Pisto de Manchego Recipe
Whenever we talk about menemen with a Spanish person, they always say, "Oh, it looks like our pisto." . I don't know why I talk to the Spaniards all the time about menemen, but somehow it gets there and I hear this sentence. I've been living in Spain for almost six years and I haven't seen pisto on any menu yet though. I guess it's usually a home cooked dish. For some reason I never asked him.
As for the pisto, which is similar to the menemen recipe in its pure form... Although it resembles menemen in a way, it's not very similar. In my opinion, it looks more like domates yemeği from my home town. It's eve like you just added zucchini to the domates yemeği. I found another similarity between Thracian cuisine and Spanish cuisine. I have written my thoughts on this subject before in pulpo de gallega and many recipes. As I get to know Spanish cuisine, I find many common features between the two cuisines.
The part of the pisto manchego, which is similar to the menemen, is the roasting of the vegetables and sometimes breaking eggs on top of it or serving it by placing the fried egg cooked in a separate pan on the dish. It is true that they are similar in approach, but they are different in taste. Pisto manchego is more like the French ratatouille recipe. It is already referred to as Spanish ratatouille in English sources. But I strongly condemn this approach. As someone who has been trying to prevent tourists from calling lahmacun Turkish pizza for years, I will not be silent when the same thing is done to someone else. I'm not going to make a scene, but I'll add my comment that I don't like this statement. Every dish has its own name. It does not need to be named over other recipes while its own name stands there. If the world has learned to pronounce ratatouille correctly, they can learn pisto or lahmacun as well.
By the way, let me not pass without saying what I should have said in the first place. Pisto manchego is a recipe from the La Mancha region of Spain (but it is known and made throughout Spain), hence the name pisto de manchego comes from Mancha. Spain's most famous cheese, manchego, is also a cheese from the same region. The breed of sheep that grows in this region and whose milk is used to make manchego cheese is also called manchega.
Enjoy the recipe...
Ingredients
- 1 kg of zucchini,
- 500 g of eggplants,
- 1 large onion,
- 2 green peppers,
- 2 cloves of garlic,
- 500 g of tomatoes,
- 1 teaspoon of paprika,
- 1 teaspoon of thyme,
- Salt,
- 4-5 tablespoons of olive oil.
Preparation
- Chop the onion finely and sauté in olive oil you heated in a large pan until softens slightly,
- Add the finely chopped peppers and garlic and stir fry until they soften,
- Add the peeled and finely chopped zucchini and eggplants and mix,
- Close the lid and cook on low heat, stirring occasionally, until soft,
- Add the grated tomatoes and paprika, mix and cook until set,
- Add the thyme and salt, mix and remove from the heat.
Enjoy your meal...