Fabada Catalan

Chef Ken Frank

Fabada Catalan – Braised Rancho Gordo Tepary Beans with Beef, Pork, Chicken, Lamb & Salt Cod

By Executive Chef Ken Frank at La Toque, Napa, CA


This is one of the newest dishes on the menu from my Chef de Cuisine, Daniel Gomez Sanchez who got his cooking education in Barcelona. It’s a modern take on a traditional very rustic Catalan bean stew. We get great satisfaction from people not knowing exactly what each little treasure is until it’s too late to say they don’t like it. I love this dish!

Try to get the Tepary Beans from Rancho Gordo. They have a great dense texture and depth of flavor that sets them apart. We cook them in a rich stock made with lamb necks and beef tendon. It is served with little pieces of beef tendon and lamb neck from the original stock, We also cure lamb belly and crisp it up like bacon on the plancha, with a little piece of boneless chicken wing, a piece of fried pork skin and a couple of little salt cod beignets.


Photographed by Josue Castro.
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