A brothy Valencian winter rice built on white beans (fesols) and turnip (naps), simmered with fatty and gelatinous pork cuts. Pork ear, snout, trotter or tail, plus morcilla blood sausage, are boiled into a rich stock with the beans and a wedge of the local nabicol turnip; short-grain rice goes in near the end and the dish is served loose and soupy (caldoso/meloso), eaten with a spoon. Unlike a dry paella, it stays brothy, and it is a cold-weather one-pot rather than a summer rice. It belongs to L'Horta region around the city of Valencia.
The dish comes from L'Horta, the irrigated market-garden plain around the city of Valencia, and is a winter rice tied to the turnip and bean harvest and to the pig slaughter that supplied the morcilla and pork cuts. It is associated above all with Ascension Day (Dia de l'Ascensió) in the towns north of the city, when rice cooks once prepared large communal cauldrons. The exact origin is unrecorded, but it is documented as a long-standing Valencian winter staple cooked when fresh turnips and dried beans were on hand.
A loose, soupy bowl of rice in a cloudy, gelatin-thickened pork broth, the beans soft and the turnip melting into sweetness. The pork cuts give a sticky, collagen-rich body to the liquid; the morcilla lends a dark, faintly sweet, spiced note. It is warming and fatty rather than light, eaten hot with a spoon. The rice should still have bite and the broth should coat the lips slightly from the gelatine.
The body of the dish is collagen, not starch. Long simmering of the ear, trotter, and tail converts their connective-tissue collagen into gelatine, which thickens the broth and gives it the characteristic lip-sticking richness; the beans and the small amount of rice add some starch on top. The turnip, cooked long, breaks down and lends a gentle sweetness that balances the fat. Because it is served meloso (loose and brothy), the rice is added late and cooked with plenty of liquid, the opposite of the dry, evaporated finish of a paella.
Variations
In the towns north of Valencia, the white beans are sometimes replaced by garrofó, the large flat butter bean used in paella. Some households add chard or other winter greens; the proportions and exact pork cuts vary by family and by what the matanza pig provided. It sits in the wider Valencian family of brothy winter rices, distinct from the dry paellas of the same region.
On the Palate
Where Arròs amb Fesols i Naps sits in the Spanish flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6
How it's made
7 steps · 30 min
- 1120 min
Soak 250 g dried white beans in cold water overnight, then drain.
- 215 min
Put the pork ear, trotter, and tail in a large pot with the drained beans, cover well with cold water, bring slowly to a simmer, and skim the foam.
Watch outBring the pot up slowly and skim every bit of grey foam as it rises — that scum is what clouds the broth, and you want this one clean and rich from the collagen.
- 390 min
Simmer gently for about 1.5 hours until the beans are nearly tender and the broth is rich, topping up with hot water as needed.
- 420 min
Add the turnip in chunks and the morcilla, and continue at a low simmer for 20 minutes until the turnip is soft.
- 55 min
Season with salt and a little sweet pimentón, and check there is plenty of broth, as the rice will absorb a lot.
- 618 min
Stir in 300 g short-grain rice and cook at a steady simmer for about 18 minutes, keeping the dish loose and soupy.
Watch outAdd the rice late and keep it loose and soupy — this dish is meloso, brothy, so leave plenty of liquid; it's the opposite of a dry paella.
- 74 min
Rest off the heat for 3 to 4 minutes and serve hot in deep bowls with a spoon.
Watch outRest off the heat a few minutes before serving — the rice keeps drinking broth, so it firms and settles into that just-loose consistency.
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