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GALLERY
No hay imágenes en la galería TENERIFE - GASTRONOMY
Tenerife has succeeded in combining tradition and modernity in all its cultural manifestations. The island´s gastronomy provides examples of this interesting duality and offers the visitor a wide range of produce in which the quality of the product is constant.
Traditional cuisine is characterised by its simplicity, quality and freshness of the ingredients. The visitor has an endless choice of typical restaurants in which to sample the island´s delicious specialities. The starters bring to the table colour, aroma and flavour: sweet black pudding, meat casserole, sardines, fried chicharro, octopus, limpets, moray eel...
The main dish served from the Canarian ovens is typically vegetable stew; it might also be a Canarian casserole, consisting of garden vegetables, maize and succulent meats; or a fish stew, consisting of fresh fish, cooked with potatoes, onions, tomatoes and peppers. By way of complement, there is gofio, a cereal made from toasted wheat, barley or maize flour, which the mythical guanche people used as a fundamental part of their diet.
Fish dishes have a special place in the island´s cuisine and can be found in any of the island´s many traditional fishing villages. The island is renowned for the vieja sea bream, tuna and local salted fish including jareas and tollos.
With regard to meat dishes, rabbit is very important, whether served en salmorejo or en conduminio, while beef and pork are also present in a wide range of traditional recipes.
Tenerife´s desserts hold more surprises for the traveller. The most exquisite dishes include huevos mole, an egg-based mousse and frangollo, a rich creamy dessert consisting mainly of maize flour and eggs, both of which are typical of the island. In addition to these, there are La Laguna doughnuts, Vilaflor torts, La Orotava cakes and truchas, a sort of pancake filled with sweet potato or a pumpkin-based concoction.
The largest of the Canary Islands is also the one with the most important wine tradition, vineyard surface, production and variety of wines.
There numerous wine regions nearly surround all the island. In fact, nowadays five of the ten designations of origin of the Canary Islands are located in Tenerife. Abona: this designation of origin dates from 1996 and include the wineries of the municipalities of Adeje, Arona, San Miguel de Abona, Granadilla de Abona, Arico, Fasnia and Vilaflor.
The Teide is situated at the last one and also the highest vineyard of Europe, 1,600 meters high. It has a small production but of very high quality. The predominant varieties are listan blanca and listan negra. Tacoronte: it is the Canarian wine region with the largest and oldest production.
The designation of origin Tacoronte-Acentejo includes nine municipalities: La Laguna, Tegueste, Tacoronte, El Sauzal, La Matanza de Acentejo, La Victoria de Acentejo, Santa Ursula, El Rosario and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The varieties used for these wines are listan negro, negramoll, and the white varieties gual, malvasia, listan blanco and marmajuelo. Guimar: the region of Valle de Guimar include the municipalities of de Arafo, Candelaria and Guimar, and the main characteristic of its wines are the altitude and temperature contrasts.
The most used varieties are listan blanca and listan negro. Orotava: the valley of La Orotava begins under the Teide and stretches to the coast. It include the municipalities of La Orotava, Los Realejos and Puerto de la Cruz.
It covers about 1,000 hectares of vineyard and there are more than 20 wineries. Ycoden-Daute-Isora: more than 2,000 hectares, most of them with the varieties of listan blanca and listan negro. It includes the municipalities of San Juan de la Rambla, Guia de Isora, La Guancha, Icod de los Vinos, Garachico, Los Silos, Buenavista del Norte, El Tanque and Santiago del Teide.
Fresh goat´s milk cheese is often served as an hors d´oeuvre to the main course.
The cheeses of the Canary Islands are recovering their good reputation, they have won important prizes and awards in recent international dairy shows.
Up until the 40´s and 50´s, when there were large herds of cattle on Tenerife, cheeses were made from varying portions of cow´s milk mixed with goat´s and sheep´s milk.
Nowadays, goat´s milk cheese predominates, which can be 100% goat´s milk, or mixed with sheep´s milk, which makes it creamier. It is sometimes still mixed with cow´s milk as well.
Although it is sometimes matured, and occasionally smoked, cheese is usually served fresh, as it has a pleasant and mild flavour, distinguishing it from certain European varieties of goat´s milk cheese.
"Mojo", a word probably of Portuguese origin, is the Canary Island term for their typical sauces or dips. Not all sauces are called "mojos", just the typical ones that are originally from the Islands, so, for example, there are no mayonnaise "mojos", that would be a sauce, but there is a coriander "mojo".
