A Galician seasonal delicacy of sea lamprey stewed in a sauce bound with its own blood and red wine. The eel-like fish is scalded and cleaned, its blood reserved, then cut into rings and braised with onion, garlic, cured ham and the wine until the blood thickens the sauce to a dark, glossy stew. It is a winter-to-spring dish of the Miño river towns and is traditionally served over fried bread or with rice.
The dish is tied to the lower Miño river dividing Galicia from Portugal, above all the Pontevedra towns of Arbo and As Neves, where lamprey is caught in the historic stone weirs called pesqueiras during the winter-to-spring run. Lamprea de Arbo carries a protected geographical designation, and Arbo's lamprey festival, the Festa da Lamprea, has been held since 1961 and was declared a Fiesta of International Tourist Interest in 2023. The name a la bordalesa points to the French à la bordelaise — a Bordeaux-style preparation in red wine — adapted in Galicia to a sauce set with the lamprey's own blood.
Dense, meaty rings of lamprey — firmer and fattier than fish, closer to eel — in a near-black sauce that coats like a reduction. The blood reads as a deep, mineral, almost liver-like richness; the red wine cuts it with acidity and the cured ham adds salt. It is rich and not subtle, eaten in small portions over fried bread that soaks the dark sauce. Lamprey carries a strong river-fish character that the wine and long braise are there to tame.
The blood is the thickener and the defining flavour: collected live as the fish is bled, kept from clotting (often with a little vinegar), and stirred into the braise near the end, where its proteins set the sauce into a dark, velvety bind much as blood thickens a French civet — never boiled hard, or it splits and turns grainy. The wine both flavours and acidulates, balancing the blood's metallic richness, while the cured ham and slow braise build depth. Scalding the live lamprey first lets its outer slime and skin be scraped clean before cutting.
Variations
Beyond the bordalesa, lamprey is also baked into the rice-topped empanada de lamprea, and across the Miño in Portugal it appears as lampreia à bordalesa and in arroz de lampreia. Galician cooks differ on thickening the sauce with fried bread alongside the blood, and on whether to finish with the fish's roe. Frozen out-of-season lamprey is sold, but the dish is prized in the January-to-April fresh run.
On the Palate
Where Lamprea a la Bordalesa sits in the Spanish flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
5 steps · 1 hour active + 1 hour 30 min waiting
- 140 min
Scald the live lamprey in very hot water, then scrape off the outer slime and skin; bleed it, reserving the blood (kept from clotting), and remove the head, innards and central nerve.
Watch outCatch the blood as it drains and stir in the splash of vinegar at once — the second it clots it can't thicken the sauce later.
- 210 min
Cut the cleaned lamprey into thick rings.
- 312 min
Sweat chopped onion, garlic and diced cured ham in olive oil to build a base.
- 445 min
Add the lamprey and red wine with a bay leaf and simmer gently until the fish is cooked and tender.
- 515 min
Stir the reserved blood into the sauce off a hard boil and warm through until it thickens into a dark, glossy braise; serve over fried bread.
Watch outKeep the pot below a boil when the blood goes in — the moment it simmers hard the blood proteins seize into grains and the sauce splits; it should just thicken to dark and glossy.
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