Rustic Portuguese Rancho Pork Stew with Creamy Pasta

Rancho is one of those classic Portuguese dishes that tells you everything you need to know about portuguese cooking, honest, filling, made to fuel a hard day’s work and bring people together around the table. In its most traditional form, it is a hearty stew of pork, chourico, vegetables, and chickpeas, all cooked together slowly until everything melds into one glorious pot. You will find it at tascas all over Portugal, the kind of no-nonsense neighborhood restaurants where the food is generous, the wine is cheap, and nobody is in a hurry. It is the kind of dish that working people have been eating for generations, the sort of recipe that doesn’t need much fuss to be absolutely fantastic.

This version is a slightly simpler take on the classic, skipping the chickpeas and cooking the pasta separately instead of letting it absorb all the cooking liquid from the meat. The result is still wonderfully rustic, with big, generous pieces of pork and carrot soaking up a rich tomato and white wine sauce, finished off with a ladle of creamy pasta on the side or mixed right in. It may not be the traditional rancho, but it is every bit as satisfying, and it comes together in under an hour, which is honestly all you could ask for on a weeknight meal, right! ;D RIGHT! Let’s check the recipe!

Rustic Portuguese Rancho Pork Stew with Creamy Pasta

Servings: 4
Time: 45mins
Difficulty: Normal
Rating: ★★★★★
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Big chunks of tender pork, smoky chourico, and silky cream tossed pasta. If this doesn't fix whatever is wrong with your day, nothing will.

Ingredients

Pork – 400g
Pasta – 200g
Bacon – 100g
Chorizo – A Few Slices
Onion – 1
Carrot – 2
Garlic – 3 Cloves
Tomato Pulp – 100ml
White Wine – 100ml
Cream – 60ml
Bay Leaf – 1 Leaf
Olive Oil – A Drizzle
Pepper – A Pinch
Salt – A Pinch

Directions

To make the pasta, cook it in a pot with plenty of hot water and a pinch of salt until tender, then season with a bit of cream.
To make the Rancho sauce, in a pan add the chopped bacon, chorizo, sliced carrots, chopped onion, and crushed garlic, followed by a drizzle of olive oil. Let the onion brown.
Then add the cubed meat, with the bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Let the meat brown.
Finally, add the tomato pulp and white wine. Let it cook covered for about 40 to 50 minutes until the meat is very tender (if it starts to dry out, add a little hot water). Once the meat is tender, taste and adjust the salt and pepper.
And that’s it! Serve over the pasta or mixed with the pasta. Enjoy!

Notes & Tips: Add a dash of piri-piri sauce if you like a bit of heat, it gives the whole thing a wonderful kick that is very much in the spirit of Portuguese cooking. You can also make this faster in a pressure cooker if you are in a hurry, about 20 minutes under pressure will do the job perfectly.

If Portuguese chourico is hard to find where you live, Spanish chorizo (the dry-cured kind, not the fresh Mexican variety) makes a good substitute. Smoked kielbasa can work in a pinch too, though the flavor will be a little different.

Cut the pork into big pieces, bigger than you think is necessary. They shrink during cooking and you want those satisfying chunky bites, not little shreds.

Browning the meat properly in step 3 is the secret to a deeply flavored sauce. Let the pork sit without stirring too much so it actually gets some color on each side. Patience here is rewarded generously later.

The cream on the pasta is a simple but brilliant touch. It keeps the pasta from sticking together and adds a richness that makes it the perfect match for the bold, savory stew on top. Don’t skip it unless you are cooking the pasta with the meat! ;D

This recipe for Rustic Portuguese Rancho Pork Stew with Creamy Pasta was originally created on BakeAfter.com. Esta receita de Rancho Rústico com Macarrão foi publicada em português no Iguaria.com.