The best known "mojos" are coriander - or green - "mojo", although the green colour comes from the parsley it contains, "colorado" - or red - made with lots of paprika, and hot "mojo", made from chilli pepper.
These are the main "mojos", but there are others, including ones made with saffron and cheese and almonds.
"Gofio" is a flour that can be made from almost any kind of grain. It is toasted and ground to give a fine, wholemeal flour.
In Tenerife the most common "gofio" is made from wheat, although it is also made from corn and occasionally from chick peas. There is also a "gofio" made from a mixture of wheat and corn. "Gofio" was the staple diet of the Guanches before the Spanish conquest of the Islands.
They used mill stones to make it. Nowadays it is used as an added ingredient to many different dishes, and is now even being used very successfully to create new desserts and ice creams.
It was always a vital staple when food was in short supply and was taken to the Americas by Canary Island emigrants.
In 1990, the "Canary Island Gofio Producers Association" was founded, which has successfully promoted gofio and won it its own quality label "Gofio Canario".
The fish here is delicious and, according to critic Xavier Domingo, it is just as good as any in Spain. Dishes are usually very simple; boiled fish - or "sancochado" as they say here - seasoned with oil, vinegar and hot peppers, or with "mojo" - the typical local dip.
There are different versions of "mojo", but you will always find it on any self-respecting table in the Canary Islands. There is green - coriander - mojo and red, or hot mojo.
The most popular fish here among the local people is parrot fish, with its delicate, white flesh, but other tasty fish include snapper, dentex and saupe. Members of the tuna family abound in the waters around the islands.
They are delicious served fried, grilled or soused: chub mackerel, sardine and especially blue jack mackerel (chicharro in Spanish) which has become a nickname for Santa Cruz and by extension for the whole island.
The people of Tenerife are known as "chicharreros". There is one marine species that must not be missed: the Moray eel, fried and crunchy, it was the favourite dish of Roman Emperors and, for some reason or another, it has been neglected by modern gourmets.
In the cooler, damper parts of the island, a fish stew is ideal, usually dusky or comb grouper, served with the fish stock, thickened with "gofio": flour made from ground and toasted corn.
In the meat section, mention must be made of a dish called "carne de fiesta" (festival meat), which consists of, chunks of seasoned pork.
It owes its name to the fact that it is the dish that is usually served in all the popular festivities, served from stalls and bars during the village fiestas.
Goat´s meat, in all its different varieties, and rabbit in "salmorejo" sauce which, like most of the fish dishes, is served with "papas arrugadas" - potatoes boiled in very salty water and served in their jackets to conserve all the flavour of the outstanding island varieties of potatoes.
These come in all sizes, textures and colours, although the best ones are "bonitas" and above all, the "negras menudas", dark on the outside, yellow on the inside, they are delicious.
The climate and terrain of Tenerife endow the flora with some very special features. These floral combinations and the endemic plant species are the reason for the diversity and originality of the honeys of Tenerife.
The honeys of Tenerife come from some 10,000 mobile hives distributed all over the island in the care of some 500 bee keepers, who take care of their small hives with all the loving care of the craftsmen they are. The native bee of Tenerife is the black bee, producing some 150,000 kilos of honey a year on average, accounting for 50% of all the honey produced in the Canary Islands.
Moving the hives in search of the best blossoms at any one time allows bee keepers to obtain some very special honeys, which offer a wide range of flavours and unusual colours that are not found in other honey producing areas, from the Light colours and less intense flavours of the Broom and Bugloss honeys, to the dark colour and stronger taste of the banana - avocado honeys, covering the whole range of ambers and golds.
Multi-flower honeys
Tenerife produces some exquisite multi-flower, or "milflores" honeys with surprising characteristics, due to the multiple combinations of flowers possible, as there is no dominant species of plant. The honeys of Tenerife are classified according to the altitude they are produced at, hence, we have High Mountain, Foothills and Coastal honey.High Mountain Honeys
The High Mountain Honeys are produced at an altitude of over 1200 metres, basically in Las Cañadas del Teide from flowers like broom and bugloss. These honeys include the outstanding Teide White Broom Honey (Miel de Retama del Teide), produced at an altitude of over 1500 metres.Foothills Honey
This is produced in hives situated between 450 and 1200 metres. These include the multi-flower foothills honeys and the single flower honeys made from chestnut, tree heath or bugloss. These honeys have a stronger flavour when there is a dominance of heathers, fennels and chestnuts, and milder and more aromatic when the predominant plant species are oregano, eucalyptus or tagasaste.Coastal Honey
These are honeys produced below 450 metres, which combine orange blossom, balo, avocado, banana plants and other species. One of the best of these is the avocado - banana honey.
