Spanish Dishes & Recipes - Spanish Food

While in southern part of Spain seafood is often the main dish, on the central side of the country you will find a large variety of vegetables and meat. In the mountain areas you will find dishes with lamb and several vegetables. For example, in Asturia you are likely to eat pork meat with beans in tomato sauce, the so called fabada asturiana. In the Castilian’s plateau you might eat beef, lamb, Serrano and Chorizo, while in Galicia a common dish would be Zarzuela de Maricos (pieces of fried fish in spicy tomato sauce, with onion, garlic, oil and wine). Valencia is the county of Paella recipes.

Besides the famous Tapas, all over Spain you will find cold soups based on vegetables. The white one is called Ajo Blanco and the red one Gazpacho. These special dishes date back to the times when the Romans ruled over Spain and they were the daily food of legionaries set in Andalusia. Other specific soups for Andalusia are Puchero (which contains beef, sausages, bacon, parsley, garlic and dumplings) or Olla Podrida (a borsch with ram, beef, sausage, bean and vegetables). Furthermore, all over Spain you will find Tortilla de Patatas – Spanish omelets with fried potatoes. Typically served hot, but sometimes also cold.

On the sea side most of the dishes contain fish and sea fruits. Huge quantities of mackerel, tuna, shrimp, octopus, oysters etc are sold in the biggest markets, some of them became even tourist attractions in many cities of the Spanish coast and symbols for the Spanish cuisine.