Fabes con Pitu Caleya

Fabes con pitu caleya is a weekday favorite in Asturias. As such, this is a recipe with as many variations as there are cooks in the region. However, the bones of the recipe remain the same regardless. The simplest version of fabes con pitu essentially just throw everything in a pot and leave it for a while. And you certainly can take all the ingredients below and cook them together. Particularly in a slow cooker they will make a lovely stew. However, by splitting up the cooking into two stages, we can build more flavor, and have much better texture from our beans.

The Beans

For our beans we are using the most loved of all Asturian beans, the Fabe Asturiana. Of course, in the US, you will have a hard time finding these beans. So we will use cannellini beans to make our fabes con pitu caleya. They are a great substitute for Asturian fabes in almost every recipe. The most important thing is to use dried beans if you can. A lot of Asturian bean dishes requires long low cooking of dried beans to build proper flavor, and canned beans just won’t hold up.

The Chicken

The Pitu Caleya in fabes con pitu caleya translates politely as “pollo de corral” in Castilian or “free range chicken” in English. But the real meaning is much closer to the colloquial “yard bird” of the southern United States. While yardbirds might be prisoners or army trainees in other parts of the country, where I am from it has never meant anything but a chicken that roams free around the yard or village. That is exactly the meaning of a pitu caleya in Asturian.

Put together, you can imagine that this is primarily a farmhouse recipe. The cook grabs beans from the garden and a chicken from the yard. Then it is seasoned with the onion and garlic that feature in every Spanish garden. I imagine fabes con pitu caleya would have been more of a Sunday lunch. Meat was a rarity in Asturian cooking until relatively recently.

Ingredients

• 500g dry Cannellini beans
• 3 chicken thigh quarters
• 15cl neutral cooking oil
• Smoked paprika (Spanish pimentón or Hungarian smoked sweet paprika)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 large white onion
• 6 cloves garlic
• Apple cider vinegar
• 100 ml white wine

Instructions

For the Beans

1. Place 500g of beans in your crockpot and salt liberally
2. Add 3 liters of water to the crockpot
3. Cook on low (or auto) setting overnight (8-10 hours)
4. Drain the beans and allow them to cool completely before moving on to the chicken.
5. They can also be refrigerated for a day if you want to make them ahead.

For the Chicken

1. Heat oil in a skillet. 15cl or so of neutral oil in a large cast iron skillet. Heat over medium-high heat until shimmering.
2. Rinse and pat dry three chicken thigh quarters. Of course, if you have a whole chicken, you can simply quarter it yourself and save one third for another recipe.
3. Season the chicken. Rub the chicken pieces with salt, white or black pepper, and smoked paprika.
4. Sear the chicken. Arrange the chicken pieces in the skillet so that they do not overlap. Over medium-high heat cook for 5 minutes on one side. Flip them over and sear the other side for five more minutes.
5. Deglaze the pan. Squirt a little apple cider vinegar into the pan and loosen and crusty bits with a wooden spoon.
6. Stew the chicken. Reduce the heat to low, add the garlic, onion, white wine, and enough water to cover half the chicken. Put the lid on the skillet and let it stew for 30-40 minutes.

Assembly

1. Remove the chicken pieces to a bowl to cool.
2. Combine the stew broth and beans. You can do this in your skillet if it is large enough. I normally use a large soup pot for this step. If you have held your beans in the fridge, now is the time to gently warm them through once combined with the broth from the chicken.
3. Debone cooked chicken. Remove the skin and gently prize all of the meat away from the bone. Aim for finger sized or smaller pieces. The meat can go directly into the broth and bean pot. I reserve the skin, bones, cartilage, tendons, and gristle for making stock. Alternatively, you can bag them for the trash.
4. Heat the stew. With the meat now all added to the stew, stir it once or twice and wait for it to come up to serving temperature.
5. Serve and enjoy! I sprinkle some chopped parsley on top as a garnish. Alternatively, crack some black pepper on it. Serve with warm crusty bread.

Notes

• I do not include the time to cook the beans in the slow cooker in the cook time for this recipe.