n° 1 spanish holiday rentals site

Murcia Holiday Rentals: Caldero, a juicy and flavourful rice dish typical of the Mar Menor

Are you planning to visit Murcia or the Mar Menor? Yes? Then you shoul enjoy a taste of the sea with an exquisite caldero. Made with fish and served with garlic sauce, this juicy and flavourful rice dish is typical of the area around the Mar Menor. It is widely available throughout the region but, for a real touch of authenticity, it is hard to beat one of the restaurants in the towns and villages around the Mar Menor. Don¿t forget to order some of the distinctively flavoured prawns from the Mar Menor as well.

Caldero (fish rice)
Ingredients: 400 grams of rice, 2 dried red peppers, 3 bulbs of garlic, ¼ litre of oil, 2 ripe tomatoes, ½ Kilo of grouper, 1 mullet from the Mar Menor (½ Kg), 1 gurnard, ½ Kilo of anglerfish, 1 egg yolk, flour, salt and pepper.

You can have a culinary weekend or a week (why not?) in Murcia. The kings of gastronomy are represented through the different types of fish: they are all excellent and there is a great variety. You can taste sea bream and mullet, which are cooked in salt coating (a la sal) and open (a la espalda). And choose tiger prawn, as a snack, right from the Mar Menor and salted fish, who were already popular back in Roman times, salted tuna, mullet eggs and tuna loin served with raw and tender beans or fried almonds.

These are some samples of the traditional techniques used in the area to make salted products. These techniques were already used in ancient times by the Mastiens to preserve fish, even before the Carthaginians did it.

All this is added to the delicious vegetables from the region of Murcia, which are ingredients for dishes such as “mojete” (salad with cooked tomato, tuna, hard boiled egg), perdices de lechuga (lettuce quarters), cantonal salad, “michirones” (beans), peas and cured ham, tomatoes and fried peppers.

For dessert, you have different options: “pastel de cierva”, which is both sweet and salty and goes well with caldero, “tocino de cielo” (egg and syrup pudding),”sopa real” (soup made with almonds and egg yolk), the “arrope” made with fruit and vegetables soaked in honey, and the “Asian” coffee, made with condensed milk, cognac and cinnamon.

More information:
Mancomunidad Turística del Mar Menor
Phone.: +34 968 170 256

This entry was posted on Viernes, Octubre 24th, 2008 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Murcia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.