The Cazuela

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By Caroline Conran

Published 2012

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Round, shallow terracotta pots made from a warm russet clay are piled up at the Saint-Chinian Sunday market. This is the cazuela – the centuries old pot used in all Catalan cooking. It appears in the beautiful seventeenth-century still-lifes of the Spanish painter Zurbaràn, and is still made today. You can buy the cazuela online; it costs next to nothing and is the perfect pot for every kind of gratin and for little stews, tomato sauces, paella, crème caramel – more or less anything.

To prepare a new purchase and to prevent it becoming porous: soak it in cold water for 24 hours; dry it; fill it with water to two centimetres from the brim, then add half a cup of vinegar; put it on a heat-diffusing disc over a low flame or medium heat and bring the water to a simmer; let it boil away until you are left with about half a cupful; turn off the heat and allow the cazuela to cool down. It is then ready for use. Always use a heat-diffuser when cooking on an open flame.