Quintessential Spanish Ingredients

I love cooking and creating meals with fresh ingredients and my cooking is regularly inspired by countries I’ve visited, including Spain. (Past tense — having little kids and a young company means we’re not travelling very much these days.)
Spanish cuisine features a number of common ingredients that work together to give the food its rich flavours. Below are a few quintessential ingredients found in many Spanish and Spanish-inspired dishes.
- Spanish paprika. Starkly different from the paprika found in many US markets, Spanish paprika has a strong, smoked flavor that adds a boost to grilled foods, stews, and paellas.
- Serrano ham. An air-cured ham, serrano has a rich flavor that characterizes Spanish pork. Usually, the ham is thinly sliced and used for traditional Spanish tapas.
- Garlic. Many cuisines around the world use garlic, but this species of onion is featured in nearly every Spanish dish. Some believe that the world was introduced to garlic during the conquests in Spain.
-Olive oil. Used in everything from breakfast to dinner, olive oil is a staple Spanish ingredient. Spain, which grows more than 200 varieties of olives, is the world’s largest producer of olive oil.
We’re putting these ingredients on our grocery list and hoping to get some good home made Spanish meals together over the weekend.
-Peter Kuperman
