The Region of Murcia and its 1,001 flavours brought its gastronomy to the Kursaal through Marco Antonio Iniesta, chef at the Frases restaurant in Murcia. The third of the talks on the first morning was entitled 'Sausages with vegetables, Murcia's heritage', and tried to decipher how something as traditional as sausages can be made with a vegetable base nowadays, especially considering that Murcia is known as the 'vegetable garden of Europe'.

It was a very original presentation, in which the chef wanted to take the opportunity 'to bring a little piece of our land, but also of our most ancient culture'. He didn't want to claim anything, he didn't want to follow a trend, he wanted to give a twist to 'something as classic as sausage with something as beautiful as vegetables'. It is a very amusing formula, a game that the chef will propose to his guests.

Iniesta showed us his roadmap for making sausages with vegetables. He highlighted the lack of fat as the main problem, admitted that he has always looked for fresh sausages rather than cured ones, opted for the most traditional preparation techniques and stressed that "in our restaurant, we want everything to make sense, to tell a story and contribute to the guest. There is nothing better than flying the flag of the Region of Murcia with something as unique as sausages and vegetables'. As for the ingredients, they had to look for vegetables that were "better suited to each type of sausage".

Iniesta brought with him four types of sausage and four types of emulsifier. Soya, sunflower lecithin, kuzu or cocoa butter are some of the vegetable emulsifiers and gelling agents that make the creamier versions of the sausages possible.

Four surprising examples

Aubergine sausage was the first sausage Iniesta presented. At first glance, no one would be able to tell it apart from the more traditional version. It contains cinnamon, pine nuts, oregano and pepper, and is cooked in vinegar and lemon for twelve hours. It is eaten as a fresh sausage on a tartlet with pine nut praline and flowers in the form of a profiterole,' he explains. It really touches our customers' hearts.

The beetroot jerky was meant to be a dried sausage with a meaty texture. We cured it in a net for 20 days after smoking and airing it for 24 hours. The result is similar to cured meat, with an interior full of shine from the infiltrated fat,' he says.

Chorizo de calabaza totanera requires the vegetable to be roasted and then seasoned with all the spices that chorizo usually contains. We process all the ingredients, stuff it and leave it at room temperature for ten days. The result is a hard, consistent sausage that we can even slice. It is very tasty and represents the tradition of our region,' he sums up. The snack is a liquid fritter made with olla gitana and pumpkin chorizo.

The sobrasada de tomate, which could be tasted in the auditorium, is 'our favourite product'. In Frases they are in love with a tomato that they know perfectly. Tomato, paprika, garlic and pepper are the ingredients in a recipe that uses kuzu as a fat and is cured in the intestine for two weeks. The dish is called 'all the parts of a tomato' and has 'a soft structure that is spreadable because it is not fully cured'.

With this presentation, "we have brought a "little piece" of our idea, we want to give prominence to the vegetables for which we are known outside our region. This is not a claim, but an explanation of the idea behind our restaurant. In Murcia we have everything, and on this stage you have had a little piece of our region and of Frases,' concluded Iniesta.