Michirones

A dish of the Huerta de Murcia, the Vega Baja of Alicante, Mazarrón, and the Campo de Cartagena, where it grew out of field workers' cooking as a cheap, filling legume stew. The name's origin is disputed: the lexicographer Robert Pocklington traced it to the Arabic misrun, 'little Egyptians,' while others link the local variant 'minchirones' to the Catalan menjar / Aragonese minchar, 'to eat.' The pork additions — chorizo, ham bone, pancetta — entered after the Reconquest, layered onto an older bean dish; the Campo de Cartagena version also adds potatoes.

A small earthenware bowl of plump, mealy beans the size of a thumbnail, sitting in a thick brick-red broth slicked with paprika oil. The beans are soft and floury inside with skins that still hold their shape; the chorizo and ham bone push savory salt and smoke into the liquid, and the dried pepper leaves a slow warmth at the back of the throat. Served hot, eaten bean by bean off a toothpick, with bread for the sauce.

Everything turns on the soak and a gentle simmer. Dried broad beans need 12 hours of soaking at minimum — 24 is better, with one or two water changes — to rehydrate fully and shed bitterness; under-soaked beans stay tough no matter how long they cook. They are then held at a bare simmer, never a hard boil, for two to three hours so the skins soften without bursting and the starch thickens the broth. Pimentón is stirred in toward the end and warmed in the fat rather than scorched, which would turn it bitter; the ham bone gives up gelatine and salt that round out the sauce.