Michirones Murcianos

As tradition built it

About 2 to 3 hours.

Ingredients

• 1kg haba seca (dried broad beans), soaked a minimum of 12 hours, ideally 24, with at least one change of water
• 1 a ham bone
• 2 fresh sweet chorizo
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp pimentón
• 100g a little bacon or panceta, optional

Method

1. Soak the dried broad beans (haba seca) a minimum of twelve hours, ideally twenty-four, with at least one change of water.
2. Simmer gently with a ham bone, fresh sweet chorizo, bay leaf, pimentón and often a little bacon or panceta, until fully tender.
3. Serve traditionally in the clay pot they were cooked in, as a tapa or a full ración.

What a modern chef changes

Vacuum rehydration, a reduced ham stock, and pimentón added at the end

Rung 1

Method

1. Rehydrate the dried beans under vacuum with a little of their own soaking liquid rather than simply left in a bowl (rung 1's controlled-absorption logic), shortening the effective soak and giving more even hydration across the batch.
2. Build the ham bone's stock separately and reduce it hard before the beans are added, concentrating a flavour that the traditional one-pot method builds more slowly and less intensely.
3. Dust with pimentón murciano, freshly toasted and ground in a dedicated spice grinder rather than bought pre-ground, added at the very end rather than cooked throughout, preserving an aromatic top note the long-cooked version loses entirely.