Savor Spain

We arrive to the first province of Andalucía in Cooking Spain, where you´ll find a typical recipe, not so well-known, from each region of Spain. Today´s turn is Almería.

Famous for its agriculture, especially greenhouse farming which produces most of the fruits and vegetables for the whole Europe. This area can be seen from space as there´s thousands of white greenhouses together.

Also, would you be surprised to know that the only considered desert in the whole continent is here? North of Almería city you can find Taberna´s desert, 280 square km of dry and arid land that served to record lots of famous Hollywood movies such as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Cleopatra (1963), The good, the bad and the ugly (1966), Patton (1970) or Conan the Barbarian (1982) and much more.

Travel around the region to discover places like Mojácar, Roquetas de Mar, Alpujarra almeriense, Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural park, Cueva de Sorbas, Vélez-Blanco and Vélez-Rubio.

Almería city was awarded in 2019 as a Spanish Capital of Gastronomy, no wonder because a part of great vegetables and fruits, you have access also to great fish and seafood. Here´s some of those places, starting from Almeria´s Market (Almería), Restaurante La Costa (El Ejido), Bar Jovellanos 16 (Almería), Terraza Carmona (Vera), Casa Puga (Almería), Restaurante Albar (El Pilar, Lubrín), Los Sobrinos (Almería) or Casa Enriqueta (Huebro, Níjar)

And what´s typical to eat? Some of the most typical dishes are “Potaje de Vigilia“, “Gurullos con Conejo“, “Migas de Almería“, “Ajo Colorao“, “Caldo quemao“, “Papaviejos“, “Bullabesa Almeriense” or “Tabernero“.

Today´s recipe goes for the “Gurullos con Conejo” which I never heard of it until I started writting this post and looks quite interesting! We´re going to have to cheat cause “gurullos” is a homemade pasta made with wheat flour, water and saffron so we will replace with orzo pasta instead. Also the both pulses in the recipe we can use the already cooked ones to save time.

Ingredients for 4 pax:

• 1 rabbit
• 1 onion
• 1 green pepper
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 250 gr green beans
• 250 gr cooked white beans
• 250 gr cooked chick peas
• 1 choricero pepper
• 1 big potato
• 200 gr orzo pasta
• couple of bay leaves
• salt, pepper
• 250 ml olive oil
• water

Elaboration:

1. Cut the rabbit into chunks and, in a casserole with olive oil, start browning your meat, previously seasoned with salt and pepper. We add also the whole choricero pepper and we reserve everything once it has nice color.
2. In the same oil, add the sliced onion and whole garlic and cook for about 15 minutes, add the sliced green pepper and you can add also the green beans and cook all together for another 10 minutes. Remove the garlic and keep, once it has brown color.
3. Combine now the rest of ingredients: rabbit meat, chick peas, white beans, orzo, bay leaves, potato in chunks. Cover with water and leave it to cook for 35-40 minutes until the potatoes are fully-cooked?
4. While the stew is cooking, in a mortar with a pestle, mash the fried choricero pepper and fried garlic until it´s a smooth paste and pour it into the stew.
5. Taste and season.