Product story

Puchero de hinojos

Fresh fennel, white beans and matanza meats slowly simmered

Fresh fennel perfumes a puchero of white beans and pork. It is made in winter, when tender shoots bring a green, aniseed fragrance to the broth.

Winter puchero Alhama de Almería · winter cooking

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Fresh fennel scents the beans, potatoes and meat in the pot with a wild hillside aroma.

History and origin

Fresh fennel, white beans and matanza meats slowly simmered

Puchero de hinojos fills the pot with white beans, pork, potatoes, a little rice and fresh fennel. Some households combine beans and chickpeas. Slow cooking melds the matanza flavours while tender stems and fronds add a green, faintly aniseed fragrance.

Its season is winter, when fennel shoots reach the kitchen fresh. In Alhama it belongs to a family of pucheros that also includes wheat and pumpkin. Each answers to a pantry and a season, yet all share the unhurried time of the pot.

When to taste it

This is a winter stew, prepared when tender fennel shoots emerge. Outside that season it loses the fresh ingredient that gives it its identity.

J F M A M J J A S O N D

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Where to find it

Alhama de Almería, within its family of traditional pucheros
Villages in the Almería and Granada Alpujarras
Rural eating houses that cook with fresh fennel

Ways to enjoy it

Rustic bread and dressed olives to begin
A young red wine from the Alpujarra
Fresh fruit for a simple finish