This dish is even more popular in Valencia than paella and all my friends from the Mediterranean side of Spain say that it’s Granny’s star dish for family gatherings. It is worth using a terracotta pot to cook the entire recipe as it captures all the flavours from beginning to end, but you can use a pan or oven tray instead.

Serves 4
chicken, pork or beef stock 750ml
saffron threads 1g
tomato 1, or 2 cherry tomatoes, halved
garlic 1 head, skin on, halved
pork ribs 300g, or smoked pancetta, cut into small pieces
potato 1 small, cut into 1-2cm cubes
morcilla 2 whole, preferably made with onion
chipolata sausages 4, or cooking chorizo, cut into small pieces
sweet smoked paprika 1 tsp
bay leaf 1
tomato 1, grated
paella rice 350g
tinned chickpeas 150g, drained
salt
olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Bring the stock to the boil in a saucepan. Add the saffron and let simmer while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Place a casserole dish, roasting tray or ovenproof frying pan over a medium heat and heat some oil. Fry the tomato and garlic halves until golden and set aside.

Add the ribs, potato cubes and all the sausages to the dish and cook for 15 minutes, until golden and roasted. Add the sweet paprika, bay leaf, the grated tomato and salt to season, and fry carefully while stirring for 3-4 minutes. Add the rice and give all the ingredients a good stir. Cook over a medium heat for a further 2 minutes.

Pour the boiling stock into the dish along with the chickpeas and mix well, spreading the rice and meat around the whole dish. Place the garlic head and tomatoes on the top. Cook over the highest heat for 10 minutes and then transfer to the oven for a further 10 minutes.

Once the rice is cooked, leave it to rest for 3-4 minutes before serving in the centre of the table.

From Spanish Made Simple: Foolproof Spanish Recipes for Every Day by Omar Allibhoy (Quadrille, £20)

Elisabeth Luard’s ajo blanco – chilled almond soup

A deliciously refreshing cold soup of the gazpacho family, as prepared in the rich vega, the fertile plain of Granada. The inclusion of almonds is a refinement introduced by the Moors. The legacy of six centuries of Muslim occupation did not vanish overnight – nor indeed did the extensive plantations of almond trees brought from the Jordan valley. Almonds are still an important cash crop for the small farmers of Andalusia, and the country people still take care to plant an almond tree at the edge of the olive groves for the pleasure of gathering the sweet nuts each autumn to be stored as a Christmas treat.

Serves 6 (you only need a little)
dry bread 3-4 slices
blanched almonds 3 tbsp
garlic 4-5 fresh young cloves
olive oil 2 tbsp
cold water 1 litre
salt
white wine vinegar 2 tbsp
small grapes a handful

Put the bread, almonds, garlic, oil and a pint of the water into the blender, and blend thoroughly. In the peasant kitchen, this job would have been done with a pestle and mortar, and there are those who say the soup is finest thus made. Add the rest of the water until you have the consistency you like. Season with salt and vinegar. Leave to cool, and put to infuse in the refrigerator for an hour or so. Or put all the ingredients except the grapes in the blender and blend them.

Peel and pip the grapes and float them on top of each serving of soup.

The patios of rural dwellings in the south are usually shaded by a trellis with a vine which bears grapes long into the winter months, so this ingredient is very much to hand, and is essential to the proper flavouring of the soup. Little cubes of bread, fried golden in olive oil and served sizzling hot, make an excellent addition.

From European Peasant Cookery by Elisabeth Luard (Grub Street, £15)

Giorgio Locatelli’s fritto misto alla piazzese – mixed fried vegetables with anchovies or sardines

Sicilians love fritto misto, so much so that in the summer people set up stalls or park vans or three-wheelers with gas burners and big pots on the back, and deep-fry vegetables or fish for you there and then.

Serves 4
baby artichokes 4
lemon juice of 1
salt 1 tbsp
cauliflower 1 small, cut into florets
cardoons 500g, tender heart only
apple 1, peeled and cored
vegetable oil for deep-frying
fresh anchovies or small sardines 500g, cleaned

For the pastella
plain flour 250g
water 150ml
egg 1 large, beaten
fresh yeast 10g

Peel the tough outer leaves from the artichokes, stopping when you reach the tender leaves, then cut in quarters vertically. With large artichokes, you need to cut out the hairy choke, but with baby ones, the choke will not have developed properly, so there is not much to remove. Put them into a bowl of water with a little lemon juice squeezed into it, to keep them from discolouring, until you are ready to use them. Drain, and dry.

