The main ingredients are Fabes (a particular kind of buttery beans with its
own protected denomination, "Faba de la Granja Asturiana"; BTW, the
singular is "faba", not "fabe") and different bits of meat labeled together
as "Compango" (companion). Compango includes Tocino (bacon), Morcilla
asturiana (a particular kind of black pudding; there are upteen types of
morcilla all over Spain, but they can be quite different), Chorizo (a
particular kind of sausage) and often Lacón (pork shoulder). Recipe books
generally add onions and garlic for flavor (they are disposed of after the
cooking) and saffron or paprika for color, but I personally use neither and
have never missed them.

Now, while tocino, chorizo and lacón are no problem to find anywhere in
Spain, fabes and morcilla (this particular one) can be far more tricky. The
good news is that, aware of that, Asturian producers now market special
packs with all the ingredients put together and vacuum-packed. These can be
found in regional specialty shops, the gourmet area of big supermarket
chains or over the Internet. Water is also important: use bottled if local
tap water is hard, otherwise the beans will never get cooked!

Once we’ve got all the ingredients, down to the business:

The night before, leave the beans soaking in plenty of cold water (they
about double/triple their volume) so they rehydrate and get tender (no hope
of getting them cooked in a reasonable amount of time if this step is
skipped). Also leave the lacón soaking in water, separately, to desalt it
(always safer to correct the salt latter). Some people like to soak all the
compango ingredients, even to do it in hot water, so they lose some
greasiness.

Pressure-cooker version: Discard the water from the soaking. Put the beans
in the cooker and add just enough clean water to cover them. Put the
compango on top of the beans. Close the cooker and bring it to pressure.
Once at pressure, let the cooking go on for 20 minutes. Voila, that’s it (I
said it was easy, didn’t I?). After opening the cooker, check that the
beans are done and correct the salt. If they are not quite done, cook them
a little longer in the open cooker. The amount of liquid should be just
fine, but if too watery you can always take some beans out, mash them and
add them back. Once in a while, the morcilla blows out under the pressure,
so some people prefer to leave it out of the cooking (after all, it is
cooked already) and add it at the end, once the cooker is open.

Old-fashioned version: Discard the water from the soaking. Put the beans in
the pot, cover them with clean water and start cooking at low heat with the
lid on. From time to time, add some more water (cold is fine) so the beans
keep always covered and shake the pot gently. Keep doing that regularly (it
takes anything between 2 and 3 hours to cook them this way, so patience!).
Half way throughout the cooking, add the compango ingredients (they don’t
need too long to cook) and keep to the adding water/shaking routine. Once
the beans are done, check/correct the level of salt and water as above.

To serve the fabada, take the compango out, cut the different ingredients
in small pieces (depending on the number of servings) and either serve
separately or add the pieces back to the stew. Best served after letting it
rest for a while (next day is even better!). Freezes wonderfully.

This is a rich, pretty fulfilling dish that doesn’t really need anything
else apart from bread (putting your bread on fabada is not only allowed but
almost customary) and perhaps a simple, green salad to clean the palate in
between mouthfuls. As for drinks to accompany it, Asturian cider is
probably the best, pretty obvious option but it also goes well with red
wine and perhaps more surprisingly with cava.