Gypsy Pot recipe

At last, here is the recipe I promised to post a couple of weeks ago: Gypsy Pot. As I already told in that post, since I tried it for the first time more than one year ago, it became one of my favorites dishes. Honestly, I hardly ever repeat a recipe. I have too many recipes (well, maybe now not as many as I had before because my laptop said good bay a month ago and I had to reinstall the operative system...and I forget to copy on a CD the One Note folder where I had all my recipes), which I still have to try. The list is endless. Why should I repeat a recipe twice? Well, that dish is an exception. I not only cooked it twice, but much more times. So you can imagine how much I love it! I wanted to try Paulina's Chickpeas with Spinach, but I didn't go to the supermarket this weekend, so I had no spinach.

I found the recipe in a Spanish vegan blog called El delantal verde (the green apron), so if anyone can speak Spanish, you can find the recipe here. Nevertheless, I did some changes in the recipe, so it became my own version.

I suppose you are tired of reading about weather, but it change so quickly here!First, we had a week of rain and more rain, the next week was boiling hot (I went with the school to the beach, and burnt all my face. Now my nose is peeling. Ouch!) and this morning it really poured down. Now, it's shiny and hot again...luckily, because I could go running. Does anybody more enjoy running? I have been running for seven years, and sometimes I think that it's like a drug for me. I feel incredibly well after running.
Lately, I have been taking advantage of my time of running to memorize English vocabulary. I write them down on a little paper, and I take the paper with me. Today, for example, I have been memorizing phrasal verbs because tomorrow I have an exam. Yesterday I went to Barcelona to "Casa Asia" (Asia's house) because it has got a specialized library, and I needed a book about the Japan post war economic recuperation (my next history project). As I supposed, the book is in English (there is a lack of good books and information in Spanish), but it's not a problem, isn't it?

Gypsy Pot recipe (Olla gitana)
You will find as many versions of gypsy pot as food blogs on the net, so it's a matter of trying and finding the version you like the most. The recipe of the food blog where I saw it for the first time, is slightly different from that. The first times, I used green beans as it was told, but one they I was run out of them, so I didn't add beans. And I loved the result. I changed the white potatoes for sweet potatoes, as well. Elena's recipe didn't use carrot, but I saw that all the other recipes use carrots. I tried to add them once too (the Traveler's Lunchbox Gypsy Pot recipe), but I didn't like the result either.
Sofrito is translated by the Oxford dictionary as "tomato, onion, etc. fried lightly in oil" (what in fact, is) but it doesn't have a name in English. Is used as a base for most of the Spanish and Catalan dishes (for example, paella, fideuà....)

Serves: 4-6 depending if a main course or a side dish.

-3 cups of cooked chickpeas (although you can add a little more or a little less)
-2 medium sweet potatoes
-2 cups of roughly chopped pumpkin
-2 medium pears
-a handful of green beans *optional* I didn't use them. If using, add them along with the pumpkin and the pears.
-raisins *optional
-stock or water to cover

Sofrito

-1 onion
-1 red bell pepper
-2 medium tomatoes
-3 tablespoons of tomato paste
-3 cloves garlic
-1 tablespoon of oil
-1/2- 1 teaspoon ground cumin (depending on your taste)
-1 teaspoon Spanish paprika
-a few saffron threats

Preparation

1. If using non canned chickpeas, soak them the night before and cook until tender (about 1 1/2 hour)


2. Put the chickpeas in a pot with the stock or water. It must just cover it. Chop the sweet potatos in cubes and add them. Bring it to boil and cook for 10 minutes.


3. Meanwhile, make the sofrito. Put the olive oil in a sauce pan, and when it's hot add the chopped onion, cook for a few minutes, and add all the other vegetables (the red bell pepper and the tomatoes) finely chopped. The tomatos must be peeled. Add the tomato past too. Cook on a low heat for 10 - 15 minutes, stirring from time to time to don't burn it. A few minutes before finishing, add the cumin, the Spanish paprika and the saffron threats.


4. After 10 minutes, add to the pot with chickpeas the other ingredients: the pumpkin in cubes, the pear in quarters (although if you don't like the chuncks too big, you can cut in smaller pieces) and the raisins. Cook on low heat another 10 or 15 minutes.


5. After that 15 minutes, add the sofrito to the pot with chickpeas and cook 5 minutes to leave the flavors develop. If it's too watery, you can puree one cup of the strew with a blender and return it to the pot. In that case, simmer for another 2-3 minutes.


6. Serve very hot, with a couple of slices of lemon and ground almond on top.

Cooking the sofrito

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Update 5th September 2009
This recipe has been submitted to "Steady Pulse", a blog event with "bean & legume recipes you can count on"