Typical Spanish Dishes to Cook Yourself

There are a lot of typical Spanish dishes you can cook yourself. So, if you can’t go out to eat why not make those dishes yourself. In this article, we are going to new a few. Some of them are easy to cook and some of them hard to cook. This goes the same for the ingredients and time, they all are different. But still, if you have enough time or you are a big fan of Spanish cuisine then this is the article for you.

Pan con Tomate

Let’s start with an easy one. Pan con Tomate is a typical starter in all of Catalonia. You can get it in almost every restaurant or bar you walk into. Basically, Pan con Tomate is just toasted bread with tomatoes rubbed on it. But there are a few tips and tricks to go with this dish.

Ingredients:

• Bread
• Tomatoes
• Garlic
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Sea salt

First, you start by rubbing some garlic on the bread. You can toast the bread or not, as you prefer. After that, you rub tomatoes on the bread. In Spain, they use a particular type of tomatoes for this recipe. They are called ‘tomates de untar‘. If you can not find these tomatoes then experiment with a few from your local supermarket. After you rub the tomatoes on the bread you can put some olive oil and sea salt on the bread. How much? That depends on how much you like it. And there you have it, your typical Spanish breakfast or starter at night.

Gazpacho

We can not make this list without Gazpacho, one of the most famous Spanish dishes. Gazpacho is a veggie-packed cold soup packed with vitamins. This dish is also found on most menus all around Spain.

Ingredients:

• Pepper
• Tomatoes
• Garlic
• Onion
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Sherry vinegar

Gazpacho is very easy to make, you don’t need to heat up anything. You just prepare all of your ingredients on your cutting board. Cut up all your ingredients and put them in a blender or a food processor. Blend them and you are done. There are a lot of things you can add to your Gazpacho. For example, leftover bread, red onion, cucumber, green bell pepper or ground cumin. So Gazpacho is a great dish to make over and over because you have so many options.

Churros

This one is for the sweet tooth like us. If you have no option of GETTING CHURROS at the moment, lucky for you, you can make them at home. But making churros yourself can be very messy and we don’t promise you that you will get the same result. So our advice is to just cook them over and over again until they’ll turn out just perfect. And all the testing isn’t that bad, is it?

Ingredients:

• Water
• Flour
• Baking powder
• Salt
• Olive oil

You can also add cinnamon but this isn’t typically Spanish. Making Churros is actually not that difficult. You create the dough with hot water, flour, baking powder and olive oil. Let the dough sit for five minutes. Put the dough in a pastry sleeve and cut off the dough when it comes out of it with scissors. This way you get Churros separated in the pan. Fry them golden brown in olive oil, take them out and let them cool off. Now you have your very own Churros, enjoy!

Patatas bravas

A big fan of SPANISH TAPAS? Then you surely have eaten Patatas bravas before. Patatas bravas is a very typical tapas dish in Catalonia, and they are very easy to make at home. The most difficult part is to get the sauce right. But lucky for you, you can also buy the sauce in Spanish supermarkets. But if you are not in Spain we are going to list the ingredients for the sauce.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Onion
• Garlic
• Tomatoes
• Tomato puree
• Sweet paprika
• Chili powder
• Sugar
• Parsley

You can use almost every type of potatoes, but the sauce works better with just regular potatoes. For the sauce, you just mix all the ingredients in a pan with hot oil. Bring it to a boil and stir occasionally. After ten minutes your sauce is done. Put the sauce on your potatoes and enjoy your very own Patatas bravas.

Arroz negro

If you are a big fan of fish then this is the dish for you. Arroz negro is a Catalan dish made with squid, prawns and rice seasoned with herbs and spices. This dish will take more time but it is not that difficult. There are also more ingredients to prepare it.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Onion
• Celery
• Bay leaves
• Squid
• Light fish stock
• Squid ink
• Garlic
• Smoked Paprika
•  Flat-leaf parsley
• Paella
• White wine
• Whole raw king prawns
• Lemon
• Aïoli

This dish is mainly a one-pan dish. This means you need to put all of your ingredients in one pan, but not at the same time. Start with heating up your olive oil and fry the onion, celery and bay leaves. After that add the squid and slow cook it for 20 minutes. You do need one extra pan for the sauce. Here you mix the fish stock, squid ink and white wine. Add the garlic, paprika and parsley to the squid and remove the bay leaves. Chop the bay leaves and put them back in the pan. Add the rice and wait until the rice soaks up the sauce. This is something very typical from Arroz negro, the rice turns black. Add some aïoli and lemon drops and you are done.

Spanish prawns, peppers and aïoli

This is another delicious Spanish seafood dish. If you didn’t know yet Spain is known for a lot of seafood dishes. This one is also rather easy to make and takes about 45 minutes to get ready. Spanish prawns, peppers and aïoli: is also made in one pan.

Ingredients:

• Peppers
• Lemons
• Garlic
• Small cooking chorizo sausages
• Onion
• Olive oil
• Sherry vinegar
• Thyme leaves
• Sweet smoked paprika
• Shell-on raw king prawns
• Mayonnaise

Step one, heat the oven and toss the peppers, quartered lemons, whole and sliced garlic, chorizo, onion, olive oil, vinegar, thyme and paprika together and spread them onto a large roasting tray. Roast all the ingredients until the sausages are cooked through. Remove the whole garlic from the tray and add the prawns and put the tray back in the oven. While the prawns are cooking, mash the roasted garlic until it’s smooth. Put everything in a large dish and eat with enough aïoli.

Crema Catalana

To finish our list we give you the recipe of one of the tastiest Spanish desserts of all time, Crema Catalana. You will find this dessert on almost every menu in Spain. This dessert is rather easy to make because the egg base is chilled rather than cooked.

Ingredients:

• Eggs
• Caster sugar
• Milk
• Lemon
• Cinnamon stick
• Cornflour

Beat the egg yolks and 150 gr of sugar in a bowl until they are really pale and thick. Put 750 ml of milk in a saucepan with the lemon zest and cinnamon stick and bring to a simmer. Remove from the heat and strain it into the eggs, whisking them constantly. Dissolve the cornflour into the remaining milk and stir into the custard mixture. Pour this mixture back into the pan and cook on low heat, stirring constantly, until it starts to simmer. Remove from the heat and pour into a dish. Chill the custard in the fridge for an hour. Before serving, sprinkle the top of the custard with a thin layer of caster sugar then use a cook’s blowtorch to melt the sugar into a golden brown caramel. Leave for a couple of minutes before serving so the sugar sets completely.

Don’t feel like cooking?

If you don’t feel like cooking we have enough other TIPS AND TRICKS for you. Don’t be sad if you already tried all of these dishes because we have MORE.