Spanish · Pork
Chickpea, chorizo & spinach stew
About this recipe
Spanish cooking flows from olive oil, garlic, paprika, and tomato — the matriz of the Mediterranean kitchen — applied across tapas, slow-cooked stews, and the seafood traditions of both coasts. Sherry vinegar and Spanish saffron supply most of the brightness and depth.
As a pork dish, Chickpea, chorizo & spinach stew works through the same fast-and-slow divide as other red meats — quick-seared chops vs slow-cooked shoulder — with the cut dictating the right cooking time and temperature.
Set your servings in the scaler above and every line of the recipe rewrites itself with smart fractions and unit promotion. Open Cook Mode to step through it hands-free with timers running.
Recipe data is sourced from TheMealDB's open community database; ScaleRecipe handles the curation, the scaling math, the editorial commentary, and the conversion utilities woven into each page.
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Method
- step 1
- Heat the oil in a large pan, then gently fry the onion for 3-4 mins until it begins to soften. Stir in the carrot, celery, thyme and bay leaves. Season, then cook for 2-3 mins, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic, chorizo, cinnamon and smoked paprika. Gently fry until the vegetables soften and the chorizo starts to release its oils and crisp up.
- step 2
- Stir in the chickpeas, vinegar and 150ml water, then bring to a simmer for 1-2 mins until the chickpeas have heated up. Add the spinach, then stir through the chickpeas until it wilts a little. Remove from the heat, season to taste, then serve warm with crusty bread.
Cooking notes
When scaling protein-led dishes, weigh the meat rather than counting pieces, and remember that the pan size limits how much you can sear at once.
For volume-to-weight conversions of any ingredient — flour, sugar, butter, salts — use the ingredient converter. To translate the recipe's oven temperature between °C, °F and gas mark, see the temperature converter.
When you scale this recipe up or down, remember that cooking time does not scale linearly. A doubled cake takes longer, but not twice as long; a doubled soup takes roughly twice as long. The cooking-time guide gives sensible starting estimates by dish geometry.
Scaling notes
Scaling Chickpea, chorizo & spinach stew
Chickpea, chorizo & spinach stew is written for around four servings as it stands on this page — scaling it up for a party or down for a meal-for-one is the small math problem most home cooks face every week. Here's how this particular dish responds to scaling, what changes linearly, and what doesn't.
Pork shares scaling rules with beef — braising time is collagen-driven and mass-independent, while quick-cook methods like searing scale by the piece. Chickpea, chorizo & spinach stew benefits from weight-based ingredient measurement when scaled up: pork roasts in particular vary significantly in actual yield, and a recipe written for "2 lb shoulder" can mean anything from 800 g to 1.1 kg of cooked meat.
Skip the math entirely — ScaleRecipe's scaler rewrites every ingredient line above with proper culinary fractions and smart unit promotion the moment you change the serving count. Open the scaler →
Beyond the recipe
Substitutions & make-ahead — Chickpea, chorizo & spinach stew
If you're cooking Chickpea, chorizo & spinach stew for a future meal (or doubling up for leftovers), here's how this dish handles storage, reheating, and the timing decisions most recipes don't spell out.
Make-ahead, storage, and reheating
Pork shoulder and slow-cooked pork dishes (Chickpea, chorizo & spinach stew included if it falls in that family) improve overnight as the fat redistributes and flavours integrate. Cured pork — bacon, ham, sausage — keeps well refrigerated but loses its crisp edges in storage; re-crisp in a hot skillet or under the broiler. Quick-cooked pork chops are best served the day they're cooked; the meat tightens and dries through the refrigerate-and-reheat cycle.
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Chickpea, chorizo & spinach stew
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Volume
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OpenTemperature
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OpenCooking time
The cube-root rule for scaling up, the differences between meat / cake / soup geometry, and sensible starting estimates.
OpenPan size
9-inch round vs 8-inch square vs 13×9. The math is surface area, not diameter — and the converter shows you both.
OpenLength
Inches and centimetres — for when a recipe says “cut into 1-inch pieces” and your ruler is metric.
OpenIngredient density
A cup of flour weighs 120 g; a cup of honey weighs 340. The full table of ~40 staples, with sources.
OpenOpen in main scaler
Edit the recipe text, scale by serving count, and copy the result. Same parser as the in-page scaler, more room to work.
OpenFrom the journal
Original essays on the small details.
The why behind the technique — original writing on the ingredient and equipment choices that separate a good cook from a frustrated one.
Reading a recipe like a chef
The 30-or-so recipe terms that show up most often, decoded
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Cooking for one — scaling principles
The math, the practical realities, and the recipes designed for one from the start
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How long do leftovers actually last?
Beyond the USDA's 3–4 days: the variables that actually determine the safe window
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Go deeper
Where this recipe sits in the wider tradition.
Each guide below is a real essay on the cuisine or the category — pillars, staples, techniques worth learning — paired with a curated grid of recipes filed under it.
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