Chickpea Temples
THE CHAROLEES
Eat a stew in the restaurant The Charolais (C/Floridablanca, 24), in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, is an initiation ritual. Launched in 1977 by Manolo Mínguez, its ingredients are of the highest quality: chickpeas from Saucanos, old chickens from Santamaría (Segovia), chorizo from La Alberca (Salamanca) and Galician potatoes. Various types of bacon served : one veined from the Sierra de Guadarrama and another white from Verín (Orense). All at their cooking point, perfect for spreading on the bread. It is a stew as God intended, with a wide variety of meat and vegetables, including Galician turnip tops and the traditional stuffing that absorbs all the flavors of the stew. The quantity is unfathomable, the fountains are overflowing. And as a dressing, they serve a homemade tomato sauce with cumin and OroNovus virgin olive oil, from Baena (Córdoba) and with a great aroma. A stew that will make us faint. Price: 29 euros per person.
LHARDY
Azorín said that 'Madrid cannot be conceived without Lhardy', and we added 'and without his stew either'. On Carrera de San Jerónimo, 8, with a wooden façade from 1885, Lhardy is an essential place for people who eat well. Open since 1839, its stew has been made since the last century. As Daniel Marugán, co-owner of the restaurant, tells Traveler, "the son of the founder Agustin Lhardy used to prepare it for his friends, who used to be artists of the time." Served in three turns as the canons dictate, the broth – light – is presented in a silver tureen. On two other trays (also silver), it is served the cabbage, whose flavor is due to the cantimpalo chorizo and the onion black pudding with which it has been previously cooked. The other tray carries the chickpeas and meat. The good cooking point of the chickpeas stands out (soaked 12 hours before) and a soft buttery bacon with which we shed tears. In addition to a stall in the Mercado San Miguel, the restaurant has a gourmet store where you can enjoy a portion for 30 euros. Price: 35.5 euros per person, cooked only.
The stew with silver cutlery
THE POLAR OF SOURCE HERNANDO
An old haystack from the 19th century is today the dining room of one of the best-reputed cocidos in the Madrid mountains: El Pajar de Fuente Hernando, in Lozoya. Located near the Paular Monastery, in this traditional cuisine restaurant they know how to pamper a stew. And they do it nothing more and nothing less than for 24 hours in an Arab wood oven , cooking it over low heat, just as our grandmothers and great-grandmothers used to do. In the middle of the room there are two wood-burning ovens where the stew is cooked over the coals in front of the diners and in pots of clay. Served in two turns, its soup is consistent, thick and tasty noodles. For the second round, the chickpea and meat dishes fill the table: black pudding, chicken, ham tip, bacon. There is everything. The chickpea is of the Pedresillo type, small but tasty and with a very thin skin (perfect for those who can't stand skins). Here you eat what your body can handle. Of course, you have to book 48 hours in advance. Price: 25 euros per person.
RITZ HOTEL
Another emblematic place in Madrid where they prepare a rich stew is the Goya Restaurant at the Ritz Hotel (Plaza de la Lealtad, 5). Here, chef Jorge González personally takes care of pampering this traditional dish served every Thursday, as dictated by the tradition imposed a century ago by Alfonso XIII . The Ritz stew uses only 100% organic ingredients and takes 24 hours to prepare. This spoon dish is prepared with chickpeas from Fuentesaúco -very juicy-, fresh vegetables from Tudela and acorn-fed Iberian pork. The quality of the ingredients is noticeable on the palate. The restaurant's opulent room, with its high ceilings filled with chandeliers, is another enticement to enter the Ritz and try this exquisite dish. Price: €55 per person.
A stew pampered for 24 hours
THE BALL
Our Madrid stew route could not be complete without La Bola Restaurant (C/Bola, 5). A whole classic. The great success of her stew is due to great-grandmother Cándida's recipe from 1870. Mara is today the heir to this culinary legacy that has made the place famous. It is a luxury to taste this dish in the same room that served personalities such as Ava Gardner in the 20th century, King Alfonso XII and the Infanta Isabel de Borbón , "La Chata", who came to this restaurant in a carriage to pick up her stew and take it to the Palace. One detail: the lamp in the living room belonged to the Palacio del Buen Retiro.
