In early spring, Catalonia is home to a spring tradition, the ‘calçotada’, in honour of the versatile ‘calçot’, which is a type of green spring onion, but a much bigger and larger one. Catalonia is renowned for its gastronomy and each year family and friends gather to celebrate and have a feast together.
The perfect calçotada starts with grilling the spring onions. Traditionally the onions are grilled over an open fire fuelled by grapevine clippings which give the onions a special flavour. But when not possible, charcoal is also commonly used. After the onions are cooked, they are wrapped in newspaper and left to rest for about half an hour; just enough time to get the rest of the meal going!
While waiting for the onions to rest, the next step is to grill the meat. Beef, pork, lamb, sausages. Once all cooked, it’s time to eat, all accompanied with some wine of course.
There is even a calçot eating competition, where you eat as many onions in 45 minutes as you can!
Will you give calçotada a try? A lot of onion aficionados travel to Catalonia during spring to participate in the festival and be part of this tradition.
M&P Engineering is a leading manufacturer and supplier of food processing equipment and our most popular machine is the Large Onion Peeling machine.
M&P’s Large Onion Peeling machine uses self-adjusting floating knives to top, tail, and peel onions of 45mm to 115mm diameter. The machine is easy to operate due to its simplistic mechanism and design and thanks to the dry peeling process the product remains in pristine condition once it has been peeled.
M&P Engineering also offers a wide range of food processing machinery in addition to onion peeling machines, including our freshcut machinery: the Carousel Grid Cutting machine and the Radish Top & Tailer.
To learn more about us and our machines, please don’t hesitate to contact a member of our team today. Call us on +44 (0)161 872 8378 or contact us here.