This dish won’t win any Michelin stars, but its simple flavours shine

The dish

Marmitako, Spain

Plate up

You won’t see this dish on a menu at a high-end Spanish restaurant. Marmitako is not the stuff of Michelin-starred excellence, it doesn’t lend itself to the addition of foams or the artful dotting of squeeze-bottle sauces. It’s not a meal for showing off.

This Basque stew is rustic, rural cuisine, a low-cost stomach-filler for people with ready access to its basic ingredients. And those foodstuffs will tell you a lot about its place of origin, Spain’s Basque Country: tuna, potatoes, onions, choricero peppers, tomatoes, wine and olive oil. All are cherished staples of a semi-autonomous region that enjoys a bounty of seafood from its oceans, and high-quality produce from its emerald hills. This is classic Basque cooking, where the best ingredients are treated with respect, and simple flavours are allowed to shine.

First serve

Marmitako was invented by Basque fishermen; though, they would say that, wouldn’t they? The story goes that these hardy men of the sea would be out for weeks on end, sailing the cold seas of the Bay of Biscay, and so would take with them long-lasting produce – potatoes, onions, olive oil, wine – and add their fishy catch, as well as its stock, to a big pot called a marmita to create a hearty stew. There are, no doubt, a few Basque housewives who are a little miffed at the fishermen taking credit for a classic home-style meal, but that’s the story that was settled on, and the one that survives to this day.

Order there

In the Basque Country’s gastronomic capital, San Sebastian, sample classic marmitako at portside seafood restaurant Itzalian Jatetxea (Primero del Muelle 12, Donostia).