Catalan Cuisine

Originally influenced by the Romans Catalan cuisine has taken on ingredients and recipes from Italian, French Provençal, Greek, Arabian and Jewish cooking to become easily the most notable in the Iberian peninsula. Of all the regions the two that probably stand out the most are Girona province and French Catalunya, the former also home to the world famous and again recently voted as 'worlds best restaurant', the 3 Michelin starred El Bulli.

Catalan cuisine, like it's geography, can be divided into three main areas – coastal, inland and mountain. Initially it may seem a strange way to categorize food but maybe only if you're from a country that has lost its appetite for regional cuisine – something that Catalunya certainly hasn't. Here, even with 21^st century transport, there is still very much a sense of eating what is grown or can be caught nearby.

The principal styles of cooking are in a cassola (a thick, low sided, earthenware pot), a paella pan, caliu (on hot coals), or a la plancha (on the griddle).

There are four main base sauces used either for the dishes themselves or as accompaniments, Samfaina (the most uniquely Catalan), Sofrito, Picada and Ali-oli. Samfaina is a cooked mixture of onion, peppers, tomatoes and aubergines, Sofrito contains onion, garlic, tomato and parsley and is also common throughout the rest of Spain. Picada is a mixture of garlic, olive oil, almonds, fried breadcrumbs, herbs and spices crushed together and added to thicken sauces near the end of cooking and Ali-oli, traditionally just garlic and olive oil ground into a thick paste but now more commonly a kind of garlic mayonnaise.

Denominació d'origen

From rice to wine, olive oil to cheese the mark of the Denominació d'origen (Denominacion de origen in Castellano) and the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée in French Catalunya are used to not only ensure the authenticity of the products source, but control the method and quality of its production with the guarantee of very high standards. Finding any products with these labels mean they'll be the best.

Main ingredients

Meat

Pork (including numerous cured meats and sausages), Lamb, Rabbit, Chicken (The Penedès cockerel being the most famous for its meat and eggs), Quail, Veal (Girona veal is the best), Duck, Snails, Tripe, Liver

Fish

Cod (salted, dried & fresh), Sardines, Anchovy, Tuna, Prawns, Monkfish, Rock fish, Herring, Trout, Squid, Mussels and other shellish

Fruit & Vegetables

Tomatoes, Garlic, Aubergine, Red Pepper, Artichoke, Olives, Beans, Pulses, Chickpeas, Mushrooms, Wheat products (bread & pasta), Almonds, Hazelnuts.

Cheeses

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