Single flower honeys
The island also produces single flower honeys, when the nectar comes from a single plant, or from a small number of plants.Teide White Broom Honey(Retama del Teide).
This is produced in the spring and summer, at an altitude of over 1500 metres, in the Mt. Teide National Park. This is the oldest honey of Tenerife and the most traditional honey. It is a light amber colour and its delicate flavour makes it ideal for putting in tea and as a breakfast honey.Bugloss Honey (Miel de Tajinaste)
This is made from the different bugloss species to be found on the island, found mainly in the Arafo and Arico highlands. This is a very light coloured honey with a mild flavour and floral aroma, making it ideal to serve with delicate food, as it does not mask the flavour of the ingredients.Avocado - Banana Honey (Miel de Aguacate - Platanera)
A spring honey, produced in the lowland areas of the island. It has a dark, almost black colour, and a characteristically intense aroma that is reminiscent of caramel and ripe fruit. Because of its intense colour and aroma, it has been used traditionally to kneed with "gofio" corn flour and dried fruits into delicious "pellas".Chestnut Honey (Miel de Castaño)
This is a summer - autumn Honey, when the chestnut trees of the north-facing highland slopes and the Arafo and Candelaria highlands blossom. It is a dark amber colour and has a highly intense and persistent aroma. Ideal to serve with desserts, kneed with "gofio" or with meat and poultry.Heather Honey (Miel de Brezal)
This is produced in areas with a mixture of heather, thyme, oregano and holly, in the Corona Forestal Nature Park. Not much of this amber coloured honey is produced. It has an aroma of medium intensity and it is intensely astringent.
For food lovers and those curious about Canarian cooking, we are going to tell you the secret of one of the typical dishes: papas arrugadas con mojo.
If you want to make delicious papas arrugadas con mojo in your house, you only need 2kg of small potatoes, half a lemon, four or five handfuls of salt.
Clean the potatoes thoroughly to remove any earth and, when they are clean, put them in a saucepan and cover them with water.
Add the lemon in order to get the white colour characteristic of these potatoes, and you leave them to cook.
Then you change the water, but this time you only half-fill the saucepan and you add the salt. Finally, you leave them to cook until they are soft.
To dry them, you must heat the potatoes without water.
In order that this dish is complete, the mojo verde is needed. The mojo verde is quite easy to make.
You only have to crush in a mortar two peeled garlic heads, a handful of coriander, a green pepper, cumin and salt to taste.
When you have mashed everything together, add little by little oil and vinegar until all is well mixed. Now the papas arrugadas con mojo are ready to eat!
La Gomera has a long culinary tradition. While the sea provides excellent products and the farms produce exceptional fruits and vegetables, the soft, elegant manners of its people combine to make traditional dishes that are waiting to be discovered by you.
La Gomera"s speciality is almogrote, a sauce that dates from the Middle Ages, made with hard cheese, pepper, oil and tomatoes.
It is a delicious paste, a bit spicy, ideal to have with bread or with potatoes.
The cheese from La Gomera, hand-crafted from the milk of three different breeds of sheep that are native to this land – sometimes it even takes some goat milk too – is considered to be the best unripened cheese in the world.
Traditional cuisine is characterised by its simplicity, quality and freshness of the ingredients. The visitor has an endless choice of typical restaurants in which to sample the island´s delicious specialities. The starters bring to the table colour, aroma and flavour: sweet black pudding, meat casserole, sardines, fried chicharro, octopus, limpets, moray eel...
The main dish served from the Canarian ovens is typically vegetable stew; it might also be a Canarian casserole, consisting of garden vegetables, maize and succulent meats; or a fish stew, consisting of fresh fish, cooked with potatoes, onions, tomatoes and peppers. By way of complement, there is gofio, a cereal made from toasted wheat, barley or maize flour, which the mythical guanche people used as a fundamental part of their diet.
Fish dishes have a special place in the island´s cuisine and can be found in any of the island´s many traditional fishing villages. The island is renowned for the vieja sea bream, tuna and local salted fish including jareas and tollos.
With regard to meat dishes, rabbit is very important, whether served en salmorejo or en conduminio, while beef and pork are also present in a wide range of traditional recipes.
Tenerife´s desserts hold more surprises for the traveller. The most exquisite dishes include huevos mole, an egg-based mousse and frangollo, a rich creamy dessert consisting mainly of maize flour and eggs, both of which are typical of the island. In addition to these, there are La Laguna doughnuts, Vilaflor torts, La Orotava cakes and truchas, a sort of pancake filled with sweet potato or a pumpkin-based concoction.
