Asturias - Fabada

 It feels like Oviedo is an integral part of Asturias, not an individual entity like Barcelona therefore I’m going to label my posts as ‘Asturias’ from now on.

While in Catalonia I was desperately trying to find anything that is a typically Catalan meal and in 4 months I could only find 2, here in Asturias everything is Asturian. Wherever we go everything seems to be a ‘very Asturian meal’ and we already have a long list of meals we want to try.

We first tried the signature dish of Asturia, the Fabada. It is basically a rich bean stew made from white beans, or ‘fava’ beans. In Spanish the ‘v’ and the ‘b’ sounds are very similar so I guess this is how the name ‘fabada’ came to existence. With the stew you get three pieces of meat, cured meat such as chorizo and ‘morcilla’, which is similar to black pudding, and a bit of pork. Oh, and a lot of bread to the side, of course.

Usually the price of the meals in Asturias costs more than they did in Barcelona however you get almost twice as much! The portions are huge and we have been sharing almost every meal and it’s enough for both of us. It was true for the fabada as well. We couldn’t finish one bowl together! It is (as you can imagine) high in calories and fat and served hot. As most of the Asturian meals it’s very hearty, very heavy and tastes predominantly like chorizo.

Later while we were walking home we passed a shop that sold ‘Productos Asturianos’ and saw these premade packs of Fabada. We loved them! You can buy only the beans and make your own stew, too.