Wholesome and honest, yet surprisingly complex, Catalan cuisine is not at all hard to love. Connoisseurs of fine dining would call it eclectic, and they wouldn’t be entirely pompous. Dating back to the 14th century, the lush region nurtures ingredients unlikely to be paired, and stirs them together to intensify their flavours and enhance their aromas. Fresh produce, found both in soil and sea, fuse to create salubrious, but lavish dishes for all Catalans to relish.
Deeply traditional, cuina Catalana doesn’t forget to experiment with modern techniques either. In result, the so-called contemporary traditional cuisine of Catalonia is taking over the world culinary scene by storm, and invites true gourmets to try it out in Barcelona, where it all began. Full of delicious opportunities, the capital of Catalonia reveals its main cooking ingredient – passion.
But to eat like Barcelonans do, you’ll need a couple more. Here are some guidelines on how to choose, prepare and use one of the essential ingredients while cooking Catalan-style.
Succulent and Oily
Emblematic to the cuisine, both aioli and romesco sauce hide the most treasured of region’s flavours – olive oil. When it comes to this nectarous juice, the rules of Catalan cooking are pretty simple – wherever you can, drizzle it generously. As old as time, olives have been harvested here by the nation’s ancestors, Phoenicians and Romans, and refined and squeezed by Arabs. Dense and mild or herby and pungent, the sorts of Catalan olive oil are now various, and all equally delectable and nutritious.
Passionate about reserving the quality of their produce, Catalans now protect and differentiate indigenous sorts of olive oil just like the French do with their wine. Established by the region’s regulatory counsels, the olive oil PDO label (the Protected Designation of Origin) establishes the specific terroir of endemic sorts produced here, suggesting, hence, the care, pride and hard work these people have put into their yields.
The long-established practise of squeezing olives very shortly after the harvest forbids the oxidation process to happen inside of the fruit itself, and results in healthier produce and a richer taste. Catalonia now has five registered PDO-labelled regions, with each of them being a renowned master of the trade. Focusing exclusively on the indigenous sorts, these regions provide various kinds of high-quality flavours, and make Catalan dishes truly oleaginous. Here’s a list to choose from.
Les Garrigues
In the Les Garrigues region, arbequina olive is, more than anything else, a matter of tradition and culture. Being one of the most beloved in Catalonia, the variety is recognizable by its unique combination of high levels of polyunsaturated fat and polyphenol levels, and although it makes a delicious table arrangement, it is mostly harvested for the purpose of oil production. Arbequina olive oil is thus cherished for its buttery flavour, fruitiness of aroma and mildness of taste, which makes it a perfect ingredient for different kinds of Catalan-style dishes.
Superior in its quality, the olive oil produced in Les Garrigues is extra-pure and surprisingly dense. The variety comes in two different grades of maturity, which then affects the taste of the oil squeezed from the fruit – when less mature and greener, the arbequina olives deliver juice that’s more bitter and tangy, while the more ripe fruits provide oil that feels more delicate to the palate. Both sorts are initially sweet-flavoured with hints of bitterness and spice at the end. They are wonderfully fragrant with notes of fresh tomatoes, leaves and grass and green almonds.
Although the arbequina olive oil is best when uncooked, Catalans use it for frying potatoes and eggs and to make the flat cake pastry more mellow. It is an absolute favourite of Michelin-starred cooks, and it’s a magnificent dressing for grilled fish and fresh vegetables.
Siurana
Harvesting arbequina olives as well, but mixing them with two other varieties – rojal and morruda, the Siurana region knows how to squeeze sensational oil. Although the ratio of these three varieties is considerably unfair to the latter two (arbequina holds 90% of the harvest and rojal and morruda a modest 10%), it’s only because arbequina olives contain a much higher amount of oil.
In addition to that, rojal and morruda varieties tend to mature more slowly and are extremely difficult to harvest without a risk of the fruit being damaged in the process. Unquestionably, the quality of both juices is superb.
Uniquely red, royal olives are cherished for their smooth oil, with no traces of bitterness, while the morruda nectar is more powerful and tangy. The mix results in an olive oil that’s both balanced and appetizing, and much like the Les Garrigues sort, it comes in two different types, depending on the time of the harvest.
