Galician Broth – A Taste of Rural Galician Cuisine

By: stephenstewart


Quite often when you research information into the various cultures and cuisines that make up countries it is quite possible to find a common theme common name for the food of that country. Such as French food, Italian food etc but with the regards to Spanish food or more accurately described as recipes that originate from the country of Spain it could be argued that it is not quite that simple.

The reason for this is that you could quite easily argue that technically there is no such thing as Spanish food and the reason being for this is that Spain is an amalgam of its constituent parts that is to say it could be described as a political construct which is made up of disparate groups with their own languages, cultures, cuisines etc. The various autonomous regions that comprise Spain have been slowly pulled together through a variety of different processes some by force, some by choice but they all have one thing in common and that is they have kept their own individual features.

The number of autonomous different regions that form what we would nowadays refer to as Spain is 17; they all have their own linguistic variations of the language, in some cases it's a different sub language entirely and as well as their own cultures most definitely have their own individual cuisines.

One of those autonomous regions comprises the north-western province of Galicia. Galicia is surrounded on two sides by the Atlantic Ocean and it is pretty understandable to think that for a region that has such an involvement with the sea, its cuisine would also be heavily influenced by the sea.

The above having been said not all of Galicia’s finest recipes are all seafood based and the region can lay claim to quite a variety of dishes all of which are most definitely worth investigating further.

Lets top talking about the food and get down to business. Let’s eat!

One of the most delightful of all Galician recipes is Galician Broth. The ingredients are as follows:

3 dl of Water.
1 Fresh bone of cured ham or pork shoulder.
1 beef bone (preferably with the marrow still there.
100g of French Beans
25g of animal fat
1 bunch of parsnip tops.
1kg of potatoes
Salt

First of all you have to soak the French beans for about 13 hours. Then you have to cut the potatoes into small pieces. Put two cooking pots full of water onto boil and add the bones and the French beans and season to taste.

When they are half cooked, remove the bones and add the potatoes, without removing the pots from the cooker. Place the parsnip tops into the other cooking pot to try and remove all taste of sourness.

When the parsnip tops have come to the boil, remove them and add them with the animal fat to the cooking pot with the potatoes and beans. Leave everything to simmer at this point until it is well cooked and then add salt if desired.

Then serve. This recipe should serve four people.



Stephen Morgan writes about a great many Internet Travel based issues and more on the above can be found at Accommodation in Galicia . For a more complete overlook at Tourism in Galicia try www.turgalicia.es