On a damp winters day, when Ibizan families are huddled around their fires at home, this festive recipe is called upon to stir the senses and warm the soul. This unique dish is a rich blend of meats combined with potatoes and a mixture of other tasty vegetables. If you can get your hands on some typical sausages called botifarra and sobrasada then you will be able to give this recipe a very Ibizan twist. The Sofrit Pagés recipe below doesn’t include rabbit and goat’s meat but you can add it to the pot as a legitimate variation if you want to. So let’s see how to make the wonderfully Ibizan Sofrito Pagés!
Content
Ingredients for 4 people:
-
- Half a kilo lamb
- Half a kilo free range chicken
- 8 potatoes or 40-50 patató (small Ibizan potatoes)
- 8 pieces of sobrasada
- 8 pieces of botifarra
- 4 artichokes
- 2 green peppers
- 1 large tomato or 1 ñora (dried tomato)
- 2 heads of garlic
- 1 onion
- A handful of fresh parsley
- 2 bay leaves
- Olive oil
- Salt
- Ground Pepper
Step One: Prepare the Meat
- Take the lamb (in chunks) and put it in a pan with water to boil. Add half an onion, a bay leaf and some salt to the water in the pan. As the water starts to boil, remove regularly any surface foam with a spoon or a small sieve. Boil the lamb for 60 minutes.
- While the lamb is boiling, do the same with the chicken pieces (also adding the half onion, bay leaf and salt). Boil the chicken for 45 minutes.
While you are waiting for everything to boil, chop up finely the green peppers, slice a couple of cloves from one of the heads of garlic, chop the tomato or ñora up well, peel and cut up the potatoes into small chunks (if using patató then leave whole) and quarter the artichokes. Grind up some garlic and parsley together.
- When all the meat has been sufficiently boiled, sieve and save the resulting stock mixing it in the same container. Put the lamb and chicken stock to one side.
- Let the meat fully drain as you prepare a large, high-sided frying pan with olive oil. Heat the oil for a few minutes then add all of the lamb and chicken meat to nicely brown it. When thoroughly fried, reserve the meat in a large cooking pot.
- Fry up the botifarra and sobrasada with a laurel leaf to be reserved with the meat then move on to the next step using the same ‘dirty’ pan.
Step Two: Prepare the Vegetables
Frying Pan 1:
- Fry in a fresh pan the potatoes or patató with whole cloves in their skins of one head of garlic and some salt.
Frying Pan 2:
- Using the unwashed frying pan, add a spot of extra virgin olive oil and add the prepared green peppers and sliced garlic to fry.
- A few minutes and plenty of stirring later, add the dried or fresh tomato.
- When that is almost done, add a tablespoon of the garlic and parsley mixture together with a bay leaf, salt and pepper.
- After a few minutes, take a ladle and add five ladlesful of the lamb and chicken stock to the pan. Mix well.
- Add the fried vegetables and the rest of the stock to the reserved meat and let the juices mix.
Frying Pan 3:
- When mostly cooked through, add the potatoes or patató to the meat.
- Fry up the artichokes and add them also to the meat (and by extension, the stock and vegetables).
Step Three: The Finishing Touches
Heat the cooking pot with all the ingredients in to get it up to temperature. Add in another tablespoonful of garlic and parsley for extra taste (cloves and cinnamon optional) and bon profit! as they say in Ibiza.
Enjoy your delicious Sofrit Pagés with a lovely bottle of dry red wine and try to get hold of a typical Ibizan aniseed flavoured liqueur to aid with digestion. If you are making the most of a beautiful summers day or are having an Ibizan-themed event then prepare a large quantity of sangria for either before or during the meal depending on your audience.
If you are looking to impress your Ibizan in-laws then you’d better stick with a good quality red wine, and find those typical ingredients (also do not refer to the botifarra as a sausage as it tends to irritate the natives who are very proud of their… sausages).
Source: uncambiodeaires.
Where to Eat Sofrit Pagés In Ibiza
Back in the day, fish was the main dish in Ibiza cuisine. Fish was so easy to come by that families started to fish for themselves and meat became the ingredient for special occasions. Thankfully, nowadays it is easier to come by! This typical recipe became a winter staple in a working man’s diet and thus, that of his family. As a result, the best Sofrit Pagés can be found in genuine family-run restaurants, like the restaurant Es Robost de Can Prats in Sant Antoni.
There are not many restaurants in Ibiza left that cook this recipe like it should be done. Some unfortunate tourists that tried this recipe elsewhere complained of it just being the leftovers of all the other meals. This is not how it is meant to taste. The family at Es Robost de Can Prats take pride in sharing their Ibizan culture with the rest of the world and therefore it is well worth a visit.
You will find the restaurant on Carrer Cervantes, number 4 (very close to our villa Paris, perfect for families) The restaurant opens from 1pm to 4pm and 8pm to 12pm from Wednesday to Monday. So do not go out of your way to find it on a Tuesday because you will be bitterly disappointed.
You will be happy to know that you will not have to pay through the nose to get this delicious recipe as with main courses costing between 15 and 24 euros typically, this particular experience will not break the bank!