Andrajos Andaluces con Conejo

Andrajos Andaluces belong to the inland kitchens of Jaén and Granada: a guiso, a spoon stew, with rabbit or salt cod, and flat flour-and-water dough torn into ragged pieces right into the pot. Those rags are the dish. They are not packet noodles and they are not dumplings; they are thin sheets that drink the broth and stay soft at the edge.

The method that decides it is the dough. Roll it thin, no thicker than 2mm, then tear it by hand so every piece has an uneven edge. Too thick and it turns heavy and gummy. Thin enough, it cooks in the broth like tender pasta, with the sofrito, the slow onion base, clinging to it. The stew must taste good before the rags go in, because the dough carries whatever broth you give it.

If rabbit is hard to find where you are, use bone-in chicken thighs and a light stock instead of water; it will be milder, but still a real household answer. For the Lenten version, use soaked salt cod and add it near the end. No hace falta haber pisado España. You need thin dough, a patient sofrito, and a pot that is already worth eating before the flour touches it. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.

In the Margin beside this one I wrote only: "thin, then thinner." That is not poetry. That is dinner saved.