Trinxat Andorran

Easy·35 min active + 20 min resting

Andorra's most distinctively mountain dish — frost-sweetened winter cabbage and potato boiled, mashed together, then pressed into a pan and crisped in pork fat with bacon and garlic until a golden crust forms on both sides.

Trinxat is the signature high-valley dish of Andorra and the Catalan Cerdanya and Alt Urgell, a Pyrenean answer to bubble-and-squeak built on frost-hardened mountain cabbage.

Cut into trinxat and the golden crust cracks over a soft, savory mash of cabbage and potato, shot through with crisp bacon and garlic. Bite: the crust is crisp and pork-rich, the inside soft, the frost-cabbage faintly sweet, the bacon and garlic deeply savory. Pure mountain food, born to use up winter vegetables and warm cold valleys.

Boiling cabbage and potato together and draining them very dry is essential — excess water would stop the cake crisping. Mashing binds them; pressing into a hot fat-slicked pan and leaving it undisturbed builds the prized double crust. Frost-hardened cabbage is sweeter and less watery, the mountain ideal.

Variations

Topped with a fried egg. With morcilla blood sausage. With a confit pork belly on top. Made into small individual cakes. With kale instead of cabbage. With more garlic.

On the Palate

Where Trinxat Andorran sits in the Andorran flavor cloud

Cook to learn

Drain the boiled cabbage and potato until they're truly dry, then press the mash into a hot fatty pan and leave it alone — that undisturbed contact is what builds the prized golden crust; stir it and you get mush.

Techniques

Pan-frying

Ingredients

Serves 4

How it's made

8 steps · 35 min active + 20 min waiting

1
22 min
Boil 500 g peeled potatoes and 500 g chopped winter cabbage together until very soft, 20 min.
2
5 min
Drain very well and mash together coarsely; season with salt and pepper.
3
6 min
Dice 150 g bacon and fry in 2 tbsp lard with 2 sliced garlic cloves until crisp.
4
2 min
Stir half the bacon and garlic into the mash.
5
3 min
Press the mash into the hot pan as a thick cake.
6
8 min
Fry undisturbed 8 min until a golden crust forms underneath.
Watch out
Don't touch it — listen for a steady sizzle and wait until the edge shows deep gold before flipping.
7
7 min
Flip (or invert onto a plate and slide back) and crisp the other side 6 min.
Watch out
Flip confidently in one move; a hesitant flip breaks the crust you just built.
8
2 min
Top with the reserved crisp bacon and serve hot.