Bring a pan of water to the boil and add the salt. Put in the cauliflower and cook for a couple of minutes, until just tender, then lift out and drain. Put the cardoons into the same water and cook for about 7-8 minutes, until they too are just tender, but still retain some bite. Drain and keep to one side.

Combine the flour, water, egg and yeast to make a pastella (batter) with a fluid consistency. Slice the apple, and cut the cardoons into strips. Heat several inches of oil in a high-sided pan (make sure it comes no higher than a third of the way up the pan) to 180C. If you don’t have a thermometer, put in a few breadcrumbs, and if they sizzle the oil is ready.

Immerse the artichokes in the pastella and deep-fry until golden. Lift out and drain on kitchen paper. Repeat with the cardoons, cauliflower and apple, then the anchovies or sardine fillets, and arrange everything together on a warm serving plate.

From Made in Sicily by Giorgio Locatelli (4th Estate, £30)

Nigel Slater’s squid stuffed with judión beans and tomatoes

For 4
squid, judión or butter beans, tomatoes, garlic, rosemary, dry sherry

Peel and finely slice 4 garlic cloves, then fry in a thin layer of olive oil in a deep frying pan till very lightly coloured. Cut 8 tomatoes into roughly 8 pieces each, then add to the garlic, together with the chopped leaves from a bushy sprig of rosemary. Cook for 6 or 7 minutes, till the mixture is soft, fragrant and quite juicy. Season with salt and pepper.

Drain 650g judión beans or butter beans of any bottling or canning liquor, rinsing them in a colander if you wish, then stir them gently into the tomato mixture and continue cooking, over a moderate heat, for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6.

Check 4 prepared medium squid, making sure that they are thoroughly clean and the transparent quills have been removed from the body sacs and discarded. Set aside the tentacles. Using a tablespoon, stuff the squid bodies with as much of the filling as you can, laying them down slightly apart in a roasting tin or large baking dish. Spoon any excess filling into the roasting tin.

Pour 300ml dry sherry around the squid, add a couple more rosemary sprigs to the tin and bake for 20-25 minutes, occasionally basting the squid with the sherry. Halfway through cooking, tuck the reserved tentacles around the squid bodies.

Serve the squid and tentacles in shallow bowls or on deep plates, spooning the thin juices around them as you go.

From Eat by Nigel Slater (4th Estate, £26)

Anissa Helou’s Ammto Zahiyeh’s borma – sweet walnut coil

This is my Syrian aunt’s recipe for homemade baklava, which she formed into one big coil – hence the name borma, meaning “rolled” or “turned” in Arabic. She used to make her own dough, but to save time I substitute with a good-quality filo pastry, usually a Greek or Turkish brand.

Serves 6
golden caster sugar 275g
lemon juice 1 tsp
rose water 1½ tbsp
orange blossom water 1½ tbsp
shelled walnuts 200g, finely ground
ground cinnamon ¾ tsp
unsalted butter 75g, melted, plus extra for greasing
Greek or Turkish filo pastry 6 sheets measuring 31 x 46cm

You’ll need a baking dish measuring 25cm in diameter.

Put 175g of the sugar in a saucepan, add 75ml of water and place the pan over a medium heat. Bring to the boil and let the syrup bubble for 3 minutes, then add the lemon juice and 1 tablespoon each of the rose and orange blossom water. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool.

Mix the ground walnuts with the remaining sugar, rose and orange blossom water and the cinnamon.

Preheat the oven to 220C/gas mark 7, and brush the baking dish with a little melted butter. If using a non-stick dish or pan, you won’t need to grease it.

Spread one sheet of filo on your work surface with the long side facing you – keep the other sheets covered so that they don’t dry up and become brittle. Brush with some of the melted butter. Arrange one-sixth of the walnut filling in a thin line lengthways across the sheet, about 1cm (1in) from the edge nearest to you. Fold the pastry over the walnuts and roll tightly into a thin sausage. Coil up the roll and place in the centre of the baking dish or tin. Make the remaining walnut rolls and coil them around the initial coil until the dish is completely covered.

Brush the top with melted butter and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven, pour the sugar syrup all over the borma and allow to cool. Serve at room temperature.

From Levant by Anissa Helou (Harper Collins, £20)