Arroz con costra

Arroz con costra (crusted rice) is a rice dish with meat and sausages, typical of Elche and the Vega Baja in southern Alicante, finished with a layer of beaten egg that sets under heat from above into a golden crust. The Diccionari normatiu valencià lists it as arròs amb crosta: rice with meat, baked in the oven, with beaten egg poured over shortly before the end so it sets and forms a crust. It’s a dish for family get-togethers and Sundays.

Where it comes from

Visitelche, Elche town council’s tourist office, describes it as “without a doubt, the traditional dish of Elche’s local cooking”. A few kilometres south, Orihuela town council names it among the dishes “that reflect our identity”, and there it goes by arroz y costra. Almost all of the tradition lives between the lower Vinalopó and the Vega Baja del Segura.

A dish centuries old

The Visitelche article, by Salva Castaño, traces it back to the Middle Ages and links it to Ruperto de Nola’s cookbook, first published in 1520, and to a very similar recipe in the Llibre de Sent Soví, from 1324. What happened between those old recipe books and today’s kitchens is harder to trace, but few rice dishes in the area can point to a written record that old.

Elche also has an Asociación de Amigos del Arroz con Costra (the Friends of Arroz con Costra), founded in the 1980s, which meets every Wednesday to cook it the old way: over a wood fire, in a clay perol (cooking pot), with a costrera. In 2021 Visitelche put together the paperwork to ask for the dish to be declared a Bien de Interés Cultural Inmaterial, Spain’s official listing for intangible cultural heritage.

What goes into it

The family recipe published by Visitelche uses:

• Red and white longaniza sausage.
• Embutido blanco and embutido negro (the local morcilla-style sausages).
• Rabbit.
• Crushed tomato and soaked chickpeas.
• Rice, eggs, oil, food colouring and salt.

The author himself points out that there are other recipes and other ways of making it. In the Vega Baja every household has its own version and swaps the meat or the sausages around; the one thing that never changes is the egg.

How the crust works

At the end the beaten egg is poured over and the pot is covered with the costrera, a metal sheet with hot embers on top, which works like an oven. Once the egg has set and puffed up without burning, it comes off. These days many people finish it in the oven.

What you get is a golden egg lid that’s cut like a tart, with moist rice underneath. Don’t confuse the crust with socarrat: socarrat is the toasted rice on the bottom of the paella pan; the crust sits on top and is made of egg.

A dish for fiestas and Sundays

More than a meal, it’s an excuse to get together. Visitelche puts it this way: for generations, whole families, friends and all sorts of groups have gathered around arroz con costra “for celebrations, get-togethers or simply as a Sunday habit”. When Elche applied for heritage status, that’s exactly how it was described: “a dish for fiestas and a dish for the family”. And Orihuela took it to Alicante Gastronómica 2024 as a dish of its identity, for Sunday’s visitors to taste.

At a celebration

It’s a dish that tastes of home and of a party, and it always turns heads when it reaches the table whole and is cut in front of everyone. At Xepep, arroz con costra is on the list of rice dishes we cook live. If it’s made differently in your town, tell us when you get a quote. If you’re comparing it with other rice dishes from the area, have a look at arroz a banda and paella valenciana too.