Pochas a la Navarra

Pochas are the signature legume of the Ebro valley around Sangüesa in eastern Navarre, also grown in neighbouring La Rioja and Álava. The name refers not to a variety but to a stage: the bean is shelled fresh in late summer, after the pod has gone limp and pale but before the seed dries — the harvest runs roughly mid-July to late September. Because the bean is not yet dried, it needs no overnight soak and cooks soft in well under an hour, which set the dish apart from the dried-bean stews of the rest of Spain.

Pale, plump beans in a thick, pale-gold broth that clings to the spoon. The skin is so thin it barely registers; the inside is creamy and almost buttery, with none of the mealiness of a dried bean. Green pepper and tomato sit quietly underneath. Eaten plain it is mild and vegetal; with chorizo, a film of red paprika oil floats on top and the broth turns savoury and warming.

Everything turns on the bean's freshness. A half-ripe pocha still holds water in the seed, so it never needs soaking and softens in 40–60 minutes; pushed too hard it bursts, so the pot is kept at a bare tremble, never a rolling boil, and shaken rather than stirred. The thickening is mechanical, not floury: the soft beans shed just enough starch into the liquid to bind it. The onion, pepper and tomato are sweated slowly into a sofrito first so their sugars dissolve into the broth rather than sitting raw on top.