Mouth-watering Valencian Rice

23 Feb

When thinking about spanish gastronomy it is inevitable to imagine a paella. This crunchy and delicious yellow rice served in a gigantic frypan, also known as “paellera”.

It is also inevitable to think that in Spain we eat paella in all regions, at all times… but this is not quite true. This way of cooking rice is typical from the mediterranean region and more specifically from “Comunidad Valenciana”. The place to be when looking for tasty paellas, savoury rice and, why not, delicious fideúas.

If you are visiting Castellón I recommend “El Cigró” a great restaurant with an honest and succulent menu that will allow you to try local and revisited dishes at an amazing prize.

Fun fact

“Cigró” in Valencian means chickpea. This ingredient was typically paired with rice as an unexpensive and tasty way to nurture the spanish families some centuries ago. Thanks to our grandparents we can still savour these rich recipes nowadays.

Let me present you the “Arroz del señoret de marisco”. A well known dish called “del señoret”, rich kid in english, because all the seafood is peeled and ready to wolf down! The one from El Cigró was perfectly cooked and too addictive thanks to the “socarrat” which is the rice that starts to roast and stick to the frypan while caramelizing and developping intense flavours.

As you can feel, I fell in love with the main dish but the starters were also exquisite. The artichoke was perfection made dish with three of my foodie weaknesses: iberian ham, truffle and butter…

The calamari wok with ckickpea parmentier was quite surprising as it mixed asian flavours with typical valencian spices in a spectacular manner.

They also serve bread and grated tomato, for free, which is a very nice detail typical in the area.

Desserts were no less, we tried the “natillas”, custard, with caramelized apple, the apple flan with “leche merengada”, cinnamon milkshake ice cream and their own version of the “maxibon” a known industrial ice-cream which, I must confess, is one of my personal favorites. All three were original and very tasty.