europe during the 16th century; A sia was a pioneer in the cultivation of soybeans, the first legume that is recorded in the books of Shen-Nung, father of Chinese agriculture, back in the year 2800 BC.
Pharaohs food
And it is an affordable raw material, very easy to adapt to any type of terrain, latitude, altitude or climate, as well as one of the most complete plant proteins that exist . They have not always been a modest product, for example, in ancient Egypt, lentils were considered the food of pharaohs, however, in Greek and Roman times they became a source of livelihood for the common people - they were known as "meat of the poor ”- or used to feed livestock.
Due to its content in basic nutrients for the body - carbohydrates, proteins, fats, fiber, vitamins (thiamine, niacin, B6 and folic acid), minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, iron and phosphorus) and water -, experts recommend eating legumes two to four times a week, but it is that, apart from being a healthy shot , they have a high culinary value . Thus, in recent years, the constant search for new elaborations and ingredients has brought with it the inclusion of these humble seeds in the recipes of the great chefs, in the form of original preparations in which modern techniques have been applied and also the more traditional.
And at home, how can we do them to get out of the monotony? The chef Álex Marugán makes use of several of the proposals that he usually offers in his Tres por Cuatro restaurant (Madrid) to make the task easier for us: some fabes - they do not have to be from La Granxa, Asturian specialized orchards from which the Madrilenian provides himself - with veal sweetbreads, marinated in an anticuchera sauce (an alternative is to replace it with a mixture of paprika, black pepper and soy sauce) and grilled with a julienne green bean to refresh; some duck lentils and some chickpeas with octopus , a little of their own hummus and octopus cooking broth. "These three domestic options are a good starting point, since they can be adapted to the products that each one keeps in his pantry, " explains the chef.
A whole leguminous king is the chickpea ( Cicer arietinum ), which has stew among its star creations : either Madrid, maragato ... Or taba (like most of these pots, comes from the rotten pot) with crayfish Iván Muñoz offered in Chirón (Valdemoro). This will serve as inspiration to design a unique stew and use, instead of freshwater crustaceans, prawns, mussels or even tin cod roe.
In home cooking there are few dishes "as profitable" as the cocido, because apart from the -more yearned for than ever- croquettes of mothers and grandmothers, their remains are very playful . With the leftover chickpeas you can make a hummus (adding tahina, lemon, cumin and olive oil) and get a rich and nutritious spot to start a meal; or fry them with a lot of onion or, as Juanjo López-Bedmar did in La Cocina de Frente (Madrid) last summer, present them widowers, crowned with a meatball prepared with cooked meats.
Good options are to sauté them with Norway lobster and garlic or stew them with cod and spinach ... And, although there are recipes for the most disparate tastes, the essential thing is that the chickpea - Castilian, Pedrosillano, milky white or of any other variety - is good quality so it has little skin and a silky interior .
In classic and modern key
If our second leguminous bet is lentils, a touch of curry will make the difference , both in a broth stew and in those prepared by Sergi Arola -in the Cormoran restaurant in Santander- with cod on top and almost dried that seemed to be baked. And it is that they accept proposals of all kinds, for example, salads, whether it be Castilian, pardina or even better, caviar, that little black lentil that crunches in the mouth and that is an ideal match for some dairy products - for example, burrata or ricotta- with an escort of cucumber, cherry tomatoes or whatever is in the bottom of the fridge.
In addition to preparing a hummus, widows are cooked -only accompanied by onion and bay leaf-, although they will win with a sauce and some vegetables, such as a pumpkin and eggplant stir fry , or, being more creative, with broccoli florets and some dice of sausage to not always fall into the infallible sausages and blood sausage. Or why not get inspired by the sauteed -also almost dry- with red shrimp and bacon that Nino Redruello cooked in Fismuler (Madrid) and in the laborious and more complicated liquid lentil fritter with butifarra veil that Pepe Rodríguez dispatched as an aperitif in El Bohío (Illescas, Toledo).
In traditional version and with more popular flavors , we find La Granja beans; the classic stew - formidable, those of the Asturian Casa Gerardo (whose recipe is shown on their website) or La Huertona - and the fabes and shrimp that were offered in Gunea (Asturias). A true classic of Cantabrian gastronomy is the strong mountain stew (with white beans) , like the one made by - perhaps the best in the region - Adela (from Casa Boni, a bar in a small town called Vidular), whose secrets are to use ingredients from their own farm and slow cooking over low heat , moving the pot with its own reciprocating motion.
Versatile, the white bean is perfectly integrated in a green sauce with a good slice of cod or hake , which could even be bathed in a crab broth in the style of those served in El Loco Antonelli (Madrid). Tasty possibilities are provided by both the pints (for example, with fried ear and the mushrooms you have on hand ) and the red ones ( with chorizo, bacon and capers , an ingredient that allows us to give a healthy gas tip: add an acid touch to dishes with legumes lightens your intake).
Step to Premiums
From some modest legumes to others of limited edition. The verdinas admit from cockles (this is how they were prepared in Madrid's Quinqué dining room) to blood sausage and beurre blanc (according to Sergio Bastard's recipe in Santander's La Casona del Judío) or carabinero and mashed their corals (idea of Madrid's Saddle). And, if fortunately you have a bag of frozen pochas at hand -they are not in season-, you could recreate using any bird the partridge stew from Madrid's Recreo y Salino or the silky butter pochas made in Josean Alija (Nerua, Bilbao) .
We close with two last ideas for those who, after these weeks of confinement, have come up and dare even with haute cuisine: the latest version of the garlic soup with reduction of vegetable juice by Eneko Atxa (Azurmendi, in Larrabetzu , Vizcaya) and Alberto Ferruz's spicy turnip bathed in legume stock and egg yolk (BonAmb, in Jávea, Alicante).
Be that as it may, with more or less noble ingredients, with more or less culinary skills, the key to a tasty vegetable dish is a good chup chup and a little love . Thus, it admits almost everything.
The secrets of cooking
To cook the legumes well and to stay cooked -that is, tender but not undone-, the time and the way of cooking will depend on what variety is involved. Except for lentils, it is recommended to leave them at least 12 hours to soak (optionally you can add bicarbonate or salt) . After washing them (we discard the water) and draining them, they are ready to cook. As a general rule, the ratio of three parts of liquid to one of legumes is used .
Cooking starts on high heat for the first ten minutes to remove impurities ; afterwards, it will be enough to lower the power and cook over low heat until they are ready and display their full essence. If water needs to be added during the process , it should be lukewarm whenever it is lentils or chickpeas so as not to slow down cooking. The beans , on the other hand, need to be cold to scare them , break the cooking and soften them.
Regarding the times, they will depend not only on the variety of legumes, but also on how dry it is. And, of course, it is crucial not to stir with any utensil, because you run the risk of skinning the beans , you just have to take the pot by the handles and rock it with reciprocating movements.
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