Typical Spanish Christmas Dinner

I don’t know about you, but for me the month of December is always a month filled with X-mas dinners and lunches, festive work parties, Secret Santa get togethers and many afterwork drinks and tapas. I love being surrounded by people, good food, drinks and the romantic December ambience. I’m a hopeless romantic listening to Xmas songs the whole month, reviewing all Christimas movies on Netflix while wrapped up in a warm blanket and trying to put the house on fire by lightning candles day and night in all rooms.

Do you go back home for the holidays or will you spent Christmas in Spain this year? In case you’ll stay in Spain: do you know what are the typical Spanish dishes during Xmas and the holidays? Here some typical dishes, though the’re too many to mention all of them.

Red Prawns from Denia

Not just any red prawns can be served.  These have to be from a very deep trench of 1.000 meters deep, just of the coast of Denia, not to be confused with the red shrimps from Huelva. Because of the depth, the waters are very cold and this gives the prawns it’s deep red color and sweet taste.

These prawns have to be extremely fresh, they will be cooked and served chilled on ice. The price for one KG of these prawns start at 200 euro/KG during the holidays. They are very popular among Michellin Star restaurants.

Oven-roasted suckling pig

This plate is more typical for Madrid and Segovia and surroundings. It’s so nice because of the crispy crust on the outside and the soft meat on the inside.

Other variations the Spanish like aswell, are baked goat or roast lamb and yes, of course they also like stuffed turkey in Spain.

Sweet traditions in Spain

It seems that the more south you go anywhere in the world, the crazier the people are about really sweet food. The same goes for Spain; the more South you go, the sweeter the treats.

Sweet potato cupcakes or almond cupcakes

Both of them are made of dough mixed with a liquor of anise and stuffed with confit like crushed almonds or sweet potato and sugar (marzipan-like textures). They have some cinnemon and/or sugar on the outside. From the outside these treats do not look very impressive, but OMG how delicious they are!

Fig bread with nuts

They love to eat this very sweet and caloric “bread”. This pastry is not made of flour but a mixture of dried figs and nuts and other types of fruit. It has a great taste and gives a lot of immediate energy. Personally I like to bring some pieces with me when I run in the mountains. It really helps me at those moments when all of a sudden your energy is completely gone, but you still have to run at least 5 more KM through the mountains to get back to your car.

You’ll need something to drink with it, because it’s rather dry.

Turrón or toasted almonds and honey

Where in most European countries they simply eat a lot of chocolate during the holidays, in Spain they eat “turrón”. This is a bar shaped piece of either normal chocolate, nougat or marzipan. They can have a very hard or very soft consistency. It always has a lot of calories and there even exist design “turrones” made by famous Michellin cooks. Orriginally it comes from the Moslim culture, which is widely spread in Spain. The origin is in Jijona (Valencia) but you’ll find it all over Spain.

Polvorones y mantecados

I haven’t been able to come up with an English translation of these sweets. You either love them or hate them, there’s nothing in between.

The polvorones date back to the 16th century and come originally from the Andalucian area.

• Mantecados are small sweet biscuits, sometimes with an anise flavour.
• Polvorones are drier and have a sand-like texture that easily falls apart.

Both come in many varieties and contrary to other sweets, these can be easlily found in supermarkets. Personally I like the polvorones but I don’t like the mantecados at all.

Roscón de Reyes is not a Christmas Cake

This typical cake is meant to be eaten on the 6th of January, on the Three Kings day. They come in many forms, sizes and with or without fillings. It’s an O-formed cake with a whole in the middle, pieces of dried fruit on top, sugar coating and sometimes with whipped cream inside.

There should be a mini King figurine and/or a mini Jesus hided in the cake, so watch out for your teeth. If you find on of these figures, this means that you’ll have a lucky new year!