Disfrutar's volcanic cuisine

For Oriol Castro, one of the three musketeers of Disfrutar*** (Barcelona), along with Mateu Casañas and Eduard Xatruch, "tradition in a cuisine is as important as creativity and innovation, and that is why I value the cuisine of the essence and territory of Lanzarote; since I came here 16 years ago I have been a great ambassador for this island and for all the Canary Islands", he said. And although his cuisine is not strictly volcanic, he wanted to make an exercise in reflection to present in Woldcanic "some useful messages, which are often more valuable than the ideas in the making". And from volcano and flame, lava and rock, through heat and darkness, he has reinterpreted in a local key some of the dishes that have made his restaurant famous all over the world.

From the ashes, he was inspired to present the confit of tubers, which he achieves by nixtamalising with water and lime, and which, after caramelising sweet potatoes, beetroot or celeriac in the Occo machine, he serves with elderberry sour cream and sour grass. And on the subject of temperature, he has shown the black cauliflower, which he obtains after long hours of heat in the Korean pot, or his black apple, which is roasted at 600°C in a hot oven, imitating the temperature of the volcanic soil, until it takes on the appearance of a prune, and is served with butter ice-cream, flaked salt and flourless puff pastry and calvados. The sea is also a fundamental element on a volcanic island and Oriol has represented it by adapting his striking golden fried egg, whose yolk is the golden spherification of a chilli crab sauce based on La Santa carabinero and served with pieces of fried ginger and anchovy, peanut satay sauce and soy sauce and ginger, along with the body of the carabinero marked on a griddle, finished with fresh coriander and coriander and parsl.A spectacle for all the senses.

The flame and the earth

Known for their enormous creativity, these three students of elBulli are also great defenders of tradition, "and that's why we roast vegetables the way our mothers did, directly over the fire", with several Disfrutar dishes that could well be applied to the volcanic cuisine of Lanzarote. For example, the striking freeze-dried calçotada, which he accompanies with a calçot dashi made with calçot oil and Romescu miso. He also served a freeze-dried pepper on the flame, which he then hydrated with a sauce made from the juice of the flame-roasted pepper, "which gives it a very strong, brutal flavour". He placed the pepper on a piece of flourless puff pastry with rosettes of anchovy butter and aubergine jelly, an anchovy cube, oil caviar, chives, aubergine puree and borage flowers to create a morsel of extraordinary beauty.

Finally, inspired by the rofe, the characteristic volcanic rock that dominates Lanzarote, Oriol has created a sophisticated version of the famous carbón de reyes dessert, with roasted mango hearts and liquid pine nuts, topped with an edible foam of apple cider. On the other hand, he has adapted the coral dish with others, caviar and codium, which he achieves by frying amaranth, cornstarch, water and alcohol to a crispy rofe of mojo and local herbs, accompanied by a coral of intense black colour with cheese cream, red and green mojo and local herbs such as coastal fennel and purslane.