Empanada de patata, one of the gastronomic favourites of Jumilla

A lovely tasty and filling accompaniment to the Easter Week processions of Jumilla!

Empanada de patata, one of the gastronomic favourites of Jumilla Particularly popular during the processions and celebrations of Semana Santa in Jumilla, which have been awarded International Tourist Interest status, this humble but tasty speciality sounds incredibly basic, but is an appetizing and filling dish to keep the strength up during the sometimes cold evenings on which the main events take place.

The main ingredients of the pie are the dough (made with flour, water and salt), and the filling of fried potato, tuna, boiled egg, peppers, pine kernels and parsley.

The fish is available all year round in Jumilla, or if you want to try hour hand at making it yourself a typical recipe is as follows:

Ingredients for the filling

1.5 kg potatoes

250 g canned tuna

5 eggs

500 g tinned red pepper

Parsley

Pine kernels

Ingredients for the pastry

Flour (as much as needed)

2 glasses water (or white wine)

1 glass of olive oil

Salt (no more than a pinch or two)

Saffron or food colouring

Instructions: Place the flour in a bowl, make a hole in the centre and pour in the oil and wine after heating them gently in a saucepan for a few minutes (without boiling). Then mix the flour with the salt and saffron until the dough no longer sticks to the hands.

Knead well and place thin individual portions the size of small pancakes.

Now peel, wash and cut the potatoes into fine slices, and sauté them in oil together.

Next, place them in a bowl, draining off the oil when taking them out of the frying pan, cut the peppers into thin strips and crush the parsley. Hard-boil 4 eggs and cut these too into small pieces.

Now mix the potatoes with the peppers, parsley, eggs, tuna and pine kernels and put approximately two soup spoonfuls of the mix onto each portion of pastry. Fold the pastry portions closed and seal the edges with the appropriate cooking implement (or fingernails!).

Lastly, use the fifth egg to baste the empanadas with a brush before cooking in the oven.

Note: a popular variant on the dish uses fried tomato paste instead of potatoes, while some place sliced pipped olives in the filling.

For more information about visiting Jumilla, including what's on, local news and all of the bodegas on the Jumilla wine route, visit the home page of Jumilla Today.

Address

Plaza del Rollo, 1 30520 JUMILLA

Tel: 968 780237 / 663 300779

Oficina de Turismo Jumilla

The tourist office in the centre of Jumilla is easily found by driving straight into the centre of the town along the Avenida de Murcia and following the signposts. The tourist office is alongside the Parque de Don Albano Martínez Molina, where there are a number of parking spaces.

Jumilla, in the north of the Region of Murcia, has become internationally famous over recent decades due to the quality of the wines produced in the municipality, and wine tourism has begun to attract visitors from other parts of Spain and the rest of Europe.

The tourist office is happy to provide a range of maps and leaflets showing the different bodegas which can be visited within the municipality. Some of these form part of the Rutas del Vino de Jumilla, the Jumilla wine route, and can either be visited as a guided tour or sell their produce directly to the public.(see feed below for more details)

However, the town and the surrounding countryside have plenty of other attractions for visitors, and the popularity of Jumilla wines is leading more and more people to discover other facets of the tenth largest municipality in Spain.

Jumilla Tourist Office

These include the spectacular countryside and birdlife in the Sierra del Carche, the historic remains which range from cave paintings and a Roman mausoleum to the castle, the Iglesia de Santiago, the Town Hall and the Teatro Vico, and the gastronomy: rich stews are accompanied not only by the wines of the area but also by Jumilla pears, which also enjoy Denomination of Origin status.

Tourism in Jumilla is not as seasonal as it is in the coastal areas of the Region of Murcia, but the town is at its liveliest during the fiestas in Holy Week and the August Fair, which incorporates the grape harvest celebrations and the Moors and Christians parades.

The Altiplano of the Region of Murcia, which consists of the municipalities of Jumilla and Yecla, is only just over an hour by car from the Mar Menor, Cartagena, Mazarrón, Torrevieja and Alicante, and anyone wishing to visit real inland Spain and world-class wineries is advised to include Jumilla in their schedule.