Iberia · Volume 07, The Roast, the Pot and the Acorn Line
Chanfaina Extremeña
Extremadura
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 40 minutes
- Researched
- No outside sources linked
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
A shepherd's offal-and-rice dish shared across the wider western Meseta, not exclusive to Extremadura.
As tradition built it
30 to 40 minutes
Ingredients
- 250g tripe
- 250g trotters
- 150g cooked blood
- 200g rice
- 2 boiled egg
- 1 medium onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tbsp pimentón
- 1, or to taste guindilla
- 3 tomato
- 1 potato
- 100ml white wine
- 1 bay leaf
Method
- Built historically from whatever a slaughtered lamb's owner allowed the shepherd to keep: tripe, trotters, cooked blood, alongside rice, boiled egg, onion, garlic, cumin and pimentón.
- Brown the offal in a sofrito of onion, garlic, guindilla and tomato.
- Add potato, white wine and bay leaf.
- Simmer the whole 30 to 40 minutes until thick and the offal is properly tender.
Notes
Versions of this dish exist in Salamanca, Ávila, Zamora and Málaga too; this chapter presents it as a shared pastoral tradition of the wider Meseta rather than an Extremaduran invention.
What a modern chef changes
Separately confit offal and a blended sofrito
Method
- Confit the offal separately, low and slow, before it goes anywhere near the sofrito, evening out the very different cooking times tripe, trotter and blood genuinely need, rather than simmering all of it together until the toughest piece finally softens and the rest is overcooked.
- Build the sofrito base in a high-power blender once cooked down, for a smoother, more integrated sauce than a hand-mashed version gives.
- Finish the rice separately, so it holds its own bite against the offal rather than absorbing the stew's liquid into a single soft mass, a genuine textural correction rather than a stylistic flourish.