Manchego cuisine

Manchego cuisine (or Castilian-Manchego cuisine) refers to the typical dishes and ingredients in the cuisine of Castilla–La Mancha region of Spain. These include pisto (a vegetable stew with tomato sauce), gazpacho manchego, Manchego (a type of cheese), the white wine of La Mancha, and the red wine from Valdepeñas (DO).

The dishes and specialties of the region are generally sober and sensible, reflecting a modest, rural origin. They contain a limited number of ingredients. Ingredients tend to be those most easily accessible by the locals. Dishes tend to be high in calories, ideal for the diets of laborers, farmers, and shepherds. The cuisine of this area was popularized by Cervantes in his Don Quixote de la Mancha, where a number of traditional dishes are mentioned.

Local traditional staples in La Mancha were gachas de almorta, made with grass pea (Lathirus sativus) flour, and tortas de gazpacho, a flat bread that is the base for the "gazpachos", an elaborate dish appearing in El Quixote under the name of "galianos". Nowadays bread is much more widespread.

There are not many purely vegetarian dishes in the region. One of the local vegetables are Silene vulgaris leaves, known as (collejas), quite uncommon as a vegetable elsewhere. Some traditional vegetable-based dishes are pisto manchego, pipirrana (a salad of onion, tomato, and cucumber), asadillo de la Mancha (roasted red peppers), and gazpacho viudo. The berenjenas de Almagro are a variety of small aubergines that are grown in Almagro, Ciudad Real. These are seasoned and pickled according to a traditional recipe and usually eaten as a snack or side dish.

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