Typical Easter Cuisine in Mallorca
Holidays, vacations, and celebrations are always accompanied by unique and special cuisine that can only be found during those days. For All Saints' Day, rosaries made of sweets and sugar are prepared. On Valentine's Day, we become worshipers of chocolate and champagne, and during Easter, lamb is one of the main protagonists in the typical Mallorcan Easter cuisine.
Typical Savory Dishes of Easter in Mallorca
Perhaps the most typical food of Mallorcan Easter is the empanadas. Although they can be found in many bakeries throughout the year, those made for Easter are the most typical, as they are usually larger in size and traditionally made with lamb.
However, modernity has made its presence felt in the island's Easter cuisine, and in many places, they are made with a mixture of different types of meat, vegan alternatives like tofu, or filled with slightly healthier options like chicken.
Depending on where we eat the Easter empanadas, we will find them filled with cuttlefish, rabbit, lamb with cabello de ángel (angel hair, a type of sweet pumpkin jam), with savory or sweet dough, but all with the same round shape and crowned with a decorative edge.
The second typical dish of this time is the frit, Easter fried dish, and as usual, each household has its own recipe.
The common ingredient in all is the freixura or lamb offal, but the vegetables and spices that accompany it vary. Basically, the recipe consists of sautéing spring onion, peas, peppers, artichokes, broad beans, onion, potatoes... and seasoning them with salt, pepper, chili, and a couple of sprigs of fennel.
Typically, the frit is eaten first, followed by the empanadas, and finished with an equally hearty dessert.
Typical Sweets of Mallorcan Easter
Days before Easter Sunday, Mallorcan homes are bustling with activity because not only are the traditional empanadas made, as tradition dictates, but also the sweets that will be the dessert of the day.
Children in the house usually have free rein and, with the help of animal-shaped cookie cutters, stars, and flowers, make sweet cookies called crespells. These are narrow pastries that cook quickly in the oven, which is already hot from the empanadas, and their ingredients are sugar, eggs, flour, oil, and lard. In some homes, a little orange or lemon juice is added to give it an extra touch of flavor.
The robiols follow the same recipe for making the dough but are then filled with a variety of delights. The traditional filling is made of cabello de ángel or a mixture of cottage cheese, egg, sugar, and cinnamon, although collective imagination has had much to say on the matter.
In supermarkets, jams of all kinds are sold, white and dark chocolate cream, molasses, and other sweet fillings to give the robiols new and fascinating personalities.
And, also, as a result of adopting traditions, many tables are topped with a fantastic "mona," or with chocolate eggs that delight virtually all diners.
Would you like to know more about Mallorcan cuisine? We recommend reading this entry.
