Cooked croquettes: WHAT A GREAT CONCEPT
There are some specialties that we can consider characteristic of Spanish cuisine. I am not talking about local or regional specialities, which number in the thousands, but about those dishes that –sometimes adapted in some detail– can be found everywhere.
The potato omelette, for example. Probably also the chorizo. Maybe you pickle them. They would be on that list in their own right. croquettes , even if they have more or less close cousins in France and Italy, and the stew with all its variants, two of the recipes that most make us feel at home.
These two dishes are probably the only ones on that short list that we can join in one in which I would almost dare to say that, if it is good, the sum is better than its separate parts.
I speak of the cooked croquette (or stew, or any of its other varieties), a lucky hybrid that adds the best of the classic croquette, crispy on the outside, creamy and melting on the inside, with the forcefulness of the great stews in any of its versions.
To demonstrate that we are dealing with one of the queens of the croquette world and with a Spanish cuisine dish that must be vindicated, we have drawn up a list with some of the best that can be found today.
To the rich croquette!
relatively common in bars and taverns of Madrid, Some of those that arouse unanimity among connoisseurs are found in ** La Chula de Chamberí or in the Conlaya restaurant ** (they are not always on the menu, since they usually vary the main ingredient of their famous croquettes).
In Barcelona you can also find good cooked croquettes, like the ones at ** Bodega Sepúlveda **, or in a more local version carn d'olla croquettes (meats from the escudella i carn d'olla, the Catalan version of stew) **at the Granja Elena restaurant**.
We headed south with a stop in Valencia, they are famous stew croquettes from Los Madriles, a place that serves Madrid stew all year round, before continuing down the coast and plunging into the territory of stew croquettes.
In the soho malagueño the stew croquettes with mint at the ** Óleo ** restaurant have already become an essential, while in a more traditional and n Cádiz, El Recreo Chico is famous, a stone's throw from Plaza de San Antonio.
Seville gives to design a stew croquette route for her alone: Grocery Casa Eugenio It is one of those absolutely Sevillian corners, a stone's throw from Puerta Osario, perfect to start the route and get into the atmosphere.
We go to the other side of the river to make a stop at the Bar Grana y Oro , in the neighborhood of Los Remedios, a traditional tapas classic whose croquettes do not disappoint.
And from there to the north, Cybele 2 , one of those tiny bars that are Pure triana. If you are lucky, get one of the two small nightstands that are placed on the sidewalk.
We return to the north, passing through the tapas area par excellence in Zaragoza and stopping at ** Los Victorinos ,** whose cooked croquettes are one of the stars of a bar loaded with tempting options.
And we end up in Asturias, because they will not be cooked in the strict sense, but the croquettes they make at Casa Gerardo, in Prendes, with the fabada stew They well deserve to be on any list and, furthermore, with their aromas of chorizo and black pudding they allow us to open our hands a little and finish off the list in style.
Casa Gerardo could not be missing from our list