Wines of Tenerife
There numerous wine regions nearly surround all the island. In fact, nowadays five of the ten designations of origin of the Canary Islands are located in Tenerife. Abona: this designation of origin dates from 1996 and include the wineries of the municipalities of Adeje, Arona, San Miguel de Abona, Granadilla de Abona, Arico, Fasnia and Vilaflor.
The Teide is situated at the last one and also the highest vineyard of Europe, 1,600 meters high. It has a small production but of very high quality. The predominant varieties are listan blanca and listan negra. Tacoronte: it is the Canarian wine region with the largest and oldest production.The varieties used for these wines are listan negro, negramoll, and the white varieties gual, malvasia, listan blanco and marmajuelo. Guimar: the region of Valle de Guimar include the municipalities of de Arafo, Candelaria and Guimar, and the main characteristic of its wines are the altitude and temperature contrasts.
The most used varieties are listan blanca and listan negro. Orotava: the valley of La Orotava begins under the Teide and stretches to the coast. It include the municipalities of La Orotava, Los Realejos and Puerto de la Cruz.
It covers about 1,000 hectares of vineyard and there are more than 20 wineries. Ycoden-Daute-Isora: more than 2,000 hectares, most of them with the varieties of listan blanca and listan negro. It includes the municipalities of San Juan de la Rambla, Guia de Isora, La Guancha, Icod de los Vinos, Garachico, Los Silos, Buenavista del Norte, El Tanque and Santiago del Teide.
Cheeses
The cheeses of the Canary Islands are recovering their good reputation, they have won important prizes and awards in recent international dairy shows.
Up until the 40´s and 50´s, when there were large herds of cattle on Tenerife, cheeses were made from varying portions of cow´s milk mixed with goat´s and sheep´s milk.
Nowadays, goat´s milk cheese predominates, which can be 100% goat´s milk, or mixed with sheep´s milk, which makes it creamier. It is sometimes still mixed with cow´s milk as well.
Although it is sometimes matured, and occasionally smoked, cheese is usually served fresh, as it has a pleasant and mild flavour, distinguishing it from certain European varieties of goat´s milk cheese.
Mojos
"Mojo", a word probably of Portuguese origin, is the Canary Island term for their typical sauces or dips. Not all sauces are called "mojos", just the typical ones that are originally from the Islands, so, for example, there are no mayonnaise "mojos", that would be a sauce, but there is a coriander "mojo".These are the main "mojos", but there are others, including ones made with saffron and cheese and almonds.
Gofio
In Tenerife the most common "gofio" is made from wheat, although it is also made from corn and occasionally from chick peas. There is also a "gofio" made from a mixture of wheat and corn. "Gofio" was the staple diet of the Guanches before the Spanish conquest of the Islands.
They used mill stones to make it. Nowadays it is used as an added ingredient to many different dishes, and is now even being used very successfully to create new desserts and ice creams.It was always a vital staple when food was in short supply and was taken to the Americas by Canary Island emigrants.
In 1990, the "Canary Island Gofio Producers Association" was founded, which has successfully promoted gofio and won it its own quality label "Gofio Canario".
Fish
There are different versions of "mojo", but you will always find it on any self-respecting table in the Canary Islands. There is green - coriander - mojo and red, or hot mojo.
The most popular fish here among the local people is parrot fish, with its delicate, white flesh, but other tasty fish include snapper, dentex and saupe. Members of the tuna family abound in the waters around the islands.
They are delicious served fried, grilled or soused: chub mackerel, sardine and especially blue jack mackerel (chicharro in Spanish) which has become a nickname for Santa Cruz and by extension for the whole island. The people of Tenerife are known as "chicharreros". There is one marine species that must not be missed: the Moray eel, fried and crunchy, it was the favourite dish of Roman Emperors and, for some reason or another, it has been neglected by modern gourmets.
In the cooler, damper parts of the island, a fish stew is ideal, usually dusky or comb grouper, served with the fish stock, thickened with "gofio": flour made from ground and toasted corn.
Meat
It owes its name to the fact that it is the dish that is usually served in all the popular festivities, served from stalls and bars during the village fiestas.
Goat´s meat, in all its different varieties, and rabbit in "salmorejo" sauce which, like most of the fish dishes, is served with "papas arrugadas" - potatoes boiled in very salty water and served in their jackets to conserve all the flavour of the outstanding island varieties of potatoes.
