Smoky Pork & White Bean Stew

Ingredients

• 600 g pork shoulder, cut into 3cm chunks
• salt and black pepper
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 150 g cooking chorizo, sliced into coins
• 300 ml chicken stock
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 200 ml dry white wine
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 x 400g tins cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 15g flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped, to serve
• crusty sourdough bread, to serve

Method

1. Pat the pork chunks dry — water means steam, and steam means no browning. Season generously with salt, pepper, and the smoked paprika, rubbing it in so every face is dusty red.
2. Heat the olive oil in a heavy casserole over high heat until it shimmers. Brown the pork in two batches, 3–4 minutes per batch, leaving each piece undisturbed until it releases cleanly with a deep mahogany crust. Don't crowd the pan — all at once and the meat steams in its own juices instead of searing. Lift out and set aside.
3. Drop the chorizo into the same pot and fry over medium-high for 2–3 minutes until the fat renders into bright orange oil and the edges crisp. Bloom the chorizo's paprika in that hot fat for another 30 seconds — raw paprika tastes dusty, bloomed paprika tastes of smoke. Remove and set aside with the pork.
4. Drop the heat to medium. Add the onion and red pepper to the rust-coloured oil and cook for 7–8 minutes, stirring now and then, until softened and just starting to catch at the edges. Add the sliced garlic, thyme, and bay leaves and cook for 30 seconds, no more — until fragrant and pale gold. Burnt garlic turns the whole stew bitter, so watch it.
5. Pour in the white wine and scrape up every sticky brown bit from the base of the pot — that's the fond, and it's where most of the flavour lives. Let the wine bubble hard for 2 minutes until the raw alcohol smell has gone.
6. Tip in the chopped tomatoes and the chicken stock — the stock is what breaks the tomatoes down so they taste of summer fruit, not tin. Return the pork and chorizo with any resting juices. Bring to a gentle simmer.
7. Cover and cook over low heat for 35 minutes, stirring once or twice. Add the drained cannellini beans, stir gently so you don't crush them, and simmer uncovered for a further 15 minutes until the sauce is thick and glossy and the pork pulls apart under a spoon.
8. Stir the spinach through in handfuls until it wilts down, about 1 minute. Fish out the bay leaves. Taste, season, taste again — adjust the salt now, not at the table. The wine has done the acid work for you, so resist the urge to squeeze anything in.
9. Ladle the stew into wide bowls, scatter the chopped parsley generously over each so the green flecks catch on the brick-red sauce, and tear the crusty bread alongside for mopping.