Blat picat: cracked wheat stew recipe (serves 8)

Blat picat is an olleta, a hearty pot stew, in which wheat takes the place that rice has in other stews. Valencia Bonita sums it up like this: wheat instead of rice, with meat and vegetables. This page follows the recipe published by the town councils of Benimantell, in the Marina Baixa, and of Tollos, in the Comtat; it is the same in both and we treat it as a single source. In the Guadalest valley wheat arrived before rice, as we explain in our history of Valencian cuisine.

What “picat” means and how you get it

Picat means “chopped” or “cracked”: the wheat is soaked and crushed to loosen the skin of the grain. Valencia Bonita says it is left to soak the night before and cracked in a mortar to separate the grain from the husk. La Vall d’Alcalà describes the method in detail: soak the wheat, drain it, crush it with a little salt in the mortar until the outer layer comes away, blow off the skins and rinse it under the tap.

Benimantell’s recipe does not explain this: it simply asks for “blat picat”. And, according to Valencia Bonita, many shops now sell it already husked. If you find it that way, you save yourself that work and only need the mortar for the ñoras.

Soaking and first cooking: the parts you do not skip

The council method has two long stages. The first is the soak: wheat and beans together, twelve hours ahead. The second is a two-hour cook over a low heat with nothing added, just the two of them; then that water is thrown away and they are covered with cold water.

From there the stew begins. Benimantell does not time the final stretch: it only says the potatoes go in twenty minutes before the end. Comarcarural, which uses less wheat, speaks of no less than three hours in all, and La Vall d’Alcalà of “several hours”. The three hours of cooking marked on this page come from that mix: Benimantell’s two plus the stretch for the stew, with Comarcarural’s minimum as a reference. Take them as a floor, not a clock: what matters is that the wheat is tender and the stew thick. La Vall d’Alcalà gives the sign: the grain gradually opens up.

The ñoras, the vegetables and the cumin

The sofrito follows an order: onion until translucent, then the meat, then the tomato and finally the sausages. The ñoras (dried sweet red peppers) go separately: they are fried with the stalks and seeds removed, taken out and crushed with salt in the mortar before being added to the pot.

The vegetables are chard, turnip, parsnip, pumpkin and cardoon, and the potatoes go in at the end. Together with the ribs and belly, the onion black puddings and the blanquets, they make a broth with body. The saffron, fennel and cumin do the rest.

A note on the cumin: the council recipe writes “a handful of cumin seeds”, an odd amount next to twelve saffron threads. We do not copy it. Add it little by little, tasting, and let the aroma of the saffron and fennel stay in charge.

Other versions and other names

Not all wheat olletas are the same. These are the ones we were able to open:

In Villena and some towns of the Alto Vinalopó there is the “triguico” or “triguico picao”. Villena’s tourist office presents it as a star dish and makes it with wheat, pork, pencas, red beans and turnips, and Valencia Bonita notes that many people consider it similar but different. In Cocentaina cracked wheat is called “mentirons”, and in Murcia there is a “Murcian wheat”. They are not exact synonyms and we have not mixed them up.

If you would like to see it in its home setting, Benimantell devotes a week in November to the olleta de blat, and Villalonga has its food fair with a blat picat competition. If you are after another olleta, there is the olleta de músic, and if you prefer a stew with torta, the Alicante gazpachos.

Taking it to the table

It is a hearty stew, served hot. A useful warning if you are cooking for a group: the wheat contains gluten; you will find the full list in the 14 allergens. If there are lots of you, we bring the kitchen and bar to your fiestas, set-up included.