Olla gitana – vegetable stew with chickpeas and squash

Drain the canning liquid from the chickpeas, rinse them with cold water in a strainer and let them drain. Weigh out 480 g cooked chickpeas; discard the canning liquid and rinsing water. Cut the potatoes into approximately 2 cm pieces and the peeled, cleaned squash into larger cubes of approximately 3 cm. Cut the green beans into approximately 3–4 cm lengths. Finely chop the onion. Dice the tomatoes, keeping their skins, seeds and all their juice.

Measure out the initial 1100 ml water. Heat 50 ml from this portion, pour it into a small bowl and add the saffron, lightly rubbing the threads between your fingers. Leave for approximately 10 minutes. Reserve the remaining 1050 ml of the initial portion for the pot. Separately prepare up to 200 ml hot water as one shared supply for the entire cooking process.

Pour the remaining 1050 ml initial water into a pot holding approximately 5 l. Add the potatoes and the 6 g salt set aside for cooking. Bring to a gentle boil and cook partly covered for 10 minutes from that point. The potatoes should start softening but stay in pieces. Meanwhile, prepare the sofrito in the following steps so both parts can cook at the same time.

Add all the squash and green beans to the potatoes. Return to a gentle boil and cook partly covered for 12–15 minutes, until the vegetables are almost tender. Stir carefully along the bottom from time to time. If the liquid starts running low, add small amounts from the measured supply of up to 200 ml hot water; later additions come from this same reserve. Keep all the broth and vegetables.

Heat all the olive oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook for 8–10 minutes, stirring, until soft and lightly golden. Add all the tomatoes with their juice and cook for 10–12 minutes, until they form a soft, thick base. Briefly remove the skillet from the heat, add the sweet paprika and mix thoroughly. Do not burn the paprika. You can make the sofrito while the potatoes and other vegetables cook.

Transfer all the sofrito to the pot, keeping all the olive oil and juices. Ladle a little broth from the pot into the skillet, loosen the remaining sofrito with it and pour it back into the stew. Add all the drained chickpeas, the saffron with all the water from its bowl and the dried mint, lightly crumbling the leaves. Once a gentle boil returns, cook for 8–10 minutes over low heat. The green beans should be fully tender, the potatoes and squash should yield easily to a fork, and the chickpeas should heat through thoroughly. If needed, use only the remaining part of the same reserve of up to 200 ml water.

Mash a few potato pieces against the side of the pot and gently stir them into the broth to thicken it lightly. Keep the remaining vegetables in recognizable pieces. Taste and add some of the 2 g salt set aside for finishing only if needed, remembering that the canned chickpeas may already be salty. Remove the pot from the heat, cover and let it rest for 5 minutes. Divide the entire stew with its remaining broth and olive oil among 6 deep plates and serve hot.