Porridge

Ingredients:

• 300 g of pork dewlap.
• Red pork sausage.
• Almorta flour (a big spoonful per person).
• 0.1 litres of oil olive.
• Half spoonful of paprika.
• Oregano.
• Garlic.
• Salt.
• Water (250 cubic centimetres per person).

Preparation:

• Heat the oil in a deep pan and put the pork dewlap in small dice, the red sausage and the garlic.
• When everything is fried, the meat and the garlic are separated. In the remaining fat add the almorta flour and fry over a low heat for a couple of minutes. A think mass is to be browned. Then add the paprika and brown it slightly, until the mass becomes peach coloured. Add a lot of water, turning everything round to dissolve the flour and remove lumps.
• Add salt and oregano, and let the mixture boil turning it round frequently in order to prevent that the flour sticks on the bottom. Wait until the mass thickens and stop turning it round for a while. Let it boil for a couple of minutes so that the fat emerges to the top.
• Put the porridge to a deep dish, add the chunks of fried pork dewlaps, the red sausage and the garlic. It can also be served with fried bread and chilli pepper.

Comments:

• As well as the ham and the bacon, some fried red sausages can be added as accompaniment to shepherd breadcrumbs.
• Some fried crushed pork liver can be added. In some places porridge is also eaten with "French Fries to the Baker's Wife's Style".
• Porridge is one of the most typical dishes of La Mancha traditional cooking, as well as shepherd breadcrumbs and lamb stew. It is a highly caloric meal with slow digestion, eaten mainly by shepherds and farmers as this food allows them to face the long working days in the country.
• Unfortunately, Almorta flour is not easy to find outside Castile-La Mancha.
• Every year on the last Saturday of November, a "Porridge National Contest" is held in Alcázar de San Juan, with a free tasting of this typical dish.