Catalan cuisine
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Catalan cuisine refers to the cuisine of Catalonia,. It relies heavily on ingredients found along the Mediterranean coast, including fresh vegetables (especially tomato, garlic, aubergine, red pepper, and artichoke), wheat products (bread, pasta), olive oils from Arbequina, wines, legumes (beans, chick peas), mushrooms, all sorts of pork preparations (sausages from Vic, ham), all sorts of cheese, poultry, lamb, and many types of fish like sardine, anchovy, tuna, and cod.
Traditional Catalan cuisine uses a lot of pasta (second only to the Italian cuisine) and cod (salted, dried, fresh, etc.). The cuisine includes many preparations that mix sweet and salty and stews with sauces based on botifarra (raw pork sausage) and the characteristic picada (ground almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, etc. sometimes with garlic, herbs, biscuits).
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[edit] Savory dishes
- 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 tomàquet (bread with olive oil, rubbed with garlic and tomato)
- Tonyina en escabetx (tuna escabeche)
- Suquet (a seafood casserole)
- "Sea and mountain" dishes (incredible marriages of meat and fish)
- Embotits (generic for different kinds of cured pork meat)
- Calçots (specially cultivated onions, grilled)
- Allioli, a thick sauce made of garlic and olive oil, used with grilled meats or vegetables, and some dishes like Valencian Fideua
[edit] Sweets and desserts
- Crema catalana (a crème brûlée-style custard with cinnamon)
- 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 is a nougat-like traditional Christmas confectionery. Nowadays many variants and flavours exist, but the traditional ones are these kinds based on almonds and honey.
[edit] Wines
There are 11 Catalan wine-growing regions qualified by the INCAVI (The Catalan Institute of Wine): Priorat, Penedès, Catalunya, Costers del Segre, Conca de Barberà, Montsant, Alella, Tarragona, Empordà-Costa Brava, Pla del Bages and Terra Alta. The sparkling wine cava, the Spanish equivalent to champagne, is widely exported.
