Gonzalo Silla from Quique Dacosta’s Vuelve Carolina restaurant (Valencia), in the creativity category; and Miguel Carretero from Santerra (Madrid), in the traditional category, are the winners of the I National Championship of Patatas Bravas and Tinto de Verano of Madrid Fusión.
This Tuesday the first edition of the contest was held, and creativity had more prominence than tradition. The participants, the judges have pointed out, have moved away from the “orthodoxy” of the original recipe for patatas bravas.
The jury was surprised that the contestants had not resorted to the usual way of preparing them, with no more or fewer ingredients than those from grandmother or the bar on the corner, and they have assured that although Santerra’s were presented in the traditional category neither This nor any other of the contest recipes could be classified as such.
Carretero has opted for some fries cut into small squares and a brava sauce made in a traditional way. “We chop them finely so that they are very crunchy. The sauce has onion, cayenne, ham bones, Asturian chorizo, cooked broth, refried hot and sweet paprika. We add vinegar at the end.”
The Madrid native also won in 2022 as the winner of the Joselito International Championship for the Best Ham Croquette in the World of Madrid Fusión.
The recipe presented by Silla, on the other hand, starts with a potato cream that is shaped into spheres. To fry them, the cook uses a normal tempura. “We make the brava sauce with smoked chipotles. It is not invasive, but it gives it a touch. We make it with ham fat, onion, tomato, garlic. We grind everything and put a sheet of jowl on top, so that it melts with the heat and give it another touch,” explains Silla.
The rest of the participants were Alejandro Ortega Jiménez (Vint Puerto de Sóller, Port de Sóller), Sergio del Río (Óleo, Málaga), José luis Bonilla Tipan (Lume Barra Gastronómica, Santiago de Compostela), Daniel Moreno (Rest. Tragatá, Ronda) and Alejandro Loaiza Vela (Informal – Serras Hotel Barcelona).
The jury for this first edition was made up of Francisco Tavares (from La Casera), the food journalists Julia Pérez, Marina Vega and Enrique Bellver and Juanma Bellver and the owner of the Los Asturianos restaurant, Alberto Fernández.
