Trinxat, the cabbage and potato cake Andorra shares with the Pyrenees

Of all Andorra’s dishes, trinxat is the one that best captures the mountains in winter. Three humble ingredients, a frying pan and some patience. Yet the tourist board ranks it among the star dishes of Pyrenean cooking, with a prominent place on the menus of the country’s leading restaurants.

What is trinxat?

It’s a dish of winter cabbage, potato, garlic and bacon. The cabbage and potatoes are boiled, mashed into a rough purée and browned in a frying pan in the shape of a thick omelette, using the oil the garlic and bacon were fried in. The version Andorra Turisme publishes is served with crisp pieces of bacon and a little marinated herring.

British readers will spot a family resemblance to bubble and squeak, and it’s a fair comparison as far as it goes, though trinxat is cooked from scratch rather than from leftovers. The tourist board sees it as a perfect example of how a dish with simple ingredients and an easy method can become a culinary benchmark. It comes from thrifty, local home cooking, and as a proper mountain winter dish, it gives you calories to fight the cold. In Andorra you’ll also hear it called «lo trinxat».

Where it comes from

It isn’t exclusive to Andorra, and I think that’s worth saying. The tourist board explains that it’s hugely popular in Andorra, the Alt Urgell and the Cerdanya, the three Pyrenean areas where it’s a typical dish, and that the basic recipe barely changes from one to the next. What varies is the odd local touch or the way each chef interprets it. If you’ve tried it in the Cerdanya or the Alt Urgell, you’ll recognise it in Andorra.

The herring has its own story. In mountain cooking, fish reached the valleys salted, like cod, herring and conger eel, as Andorra Turisme notes in its account of the country’s gastronomy. That’s why a high-mountain vegetable dish finishes with a touch of salted fish.

The Andorran recipe

The tourist board publishes a recipe for four that takes about 45 minutes, based on the book «Cuina casolana d’Andorra» by M. Dolors Ribes Roigé, published in 1991. It uses one large winter cabbage, 1.3 kg of potatoes, four rashers of streaky bacon, two desalted herrings, four garlic cloves, a splash of oil and salt. The steps are in the table.

For me the secret lies in two moments. Wait until the potatoes start to break up before you drain them, so the mash is smooth, and don’t rush the browning, because the whole point of trinxat is the crust that forms in the pan.

Where to eat trinxat in Andorra

The tourist board says it features on borda menus, where the country’s traditional food is usually eaten, as well as at other leading restaurants. I’d look for a borda with a wood-fired grill and order it as a starter, before the meat. My advice on choosing one is in borda restaurants in Andorra.

Another good sign is a restaurant holding the official traditional cuisine label, which the government reserves for kitchens that keep Andorra’s recipe book alive with nearby produce. The best time is winter, its natural season and the season of the cabbage, which fits neatly with a ski trip. What else that season offers is in Andorra in winter.

Making it at home

It’s one of the few Andorran dishes you can recreate in a British kitchen without hunting for unusual ingredients. Cabbage, potatoes, garlic, streaky bacon and, if you want to stay true to the recipe, a couple of herrings. The tourist board keeps a section of Andorran recipes, and there’s serious work behind it, because the official Receptari de Gastronomia Andorrana picks around thirty recipes out of more than four hundred documented ones. I’d make it on a cold Sunday with a good winter cabbage, and leave the cake to brown undisturbed until it comes away from the pan on its own. Since Andorran charcuterie can’t be brought into Great Britain, this is also the most practical way to take a taste of the country home.

What to have with it

Trinxat opens the meal and makes way for what follows. In a borda, the natural next step is grilled meat with quince allioli, or a game stew in autumn. To drink, a local wine. The other classics, from escudella to Andorran-style cannelloni, are in Andorran food. If you’re wondering where to order it, see where to eat in Andorra.