Galician-Style Escabeche: What It Is and Why We Still Make It This Way

Escabeche is one of those words that smells like old-fashioned home cooking. In Galicia, land of shellfish and fish, Galician escabeche is much more than a flavor: it's a way of preserving food without losing any of its taste along the way.

What exactly is escabeche?

Escabeche is a preservation technique, not a fixed recipe. The food — in this case, mussels — is cooked and then covered in a mixture of vinegar, oil, garlic and paprika.

Each ingredient has a job. The vinegar preserves and adds acidity. The oil protects and rounds things out. The garlic and paprika bring that flavor you recognize the moment you open the jar.

No fridge or added preservatives needed: the escabeche itself does the preserving. That's how it was done in the past, when food had to be kept for the weeks without a catch.

Galician escabeche, a tradition from the coast

In coastal Galician homes, escabeche has been used for generations to make the most of fish and shellfish when there was plenty. It's practical cooking: meant so nothing goes to waste and so there's always something good put away.

Mussels in escabeche are probably the best-known example of this tradition. They're cooked, cleaned one by one, and covered in escabeche while still hot, so they soak up the flavor over the following days.

Abuela Chon's recipe

In our home, this recipe has a name: it's Abuela Chon's, Paquito's mother. She's no longer with us, but her way of making escabeche is still very much alive.

Paquito learned this mussels in escabeche recipe from her, in her own kitchen, and still makes it exactly as she taught him: same order, same timing, same paprika. No shortcuts, no "improved" version.

You can find this homemade mussel preserve at mussels in escabeche by Abuela Chon, cooked today with the same recipe as always.

Why we don't take industrial shortcuts

Making a proper Galician escabeche takes time: cooking the mussel just right, preparing the escabeche slowly, letting the preserve rest so it truly takes on flavor. A factory could speed that up. We don't want it to.

At Abuelo Paquito there's no factory and no warehouse. We cook when the customer orders, with the same recipe as always, and ship it chilled. It's slower than an industrial process, but it's the only way we know to make it taste truly homemade.

A preserve to always have on hand

Besides being tasty, escabeche is forgiving: it keeps well, lasts in the pantry, and is served cold, straight from the jar, no fuss. It's a perfect dish to always have ready, or to give as a gift to anyone who appreciates real Galician cooking.

If you want to see the rest of the preserves we make with the same care, take a look at all our Galician artisan preserves.

Here, it's not a brand that cooks: it's Paquito and Espe, with recipes inherited from Chon, Paquito's mother, and with the help of trusted people. The mussel escabeche is, perhaps, the preserve where that shows the most.