With a greener yield, an earlier one, which takes place in November, it produces oil with stronger notes of fruits, more body and with hints of bitter almonds. Come January, the olives turn riper and thus sweeter, and the region harvests them for oil that’s more fluid and perfectly luscious. The two differentiate in colours as well, with the first type being greenish, and the second golden.
Internationally acknowledged and adored among the locals, the Siurana olive oil is brilliant for fried dishes and stews. It’s a secret ingredient of the Catalan romesco sauce, so if you want to savour its originally piquant taste, a drop of this sort is absolutely essential.
Terra Alta
While Les Garrigues and Siurana both excel in growing arbequina olive, Terra Alta is much prouder for its empeltre variety. Like its competitors, the region harvests arbequina, royal and morruda olives as well. With tiny, black fruit, empeltre olives are spectacularly succulent when served as a table variety, if left on the trees until the beginning of November to ripe. Catalans love them for their unique softness and their smooth, yet sweet taste, and use them fresh to garnish salads, pastas and pizza.
With such rich and flavourful characteristic, empeltre olives yield extra pure and high quality olive oil, exquisitely combinable with nothing but bread. Although the fruit is distinctive for its dark colour, the oil produced from this variety in the Terra Alta region is mostly yellow and transparent. Like the variety it comes from, this oil is sweet, but refined with a hint of bitterness, with the aftertaste leaving a somewhat spicy flavour.
Starting with fruity aromas of almonds and green nuts, the Terra Alta olive oil finishes marvellously, with sweetness at the end. It’s not only the booming culinary scene of Barcelona that lusts for this oil sort – culinary experts around the world use it both as a fresh dressing for salads and as an ingredient for preparation.
Baix Ebre-Montsià
Another expert in harvesting morruda olives, Baix Ebre-Montsià region excels in growing sevillena and farga varieties as well. The region’s groves are among the oldest in Catalonia and thanks to their gentle weather conditions and long-established harvesting tradition, they thrive in making their national cuisine beautifully diverse. A fresh, green sevillano olive is a bit larger and amazingly buttery with dashes of lemon, while huge farga trees provide fruit mostly used for cooking and oil production.
As elsewhere in Catalonia, as well as Spain in general, the olive oil obtained from varieties indigenous in Baix Ebre- Montsià region is nothing but a premium quality sort. Both the taste and colour of this lush juice vary depending on the time of the harvest – the sooner they are picked, the greener the olives are, and those that do stay on the tree a bit longer turn yellow and golden.
Squeezed from the first, the Baix Ebre-Montsià olive oil is rich in flavour, excitingly aromatic and fruity. Ripe olives, however, provide oil with intensified sweetness. Both types of this sort are favoured for their superb pureness and pleasant aroma.
Nicely combinable with all kinds of greens and vegetables, Baix Ebre- Montsià olive oil makes an astonishing marinade for fish and seafood dishes – simply add a pinch of red pepper and a bit of garlic. In Barcelona, pastry cooks are using it for enhancing the taste of desserts!
Empordà
Learning the subtle art of growing and harvesting olives from the Greeks, the masters of the Empordà region nurture their trees in a truly Mediterranean way. Varieties autochthonous to these parts of Catalonia are arbequina, argudell, corivell and Llei de Cadaqués, all equally oily and succulent. Argudell fruits are characterised by the variety’s specific smoothness and crispness, corivell olives are recognizable for their bittersweet flavour, while ripe Llei de Cadaqués fruits are usually tangy on the palate.
With such opulence and diversity of olive groves, the Empordà region produces pleasantly complex olive oil. Depending on the yield, the oil is somewhat astringent as well, but always savoury, with an incredible balance of bitterness and spiciness on one side and sweetness and fruitiness on the other. With strong and delightful aroma, the oil gives away notes of fennel, artichoke and anisette, as well as tomato and almond.
Complex and flavourful, Empordà olive oil is the main ingredient of pa amb tomàquet and alioli sauce, both a bona fide Catalan-style delicacies. In Barcelona, it is used for suquets, platillos and frying fritters as well.
If “The last undiscovered cuisine in Europe”, as the arbiters of taste call it, is what entices your palate, then leaving Barcelona without a bottle of locally-made olive oil is simply impossible.