Cocido is to Spain what Coq au Vin is to France. I was first given Cocido by friends in Madrid, it was my last meal before getting on a plane home, and very memorable is was too. The second time I tried ordering it in a bar. Having requested the menu of the day from the cheery waiter I sat baffled as he reeled off a list choices that meant nothing to me, until he muttered the one word I recognised, cocido. I snatched at the chance to eat this again while feeling slightly smug that I was able to order something other than a ham baguette. Ten minutes later the waiter returned with a cauldron like bowl and spooned a watery reddish soup into my bowl. While it tasted a bit like the cocido I was expecting it did seem to be lacking most of the vital ingredients, a huge stack of meat and vegetables. Downcast I slurped it back emptying the bread basket in a desperate attempt to pad out my meal. However no sooner had I wiped the last drips from my bowl, feeling decidedly less smug, when it was replaced with big shiny white plate. Things were looking up, and sure enough I was soon faced with a satisfying mound of beef, bacon, belly pork, chicken, marrowbone, chorizo, morcilla, savoy cabbage, chickpeas, carrots, leeks, and new potatoes.
Apparently the order and manner of serving cocido depends on your family tradition. Some serve everything at once, others in two parts. The soup part is called Caldo, a clear stock made of meat juices. However it is the meat part that is most important each meat being chosen for its diversity of flavour, from salty to smoked. Chorizo is a spicy red sausage made from pork and smoked paprika. Morcilla is spicy version of our own black pudding. The vegetable part contains a healthy portion of chickpeas used in Spanish cooking for centuries. The result is magnificent and if you ever see it on the menu or hear a waiter mutter it as an option, do not hesitate to order it.
In Spain many of the supermarkets and butchers sell packs of meat already portioned out to make Cocido. If you want to make it by shopping in a British supermarket you need to spend a little longer assembling the ingredients, but chorizo is now widely available, and our black pudding is a good enough stand in. The bacon part is best included as one thick piece streaky bacon. It would probably be heresy, but you could chop and change many of the ingredients depending on what"s available however the chorizo, black pudding and chickpeas are compulsory.
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