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Cocina Mallorquina · Restaurant Es Muntant Cocina Mallorquina · Restaurant Es Muntant

Recipe · Mallorcan

Arròs Brut

Prep
30 min
Cook
1 h 30 min
Total
2 h
Serves
6 servings

Arròs brut is one of the identity dishes of Mallorca’s inland cooking. A brothy rice loaded with meats, sobrasada and a fistful of spices — cinnamon, cloves, saffron — that mark this dish out from any paella. Brut means “dirty” in Mallorquín; the “dirty” refers only to the dark colour the rice takes on. Nothing else.

This is a slaughter-day dish and a Sunday-lunch dish. It’s cooked in a deep pot, never in a paella pan. It shifts with the season: autumn brings mushrooms, game and cabbage; spring brings artichokes, peas and broad beans; summer leans on lighter vegetables. The constants are Mallorcan sobrasada, cinnamon and cloves.

It isn’t a quick dish. Cooked properly the pot wants nearly two hours: first the meats, then the sofregit with the spices, then an hour over a low flame so the broth settles, and finally the rice — which has to stay brothy. If it comes out dry, it isn’t arròs brut.

Ingredients

  • 400 g bomba rice
  • 300 g pork ribs
  • 200 g free-range chicken — thighs, jointed
  • 200 g rabbit — or, in season, partridge, quail or thrush
  • 100 g Mallorcan sobrasada
  • 100 g butifarrón — Mallorcan blood sausage
  • 100 g saffron milk caps or mixed mushrooms — in season
  • 1 onion
  • 2 ripe ramellet tomatoes
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 1 globe artichoke, quartered — in spring
  • a generous handful of tender Mallorcan cabbage leaves
  • 1 tsp sweet smoked paprika (Pimentón de la Vera)
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 4 cloves
  • 1 pinch saffron
  • 1 pinch freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 litres home-made meat stock
  • extra-virgin olive oil
  • salt

Method

  1. 1

    Prep the meats

    Season the meats (pork, chicken, rabbit and game if used) and brown them in a heavy pot with a good slug of olive oil. Lift out and set aside.

  2. 2

    Sofregit

    In the same fat, sweat the chopped onion until translucent. Add the chopped garlic and grated tomato. Cook for ten minutes, until the oil floats clear again.

  3. 3

    Sausages and spices

    Crumble in the sobrasada and butifarrón. Stir until the sobrasada melts and stains the sofregit. Add the paprika — pull the pan off the heat for a second so it doesn't burn — then the cinnamon, cloves, bay and pepper.

  4. 4

    Build the broth

    Return the meats to the pot. Add the mushrooms and artichoke, pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Drop the heat and simmer uncovered for an hour over a low flame, until the meats are tender and the broth has taken colour.

  5. 5

    Cook the rice

    Bring the pot back to a vigorous simmer. Stir in the chopped cabbage, taste, adjust the salt. Once it boils, add the rice and the saffron. Cook for eighteen to twenty minutes uncovered, stirring just enough. It should stay brothy — arròs brut is never a dry rice.

  6. 6

    Rest and serve

    Cut the heat and rest for two minutes. Serve in deep bowls, very hot, with rustic country bread.

Cook's notes

This is a slaughter-day dish and a Sunday-lunch dish. Brut means "dirty" in Mallorquín — it refers to the dark colour the rice takes on from the sobrasada and the spices, nothing else. The meats shift with the seasons: autumn brings mushrooms and game, spring brings artichokes and broad beans, summer brings lighter vegetables. The thing that never changes is the cinnamon and the cloves. Without those two spices it isn't arròs brut.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories
590 kcal
Protein
32 g
Fat
22 g
Carbs
62 g

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Rather we cooked it for you?

We serve Arròs Brut at Restaurant Es Muntant, in Establiments. Table waiting, wood-fire on.

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