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To talk about what they eat in Madrid means talking first and foremost about cocido, the heavy-duty, all-purpose stew made from chickpeas, cabbage, the less highly esteemed cuts of beef and pork, plus blood pudding and chorizo sausage, chicken and potatoes. Slow cooking in an earthenware pot produces a succulent broth that is thickened with vermicelli noodles (the smaller the better) and eaten as a first course, with the stewed meats and vegetables served separately.

Chickpeas, along with spinach and salt cod, also go into Madrid's version of potaje, a favorite during Lenten fast days. It is during this period, too, that other historic dishes are most likely to make a comeback on restaurant menus, including judías de las once, the tender white beans grown in the Lozoya valley north of the capital. The name is derived from the assurance that if you start cooking them at 11 o'clock, they'll be ready by 12, an eloquent tribute to the quality of the ingredients, since experienced cooks know the shorter the cooking time required for beans, the better they are for you.

Vegetables from Aranjuez, though becoming hard to find, are deservedly famous, and none more so than the thick, green asparagus produced in that region, which are known colloquially as pericos. You can still find them prepared according to a recipe credited to the swashbuckling 17th century dramatist and man about town,  Lope de Vega, served with two poached eggs on top sprinkled lavishly with sweet paprika and drenched in olive oil. They can be eaten whenever the vegetable happens to be in season, but in Madrid homes they tend to appear, above all, around Christmastime.

It's often been said that landlocked Madrid is Spain's largest fishing port, an affirmation based on the locals' insatiable demand for fresh fish and seafood trucked in overnight from all along the coast, along with a ancillary penchant for preserved fish such as salt cod and barrels of sardines, sprats and anchovies. Bacalao a la madrileña requires the salt cod to be seasoned with garlic, onion, pepper and parsley and often comes with boiled potatoes on the side.

Soldaditos de Pavia are strips of cod filets that are batter-dipped, fried, and then wrapped in a ribbon of pimento that looks a bit like the sash on a soldier's uniform and accounts for the name. Besugo (sea bream ) is a special Christmas Eve dish that is prepared according to a local recipe that calls for it to roast atop a bed of potatoes to keep from fusing to the roasting pan. Wedges of lemon are inserted into incisions made along the fish's back and before it goes into the oven, the fish receives a shower of olive oil and then is dusted with bread crumbs and chopped parsley. 

Variety meats are quiet common, and callos a la madrileña, the local take on tripe, calls for the innards to be stewed with salt pork, ham bones, blood pudding, fatback, garlic, onion, salt, oil, parsley, bay leaf and paprika. But no chickpeas need apply for admittance to this recipe, that's more to the Galician taste. Gallinejas are strips of  lamb tripe that are scrubbed clean and fried crisp. Sweetbreads and cattle testicles are also batter dipped and fried, while calf's liver gets marinated in an onion-rich marinade before they are cooked together. Kidneys in sherry are another delight, while pig trotters or beef tongue may appear on your plate either stewed or deep-fried in a batter coating.       

Thanks to the ingenuity of generations of cooks, the more economical cuts of beef were transformed into worthy main dishes, while stewed pork and lamb were saved for the most special occasions. But if one had to choose a signature dish for the metropolitan Madrid area maybe it would probably have to be gallina en pepitoria, a recipe that goes deep back into Spain's Moorish past and calls for a hen to be stewed with onions, parsley, white wine and ground almonds to thicken the sauce, seasoned with a few filaments of  saffron.

For desert, one might want to have a go at the rosquillas de San Isidro, biscuits glazed with white icing, and other specialties such as pestiños, Alcalá de Henares almonds, bartolillos, a kind of pasty filled with candied yams or with cream, and the famous wafers. To round off the Madrid meal, what better tipple than the liquor made from the fruit of the madroño, or strawberry tree, which appears on the city's emblem. Chinchón, located just outside the city limits, is famous for the powerful aniseed spirit brewed in that locality, so go to it by all means!

Restaurante Lhardy
Carrera de San Jerónimo, 8 Madrid

Casa Ciriaco
Mayor, 84 Madrid