A Love Letter to Spanish Caldo

Spain's obsession with drinking hot broth is now my obsession

Welcome to The Sauce, deep travels through food and drink culture written by me, Charlie Brown, founder and former owner of what was once named Britain’s best independent wine store.

The Sauce is 100% reader-supported. For $5 a month or $50 a year, you’ll get access to hundreds of recipes and an ever-increasing number of food and wine commentaries and articles, as well as discounts on my remote wine consulting service.

I’ll teach you how to cook better. How to buy better drinks. How to cope with wine culture when it threatens to overwhelm you.

Your donation keeps the oven on and the pantry stocked. Thank you.

It’s winter 2021 and Spain has just (temporarily) come out of lockdown.

The tapas bars in my then-home of Logroño in the Rioja wine region are open and —for ventilation — so are the windows. It’s cold. Extremely so.

At 10pm in a busy wine bar, a young couple comes in asking for Caldo, the Spanish word for broth. The bartender pours out two mugs, adds a few drops of hot sauce and serves. I wonder why the hell anyone would order chicken broth in a wine bar and go back to drinking my wine.

***

It’s a week later and I’m walking a stage of the Camino de Santiago. Three hours in, I spy a sign in a bar window.

Hay Caldo!

This translates to “there is both” and you’ll find it in nearly every bar window of Northern Spain during the winter months.

I’m cold and I’m tired so I take a seat and ask for a mug. My first Caldo experience.

Out it comes piping hot and served with a small jar of hot sauce.

I put a few drops in, stir and drink.

That’s all it takes for my Caldo obsession to start.

***

It’s just last week and I’m in Valladolid just northwest of Madrid. At 8 pm the bars are already busy with weekend revellers. Next to me an old couple stands at the bar and asks for Caldito—a small mug of broth. I follow suit.

This time it’s flavoured with heels of jamón, Spain’s famous cured ham. It’s warming and nourishing and takes the edge off the cold mountain air that flows into the bar every time someone opens the door.

In some parts of the world, drinking hot broth with a dash of hot sauce would mark you as an eccentric but not in Spain. Especially in the colder regions of the North, Caldo is life.

During my months of living in the county, it became part of my life too. It was a habit I’ve never quite shaken off, ever since that first time on the Camino. I’m still obsessed with drinking hot broth when the weather cools off.

Chicken is Spain’s go-to when drinking it straight from the vat. Some bars buy it in but many make it from scratch.

Roast the bones from a Sunday roast chicken or a mid-week chicken thigh dinner with a couple of hunks of carrot, onion, and celery. Wait until they turn golden brown. Fill a large saucepan with water and add the bones and vegetables. Add a bay leaf if you have one. Season with salt. Simmer for a couple of hours. Strain and leave to cool overnight in the fridge. Skim the fat that will rise to the surface.

And you have your Caldo.

Vegetable Caldo is less common (this is Spain after all) but just as easy.

Roast onions, carrots, celery — perhaps leeks or red peppers — in the oven until golden. Simmer in a large pot of water for an hour or two, perhaps adding a few aromatic herbs like thyme or parsley. Strain and leave to cool.

I divide my Caldo into pots that lie dormant in the freezer, ready to go whenever I need a hit of warmth and nourishment. And because Caldo is basically stock, you can also use it for everything from soups to risottos.

But drinking it straight from a mug with a couple of drops of hot sauce stirred in will always be my favourite way to consume Caldo.

I think Spain would agree.

---

Keep an eye out for Caldo in tomorrow’s un-Thangsgivingy recipe along with plenty of ways to use homemade stock. Landing in inboxes ASAP.

---

🥑 AND THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE. If you want more, check out the The Sauce archive.

🥑 IF YOU’RE NOT FOLLOWING ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA, that’s because I suck at it. But you can still follow me and see my sporadic Instagram posts here about life, wine, food, and general shenanigans here.

🥑 DO YOU WINE? If you do but struggle to know what to buy in your local area, I can help. SommAnywhere is my personalised wine recommendation service based on 10+ years in the wine trade. You fill out a quick quiz, I’ll tell you exactly what you should be buying and from where. Discounts for paid subscribers to The Sauce are available.

🥑 FINALLY, sharing The Sauce helps get the word out about what we’re doing here. If you’re picking up what I’m putting down, I’d love it if you would share The Sauce with friends and family. Just click the big blue button ⬇️