María's seasoned chickpeas with bacon: "I thought that now that I'm retired I'd have time for everything, but I'm short on time."

CabrianasI'm Maria Ubals, I live in Cabrianes, and today I'm going to make you a recipe for chickpeas seasoned with bacon. We can also season them with just oil, if anyone doesn't like it!

We'll make it on a stovetop. I still cook with the old-fashioned stovetop. Maybe I'm from before, but we don't have gas in this house. We have a gas cylinder. butane And in winter, when we have a fire on the floor, we make many things over the coals. We cook like that. And I, like many of the grandmothers I see who tell you about it, also learned to cook from my mother-in-law. From my mother too, but my mother-in-law had been a maid in one of those rich people's houses. For 14 years, she learned a lot about cooking. The little I know, I learned from her. She was there as a maid and learned from some other cook, you can tell me, an experienced one they had. And she stayed until she was 28. In the middle of it, the war happened. At 28, she got married, and they came to live in that house. It was a smaller house, and over the years, we've been... growing the house. We spent a lot of time here where we are now with you. We wanted to fix up the upstairs, but until we had it fixed up... My mother-in-law cooked, we ate here with them. We lived between upstairs and downstairs. And then she got Alzheimer's, and to keep working, which I couldn't, I relied on my sisters-in-law to help me. And together we all put together a plan, and we were as tense as we could be.

Chickpeas are a simple dish, but how often is simple what we like, right? Normally, legumes are bought boiled in the cans they come in. These cans are also good, yes, and it's more convenient to open a can and heat it.With a little water, and that's it. Less work. But those of us who are nostalgic find homemade chickpeas tastier, and these little ones, for me, are a spring. You could mix in some spinach. If they're harvested from the garden, they're even better. Or pan-fried with a pinch of garlic, or pureed... Or you can make hummus, now that hummus is all the rage. I haven't made much, have I? I still eat chickpeas. So.

At home, we make very simple food. First, because it's good for our health, and second, because a pot of chickpeas like this, for us, Virgen, lasts... We have them for two or three days, or I freeze them and share them with the kids. When my son found out I made chickpeas, he said he'd come get a plate. And we're happy that he comes.

The rice pan and the apron

That girl in the background is my cleaner. She's turning 14. Her name is Julia. Julia? I don't know if she's going to cook. Her mother does. She cooks, she cooks. But Julia, for now, even though she doesn't cook, what she does is celebrate everything. Her favorite dish is pan-fried rice. "Grandma, you should have made pan-fried rice for these ARA people," she told me. And now, as I'm making and talking, I think that this bacon is now in those times when it splashes. I didn't want to wear an apron, because [laughs] I've had aprons that... How unified! They're not presentable!

Test to see how salty they are. If they're not right, it's my husband's fault, he always wants salt. My husband doesn't cook much. He does make his own breakfast. And for dinner, I usually put on a TV show. And I say, "What are we having for dinner today?" It's a trick I have. And then he says: "I'm going to make bread with tomato." But we don't tell him that.

We met when they were having the dance for the local festival. We met that way. I got married when I was twenty. And when I was twenty-one I had my daughter. And so the years have passed quickly. And the older I am, the faster. Because I was counting on the fact that now that I'm retired I'd have time for everything, and I'm short on hours! I sign up for everything, right? I've been going to pyrography classes for a while now. We're a group that does things like that. For the local festival we have a popular dinner and last year and the year before, a friend and I cooked the chickpeas. And we cooked quite a few. I don't know how many there were, but quite a few. Maybe 25 kilos of raw. This doubles the weight. That is, 25 of raw There are fifty stews. And all of this seasoned with bacon and grilled meat. We boil them here at home. I have a 60-liter pot, and they lent us another one. Yes, yes. The years go by quickly. They tell you so, and you don't believe it. And one day you say it yourself.

The chickpea recipe explained by Maria

Ingredients

• Chickpeas from the Artés cooperative or the Cabrianes store
• Water
• Baking soda
• Bacon eaten
• Salt, pepper, oil
• Patience

Steps to follow

• First of all, we make sure the chickpeas are local. Either from the Artés cooperative or the local store in Cabrianes, where they have very good ones.
• I soak them the day before in water with a little baking soda, so they soften. What I do is Casibé Twice as much water as chickpeas, because chickpeas grow. I add a tablespoon of baking soda. I left them overnight with water, and this morning I had to add water because they'd already drunk it as they grew.
• By boil them What I do is put water to heat. Once the water is Casibé It is when it is about to boil that I add the chickpeas.
• First, I wash them a little to remove the baking soda. Anyway, when they boil, they foam up a bit, which we'll skim off with a spoon.
• Now we can put the chickpeas in the pot. The water is almost hot. I leave the heat on a bit high, and when they start to boil, I try to lower the heat or turn them down to a lower one. Now we wait. Be patient.
• Beans are different. They are boiled in cold water, and when they are boiling too much, a little cold water is added. They say it's to scare the beans. parallels That intense cooking time so the skin doesn't come off. And also the low heat. And the chickpeas, on the other hand, with hot water. Because if we put cold water in the chickpeas, they become tough, they don't turn out right. This is what they told me.
• This creates some foam. What we'll do is remove it. And now I've lowered the heat so it doesn't boil so quickly. And now I can add the salt.
• And wait a very good two hours. Little by little.
• When the hours have passed, I put the bacon in the paellaI've added salt and pepper. A little bit earlier, because that way it has more flavor. It's a white bacon. So, fat. They call it pork belly, pork belly, or pork belly. I mix it up. Because if it's leaner, you don't have so many pangs of conscience. This isn't the best for your cholesterol, right? But it's even more tasty this way.
• Now we can turn off the heat and drain the bacon. Once the water is drained, we add the bacon, all with the heat off, so it's well coated. Now we'll taste them.
• This and a tomato salad... And there you have it.

Grades

Pancetta is belly with veins. We also say, for example, that a pair of pants has veins.

When our cook uses the term seasoned She does it with utmost precision. In Catalan cuisine, we dress lettuce with oil, salt, and vinegar, but we also dress soup with obstacles.

As always, Catalan recipes are full of metaphors and personifications, and our cook gives us a few. Chickpeas grow and they have drunk the water. The beans they want cold water because it will "scare them away."