Spanish cuisine: dishes and recipes

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Wishing to enrich the home diet, many housewives are experimenting with the composition, design and presentation of familiar dishes. Those who are more liberated in cooking decide to introduce foreign dishes, tasting the most unusual dishes and drinks. The colorful Spanish cuisine will be an excellent guide on your gastronomic journey. Passionate combinations of vegetables, seafood and savory spices make it the friendliest to the unspoiled stomachs of Europeans and Asians.

Sociability is the main trump card that Spanish cuisine protects. Recipes for the most complex dishes can easily be transformed in the skillful hands of a simple housewife, you just need to add a little imagination to the products.

The Essence of Spanish Cuisine

Three pillars of Mediterranean cuisine are quality olive oil, crunchy bell peppers and sage. Many will argue with this statement, pointing to the abundance of meat, garlic and vegetables on the menu of the most expensive restaurants in the country. But at its core, Spanish cuisine retains the flavor of ancient times, when people knew the price of real oil and the taste of pepper poured with goodness and sunshine.

What has changed over the centuries of existence?

For many centuries of its existence, the food culture of hot Spaniards has undergone constant transformation: the French brought with them the most magnificent wine, which became an excellent basis for stew, Africans shared the secrets of pairing spices, "friendship" with Italians gave the locals a we alth of pastries, and the Moors sweetened their food with almonds, milk, and couscous. Spanish national cuisine delicately absorbed such influences of alien traditions and skillfully presented the best of them in its own inimitable style.

Popular foods

First courses have an incomparable aroma, the finest taste and a stunning look. There are four celebrities among them:

• the most magnificent samphiana - a symphony of ripe tomatoes, tart eggplant and delicious peppers;
• fragrant picada - a colorful trio of garlic, moderately roasted almonds and juicy herbs;
• laconic sofrito - a composition of garlic, pepper, meaty tomatoes and herbs;
• unsurpassed ali-oli - soft garlic based on olive oil.

Spanish cuisine. Recipes

You should start your acquaintance with simple dishes. You should not immediately rush to cook king prawns or octopus: the lighter the dish, the faster Spanish cuisine will take root in the house. Simple recipes are easier to remember. And that means putting it into practice. To get started, you can make a light cold soup called gazpacho, which will require not so muchmany:

• 1kg fleshy tomatoes;
• 200-220g fresh pickles;
• 100-120g sweet pepper;
• 100g red onion;
• 2 medium cloves fresh garlic;
• a tablespoon of good wine vinegar;
• 2 tbsp. l olive oil;
• a handful of your favorite crackers;
• s alt, sugar and lemon flavor completely to your own taste.

Cooking soup

Gazpacho, although a representative of cold dishes, can be savored at any time of the year, because it is a kind of Spanish okroshka: it will refresh you in the hot season, and in winter it will remind you of a hot and passionate summer.

To begin with, you should start peeling vegetables: tomatoes must be freed from a hard peel and carefully remove the stalk. Cucumbers suffer the same fate - their "clothing" also flies into the trash. Washed well pepper must be cut into good pieces, tomatoes and cucumbers - into small pieces, crush the garlic with a press or a glass and place the whole company in a blender. Grind vegetables until completely homogeneous. After that, you need to balance the taste of the soup: if the tomatoes were sour, it is better to add a pinch of sugar. Next, mix s alt into the soup, drip wine vinegar and olive oil. After mixing well, the soup can be put to cool in the refrigerator. Serve a colorful dish with beautiful crispy breadcrumbs and herbs (you can also decorate with fresh mint).

Paella

Spanish cuisine hatesunjustified squandering, so many people know the recipe for a profitable paella with affordable seafood. To prepare an unusual dish, housewives need to purchase the following:

• 250g quality seafood mix;
• 350-400 fillets of your favorite fish;
• 200g green beans;
• 100g sweet crunchy peppers;
• 3 cups coarse-grained (parboiled) rice;
• 250-300g fresh tomatoes;
• 2 cloves of fresh fragrant garlic;
• 100 ml dry wine;
• 2 tbsp finely chopped parsley;
• 5-6 cups of broth;
• 4 tbsp olive oil;
• 2 pinches (0.5 tsp) saffron, s alt, pepper, paprika.

Cooking

Spanish cuisine is sensual and does not tolerate frozen food, but in today's busy life, this whim can be missed. To begin with, it is worth warming up the main tool in cooking - a frying pan with a thick bottom, olive oil must completely cover its container. Seafood and chopped fish fillet are sent first to fry. This should be done no more than 2-3 minutes, so the optimal amount of juice will come out of the products. After that, we take out the pieces of fried seafood, and unload the attractively chopped pepper into the juice itself. When the vegetable becomes soft, it is worth adding colorful tomatoes already peeled to it, which can be cut into cubes or in the shape of a crescent.

Stew chopped vegetables for at least 10-12 minutes, after which you can add color to them with 0.5 tsp of paprika, saffron and s alt, as well as ground black pepper. This quartet of spices is indispensable for cooking paella, you can supplement the set, but you should not exclude it.

Next, it's worth doing rice - you don't need to immediately rush to wash it, rice dust gives the dishes viscosity, and it is she who is the hallmark of this dish, which Spanish cuisine is proud of. The recipes of the updated variations are more loyal in this regard, but when cooking paella for the first time, you should trust the advice described in the classic recipes.

Rice is better to pour into a juicy vegetable base in a pan. Then you need to let him collect the juice, then return the seafood to the hot company, add the slightly warmed pitted fish broth and dry wine.

Paella is stirred only once after the introduction of dry wine. Having turned over all the layers of the dish well, it is worth going through one more time and cover the pan with a lid.

Refills are the true chic of any Spanish dish. Recipes often begin to write with them, because this is not just a mixture of spices and herbs - this is the final chord of any culinary masterpiece. The paella is topped with a mixture of painstakingly chopped parsley and garlic. After letting the garlic juice out, the dressing can be added to the main company and simmer for another 8-10 minutes, after which it is imperative to let the dish brew. Rice should take all the juices and fill up to the rest. You can serve the dish accompanied by cherry tomatoes and green leaves.

Turron

What is the decoration of any table? Of course, a delicious and colorful dessert. Spain's calling cardChristmas time can be called turron - Mediterranean kozinaki.

To prepare a winter version of sweets, housewives will need:

• 3 carefully separated egg whites;
• 250g fine sugar;
• a glass of your favorite honey;
• a glass of your favorite nuts (you can mix);
• 5-6 sheets of quality rice paper.

Cooking

Fantasy and aesthetics - that's what strikes Spanish cuisine. Recipes with photos can be flipped through like something magical. The desserts are all so colorful and original that most of the sweet tooth, having tried Spanish goodies once, can no longer eat the usual ones.

First you need to beat the squirrels (they should be cooled first, so the peaks will form faster). Next, you need to boil the syrup from the prepared honey and sugar, its readiness can be determined by its attractive density, after which you should pour the syrup on top of the proteins and beat again. A mixture of nuts (crushed or whole) should be mixed into the created sweet mass. Pour the resulting nougat onto a layer of rice paper (confectionery) and let it dry, after which you need to cover it with another sheet on top. You can serve geometrically by cutting the layers together with the paper.

Conclusion

Now you know what Spanish cuisine is. We have provided recipes with photos in the article. We hope that you will be able to cook these dishes at home.