The season of "Cocido"

Menorca's "cocido" stew, like the rest of the stews of the Islands and the Principality - like the stews of the Peninsula - have more and more followers, and outside our island there are many restaurants that dedicate one day a week to it, as will be done before Christmas in Menorca, in this three-course dish.

Reviving the lost traditions of our grandmothers and mothers who cooked a different dish every day of the week should be one of the objectives of restaurants that are committed to preserving our cuisine with roots, and in this way offer their customers home-made cuisine in keeping with the gastronomic seasons of the year, betting on local products.

This has been promoted for 11 years by Gastronomía Menorca with its “Miércoles de Brou” in which this year 6 restaurants on the island are participating every wednesday.

The Brou (broth) dish has a connotation of a hot dish for a cold day, so with the drop in temperature it is more desirable and at the same time healthy. In fact, when the stew was prepared at home, it was and is made into a good pot, and it is a meal for two or three days, although the third is when the puree, the meat with tomato or the raolas, fritters or stew croquettes are usually made, since in our grandmothers' kitchen, everything was used and nothing was spoiled.

According to the British military man and governor of Menorca, John Armstrong, in the 18th century author of the History of the island of Menorca, “the dish that Menorcans like the most is the broth, and they always have a pot on the fire throughout the week in the cold months.” In fact, this dish was also liked by the English, who, according to the English governor, brought this gastronomic custom to Great Britain and is also consumed at the best tables in the English capital.

Broth or soup

The broth, which is also called "vianda" on the island, is a vegetable and meat soup that is served hot as a first course. Also in the northern regions of the peninsula and the Castilian plateau, it is customary to find a cup of broth in bars to warm up.

If we are on our island, the word broth is used more when it is a soup dish made with vegetables and meat that refers to a main ingredient, as is the case of shank broth, chicken broth, pigeon broth or when it was intended for a celebration as is the case of Christmas broth or for a person as was the case of sick broth as a tonic.

Vianda is the soup of the stew accompanied by pasta, normally thin noodles or angel hair, as well as those types of pasta that are disappearing today such as maravilla, pine nuts, stars... And it is always the first course of the stew.

As for the Christmas food, also called Christmas broth, the typical pasta is the galets, which in Ciutadella in some houses are called sharks, while in Mallorca they are called magnólias. It should also be noted that in Mallorca and Catalonia the galets are filled with minced meat, the same or similar to our broth meatball.

The stew (cocido)

The main ingredients of the stew in Menorca are the bundle of herbs and soup vegetables (thyme, carrot, parsnip, celery), potatoes, chickpeas, a piece of cabbage, as well as meats such as shank, chicken or hen, a piece of fresh bacon, sobrasada, as well as the meatball. All these ingredients are boiled with water for a couple of hours - it can also be done faster with the pressure cooker - and the soup is served first, then the boiled potatoes, chickpeas and vegetables second, and then the meats third. There are also those who add green beans to the stew pot, which are eaten with potatoes and carrots.