Andalusian Cuisine

About Andalusian Cuisine

By the ULTIMATE Andalusia Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Andalusian cuisine is the sun-drenched cooking of southern Spain, between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, shaped by its Moorish and Jewish heritage and fried, always, in local olive oil. This is our guide to its cold soups, its seafood, its hams and its sherries.

Andalusian cuisine

Andalusian cuisine is the vivid, sun-drenched cooking of southern Spain, shaped by a coastline on both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and by the long Moorish and Jewish history of al-Andalus, which left its mark in almonds, citrus, saffron and aubergines. Olive oil is everything here, and frying in it, lightly and quickly, is the defining technique of the region.

Cold soups

Made for the long, hot summers. Gazpacho is the chilled soup the world knows, of blended tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, garlic, vinegar and olive oil. Salmorejo, from Córdoba, is thicker and creamier, made with tomatoes, bread, garlic and olive oil, and topped with chopped hard-boiled egg and jamón. Ajoblanco, from Málaga, is the older, Moorish-style white soup of bread, ground almonds, garlic, water and olive oil, served with green grapes.

Olive oil, almonds, citrus and saffron: the gifts of al-Andalus, still on the table.

Coastal seafood

Pescaíto frito: small fish, anchovies, squid and cuttlefish, dusted in flour “a la andaluza” and flash-fried until crisp. Atún encebollado: bluefin tuna from the almadraba, the ancient trap fishery of the Cádiz coast, slow-cooked with a generous quantity of onions. Tortillitas de camarones: lacy, crisp fritters of tiny shrimp, chickpea flour and parsley, a speciality of Cádiz.

Hams and slow-cooked meats

Jamón ibérico de bellota is the prized, acorn-fed Iberian ham, above all from the mountain village of Jabugo in Huelva. Rabo de toro, from Córdoba, is oxtail braised slowly with red wine, sherry and vegetables until it falls from the bone. Flamenquín, also from Córdoba, is pork loin rolled around ham and cheese, breaded and fried. Carrillada is pork or beef cheek braised in wine with warm spices.

Sherry

No Andalusian meal is complete without the wines of the Sherry Triangle, between Jerez de la Frontera, El Puerto de Santa María and Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Fino and manzanilla, the latter made only in Sanlúcar, are bone-dry and pale, and perfect with seafood and salty tapas; Pedro Ximénez is dark, rich and very sweet, a dessert in a glass. In summer, the drink of the bars is tinto de verano, red wine with lemon soda.

Where to taste it

Visit a bodega: Bodegas Lustau in Jerez and Bodegas Barbadillo, the manzanilla house of Sanlúcar, both in this guide, offer visits and tastings. Then cross to the beach at Bajo de Guía in Sanlúcar for prawns and fried fish at Casa Bigote, also in this guide, with a glass of manzanilla, facing Doñana across the river.

Our advice: eat gazpacho or salmorejo at lunch in summer, order pescaíto frito by the sea, and ask for a chilled fino or manzanilla with your tapas, never a warm one.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Andalusian Cuisine before you go.