Migas

Migas

Migas Manchegas
Origin
Alternative name(s)	Migajas
Place of origin	Iberia
Details
Course served	Appetiser
Serving temperature	Warm
Main ingredient(s)	Bread

Migas (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈmiɣas]) ("crumbs" in English) is the name used for an ancient dish in Spanish and Portuguese cuisine.

The same name is used for a significantly different dish in Tex-Mex cuisine.

Iberian migas

Spanish migas

Migas is a traditional dish in Spanish cuisine. Originally a breakfast dish that made use of leftover bread or tortas, today migas is a fashionable first course served for lunch and dinner in restaurants in Spain.

File:Migas copia.png

Andalusian migas

The ingredients of migas vary across the provinces of Spain. In Extremadura, this dish includes day-old bread soaked in water, garlic, paprika, and olive oil, and contains spinach or alfalfa, often served with pan-fried pork ribs. In Teruel, Aragon, migas includes chorizo and bacon, and is often served with grapes.

In La Mancha, migas manchegas is a more elaborate preparation using basically the same ingredients as Aragonese migas. In Andalucia, migas is often eaten with sardines as a tapa, in the form of fried breadcrumbs. In some places the dish is eaten on the morning of the matanza (butchery) and is served with a stew including curdled blood, liver, kidneys, and other offal, traditionally eaten right after butchering a pig, a sheep or a goat. Migas is often cooked over an open stove or coals.

There is also a dish named migas related to the gachas that uses only flour and water with no bread which can be found in Almeria and Murcia in southeastern Spain.

Portuguese migas

Migas is also a traditional dish in Portuguese cuisine. They are usually made with leftover bread, either wheat bread traditionally associated with the Alentejo region in Southern Portugal, or corn bread as used in Beira. In Alentejo migas can also be made with potatoes (Migas de Batata) and no bread is included.

Garlic and olive oil are always an ingredient. Other ingredients such as pork meat dripping, wild asparagus, tomato, and seasonings such red pepper paste and fresh coriander are usually included in Alentejo, while in Beira the other ingredients typically are cooked kale cut in caldo verde style, cooked beans (pinto or kidney beans) and sometimes cooked rice.

Migas usually accompany meats or other main dishes.

American migas

Tex-Mex migas

File:Migas.jpg

Tex-Mex migas

In different areas of Mexico, migas is a traditional breakfast dish consisting of corn tortilla strips fried on a pan or griddle until almost crispy and then eggs are added to create a scambled egg/fried tortilla mixture. It is a traditional breakfast created due to the low-cost availability of eggs and the custom of buying small batches of corn tortillas daily. This made leftover corn tortillas from one day's lunch and dinner the next day's breakfast, but since day-old tortillas harden, they were best when cooked in oil along with other ingredients. The same reasoning gave rise to chilaquiles which is a similar meal, substituting salsa for eggs during cooking. Both are hearty, inexpensive and a traditional working-class breakfast meal.

As the meal was adopted by Tex-Mex cuisine, cooks in the United States added additional items to migas such as diced onions, sliced chile peppers, diced fresh tomatoes, and cheese, plus various spices and condiments (e.g., salsa or pico de gallo) to add variety based on the cook's or restaurant owner's whim.

Migas is typically served with refried beans, and corn or flour tortillas are used to enfold all of the ingredients into tacos. In some areas, it may have been traditionally eaten during Lent. One common variation is to add chorizo to the standard ingredients.

Mexico City migas

Mexico City also has its own version of migas. It is a garlic soup which is thickened with sliced day old bolillos. It is usually flavored with pork shanks, ham bones, epazote, oregano and different types of dried chillies. A raw egg is usually added to each plate when served and it is slowly cooked by the warm soup, similar to egg drop soup. It is a very popular dish in fondas around downtown Mexico city, especially in Tepito.

See also

• Acquacotta
• Panzanella
• Gachas
• Torta de gazpacho
• Chilaquiles, another Mexican dish based on cooking tortillas
• Matzah brei, a somewhat similar Ashkenazi breakfast dish in which matzoh is used instead of tortillas
• French toast
• Sandwiches de miga, Argentine sandwiches, of which miga refers to the crustless bread

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons
• Recipe for Tex-Mex migas
• Traditional recipe of migas. Take a taste of Andalucia, Spain