Ingredients

6 cooking chorizo

500g pork belly

4 cloves of garlic

1 large onion

1 large red chili

2 bell peppers – one red, one yellow

1 tin of tomatoes

1 tablespoon tomato puree

1 heaped teaspoon of smoked paprika

2 tins of beans, drained – you can use butter, cannellini or borlotti beans

1 heaped teaspoon each of chopped rosemary and thyme

2 bay leaves

Small glass of medium dry sherry

500ml chicken stock

400ml water

Chopped flat leaf parsley to serve

Method

Get a big thick bottomed pan or casserole dish and put it on a high heat with a bit of olive oil. Take the skins off the chorizo and then colour them in the pan. Whilst the  chorizo are browning, take the thick rind off the pork belly and cut into bite sized chunks. Once the sausages are done, take them out, set to one side, and then brown off the pork belly in the pan. Some of the lovely spicy paprika oil will have leeched from the chorizo which will add exra flavour to the pork. Once this has browned, remove from the pan and put with the chorizo.

Now fry off the onion, garlic and chili (which you have finely chopped) in the same oil. Once the onion has sweated off and has become translucent, stir in the tomato puree and smoked paprika, and cook through for a minute or so. Next, de-glaze the pan with the sherry. If you don’t have any sherry to hand, use white wine.

Now return the meat to the pan, but before you do, chop each of the chorizo sausages into about 5 pieces. Once the meat is in, add the tinned tomatoes, beans, stock, water and herbs (bay, rosemary and thyme), and then bring to the boil.

Turn the heat down, and simmer the stew with a lid on for about an hour. Whilst the stew is cooking, remove the stalk and seeds from the peppers, and chop into strips. After an hour take the lid off and add the strips of pepper. By now the stew should be a deep red / orange colour. Cook for a further half hour with the lid off to cook the peppers, reduce some of the liquid, and intensify the flavour. After thirty minutes it’s done, and you’re ready to eat.

Garnish with some flat leaf parsley, and serve with some brown rice or a good hunk of granary bread. If this stew doesn’t warm your cockles, you’re dead on the inside. FACT.