We start with the leftovers of a traditional Madrid stew, or as I was saying, any other traditional stew with chickpeas from your area. Of these leftovers, we are going to use mostly the cooked chickpeas, the remains of meat and vegetables -cabbage, carrot and potato- that have been left. Everything has to be very chopped so that there are no pieces larger than the chickpeas. We are even going to use a couple of ladles of the cooked broth as well.to give a sweeter touch to the final result as I will explain later.
We start by poaching a very very chopped onion, giving it time until it is golden brown, like when we make caramelized onions. We booked. we continue finely chop two cloves of garlic and add them to the pan with two tablespoons of olive oil, letting them brown over very low heat. When the garlic is golden, remove the pan from the heat and add a tablespoon of paprika, stirring it so that it mixes well with the oil and does not burn or do not snatchas my mother says.
Add the chickpeas to the pan. the vegetables and the meat of the stew very chopped. Mix well and let the whole cook over low heat for about ten minutes, stirring so that the oil with the garlic, onion and paprika sauce permeates all the food. The flavor of the ropa vieja will depend above all on what is left over, if there is more or less chorizo, bacon, black pudding, etc.
the final touchIt will depend on our tastes. Some people prefer to let the chickpeas cook until they are dry and crunchy and who prefers -like me-, to add one or two ladles of cooking broth at the end of the preparation process, if we want it to the old clothes are more mellow or unctuous.