Bollit / hervido (“boiled”)

Picture of a portion of bollit / hervido in a soup dish, containing half a red onion, a carrot and one potato with a dash of butter

In the quest for the most extravagant and spectacularly looking dishes, we often overlook the basics. What a shame!

So here’s one of them: bollit (in Valencian) or hervido (in Spanish). Which literally means… boiled!

This dish is extremely simple, consisting of boiling vegetables in salted water, and then having them with a bit of fat of your choosing. I know—it sounds “unappetising”, and it looks “ugly”, but it can be oh so comforting, especially when the weather is cold or if you’re feeling not so great and all you need is some simple food that doesn’t require extremely sophisticated skills to prepare.

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Puchero

Fideos soup (sopa de fideos)

Whenever we feel under the weather or just in search of some comfort, I channel my inner grandmother and cook a traditional Spanish stew: puchero.

Puchero in the pressure cooker
Puchero in the pressure cooker

This is a traditional “value for money” dish, as it’s easy to cook, relatively cheap, and the leftovers are also used for other dishes. It’s like the gift that keeps on giving ?

A classic on Sundays pretty much all year long (except when it gets hot!).

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Paella (traditional Valencian style)

Valencian Paella
Valencian Paella

Paella is a very simple dish that Valencian peasants would cook using cheap, fresh and widely available ingredients. Yet despite its innate simplicity, people repeatedly misunderstand and complicate it, causing us Valencians a great deal of stress in the process, because we know it could be so much better and yet people keep insisting on bastardising our national dish in every possible way! ?

Also if you, like me, do not live in Valencia and hence do not have access to some of the “niche” local ingredients, I will also provide acceptable replacements that follow the original spirit. I live in the UK, so my suggestions will reflect what I can find in local markets and supermarkets. If it’s not in my list, it quite probably is not acceptable, so don’t add it ?

Hope you enjoy it!
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