This week on the blog of Hotel Angela we would like to recommend you something you might like to try before going back home. Spain has great Mediterranean food and many delicious traditional dishes as our gastronomy is one of our biggest assets. Here the quality of the ingredients is very important, and we love healthy, natural and fresh food.

Here we are going to list some of our most popular dishes as well as its main ingredients:

  • Paella: It has become our most international dish. Paella is called like that because paella is the name of the pan used to cook it. It has a humble origin as Valencian labourers used to prepare rice and then add ingredients from their garden (rabbit, chicken, green beans, tomatoes…). Today there are many types of paella: meat paella, seafood paella, even vegetable paella.
  • Serrano ham: This is possibly the most special product in Spain as it is something that is only produced here. This product comes from cured legs of the pork. The front legs are called “paletillas” and don’t tend to be as tasty as the back ones, therefore their price is slightly cheaper.  Serrano ham started getting produced a long time ago, in roman times due to the need of maintaining meat for a long time. The process nowadays though is very different to how it was back then.  Apart from serrano ham we also recommend you try other cold meats like “lomo embuchado”, chorizo, …
  • Gazpacho: The origin of the gazpacho is not that easy to explain as there are no documents to give evidence of the exact moment it started being Many people think it might have been around the 15th Century when the first tomatoes got sent to Spain from America. People might then have started mixing the tomatoes with bread and adding oil and vinegar creating kind of a cold soup. After a while new ingredients were added to it like cucumber or green pepper. Salmorejo or porra is a thicker kind of gazpacho that gets served with serrano ham, tuna and hard-boiled egg. So tasty!

If this post left you willing to know a bit more about our amazing cuisine, do not miss next week’s blog!

Bon appétit!

Fernando González