Costa Brava Guide

A good way to discover the delights of the Costa Brava and gastronomy is to try the wide variety of tasty dishes typical of Empurdanesa cuisine.

Pan a la Catalana - Enter any bar in Catalonia and you will be hard pressed not to find the 'national dish' pan a la Catalana (Catalan bread) on the menu. This rather grand sounding name comprises at its most basic bread, usually a firm rustic loaf, on to which ripe tomatoes are squeezed, and is finished off by ...

Calcotada - Another dish held in great esteem in Catalonia is the calçotada. This calçotada, which originates in Tarragona is made by cooking spring calocats (a local variety of spring onions) over an open flame. When cooked, the spring onions char on the outside but inside are tender. They are ...

Truffles - Catalonia is one of the few areas in Spain where the climatic conditions favour the growth of truffles. The black fungus, more expensive than gold, grows from December to March in oak forests and is found in loose soil just below the surface. Truffle hunters traditionally used pigs to sniff out the ...

Canalones a la Catalana - At the other end of the price spectrum we find cannelloni, the popularity of which can no doubt be traced back to the arrival of Italian cooks to Catalonia. The cannelloni are similar to their Italian counterparts the are found especially around Barcelona. Canalones a la Catalana is made from ...

Meats - Barbecued meats are also popular, especially when cooked over a fire of vine prunings which generates an intense heat. Towards the Pyrenees game dishes are found, like arros amb conill (rice with rabbit) or perdices con coles (partridge with cabbage). To wash it all down what better than the local ...

Zarzuela de Marisco - Zarzuela de marisco is a term used to describe a seafood stew containing both fish and shellfish. Often it will contain hake or monkfish, cuttlefish, shrimp and muscles. Adding saffron gives the broth a beautiful yellow ...

Gambas al Ajillo - A popular tapa in bars is gambas al ajillo, made by frying shrimp in oil and garlic. As in Valencia many of the seafood dishes are served with alioli sauce made from garlic and oil with the consistency of ...

Mar i Muntanya Cuisine - One of the idiosyncrasies of Costa brava cooking is mar i muntanya cuisine. Meaning literally "sea and mountain" this is an appetizing way of combining seafood with land produce. Such combinations include pork and muscles, tuna soup with snails, rabbit with crayfish and chicken and ...

Crema Catalana - If the sight of crema catalana looks familiar, it is because of its similarity to the French creme brulee. In fact, there are those that opinion that it was in Catalonia that the dessert originated, but then the French always had the better marketing men. Crema catalana is made from egg yolk, ...

Postre de Music - Another popular way to round off a meal is postre de music (musical desert), an assortment of dried fruits and ...

Meto - The meto, a local unsalted soft goat cheese, is served accompanied with ...

Catalan Bakeries - Catalan bakeries are well regarded in Spain. Traditionally many cakes were baked to celebrate religious festivals. During lent, bunyols, deep fried doughnuts, are baked, while Easter Monday is traditionally celebrated with a mona de pasqua, made from dough and the eggs that have been accumulating ...

Serrano Ham - Charcuterie, or fiambre as it is known in Spanish, has an central place in Spanish cuisine, and is an ever present in Spanish households. Almost all fiambre is derived from the pig. It is speculated that the prominence of pork in Spanish cuisine may be associated with the reconquista, as part of an ...

Chorizo - What is left after the hams are removed is used to produce a range of charcuterie. Most products can be created using the Iberian pig, which commands a price premium, or the white pig. Chorizo is a bright red sausage made from chopped port meat seasoned with paprika, garlic, herbs and salt. The ...

Salchichon - Salchichon is a hard sausage, similar to salami, made from chopped pork, coarsely ground pepper and seasoning. Some of the best white pig salchichon is found in Vic, in the foothills of the Catalan Pyrenees. For the truly extravagant salchichon stuffed with black truffles may be ...

Longaniza - Longaniza is a cured sausage, originally from Italy, and introduced into Spain by the ...

Chistorra - Chistorra is a long hard sausage made from pork with small quantities of beef from ...

Butifarra and Morcilla - Butifarra, from Catalonia, and morcilla are both blood sausages seasoned with nutmeg, pepper or paprika, and morcon, from Extremadura is made from coarsely chopped pork marinated with paprika and ...

Lomo Embuchado - Another delicacy derived from the pig, and second in price only to the cured ham, is lomo embuchado. The lomo is cut from the lion of pork, the fat removed, and marinated in seasoning. The solid strip of meat is then stuffed into skins to be air ...

Sobrasada - In Mallorca there is a long tradition of sobrasada, a soft loose textured sausage traditionally made from the indigenous black Balearic ...

Cecina - Cecina, from Leon in northern Spain is generally generally made from beef, but in some cases horse, goat or even donkey meat is used. The production process is similar to that employed to cure hams. The cured cecina, which has a deep red colour is served in thin slices and drizzled with oil. The ...

Fish suquet - Ingredients: 180 g per person of scorpion fish or gurnard, 4 garlics, 4 small ripe tomatoes, 1½ potatoes per person, curdled alioli (garlic and olive oil sauce), water or fish fumet. Put some oil in a pan and fry the garlics until they are golden-brown. Add the tomato and when it ...

Cheese - The varied topography and climate in Spain makes for a huge range of cheese varieties. From the lush pastureland of the north, cow milk is used to produce rich soft textured cheeses like Tetilla and piquant blue veined varieties like Cabrales. Goats thrive all over Spain, especially along the ...

Olive Oil - The dry climate of the Mediterranean lends itself to the cultivation of olives, with over ninety percent of the world's crop located in the area. The hardy olive tree, which is thought to have been introduced into Spain by the Greeks, can survive months without rain. The trees themselves can be ...

Bunyols (sweet fritters) - In the Costa Brava is traditional to make and eat bunyols (sweet fritters) for Easter. If you visit us at this time of year, you’ll see them everywhere. Their name in Catalan is also a scornful term for a formless mass, but they’re delicious just the same. Normally, on Wednesday or ...

The Pig Slaughter - The custom of killing one or more pigs to provide the family with meat and sausages during the whole year is a very old tradition which has now been restricted to the rural world, since health and hygiene regulations have prohibited fattening livestock in houses situated in urban nuclei. But the ...

Chicken with crayfish - Ingredients: 1 free-range chicken, 3 crayfish per person, 2 onions, 2 or 3 small ripe tomatoes, 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, 1 handful of almonds, garlic and pepper, water and stock. Put some oil in a pan, fry the chicken cut into pieces, the garlic and the pepper. When they are all golden-brown, ...

Rice casserole - Ingredients (10 people): 800 g rice, 10 prawns, 10 crayfish, ½ kilo pork sparerib, 2 medium cuttlefish, 3 artichokes, 1 red pepper, 50 g fresh peas, ½ kilo rock mussels, ½ kg clams, olive oil and salt. For the sauce: 3 medium onions, 1 cup of dry white wine, 5 cloves of ...

Cuttlefish with peas - Ingredients (10 people): 3 cuttlefish weighing about 400 g each, 600 g fresh peas, 2 kg potatoes, 4 cloves of garlic, 2 medium onions, 1 glass of white wine, 4 ripe tomatoes. For the “picada” (very finely chopped ingredients): parsley, a pinch of black pepper, 1 digestive-style ...

Escalivada - Ingredients (10 people): 3 green peppers, 2 red peppers, 3 aubergines, 3 tomatoes, 2 medium onions, olive oil, salt and white pepper. "Escalivar" means to bake in embers; if you do not have embers available, you can also prepare it in the oven. Before cooking the vegetables, ...