Customers can ask to go to the restaurant's kitchen. It's quite a spectacle: dozens of small clay pots filled with chickpeas and meat are simmered in a charcoal oven. It is made on oak wood and for four hours. Every ten minutes, you have to add broth to prevent them from drying out and spoiling the stew. With 141 years of history, La Bola can serve more than a hundred stews a day, about 35,000 a year. Here there is stew every day of the year, at noon and at night (except on Sundays), even in summer. A delicious tomato with cumin helps us to digest the chickpeas. If there's room for dessert, don't leave without trying their apple fritters. Price: 25 and 30 euros per person.
A classic in Madrid.
CHINCHON PARADOR
Awarded as the best innovative stew in the 'II Ruta del cocido de Madrid 2013', the stew at the Parador de Chinchón (C/Los Huertos, 1) is a real pleasure for the five senses. your restaurant the still life serves a 'Complete Cocido de Taba' menu that follows the steps of an 18th century recipe. Everything revolves around the taba. Diego Huete is the head chef and the person in charge of making sure everything goes perfectly. Here it is impossible to stay hungry: to whet your appetite they serve the 'Antesdeboda', some appetizers made up of small meatballs of menudo (bread with stew) and dizzy chickpeas (cooked and fried in a pan). Then comes the turn of the noodle soup, cooked with bread and hints of mint.
The stew of this former Augustinian convent from the 17th century gives as much importance to vegetables as to meat: cabbage, green beans, turnips or cardillos share space with black shank meat, chorizo, streaky bacon, chicken and of course, chickpeas. of Fuentesauco. Pickles with red onions and marinated olives accompany the dishes. But if there is something really curious in the Parador's stew, it is the crayfish (yes yes, crayfish in a stew, you read that right). As Nieves Montisi, director of the Parador de Chinchón, explains to Traveler, “the crab was used in the past by the monks to know if the stew was well done; at the end of cooking they put a live crayfish in it, and if it changed color immediately, it was ready”. Price: €22 per person.
The stew with crayfish.
winch
Another temple dedicated to cocido is the Malacatín restaurant (C/Ruda, 5), a typical Madrid tavern in La Latina opened in 1895 by Julián Malacatín. Soups will love this tavern . Tasty, with great density and a considerable reddish layer of fat, the cooked soup of the Malacatín is órdago . Winner of “La ruta del cocido” in 2011, it is served with a small plate of chillies, gherkins and pickled onions. The second overturn is also not wasted. A generous tray of Castilian chickpeas with potatoes stars on the table. In another, sauteed cabbage appears with a sauce boat that brings a soft sifted tomato. In the third turn comes the most forceful, the stew dishes: pig's trotters, veined bacon, Iberian knuckle from Granada, Asturian black pudding, chorizos from León, stewed peeled hen and juicy veal shanks. The secret of your success? They say that the water in Madrid is what gives it that special flavor. Price: 19.50 euros per person.
CAROLA HOUSE
Steaming clay pots, filled to the brim with noodle soup, come out of the kitchen of Casa Carola (C/Padilla, 54), in the Salamanca district. It is the first course of his famous cocido castizo. Very succulent, they place it in the center of the table, so that each diner serves what they want. There is an open bar. And they do the same with the rest of this 'Cooked Lord'. Here it is impossible to stay hungry. There is everything to repeat. The gabrieles -the typical chickpeas- are homegrown. They are grown in the Segovian town of Cabañas de Polendos. The meats are also powerful and generous: chorizo de sarta, homemade black pudding, ham knuckle, aged meats, Iberian bacon and cane bones. With a familiar and close treatment, Casa Carola's stew is highly addictive. Price: 29 euros per person.