Simple pots
We explain to you how to prepare potato and onion greixera at home
PalmaAn enormous casserole dish presided over the center. We sat around it. Someone cut bread with a small knife and ate directly from the dish with the help of a slice. The others repeated the gesture and took our share without haste. Then the old man said that when he was little, everyone would pounce like a ferret when the plate touched the table. There was hunger. He and his brothers learned to eat quickly and since then he had an instinct, a jolt that twisted his throat and stomach when lunchtime arrived. It was necessary to feed, to calm the groans that echoed in the belly. In his memory lived the smells of his mother's dishes, the taste of dishes he would never taste again and that he still felt. Cuisine made of nothing that configured a world, a handful, a pinch, a trickle.
Traditional popular cuisine speaks to us of simple food made to nourish and make the most of available resources. Dishes with few ingredients but tasty and comforting. It was here that the potato managed to find its place on our table to become a basic and essential ingredient.
Agricultural changes
Jam of potatoes, lettuce stumps, pumpkin, watermelon and aubergines (sic)Confiture of potatoes, lettuce stalks, pumpkin, watermelon and aubergines (sic). The second is that of stewed potatoes, which are sautéed with garlic and shallots and then finished in the pot covered with water, aromatic herbs, sobrassada, a little white wine and tomato. This latter is the recipe we will follow today, a humble casserole that we will find in other similar or related ones, where the potato is cooked in broths, or with sauce and accompanied by few ingredients. We will find several examples in the 19th century, when the potato is already a fully consolidated food and used in savory recipes and pastries. The first examples are found between the pages of the Receptari Llabrés, such as the potato casserole, where they are cooked in a sauce made with broth, flour and paprika and which is then thickened with eggs; and the potato with tomato sauce for which the tuber is first boiled and then confited in the sauce. The stewed potatoes, from the same collection, will be another similar formula, to which ham and chopped parsley are also added.
Already in the 20th century, the potato will be used in a multitude of dishes, among which we can follow the thread initiated in the 19th-century recipe book. In Cuina popular (Sóller, 1931), aguisadas potatoes are described. In this case, they are fried first, water, aromatic herbs, spices, pieces of soaked bread, and fried garlic are added. In La cuinera pràctica (Felanitx, 1935), on the other hand, potatoes in sauce will be an evolution of the potato casserole from the Receptari Llabrés. Another very similar example will be the potato and onion gratin from De re Cibaria (1923), a modest dish that is finished in the oven and allows as many variations as one wishes. According to the author, this gratin was the typical dish for the snack of Sant Cristòfol, like caragolins. For today's recipe, I have made a version of the Menorcan recipe, which I have completed with soft cheese to make it a main dish.
Slice the onion into julienne strips and sauté it with a couple of garlic cloves. When the onion is well browned, add the chopped tomatoes, bay leaf, and marjoram. Peel the potatoes and cut them into thick slices. Place them in the sauce, pour in a little water just to cover them (they shouldn't swim), and let them cook. When the potatoes are tender, add the chopped parsley, some slices of mild cheese, and bake in the oven at 180 ºC. Leave it in until a crust forms. If you see the potatoes drying out a lot, add a little water or a splash of white wine.
l 2-3 potatoes l 3-4 pear tomatoes l 1 large onionl Garlic l Bay leaf l Marjoram l Parsley l Soft cheesel Water