Castilian Spanish

Cocido Madrileño is the Sunday epic — chickpeas, beef shank, chorizo, morcilla blood sausage, cabbage, potatoes — served as three courses (the broth with vermicelli, then the chickpeas-and-vegetables, then the meats). Patatas Bravas with two sauces (the brava red and the alioli white) for the bar. Croquetas — béchamel cooled until firm, breaded and fried — in every variety. Tortilla Española (potato-and-egg omelette) cooked through the soft-yolk middle. The Spanish chorizo studded into rice or eggs.

Within Spanish cuisine, the Castilian-Madrid kitchen is the centro — the central plateau of Don Quixote country, lamb (Castilian milk-fed cordero) roasted in clay ovens, suckling pig in Segovia, Manchego sheep's-milk cheese. Madrid is the capital that pulls every regional dish to itself: you can eat a Galician octopus, a Catalan crema catalana, an Andalusian salmorejo all in one Madrid afternoon. But the heart of Castilian cooking is interior, pastoral, plain-handed — bread, pulses, cured meats, manchego, and slow-cooked stews.