Cuisine of Catalonia
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Catalan cuisine is based on the ingredients of the Mediterranean area: fresh vegetables (especially tomato, garlic, aubergine, red pepper, and artichoke), wheat products (bread, pasta), olive oils, wines, legumes (beans, chick peas), mushrooms, all sorts of pork preparations (sausages, ham), all sorts of cheese, poultry, lamb, and many types of fish like sardine, anchovy, tuna, and cod.
Some of the characteristic tendencies of traditional Catalan cuisine have been fondness for pasta (only second to the Italian cuisine) and for cod (salted, dried, fresh, etc.), preparations that mix sweet and salty, stews with sauces based on botifarra (raw pork sausage) and the characteristic picada (grinded almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, etc. sometimes with garlic, herbs, biscuits).
Some concoctions that have been exported or adapted beyond their original places are:
- Calçots (grilled green onions)
- Cod Catalan style, cod with raisins and pine nuts
- Escalivada (various grilled vegetables)
- Escudella (a soup)
- Esqueixada, salted cod salad with tomato and onion
- Fuet (a characteristic type of dried sausage)
- Mongetes amb botifarra (beans and pork sausage)
- Pa amb tomaquet (bread and tomato)
- Tonyina en escabetx, tuna marinated in a characteristic sauce with vinegar and herbs, named Salsa catalana even on canned tuna packed in Galicia
- Allioli, a thick sauce made of garlic and olive oil, used with grilled meats or vegetables, and some dishes like Valencian Fideua
Sweets and desserts:
- Crema catalana (not so crème brûlée)
- Mel i mató, a plain dessert of mató cheese with honey.
- Mona de Pasqua
- Coca de llardons
- Coca de Sant Joan
- Panellets
- Tortell, a typical O-shaped pastry stuffed with marzipan, that on some special occasions is topped with glazed fruit.
- Torró or nougat is a traditional Christmas confectionery from Alicante to Perpignan. Nowadays many variants and flavours exist, but the traditional ones are these kinds based on almonds and honey: