SERVES 4
For many, breakfast in Spain is all too often a coffee and a pastry while standing in a neighborhood bar or a roadside café. But when you go for something more substantial, it’s called desayuno de tenedor (breakfast with a fork). This garbanzo bean dish is a classic tenedor breakfast at Bar Pinotxo inside Barcelona’s iconic La Boqueria market. I have spent many mornings at their stainless-steel counter lingering over an order of these before picking up the day’s provisions in the market. My friend, the late Albert Asín, was a fixture at the stoves for the past fifteen years that I have been eating at Pinotxo, and I learned much about the architecture of traditional cooking—building upward from a base—from him.
1. If using dried garbanzo beans, soak them overnight and boil following the directions on page 343. If using canned garbanzos, drain, rinse, and place the garbanzo beans in a saucepan with about 2½> cups/600 ml water. Bring to a boil, remove from the heat, cover the pan, and leave in the liquid until ready to use.
2. Soak the raisins in a glass of warm water for 10 minutes; drain.
3. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat, add the onion, and cook until it begins to soften and turn pale, about 5 minutes. Add the blood sausage, pine nuts, and reserved raisins, and cook, stirring continually and breaking up the blood sausage, until it is completely crumbled, about 4 minutes. (Remove the casing from the pan and discard.) Reduce the heat to medium-low, add the garlic, and cook until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute. Drain the beans and add them to the skillet along with the parsley. Cook, stirring frequently, for 2 minutes, or until the ingredients are well mixed.
4. Divide among plates. Give each serving a generous drizzle of 1½> tablespoons of the remaining oil, a dash of vinegar, and some flakes of salt. Serve immediately.