These come in all sizes, textures and colours, although the best ones are "bonitas" and above all, the "negras menudas", dark on the outside, yellow on the inside, they are delicious.
The honeys of Tenerife
The honeys of Tenerife come from some 10,000 mobile hives distributed all over the island in the care of some 500 bee keepers, who take care of their small hives with all the loving care of the craftsmen they are. The native bee of Tenerife is the black bee, producing some 150,000 kilos of honey a year on average, accounting for 50% of all the honey produced in the Canary Islands.
Moving the hives in search of the best blossoms at any one time allows bee keepers to obtain some very special honeys, which offer a wide range of flavours and unusual colours that are not found in other honey producing areas, from the Light colours and less intense flavours of the Broom and Bugloss honeys, to the dark colour and stronger taste of the banana - avocado honeys, covering the whole range of ambers and golds.
Multi-flower honeys
Tenerife produces some exquisite multi-flower, or "milflores" honeys with surprising characteristics, due to the multiple combinations of flowers possible, as there is no dominant species of plant. The honeys of Tenerife are classified according to the altitude they are produced at, hence, we have High Mountain, Foothills and Coastal honey.High Mountain HoneysThe High Mountain Honeys are produced at an altitude of over 1200 metres, basically in Las Cañadas del Teide from flowers like broom and bugloss. These honeys include the outstanding Teide White Broom Honey (Miel de Retama del Teide), produced at an altitude of over 1500 metres.Foothills Honey
These are honeys produced below 450 metres, which combine orange blossom, balo, avocado, banana plants and other species. One of the best of these is the avocado - banana honey.
Single flower honeys
The island also produces single flower honeys, when the nectar comes from a single plant, or from a small number of plants.Teide White Broom Honey(Retama del Teide).
This is produced in the spring and summer, at an altitude of over 1500 metres, in the Mt. Teide National Park. This is the oldest honey of Tenerife and the most traditional honey. It is a light amber colour and its delicate flavour makes it ideal for putting in tea and as a breakfast honey.Bugloss Honey (Miel de Tajinaste)
This is made from the different bugloss species to be found on the island, found mainly in the Arafo and Arico highlands. This is a very light coloured honey with a mild flavour and floral aroma, making it ideal to serve with delicate food, as it does not mask the flavour of the ingredients.Avocado - Banana Honey (Miel de Aguacate - Platanera)
A spring honey, produced in the lowland areas of the island. It has a dark, almost black colour, and a characteristically intense aroma that is reminiscent of caramel and ripe fruit. Because of its intense colour and aroma, it has been used traditionally to kneed with "gofio" corn flour and dried fruits into delicious "pellas".Chestnut Honey (Miel de Castaño)This is a summer - autumn Honey, when the chestnut trees of the north-facing highland slopes and the Arafo and Candelaria highlands blossom. It is a dark amber colour and has a highly intense and persistent aroma. Ideal to serve with desserts, kneed with "gofio" or with meat and poultry.Heather Honey (Miel de Brezal)
This is produced in areas with a mixture of heather, thyme, oregano and holly, in the Corona Forestal Nature Park. Not much of this amber coloured honey is produced. It has an aroma of medium intensity and it is intensely astringent.
Papas Arrugadas
If you want to make delicious papas arrugadas con mojo in your house, you only need 2kg of small potatoes, half a lemon, four or five handfuls of salt.
Clean the potatoes thoroughly to remove any earth and, when they are clean, put them in a saucepan and cover them with water.
Add the lemon in order to get the white colour characteristic of these potatoes, and you leave them to cook.
Then you change the water, but this time you only half-fill the saucepan and you add the salt. Finally, you leave them to cook until they are soft. To dry them, you must heat the potatoes without water.
In order that this dish is complete, the mojo verde is needed. The mojo verde is quite easy to make.
You only have to crush in a mortar two peeled garlic heads, a handful of coriander, a green pepper, cumin and salt to taste.
When you have mashed everything together, add little by little oil and vinegar until all is well mixed. Now the papas arrugadas con mojo are ready to eat!
Gomero cheese
La Gomera has a long culinary tradition. While the sea provides excellent products and the farms produce exceptional fruits and vegetables, the soft, elegant manners of its people combine to make traditional dishes that are waiting to be discovered by you.It is a delicious paste, a bit spicy, ideal to have with bread or with potatoes.
The cheese from La Gomera, hand-crafted from the milk of three different breeds of sheep that are native to this land – sometimes it even takes some goat milk too – is considered to be the best unripened cheese in the world.