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Valencia
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Gastronomy: Rice and some traditional dishes
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Valencian gastronomy:
- RICE AND SOME TRADITIONAL DISHES
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It’s the undisputable queen of the valencian dishes, and by far the most international. It is a popular dish born in the rice fields; that’s why it takes basic and cheap ingredients: rice rabbit, chicken, vegetables… At first, it was prepared in all types of pans, but once it acquired taste and presentation, pans were discarded and a proper utensil was invented: a wide, solid and flat pan that everybody knows with the name of “Paella”.
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Practically in every town and city of the Comunidad Valenciana, the Paella is the most important dish, its ingredients can be very varied: chicken, rabbit, snails, olive oil, tomato, peppers, rice, saffron, Lima beans, salt and rosemary. There are many varieties of Paella, such as fish Paella, winter Paella (with broad beans and artichoke), mixt Paella (that combines meat and fish), Paella with couliflower and codfish… Everything depends on the ingredients available in that moment.
Apart from being one of the most nurturing and appreciated dishes, there has long existed the custom for the valencian families to meet every Sunday to eat a tasty Paella cooked on the fire made with orange-tree wood.
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- ARRÒS AL FORN (rice cooked in the oven)
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It is a dry rice, cooked in the oven with a casserole with broth and pieces of pig meat, chickpeas, potato,tomato and garlic. It is a widespread dish around many places, though the cities of Xàtiva and Albaida are specially known for the annual contests held around this tasty style of cooking rice.
In the old times, and still today but in very small towns, this “Arròs al forn” was prepared at home to take it later to the baker’s for cooking, who used heat produced by the traditional wood oven to cook the dish.
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- ARRÒS A BANDA (Rice cooked in fish broth)
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It is a typically fisher’s dish prepared on the coast areas. Though it is prepared with fish broth and prawns, its origins are much more humble. In fact, this rice doesn’t need expensive fishes, and both ingredients (fish and rice) are prepared separatedly.
Finally both elements are cooked together and the rice absorbs the fish broth.As we have explained before, it is a combination of two dishes: rice and fish, so that we will first eat the rice cooked in the broth, and later we will have the rest of the fish together
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with potatoes and an oil and vinegar dressing.
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In its origins, as many other dishes typical of the coast, it was a simple dish for sailors. Gandía, and the area of La Safor in general, is the origin that has given it more fame. There is even an annual contest known as the “Concurso Internacional de Fideuà” Fideuà is prepared in a very similar way to the former Arròs a Banda, though the basic ingredient are noodles.
The broth is prepared with different types of cheap fish, onions and bay leaves. The dish is prepared with this broth and other
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ingredients previously fried in the same pan: olive oil, anglerfish, prawns prawns, Dublin Bay prawns, garlic, cuttlefish and grated tomato.
Finally, we add the noodles and let the mixture cook until the broth evaporates.
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It’s the second traditional dish in importance, one of the most representative in the Comunidad Valenciana and receives its name from two of the ingredients it is prepared with: garlic and peppers. It is a dish born in the marshy rice fields, abundant in the coast.
The most traditional area for this dish is La Albufera (a huge fresh water lake near the city of Valencia) and in the island of El Palmar. The main ingredients are eels, garlic, peppers, oil, water, salt and potatoes.
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Wine and some bread are strongly recommended.
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