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Best Olla podrida in Chicago

“A Spanish stew of chickpeas, assorted meats, and vegetables—traditionally cooked for hours in clay, sometimes served as one dish, sometimes taken apart.”

Olla podrida

What the real thing tastes like

Olla podrida (, also UK: , US: , Spanish: [ˈoʎa poˈðɾiða]; literally "rotten pot", although podrida is probably a version of the original word poderida, so it could be translated as "strong pot") is a Spanish stew, usually made with chickpeas or beans, assorted meats like pork, beef, bacon, partridge, chicken, ham, and sausage, and vegetables such as carrots, leeks, cabbage, potatoes, and onions. Spaniards traditionally prepare olla podrida in a clay pot over several hours. It is eaten as a main course, sometimes as a single dish, and sometimes with ingredients separated (i.e., meats from the rest or liquids from solids). It is a specialty of the city of Burgos. The recipe can be found in Opera dell’arte del cucinare by Bartolomeo Scappi, the cook of Pope Pius V, published in 1570. This recipe was translated into Dutch by Antonius Magirus for the Koock-boeck oft Familieren kevken-boeck, first published in Leuven in 1612. By the 1640s the word olla, meaning "pot" or "stew", was adapted

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Olla podrida is a Spanish stew that sprawls across a clay pot for hours, layering chickpeas, meats both humble and grand—pork, beef, partridge, bacon, sausage—with carrots, leeks, cabbage, and potatoes into something that defies simple definition. The name suggests rot, though it likely meant strength; the dish itself is Burgos's claim to culinary permanence. What makes it singular is how it arrives at the table: sometimes as one unified whole, sometimes deconstructed, meats separated from broth, letting each element speak on its own terms.

Order it here when it has

  • documented since 16th century
  • historically significant across Europe
  • versatile serving method

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