Brascada: traditional Valencian sandwich 

The brascada is one of the most popular sandwiches in Valencia, along with other luxurious representatives of the popular esmorzar (lunch) such as the Almussafes or the Chivito (indisputable classics of the terreta). The brascada sandwich is a simple thing, but it is truly sublime. Essentially, it consists of onion, veal tenderloin, serrano ham and a little bit of garlic. It doesn’t seem possible, but the brascada has such simple ingredients, and the way they are combined makes it so intense and juicy. But that’s how it is.  

The good news is that you can prepare a brascada at home without any problem. As we show you below, making it couldn’t be easier.  

The ingredients that you cannot do without

The brascada sandwich needs the following ingredients. Take note! 

• 1 or 2 veal tenderloin steaks
• Half an onion
• Half a garlic clove
• 2 slices of serrano ham
• bread
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt

Brascada sandwich recipe

To make your tenderloin brascada, start by finely chopping the onion (brunoise-style). Then put the onion into a frying pan with small amount of oil and a pinch of salt. Cook on a medium heat and let it soften and brown for some 10 minutes.  

To cook the veal tenderloin, you can either wait for the onion to cook so that you can re-use the frying pan, or cook it in another pan, whichever you prefer. However, when cooking the tenderloin, cook it with a little chopped garlic, which will give it quite a unique touch. Be careful with the timings, as you don’t want the meat to be chewy or hard (a tip here is not to put the salt in before cooking the meat; you should season it when you serve it or during the final minutes of cooking). Cook the tenderloin on both sides and put it aside. Then all that needs to be done is to put the serrano ham slices in the pan quickly turning them from one side to the other before removing them.

And that’s how easy it is to make a traditional Valencian brascada sandwich. To assemble the sandwich, start by placing the tenderloin and the garlic, continue with the onion and lastly, crown the sandwich with the slices of serrano ham. The more intrepid among you can also add a slice of cheese to give it more flavour, although the classic brascada does not include cheese. 

A final piece of advice: if you warm up the bread a little to make it crunchy, your brascada sandwich will be unbeatable. We promise you!