Cocido Castellano

Literally it means :: boiled (in Spanish). And it is. A traditional Spanish winter dish.

Today's dinner starts by boiling a big pot of water and throwing things in at irregular intervals.
1) Water, beef bones, ham bone, pork fat, ham end, unsmoked bacon (smoked has too strong a flavor)
2) after an hour add garbanzos (soaked overnight in salt & water; then toss out the water) [maybe in a cheescloth bag to keep them from breaking up)
3) another hour, add chicken, sausage
4) another hour, add carrot
5) 1/2 hour, add potatoes
constantly skimming the skum off the surface and keep simmering through hte whole process until the garbanzos are done. If the potatoes aren't ready yet haul out the garbanzos and carry on cooking).
Separately cook 2 or 3 morcilla (they're too strongly flavored to go into the big pot with the rest). By cook I mean poach then slice and fry.
Chop and cook a bunch of Savoy (french) cabbage - do this while the rest is cooking and, when almost finished everything, reheat it by sauting in a pan with some oil and a couple of cloves of sauted garlic.
Strain the pot, keeping both the liquid and the meats/veggies. Put the solids on a platter; pour some liquid over to help keep them warm and prevent drying out. Set aside.
In the liquid you toss a couple of handfuls of vermicelli and make a soup.

An impresive quantity of meats,veggies, soup, and lots and lots of pots and pans get dirty.
This as just to give and idea; it's not really a recipe.
Anyway… it turned out well. Quote: "Maybe better than grandmother's". And that is high high praise (but don't let abuela see the blog).